Feathermore

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  It was past seven on Thursday night when I remembered our biology exam the next day. Once everyone had gone home with their costumes in hand, I decided it was time to review. If there was one subject I didn’t care much for, this was it. But for as long as I could remember, I already knew everything I was taught—things I had never heard about yet knew all the details to. I didn’t need to study, but it was something I had grown accustomed to anyway. It has always worried me a little, the way things come to me with ease.

  I sat at the desk with my blank index cards, a pen, and the thick, oppressively heavy biology textbook. When my eyes began to close I looked over at the clock on the nightstand near my bed. Time had flown by. It was almost midnight. I had studied enough for one session. I got ready for bed and went to close the curtains. As I was closing them, I noticed two strange green dots hovering in the darkness, out near the driveway. It took me a minute to realize what I had seen. Slowly opening the curtains again, I stared a little longer until my eyes adjusted to the dark, and then I saw it clearly. Sitting perfectly still and looking straight toward my window—and, seemingly, into my eyes—was a black panther.

  Panthers come and go. We had seen them before, but never a black one, and never behaving this way. A strange fear crept into me, and the hair on the back of my neck rose. The creature wouldn’t move. I wasn’t afraid of it hurting me, since I was inside and there was no way it could get to me. The true fright came from how unnatural it looked, sitting there on a suburban front lawn.

  An unpleasant surge, fanned by my fear, suddenly broke into my mind, and the familiar voice in my head warned me once again: “The ki-sikil-lil-la-ke knows about you.”

  “Who?” I whispered.

  “Ki-sikil-lil-la-ke.”

  The voice made me tremble. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “You must prepare. She will come for you.”

  The warnings were beginning to scare me. Especially since there had been many instances lately when I thought I felt a presence nearby, following me. The strangest feeling knotted in the pit of my stomach, as if something were terribly wrong. I kept expecting the warnings to come true, to see something horrible or hear very bad news. This was the first time I actually saw something strange, but a panther could not be what the warning was about . . . could it?

  What could all this mean? Was someone after me? Or was I simply going crazy—losing my hold on reality? The voices started coming shortly before I met Avan. Were they about him? I didn’t allow my thoughts to go any further with that bizarre idea. For once, I had something that meant something to me. Besides, the voice always spoke of a “she.”

  No, it had nothing to do with Avan. If that were the case, the voices would start yelling at me every time I was with him, but instead I had only felt a sense of tranquility and calm when I was around him. I kept my eyes away from the curtains and lay in bed, staring at the ceiling for some time until sleep won the battle.

  7. the hunt

  -Lilith-