#43 You Might Fall In

After hunting all over the house, I found my little sister Jillian out front, playing in puddles on the sidewalk. She’d splashed mud all over her pink shorts and her ruffly white blouse. Mom was going to be ticked.

“Jilly-bean, come on, it’s time for dinner!” I shouted from the front door.

She didn’t listen to me, but made another big splash.

“Cut that out!” I said. “Get out of that puddle. You shouldn’t be doing that anyway” I said.

She pouted at me. “Why not?”

“Because,” I said. “You might fall in.”

She stared at me, her face all scrunched up, as if she was trying to figure out what I meant.

I walked out onto the sidewalk to stand beside her. “See, look down there. There’s another world in there. Every puddle has another world inside it. And if you’re not careful, you’ll fall right through into it.”

She stamped her foot a couple of times, as if to test how sturdy the sidewalk was beneath her.

“It won’t happen unless you stand really still. If the water’s moving at all, you won’t fall in. But if ever the water is perfectly, absolutely still… zoop!” I said. “You’ll plop right down into that other world and be stuck there.”

She squinted her eyes at me. “You’re lying,” she said.

I shrugged. “Maybe.” I snatched at her hand, but she pulled it away. “Come on in, Mom says it's time for dinner.”

Jillian stared down at the puddle beneath her feet, as if trying to see her way into that other world I’d told her about. Great. I’d only made it up to scare her out of the puddle. Now all she wanted to do was find out if I was telling the truth.

“Hurry up, Jill-pill.” I turned and walked back toward the house.

I didn’t hear Jillian’s footsteps behind me, but I kept hoping she’d come on her own if I just kept walking. I didn’t want to have to pick her up out of that puddle and get muddy water all over my clothes. When I reached the porch step I turned to look back.

She was gone.

“Jilly?” I called. “Where did you go?”

There wasn’t any answer.

She had been right there behind me, in the middle of the sidewalk, just ten seconds ago. I held my breath in the still air, listening for her. It was a little dark outside, with the clouds overhead, but I could see the front yard perfectly clearly. She wasn’t anywhere in sight.

“JILLIAN!” I shouted, then waited for her to pop out from behind Dad’s car parked there on the street, or maybe hear her giggling from the front door because she’d somehow gotten around me. But no, she wasn’t anywhere.

I screamed her name out, angry and frightened, but nothing answered me, not even a breath of wind.

It was crazy, I know, but I had a horrible feeling that maybe she had fallen through the puddle. I’d just made that up! It couldn’t be true. I stepped to the puddle’s edge and looked down into the water.

I saw my reflection, and the dark gray clouds in the sky overhead, and the electrical wires, and the maple tree. As I watched, Jillian’s reflection came to stand next to me.

“There you are, you brat!” I said, and glanced up, reaching out to grab her arm before she could get away again.

There was no one in the yard with me.

#42 Cyopolis

They all thought I was going to die.

I gripped the straps of my backpack, trying to dry my sweaty hands, and stared at the gates in front of me. I wondered if there were more people here today for the ceremony than usual. I’d never been to one myself, so I didn’t know.

The massive gates stared down at us all.

A microphone crackled, and the city official at the podium began speaking. “Children of Cyopolis, who have come here today desiring to leave the walls of her safety, do you hereby relinquish all rights, responsibilities, and privileges of civilization and desire now to go back into the wilderness?”

My father was not in the crowd, but I knew my mother was here, watching. I wanted to look for her, but then again I did not. She would be crying, pleading with her eyes as she had with her words since I’d told them I was leaving.

I swallowed once and answered the official’s question. “Yes.” My voice hadn’t sounded as confident as I had hoped.

A murmur ran through the crowd, an angry sound like machinery starting up. I was no longer one of them.

“Then we release you,” the official said, stumbling over these words as if he had never read them before. He probably hadn’t. No one had left the city for as long as anyone could remember. Some of the elders could remember a time when every year, a few people came in from the wild, pledged to obey the laws of the city, and joined us. Exchanged their freedom for safety. But it had been a long time since that had happened.

Most people in Cyopolis thought that the wild ones were all dead.

I knew they weren’t. I’d seen one of them. Not quite a year ago, from the top of the wall. I’d seen a girl who had climbed a tree, as if to maybe get a look over the wall. She still had meters to go before she would have been high enough to see down into the city, but she stood at the top of the tree, staring up, wonderingly. I never knew if she saw me or not, but I had seen her, and it didn’t look as if she were alone. She was thin, but healthy, and wore clothes I didn’t think someone her age could have made on her own.

The gates creaked open. I watched them swing wide, and wondered at how long the tunnel was behind them. I had not known the wall was so thick at its base. The sound of the crowd rose as I stepped forward into the tunnel. My pack held everything that would keep me alive until I found the wild ones. I wondered if they would accept me, or if I would end up living on my own after all.

And then I saw her.

At the other end of the tunnel stood a girl. She was walking forward, staring in wonder at the lights on the tunnel ceiling. In her hands, a basket full of fruits, held out like an offering. Her clothes were made of… I couldn’t tell, but they were soft and natural and the dull colors of the earth. She watched me as we came toward each other in the middle of the tunnel, and I wondered if it was her.

It must have been her, the girl I saw in the tree.

She stared at me, questioning, and I stared back. She was coming into the city?

Did she understand that I was going out?

I passed her at the middle of the tunnel, then walked out to the far side. The trees out here grew right up to the wall, a tangle of undergrowth beneath them, no path that I could see anywhere.

I glanced once behind as the gates closed, and she was standing there, watching me from within the city, staring at me as if I was the only friend she might have had, and I had abandoned her.

The gates slammed shut.

#41 Forgotten

There was once a young man who desired wisdom. So he went to see the wisest man in his village and asked if the wise man would share his wisdom with him.

The wise man thought for a while, for he was very wise and never did anything without thinking about it first. Then the wise man said, “Yes, I will gladly share my wisdom with you, but first you must bring me something.”

The young man, very eager for a task he could do to repay the wise man for sharing his wisdom, asked, “What must I bring you?”

“The name of it has been forgotten.”

“Where can I find it?” The young man asked.

“That has been forgotten too. But I know it is very far from here.”

So the young man set out on his journey to find the thing, the name of which had been forgotten. He searched high and low, but as he did not know what he was looking for, he could not find it.

At last one day as he walked along a road he met an old woman. She asked him where he was going.

“I am seeking the thing for which the name has been forgotten, which is in the place which has been forgotten too.”

“Ah!” said the old woman. “I know this thing of which you speak. It is in a valley far from here.”

“What is the name of the valley?” The young man asked, overjoyed to at last know the place where he could find the thing for which the name had been forgotten.

“I am sorry,” the old woman shook her head. “It has been forgotten. But if you go into the next village, my sister may be able to help you.”

The young man continued on the road, and when he reached the village he found another old woman so like the first he could not tell them apart. He asked her where to find the thing for which the name had been forgotten which lay in the valley for which the name had been forgotten.

“Ah! I know the thing and the valley of which you speak!” The old woman said. “They lie underneath a mountain that is not far from here.”

“What is the name of the mountain,” the young man pleaded.

The old woman said nothing for a long time. Then at last she bowed her head. “It has been forgotten. But if you go into the next city, my brother may be able to tell you.”

So the young man went into the next city and sought out the brother of the sisters who had forgotten the name of the mountain the name of which has been forgotten and the valley the name of which has been forgotten wherein lay the thing the name of which had been forgotten.

“Ah!” The old man said. “I know this thing and this valley and this mountain of which you speak. They are all beside a sea.”

“What is the name of this sea?” begged the young man, nearly in tears.

The old man sighed. “It has been forgotten, but I know it is very close. Do not give up your search!”

And so the young man continued on his way, and before long he came to a sea. “This must be the sea for which the name has been forgotten!” he said. As he walked along the shore he came to a mountain. “This must be the mountain for which the name has been forgotten!” he said. He climbed the mountain, and on the far side he saw a valley. With great joy, he descended the mountain side, saying, “This must be the valley for which the name has been forgotten!”

And there, in the middle of the valley, was the magnificent thing, the thing for which the name had been forgotten. Simply gazing on that thing made the young man feel as if he was wiser already.

And so, having found the thing for which the name had been forgotten, which lay in the valley of which the name had been forgotten, under the mountain for which the name had been forgotten, beside the sea for which the name had been forgotten, the young man returned to his village.

He went to see the wise man of the village and told him of all his adventures.

“And so,” said the wise man when the story was finished, “You have brought me the thing for which the name has been forgotten?”

“Ah!” Cried the young man. “I forgot!”

#40 Harvest Time

Completely ruined, Mishael thought as he looked over the planet below him. What a waste.

He had known for some time that something was wrong. As he slowed his ship to match the planet’s frame of reference, he’d watched from lightyears away, checking his scans every day as the aeons whipped by on the world he’d visited only a short while ago. A short while ago for him, but his travels near the speed of light had left it whirling at unimaginable speed in his absence. Since he’d last looked down at this planet, the land mass had split and drifted apart. The plant life he had seeded had flourished, grown…

..and then been cut back.

From far away, he had noticed the strange rise in carbon level. He had timed his arrival to be before the plant life reduced the free carbon in the atmosphere to the point that the plants began to have a hard time surviving. Instead, something had made the carbon rise again. He was worried, but he had never expected the devastation he saw when he reached the planet’s side.

Something had evolved. So very recently had it sprung up that the carbon spike had only appeared days ago for Mishael. Something had evolved that had discovered the vast reserves of organic residue Mishael’s plants had left beneath the surface of the planet. The organic residue that Mishael had come to claim and bring back to his home world.

They were using it! Not just to feed their crops, as Mishael’s race did, but they used it as fuel. The creatures had lit up the dark side of their planet with specks of light like stars, they moved about over the land and sea, and through the air, in strange metal vehicles that consumed it and burned into smoke. Their whole planet was rewinding, devolving back to the age where Mishael found it, hot and barren and rich with carbon, ready to be planted with life.

But there was no harvest. The whole thing had been spoiled. Mishael watched the creatures, watched their cities pass beneath him, watched the planet on which they had sprung up like a rot.

He wondered what to do. He could raze the planet and start over. Burn everything off. But still, it would be hard to kill all of these creatures. They were clever. Some might hide beneath the surface, some might find a way to survive. And then, even if Mishael seeded the planet again, he would return to find his harvest consumed once more.

He fingered the button on his control panel, the one that would cleanse the surface of the planet. Then he took his tentacle away without pressing it. He sighed and set his course for the next world on his route. These creatures would die off on their own, sooner or later, and then he could return and start again. Or maybe they wouldn’t, and the next time he came, this world would be home to another race of spacefarers.

Mishael sped away, watching the world behind him slow to a near stop as he approached the speed of light again.

#39 Artist at the Bus Stop

An old man in a heavy, dark blue raincoat and a faded cap stood at the country bus stop. Around his feet, what looked like a bed roll, a pack, but also a black artist’s portfolio and a glimpse of a palette splashed with color. I passed behind him on my bicycle, glancing back once, wondering where he was from and what he was doing here.

I thought about him as I sped on down the path. Did he live near here, or had he come from far away? What had he been painting? When I reached the end of the path, I turned and headed back. Far ahead, I could see him still standing there in the gray morning light, but now he had left the bus stop and crossed the path to stand at the fence. He stared out over the fields and up to the mountains wreathed in clouds. I wondered if he was studying it for a painting.

He didn’t show any sign that he saw me, though I watched him as I approached. As I sped past him I called out, “Good morning!” His face stayed grim, he didn’t move.

My eyes back on the path ahead, I thought about turning around. I could go back. I could say, “You’re a painter? What are you working on?” Maybe he would be pleased that I was interested. Maybe he would show me what was inside that black portfolio, strange and beautiful visions, in all those bright colors I had seen on the palette. Maybe he would give me his card, say he had a studio in town. Or maybe he would be a foreigner, hardly speak English, and would forever after think how friendly the people were in my country.

Or maybe he didn’t want me to bother him. My feet kept turning the pedals, my wheels kept rolling me toward home. With every fence post I passed I thought I might turn back. Turn back at any moment and discover the mystery behind me. But I didn’t want him to know how curious I was, how much I wanted to talk to him.

I am an artist too, I paint with words. There are things in my soul that I want others to see. I know how it aches, to not have anyone to show them to.

My wheels have carried me so far now, I am closer to home than to the artist at the bus stop. I could still go back, but I am tired. There are so many things to do at home.

I do not turn around. All the way to my front door. Only when I am inside again, at my kitchen table, does the tragedy strike me. I will never see that man again, I will never know what he saw in the world and spread on his canvas.

Perhaps all he needed today, in his long and lonely struggle, was for someone to ask him what he was working on. For me look through the windows he had made to his soul, and be glad at what I saw. And instead I hurried by, afraid. Afraid he would not want to talk to me.

I should have let him make that choice.

#38 Elective Treatment

The key turned so easily in the lock, it was obvious the bolt was already undone. Natalie’s brain dragged itself reluctantly back from the seismic data she’d been combing through to puzzle at this. Startled, afraid, she turned the door knob, wondering if the house had been unlocked all day.

The floor was clean. Oh, that’s right, Mom was here.

Natalie came inside and shut the door behind her, locking it out of habit. There in the front hall, Bryce’s backpack hung neatly on a hook, his shoes below lined up and ready to go for tomorrow.

How long had it taken Mom to get him to do that? Maybe Mom had done it herself.

“Hi Natalie,” Mom said from the kitchen. There were sounds of cooking. “How was your day.”

“Great,” Natalie said, excited. “There were three quakes on the pacific rim today, and we were able to give thirty minute warnings for all of them. There was only one near a population center, so they closed some bridges. Nothing went out, but it’s good they’re starting to take more precautions. It was a little tricky to work out the potential epicenters because…” Natalie launched into a long explanation of all the technical details. She realized she’d been talking for some time without checking to see if Mom was really interested. Natalie stopped and studied her mother’s face. Did she look like she was interested? Did she look like she even understood? Was she even listening? It was always so hard to tell.

“The school called again today,” Natalie’s mom said.

“Again?” Natalie’s heart sank. Bryce had been doing so well these past weeks, but then having his grandma visit had completely thrown his routine into a shambles.

“Bryce was singing in class, and he wouldn’t stop. Also, when it was time to do his seat work, he just stared at his tablet for a whole hour.”

“I told his teacher that tablets are too distracting for him. He can’t handle screens.”

“Natalie, I tried something today,” Mom said. “When I took Bryce to school, after the bell rang for him to go to class, I walked up to where he was playing on the playground. I was standing right next to him, and I told him it was time to go to class. He just kept playing. All the other kids left the playground, and he just kept playing. The second bell rang, I don’t think he even heard it.”

“You let him keep playing until the second bell?” Natalie couldn’t believe it. Mom had let Bryce be late for class.

“I wanted to give him a chance to notice on his own. You can’t always be there for him, Natalie. I wanted to see how long it would take him to realize that everyone else had left the playground. He never did. A teacher came along and got his attention and sent him to class.”

“Mom!” Natalie said.

“He doesn’t mean to be this way. I know he doesn’t. He just can’t function like other people.”

“I know,” Natalie said.

“Have you thought about getting him treated?”

“I’m not interested in that,” Natalie said, reeling. Had Mom just suggested I get Bryce a treatment?

“Have you even looked into it?”

“Of course I have!” Natalie said. “But it’s not an easy solution. The outcome is so unpredictable. I can predict earthquakes better than they can predict the outcome of a  treatment.”

“You can give him a small treatment and see if it works. See if it does anything. Maybe it will help him.”

“Mom, Bryce’s brain is different. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I couldn’t do what I do if my brain was like everyone else’s.”

“Natalie, you were never this bad.”

“He doesn’t have to be normal to be happy.”

“He’s suffering, Natalie. And there may be something you can do to help. Have you even talked to your doctor about it, at all?”

“No,” Natalie said. “It’s not that simple. They’ll want to re evaluate him. It’ll take months. I’ll have to take a lot of time off work.”

“Bryce is more important than your work.”

“He’s making progress, Mom. He can learn to do better.”

“I’m just saying it’s an option,” Mom went back to stirring the pot.

Natalie went and sat down at her desk, fuming.

There was the doctor’s phone number up on the bulletin board. She could call. She could ask for an appointment. That didn’t mean she would have to go through with getting Bryce a treatment.

Natalie picked up the phone.

#37 Disobedient Angel

There is something I need to tell you.

First, let me explain. You don’t know me. You’ve seen me on occasion, passing on the street, around the corner of the hall at school, in the distance at a game, or on the far side of the park. You think I must live here, nearby, somewhere. But we’ve never met. I’ve never introduced myself.

You are the only one who can see me.

Have you heard the stories, of someone who got in a car wreck, and they say someone pulled them from the car, but then when they looked again, no one was there? Those stories are true. That’s what I am. I’m a messenger. A task that needs to be fulfilled.

The universe was perfect when it was created, but people were given choices, and sometimes they make the wrong choice. When that happens, the universe gets broken in small ways. Those ways can add up, until things go really, really wrong. I’m a correction, a small adjustment of the course of the fate of everything.

But that’s all I am.

Once I make that adjustment in the course of time and space, I will die.

It won’t be death like you know it. You have an immortal soul. I do not. I’ll simply cease to exist. Once my task is complete, once I’ve done what I was sent here to do, I will be gone. Utterly gone.

I had something I was supposed to tell you. It was years ago when I came into being for this one task. I came and I found you, and I was about to do it. You might remember, though you probably do not. You were very young, and so I appeared as a child. A child who wanted to speak to you, but was too shy and turned away.

I wasn’t shy. I had gotten to like existing. In the short time it took me to cross the expanse from heaven to earth, I came to enjoy being alive.

Your message, I thought, could wait. And so I dallied. I wandered the earth and sky, I saw what good and evil there was among humankind, and with horror and wonder I pondered the purpose of it all. But most of the time I simply looked at things. At flowers, at clouds, at trees, at a rainbow. The ocean in its might and terror, the stately land, the deep blue ice of the north and south poles, the whales in the depths and the stars quietly watching over all. I saw all of the people, going about without seeing, for they do not know when their time is to come, their time to leave it.

But I know. It is my choice. I have been given choice too, strange enough, and that is my torment. Why have I been given this choice to make? To fulfill my purpose and pass away into nothingness, or to delay my destiny and continue to be aware of myself and everything around me.

I have not grown tired of living, but I have grown tired of being afraid. This message I have for you, it must be important. I do not know entirely what it means, but that is for you to puzzle it out. You will know what to do with the words I have for you.

I am afraid that by waiting this long, some terrible thing will come upon the world. I am a correction, a repair, I am here to undo something that should not have happened, but I was sent so long ago perhaps now it is too late. And if it is too late, should I sacrifice myself for nothing?

And if I do tell you, even though I am supposed to vanish, to cease to exist, perhaps because I have been disobedient for so long then I will not pass lightly into the void. Perhaps there is a special hell for disobedient angels. The terror of it eats at me. Perhaps I am already burning in it, and my only release will come when I finally deliver my message.

And so, now that you understand, I will ask you a question. I will leave this up to you. It is your choice now. Do you want to hear what it is that I have to tell you?

#36 Emergency Room

Even at midnight, the emergency room was crowded. Mason followed his mom a long way from the desk before they found two seats together. While Mom sat down with the clip board in her lap and started writing with a pen she took out of her purse, Mason curled up in the chair next to her and tried to get his head comfortable on the plastic seat back.

“Oh, Mason, sweetie, don’t put your face on that,” Mom said. “We don’t know if its clean.” Mom tugged a corner of Mason’s blanket up to cover the back of the chair, then tucked the rest of it around him better.

Mason snuggled down in his blanket, shivering. He wished they didn’t keep this room so cold, or so bright. His head hurt, and with every rapid beat of his heart his knee throbbed like someone was whacking it with a baseball bat. All around him sat other people with empty, sad faces. He wondered if any of them were as sick as he was.

On the front door of the emergency room, Mason noticed a bronze panel decorated with two snakes twined around a pole. As he watched, the snakes seemed to twist and move. Their bronze eyes grew brighter, and they slithered round the pole in a slow dance, then came down from the door and moved toward him across the floor.

Mason gave a whimper and curled up tighter in his blanket.

“It’s okay, honey,” Mom said, still scribbling on the clipboard. “Everything’s going to be okay.” As if she couldn’t see the snakes sliding over the white tile floor.

“Don’t be afraid,” the snakes hissed. “Do not fear us. We will do you no harm.”

Mason blinked at them, then glanced at the door. There were still two snakes on the door, coiled around the pole, but here they were in front of him, too, weaving their heads back and forth like cobras.

“Welcome to our realm,” the snakes said. “Do not fear. You are safe in this place. Our servants have taken an oath. First do no harm.”

Mason drew his feet up, his knees tight against his chest, trying to get further away from those long, bronze bodies.

“Do not fear us,” the snakes  slid up the legs of Mason’s chair. One of them put it’s metal nose near Mason’s face. It’s eyes flashed. “It is death you should fear.”

“Yes, fear death. Flee it. Come to us and we will save you,” The other snake coiled on the floor.

“But,” Mason said, “People die here.”

The snakes sighed. “Some come to us too late, some can not be saved. But many, many others, are well again. They buy more life, more days, more months, more years. They pay dearly for it, for death is to be greatly feared!”

Mason choked out the words in a whisper, “Am I going to die?”

“No, sweetheart, you’re going to be fine,” Mom said. “We’re here at the hospital now, the doctors will take care of you.”

Mason glanced at his Mom, her worried face staring down at the clipboard, then looked again for the snakes, but they had vanished.

#35 Snow Angel

The snow danced lightly down from the sky. One flake at a time, it twirled and drifted, appearing somewhere high above as a tiny speck, then growing, falling. Some landed on the tall, dark pines, caught in the great drifts already on their branches. Some fell on the ground, slowly building the soft mounds of white even higher than they already were. Some fell on her cheeks, on her nose, on her forehead. Now and then one of the tiny flakes tried to kiss her eyes. Then she would blink them away. It was the only movement she made as she watched their mesmerizing dance.

She felt no cold. The soft drifts around her cradled her heavy body. Her bed of white feathers beckoned her to sleep. The snowflakes above danced a lullaby against the twilight winter sky. The woods smelled of cold, of ice, a sweet and peaceful breath.

“Sarah!”

She heard a voice somewhere in the distance, a sorrowful cry, barely rising above the gentle whisper of the falling snow. She took another slow breath, then rested again. That voice sounded familiar, but she could not understand why.

She wanted to sleep, to drift back into that lovely dream. It had been summer, and she had been able to fly! But then she had decided to wake up and found herself here. For a long time she had wandered, lost, in the cold, until she had gotten so weary she had to rest a while. Now she could not even remember what she had been searching for.

“Sarah!” the call came again. So lost, it sounded, so hopeless. Sarah. That was her name. She remembered now. The voice was calling for her. She would stand up, and go and find them.

After another moment. Now she was tired. She closed her eyes. The snow caressed her face.

Another sound, an excited yelping, a dog’s bark. Sarah opened her eyes again, startled, as she heard the footfalls in the snow. Then there was a dark nose, a warm tongue burning against her cheek, and the sound of barking in her ears.

“Sarah!” Now the voice was right beside her. Someone picked her up and held her close.

 

#34 Dream Cat

Zeb crept between the cardboard moving boxes, his whiskers twitching. This old house had to be full of nightmares. He could smell it. Where were they hiding?

He paced the perimeter of the room, glancing back often to make sure Leisl still slept peacefully in her bed. For a moment he longed to go curl up on the blanket by her feet and take a nap, but that wouldn’t do. Right now was hunting time. The nightmares would be on the prowl. Where were they? Hadn’t they figured out that a little child had moved in?

Zeb knew he ought to stay in Leisl's room, but he couldn’t just sit there and wait for the nightmares to come to him. They were out there, lurking, somewhere in the big old house, waiting for him to let down his guard before they pounced. Well, he’d just take the fight to them, wherever they were.

Out in the hall, the place smelled of fresh paint. That made it hard for Zeb to know if there were any nightmares close by or not. He scanned the hallway, eyes wide in the dark, ears pricked, tail twitching. Then he saw one.

A velvet pool of darkness lurked along the baseboards, slowly creeping in and out of the shadows made by the streetlight shining through the trees out the window. It was a clever nightmare, trying to blend in with those wind-tossed patches of shadow. Zeb pretended he didn’t see it gradually moving closer and closer to Leisl’s bedroom door.

When the nightmare paused, as if finally realizing there was a cat in the hall, Zeb pounced.

The nightmare had been ready. It streaked down the hall with Zeb just behind it, racing over the floor, it’s misty black shape sometimes rat-like, sometimes snake-like, sometimes with wings of bat or bird, it was all the dark creatures of the world rolled into one. A claw shot out from the blackest part and snatched at the stair railing to make a sharp turn. Zeb skidded on the hall floor, then streaked down the stairs after it.

The nightmare made straight for the front door. Zeb watched it squeeze under the small crack and disappear. A cat-grin spread across Zeb’s face. That might have worked in Zeb’s last house, but this house had a cat door. That nightmare was going down.

Zeb leapt through the cat door, leaving it swinging behind him. Out in the windy night, the howling air filled his ears, so he flattened them back against his head and used his eyes and his nose to find where the nightmare had run to. He spotted it puddled among the roots of a tree, moving like a careless fog, just shifting a little.

Zeb slid into the hedge and moved silently along the outside wall of the house. As he got closer to the nightmare, it showed no sign that it had seen him. Closer, closer, close enough to strike, Zeb curled up and got ready to spring.