xxx

Over the next day or so, A'en and I get to meet often enough, and we manage to get a lot of good research done. A'en and I have even started the rough draft, and we've still got a little over two whole weeks till we have to hand it in to Mrs. Bonden.

But nothing really happens until the next day after school.

After school today, I have some free time. Dad won't be getting home until late-Thursday nights he has the late shift-so he stops by home so I can pick up Coukar for a walk then drives us back into town, dropping us off at our usual stop-Adden's Corner, about two blocks from the middle of Downtown.

I walk along the sidewalks, my footsteps quiet on the concrete slabs. Near this part of town the concrete's all broken up, with weeds and some grass and that fuzzy green stuff that's kind of like algae or something poking up and spilling out over the grey dusty surface. I remember when I was a kid, back in that Somewhere Else, when we had a real house in a real neighborhood, and Mom would sometimes make me go outside and pull the weeds and grass and algae out of the sidewalk nearest our house as one of my chores. She'd give me two dollars for every bag I filled, and even though I was just a kid, three or so, I knew enough to know that money could get me good things, like pencils and paper for drawing so I wouldn't have to use that computer paper because Dad would get annoyed if I did. So I was often out there a long time, picking and tearing at that stuff. And while I got myself absorbed in the repetetive, monotonous task, the world around my three year old self would gradually fade away and I'd be in someplace else, where I wanted to be. Not a place I wanted to be in this world, but someplace else in my head. Playing and laughing and flying with the friends I made up-dragons, mainly, but there were some griffins and giant snakes and lions-any real animals from this world could talk and do magical things-and leopards and wolves and cats and dogs, and pegasuses, and yes, there were even several unicorns.

Oddly enough, I'm just remembering one unicorn I was particularly fond of when I realize I've reached one of the deserted places in town, a place where there's a few feet of gravel lot and then a long field with a hill rising up in the middle. It's the only place in town besides the park and the schools that has mmore than four square inches of grass. The grass here is green, but it's stiff and it's a hardy green, the kind that comes from real, firm, strong grass, not that light green stringy stuff.

It's odd because I can see Unicorn Boy hisself-himself, standing on top of the hill, his head tilted back slightly as he gazes up at the almost full moon. The moon's already visible in the sky, even though the sun set just fifteen minutes or so ago, and it's beautiful. And it begins to wash everything in that lovely, silver-white light.

And it strikes me that A'en fits.

The way he is right now, thoughtful, looking almost a little troubled, or at least, a bit longing, as he gazes up at the moon, makes him fit here and seem very different than the way I've ever seen him before. And it suddenly strikes me that right now, A'en isn't the same person I see at school. He isn't the shallow popular jerk who's gliding through a sheltered perfect life in style, looking disdainfully down his nose at respectable people such as myself who stop to think about life in a realistic way. He's...he is a respectable person who stops to think about life in a realisic way, at least he looks it, right now...he looks like me.

One of us, the thought strikes me suddenly, as my hand brushes against the top of Coukar's head. He looks up at me with big, mournful brown eyes, his whole face drooping the way it always does. And he pushes his cold, wet nose into my thigh, pushing me forward. I can feel his nose is cold and wet, even through the material of my faded blue jeans. Surprised, I take a step forward onto the gravel, and wince as it crunches beneath my shabby sneakers. I wince because it disturbs the kind of heavy, but not oppressive silence there is around this place and A'en, who seems to be at the center of it all. A'en doesn't seem to have heard, though. He tilts his back a little farther to the moon, and I feel my breath still as the moonlight catches on his face and hair, washing him in the enchanting light. His eyes close as if he's listening to a lovely music, and he inhales deeply, as if breathing in a lovely scent. And as the enchanting, magical lights up A'en with that soft, washed white silver glow, it strikes me that...that A'en is really quite cute. Handsome, too. Attractive.

For the moment.

One of usssss...the words whisper in my mind again, and a small breeze picks up, making the long grass stems wave in a sort of swaying dance. The words suddenly seem to be outside of me as well as in, whispering in my ears and tickling my face like the breeze.

One of ussss...the grasses whisper. One of usssss...

The breeze picks up, whooshing softly over the grass and A'en and me.

Slowly, I make my way forward with Coukar, stepping as quietly as I can across the gravel. I don't mean to sneak up on A'en, but I'm just afraid if I break the silence, I break this different A'en, and he'll shatter like glass and fall back inside to the back behind his eyes, deeper back than whatever it was I almost saw before in the library the other day, and he'll never come out again and I won't see him again, and I don't want that to happen.

I'm halfway up the hill before it happens. It starts.

It's odd, at first. I can't quite realize what it is that suddenly is different.

Then I realize I'm seeing those things again. Those things cats will suddenly be watcing, those things other people can't see.

They're like faint indentions, no, bulges, in the air, moving and twisting and flying about, like living things. It's like there are things moving underneath the fabric of this world, and I can see them.

Then I'm seeing things double.

It's not like copies of things are drifting fuzzily in and out of each other. First it's like everything comes into focus, but blurs behind my glasses.

So I take them off, folding them and hanging them on my shirt collar.

And everything is crystal clear, and my insides tense with excitement and adrenaline.

Everything's sharp and focused in the moonlight, especially A'en. And it's then I notice a kind of shimmer around him. It's faint, but it's there and it's kind of tinged slightly, tinged the same colour as his clothes and hair and eyes.

That's when things double up.

It's like seeing a blade of grass there, and then suddenly there's two of them, starting at the same point, but the only reason you see the other is because it's branching in the opposite direction. That's how it is with everything-the double is there, starting at the same point, but then branching off in the exact opposite direction. A'en is kind of normal I guess, and so am I and Coukar, and even the pieces of gravel on the ground are all right.

At least, they look normal.

Experimentally, I reach forward with my foot and knock one of the pices of gravel forward a few inches with my toe.

My heart thuds hard when I see a double, an exact double, move as well, taking the exact route, but in an exactly opposite direction. The double rolls into my toe-literally. It comes to a stop partially inside my shoe, and I can feel it, not like a stone, but like a solid stone consisting solidly of tight, buzzing vibrations. It reminds me of how bats and other animals using ultrasonic hearing might see things-entirely made up of echoes, or vibrations. That's what that little rock feels like against my skin.

The vibrations of that one little rock are so strong it's making my big toe go numb where it touches me, so I move my foot and step around it, stepping forward and continuing my way to the foot of the hill.

I stir up more gravel, and several times I step on their copies, or doubles or whatever they are, and feel the vibrations powerfully in my feet. It's almost ticklish, but I don't feel like laughing right now, so I grit my teeth and keep going.

I reach the hill moments later and begin climbing.

A'en is still somehow oblivious to me, still...well, listening or whatever it is he's doing. And I'm starting to feel other vibrations too, in the air, as if all the air has its own copy and I'm breathing it in as well as our normal air.

It's a thrumming in my body, making up...a rhythm. Yes, I can feel it now, and I know Coukar must too. I can feel it thrumming in me, pushing and pulling in its own set currents, making its own...music.

There is music here in the air.

But it's a deeper, different kind of music. Not the kind of music you hear, with people slamming on guitars on screaming in that way they call singing, whining about their lives and how hard the world all is to them.

Music, deep and harmony of everything. It's the sole focus of all the other vibrations I feel in the gravel and the grass that's buzzing in my legs. It's all those, every vibration there is, falling into place and making one continuous, harmonious sound of music. No singing-not singing, but still, everything's adding its own sound.

And then I hear A'en humming.

He's humming with it, that harmony of vibrations and buzzing, swaying ever so slightly in the breeze, and now I'm almost to the top and I can see that that breeze is coming from him, blowing out from his feet in ripples, as if A'en is a rock thrown in a pond, and somehow I don't feel like this is wrong or not supposed to be, I just want this harmony to keep going because I feel as one with everything I've ever felt...even A'en.

And I even start to hum, a little, more quietly than him, but I'm still humming.

But Coukar doesn't like it, for some reason.

We reach the top of the hill-A'en still oblivious, which is fine with me-and I'm bold enough to step up right beside A'en-yes, the oblivion does continue-and Coukar plants his dirt brown rump, thin and bony from age because he don't-doesn't eat much any more but still excersises when I take him for walks, and leans heavily against me. He makes a low moan in his throat, which means he wants to go.

It makes the harmony waver, a little, but not enough to disturb A'en. And I wonder at Coukar, because he's the one that prodded me to go up here anyway.

Husssssssssssssshhhhhhh...the grasses and breeze whisper, fluttering strong enough to flap Coukar's floppy brown ears. Hussssssssshhhh...disturrrrrrrrrrrb...do nooooooottttt...hussssshhhh...

But Coukar doesn't like them telling him what to do, I feel, and he stiffens against me. A low groan happens in his throat, but I know it as the beginnings of a growl.

Husssssshhhh...

And Coukar's answer:

RRRRRRRRrrrrr...

The grasses come again, but less sure, more subdued.

Shhhh...

Coukar silences them, or at least makes them stop pestering him, with one, final climax of his quiet growl, snapping his teeth slightly.

RrrrrrRRR-ach! he snaps, and the grasses leave him alone after that I feel, turning back to focus on the harmony, offended and sulking about their defeat.

Speak, his Wyrn. I hear the command in a deep, slow low voice in my mind, the ends of the words clipped but not unkindly, with that low slight rattling sound under the voice you might hear in the still firm voice of an older man. But what's a wern? Speak...his Wyrn.

I look down at Coukar with the oddest feeling it's coming from him and find he's looking up at me with an expectant expression.

Speak, his Wyr-rn. The voice says again, not with impatience or anything like that, but the slightly, kindly insistent way you would repeat something to someone if they said they didn't hear you the first time.

And I feel it's time to end the harmony. I don't want to, but I know it must be done.

And so I take a deep breath and speak his "Wyrn" or at least what I think it is, though I don't know how I know or why I think I'm hearing Coukar talking to me or why I'm hearing any of this at all, actually. There's a lot I don't know, and I suddenly feel as if A'en might be the one who does know. And so, before I speak his Wyrn, I resolve quite firmly to talk to A'en about things later and find out more about him-because no one really knows anything at all about him, not at school at least, I suddenly realize.

And so I take a deep breath and speak his Wyrn.

"A'en."

And everything instantly stops.

The breezes, the whispering, the copies/doubles, the bulges in the air only cats and I can see, A'en's humming, the harmony,

everything

it

all

instantly

stops.

And for a minute, even I stop. My breathing, at least, my thinking, my knowing. It's as if suddenly for two seconds the whole world is stopped and tensed and waiting and holding its breath, waiting for something, anything, to happen.

I even stop seeing for a minute, and everything is suddenly blocked out by some kind of fog.

Then

it's

black

and

then

I

open

my

eyes.

"May?" I hear A'en's incredulous voice in front-actually, a little above, as he's taller-then everything snaps into focus. And A'en at least is clear because he's close enough to me, but most everything else is blurred and I take a moment to remember where my glasses are, and then I unfold them and put them back on and look up at A'en.

"What?" I ask as if it's perfectly natural I'm here and that it should have been expected.

He falters, then fear suddenly flashes across his face-fear of discovery, I classify it as.

"What are you doing here?" he asks warily, then almost fearfully, "Did you...see anything?"

Cats see things we can't you can't I can don't tell people know don't know can't know understand won't don't tell, tell he knows I can see it he must know he's just afraid I know, tell him tell tell him all tell him it everything he'll know he can know understand maybe know like I know like we know, we know-we the plants and trees and flowers and birds and sky and cats and dogs and everything and it all...

"No. What do you mean, see something?" I ask sharply, as if suspicious of his mental health. The same way anyone would ask in answer to a seemingly strange question.

Even though it's not strange to me.

"Just...nothing." He seems shakily relieved and runs a hand through his perfect, violet hair, his perfect, clear violet eyes darkened and troubled.

Listen listen music he can hear she can hear his Wyrn she spoke his Wyrn his WyrnhisWyrn is his Wyrn his Name is his Wyrn he is his Wyrn A'en is his Wyrn she knows he knows they both know why do they deny knowing why do they deny It?

"So, what are you doing here?" A'en asks, his voice sounding tired. "It's pretty late."

I stare at him in surprise.

"What? No it isn't, it's only-" I glance down at my watch, my eyes widening at the sight of the black digital numbers.

10:30

It was about eight-thirty when Dad dropped us at Adden's Corner. I was walking for about ten minutes when I reached the hill.

"Hoooooooly shoot," I say, staring. Dad will be back at Adden's Corner any minute to pick me up. He's gonna kill me...

Time flies when you hum.

"Well...uh...I gotta go," A'en says, turning hesitantly away and heading down the hill. He keeps glancing back at me, as if he's seeing something he's never seen before.

And I turn to watch him go, and am surprised by the view of the town. The hill is high enough to see almost everything as I watch A'en go.

He's halfway down the hill when suddenly everything throws out around me and I see something totally different.

A dark cloaked figure descending the barren, charred hill towards the smoldering, burning remains of what may have once been a town. It still burns, the flames showing no signs of dying out. The sky overhead is dark as night, the clouds stained with ash, the air heavy and hard to breath and stinging the throat because of the stench of burning metal and sulfur. Behind in the sky is a dully glowing crescent moon dully glowing purple. The figure turns, looking up.

Vivid, poison-green eyes piercing the darkness, white hair falling halfway down a slim chest and back underneath the tattered black cloak. Pushing apart the bangs hanging over the middle of the forehead is a single, jaggedly broken black horn, cylindrical except where it has been chipped.

The eyes hold no pupils.

I stare, trembling, horrified by the scene. Then Coukar's cold wet nose presses into my hand, and I shake myself with a shudder, squeezing my eyes shut for a split second and clutching Coukar's ruff for comfort.

When I open my eyes again, everything is normal and A'en is at the bottom of the hill, rounding the corner of the building below.

Coukar gives a low, groaning whine of concern and prods my hand again with his nose.

I am very shaken by the thing I have seen, and I have this horrible feeling in my stomach that what I saw was the future. Or at least, possibly the future. A possibility.

World is full of possibilities, I think, with slight shudder and try to forget the haunting image.

So is the Wyrn what has been spoken...a remnant of that voice from before, that voice that could so easily be Coukar's if Coukar could talk. But he can't talk. Can he? No. He can't. Stupid question, that was. Coukar can't talk. Animals can't talk at all. Stupid to think like they could.

Whatever a "Wyrn" is, the Wyrn I spoke is A'en's. I know that much.

And the Wyrn spoken is full of possibilities.

A'en is full of possibilities.

A'en...

xxx

"A'en..."

Name-Wyrn spoken voice hurts don't no don't stop please stop voices hurt clawing at me tearing me ripping me punching me pounding me hurts hurts stop bleed can't take it bleeding bloody so much blood everywhere my blood ow ow stop please stop it huuuurrrrts...

"Freak-horn!"

"Who do you think you are?"

What do you think you are?"

"Don't ask It, It doesn't know anything! It's just a thing

"Some stupid thing!

"Half-breed!

"Nothing!"

Nothing I am nothing half-breed all I am half-breed is less than nothing I am less than nothing stop it hurts please please stop it hurrrrrrrrrrts...

Whimpering...

Darkness...

Pain, inside and out...

It hurts...

Everything hurts...

I am nothing...

It hurts...

xxx