“Are you a boy or a girl?”
It puffed out its chest, narrowing its gaze.
“Boy?”
He nodded his little head before reaching out and booping me on the nose with his cold paw.
“You’re freezing.” I pursed my lips and went to grab him to snuggle him in my coat, but he scurried down my body and sat in front of me.
I dropped to my knees in the cold snow to study the squirrel. He was no doubt adorable. He had a little pink nose and bright green eyes with glossy black fur. I reached out and stroked down his back, and his fur was incredibly soft. He flipped his fluffy tail in an annoyed manner, but he didn’t make me stop either.
So, I continued to pet him. “What are you doing all the way out here?”
He gave me a look like he thought I was stupid.
“I know that squirrels live in the forest, but what makes you so special that I had a vision to come see you in the middle of the night?”
He gave me that same look again before my bag started vibrating on my back. I slung off my book bag and opened it to see my tablet lighting up with my father’s name.
“Hold that thought, little guy. I might want to take this. He’s been calling non-stop for weeks,” I muttered.
The squirrel shook his head like he didn’t want me to take the call.
I frowned. Why wouldn’t I take it? A gut feeling screamed at me to answer it, but the squirrel pushed down on my tablet, and the call ended. “Well, I guess you made that decision for me.”
He nodded with a chirping noise, but my tablet lit up again with my father’s name.
“Sorry. Looks like I really do need to take this.”
He sighed and threw up his hands like I did something stupid again. I hadn’t seen an animal act with such an attitude before.
It crossed my mind that it could be a shifter, and I paused. “Are you a shifter?”
He shook his head, yet again looking at me like I was an idiot.
I frowned. I’ve never seen an animal be able to communicate like this. “You’re not a normal animal, though, are you?”
He shook his head again, and the realization finally dawned on me as he used his paw to answer the tablet key.
My father’s gruff voice rang out against the stark nightlife of the forest in winter. “Kian, you answered.”
“Yes, Father.” My heart pounded frantically in my chest. Talking to my father after my mom died was unpleasant.
He insisted that she wasn’t dead, and that I needed to treat that walking corpse as my mother. But it wasn’t my mom, and it would never be her. My mom was gone, and he wouldn’t accept that. It broke my heart that she was forced to walk around the village like that. If the Necromancers were right and a piece of the soul did survive after reanimation, I could guarantee she wasn’t happy—and that broke my heart even more.
“You need to come home.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m at Fate Hollow Academy. You know I can’t just up and leave.”
“Son, your visions could be of a lot of use to the coven right now. I don’t care what Kalista law states, you need to come home for your community.”
“I care what Kalista law states. You’re not the one that would get in trouble if I were to leave,” I explained.
“I’m your father. Can’t I care about your best interest?”
“Do you?”
He scoffed. “You’re my son. Of course I do.”
