Page 364

Spring Forest Noise

Yttermarken

I didn't know what was stranger. That I had gotten used to the fact that I was living among people who could transform themselves into magnificent but also terrifying predators at any moment, or the fact that I still hadn't been exposed, even though enough people seemed to realize that I didn't belong here.

Something was wrong with me. I was different from everyone else here. And by now it was scaring me.

The nightmares in which I wandered aimlessly through this abandoned house and felt the woman's gaze on me had also increased again.

Standing at the open double doors of the terrace, I bit my tongue and let my gaze wander over the sprawling lawn where, as usual, a bunch of young men were wrestling with each other.

I wondered if Julian would be one of them if his mother hadn't died.

And again, I bit my tongue and closed my eyes.

Would I ever have gotten to know him?

How selfish that thought was... and the feeling that accompanied it.

I tried to distract myself by keeping my eyes closed and deeply inhaling the fresh forest air, feeling my lungs expand, listening to the pounding of my heart mingling with the chirping of birds and a... raven's caw.

Frustrated, I opened my eyes, but then I remembered yesterday's encounter, pulled the raven pin that Cody had given me out of my pocket, and examined the black animal before turning it over to the gold side and pinning the raven to my brown felt coat close to my chest.

Raven summoner.

Certainly not, yet the irony of this pin brought a smile to my lips.

Another raven's caw shattered the gentle forest silence.

With growing frustration, I pushed the sound out of my mind and tried to think of something peaceful, but I kept coming back to my best friend, who had disappeared without a trace.

Julian was gone. He had left not only his sister, but me as well. And the fact that I needed my best friend more than I was comfortable to admit wore me down around the clock.

He had given me the illusion that there could be an escape from this cage, had so naturally managed to stay away from all the drama until it had hit his life like a bomb. And now I stood here, frustrated that my concern for him was greater than that for my own life.

Again, I looked out at the men fighting with massive sticks today.

I wasn't like them, would never fit in here. And it was only a matter of time before that officially came to light...

The mere fact that my eyes kept glowing in all kinds of colors, recently including purple. Or the fact that strange things kept happening around me...

Whatever I carried inside me came out at random, making things float. What if I was an Air Quatura after all?

Deep down, I knew that I was none of the things that could be explained logically.

One question had crept into my consciousness more and more over the last few weeks. One that I had suppressed over the years to spare my mother from tears.

Who was my father?

I didn't know how I had managed not to think about it for so long. It was probably for the same reason that I had desperately suppressed all the other questions and shadows of recent years. But for a few weeks now, this was the question I kept coming back to whenever my thoughts were racing. A clear question with tangible ways to solve it. Ways in the form of door locks, behind whose doors all the answers could possibly lie, but I didn't have the key. And there was only one person who could provide me with that key.

I closed my eyes again to hold back the tears that had built up. One for my best friend, one for Mum.

Where are you, Julian? Where are you... I need you most right now...

“Bayla.”

I flinched and opened my eyes.