KILLYAN PICHÉ's Arc

Chapter 7 of 8

Morning came gray and quiet. Killyan stood by the barn and stared at the four claw marks in the wood. The cat with blue eyes and small glasses sat near his feet. It had stayed all night. But Killyan knew the mechanical bear would come back, and it would bring others. His whole family slept in houses nearby. None of them knew. If the thing attacked after dark, they would wake to red eyes and steel teeth. He had to warn them. He had no phone. He was seven years old. Who would believe him? Harlow walked up crunching a chip from a bright crinkled bag. His blond mohawk stood stiff. Killyan's cousin was eight, and he planned everything. "You've got that face," Harlow said. "The scared one." "The bear knows where we live," Killyan said. "It's coming back. Nobody knows but us. If it comes while they're asleep—" He stopped. His chest felt tight. Harlow stuffed the bag in his pocket. "Then we tell them. All of them. One room." He said it like it was already done. They ran to find Catou. She had driven off the bear once. She would be believed. They found her in the yard, a cup of coffee in her hand. Catou was Killyan's aunt, green hair, fourteen piercings, blunt as a hammer. Last night she had saved him. She looked at the claw marks, then at the boys. "The clicking thing," she said. Not a question. "It's coming back with more," Killyan said. "We have to tell everybody. Tonight. Before dark." Catou drank. She was quiet a moment. "Then we don't whisper it. We make them come." She set down the cup. "I'll call. You two knock on every door." They split up. Killyan ran house to house. He banged on doors and said the words fast. Most grown-ups frowned. A mechanical bear? He saw the doubt. But Catou drove behind him, leaning out the window, backing him up. "I saw it," she told them, flat and hard. "Four scratches on the barn. Come look." People came to look. The marks were real. The doubt turned to worry. By dusk they all stood in Granny's kitchen. Granny wore her apron and her three dogs circled her legs. She had warned Killyan from the start that the forest held sleeping dangers. Now she nodded slow. "He's right. I saw that bear when I was a girl." The room went still. If Granny believed it, they all did. Catou laid out the plan on the table. Lights. The ruby dagger. People awake in shifts. Killyan watched the fear on their faces turn into something harder. They were ready now. No one would be caught asleep. The warning was out. His family knew. But as he looked around the full kitchen, Killyan understood something new. He had pulled everyone into this. Whatever came out of the forest next would come for all of them.