Jayden Blue and the Sword in His Shadow, A World So Close Book One
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Jayden and His Cats 1
Chapter 2 – Tweet, Tweet 8
Chapter 3 – A Whole World Out There 14
Chapter 4 – There’s No Window 25
Chapter 5 – You’re Getting More Clever 32
Chapter 6 – You’ll Have Chapter 3 36
Chapter 7 – Chills Along His Spine 40
Chapter 8 – Words: Sharp Like Swords 44
Chapter 9 – Weird Things Happen 52
Chapter 10 – Not Then! Don’t! 57
Chapter 11 – Because We Can’t 61
Chapter 12 – But What Is That? 68
Chapter 13 – Are You Reminding Me? 74
Chapter 14 – It’s Almost Impossible 78
Chapter 15 – You’ll Figure It Out 83
Chapter 16 – End Up Having Fun 89
Chapter 17 – Rayl, It’s a Sword 95
Chapter 18 – They Did Their Job 105
Chapter 19 – That’s Why You Tweet? 109
Chapter 20 – What About the Other Way? 116
Chapter 21 – His Sword in His Right 120
Chapter 1 – Jayden and His Cats
The hallway’s shadows seemed to have invited every friend and foe they could find. They all stood elbow to elbow, leaving no room for even a slender sound to stand among them.
With all light chased to some other, safer corner of the house, there might not be enough left for the eyes of his hunters to collect a bit and reflect it his way.
Do they know that their eyes can do that? he wondered. If they suspected, would they be clever enough to hide their shiny eyes while they wait for me?
Jayden eased his bedroom door closed all the way, realizing that peeking through a thin crack like that wouldn’t give him a good enough view to know if it was safe.
No, he’d probably have to run. Like every other time.
And they were fast.
Oh, they were so very fast.
He adjusted the straps of his backpack, leaning each way and shifting it from side to side. He needed to be sure that his school books were settled and wouldn’t jostle around if he needed to outrun them.
Could I ever outrun them? he wondered. No, probably not!
Satisfied that he was as ready as he would ever be, he opened the door just enough to step into the hall. His sneakers squeaked only a bit on the clean wood floor. The doors to the two other bedrooms were open, and he didn’t see any eyes waiting to pounce from somewhere in the darkness.
He stopped to listen and when he felt sure that he wouldn’t need to make a hasty retreat, he closed his door behind him.
A quick, careful walk brought him to the top of the stairs, and he again turned and tipped his head to different angles, listening for any sounds that might give them away.
A pointy claw scratching on the floor.
Maybe a tail batting against a wall once or twice, taunting him.
His heart jumped before he realized that what he’d heard was the toaster popping up—his mother and father were still finishing their breakfast in the kitchen, downstairs and around the corner.
Safe in their well-lit room.
Calmed again, he began cautious steps on the carpet runners, bringing him closer to the first floor and the front door of their house. Well past the point of no return.
When he’d traveled far enough down the stairway, he leaned forward, feeling the weight of his math and history and English and science books, and looked all around the living room.
He shook his head and grinned when glancing around the room, still dim so early in the day. Countless hiding places in the many shadows behind furniture, a magazine rack, and potted plants, were offering them all the advantage they could want.
Hex and Halo could be anywhere, he told himself. I have no choice but to keep going anyway—Rayl will be here any second.
Each step seemed to take an eternity, and the next one, touching the cool tiles near the door, needed to be the most quiet of them all. One sneaker down, then the other, and he was almost close enough to grab the doorknob.
The kitchen had gone silent. It seemed that more shadows—probably some extras from the hallway upstairs—had invaded the living room. He couldn’t see any eyes lurking in any of the shady corners.
Two short, shuffling steps brought him close enough to take hold of the knob. He stopped there, studying the room again.
If Halo charges from the far corner, I might be okay, he thought. He isn’t quite as fast as he used to be. He’s still fast, though.
Hex, he told himself, sure was fast enough. He could cross that distance in less than a heartbeat. He’d never make it outside to the porch to save himself from the attack.
He took a deep breath and started turning the knob, hoping that it wouldn’t squeal.
Then, a rapid rapping on the door from someone on the porch caused his heart to lurch, and he didn’t dare to blink as he stared into the dark room.
Their eyes appeared first—a pair of brilliant blue and a pair of dazzling green in the darkness, lit by dim kitchen light sneaking in. The eyes remained still for not even a second.
In that brief moment, his heart could boom only once.
Still holding the knob, he watched with a smile as two puffs of fluffy fur bolted at him, Hex in the lead, with Halo close behind.
Hex jumped first, all four paws striking above his belt, and he let out a commanding meow right when he hit.
Halo was next, jumped almost as high, and showed at least as much enthusiasm with his own triumphant meow.
“Guys!”
Jayden laughed and finished opening the door, then he sat just inside, the two family cats on his lap and nuzzling around his neck while he hugged and petted them.
Raylene looked down on them with a big smile as heavy snowflakes blew in all around Jayden and his cats.
“Didn’t make it?” said Raylene, her mitten still held up where she’d just knocked. She grinned down at him with her head shaking.
Jayden looked up, still smiling and snuggling the cats, and said, “Almost. Until you knocked!”
“I thought that might happen, Jay.”
“So, why’d you do it? This was the closest I’ve ever come.”
“Well, I wanted to be sure I’d see Hex and Halo before school. I love them!”
Still smiling, she closed the door and sat next to him, and Halo, her favorite, traded Jayden’s lap for hers. She scratched around his ears, then traced her fingertips around the white ring on his head and parts of his ears, a sharp contrast to his puffy black fur everywhere else.
“Halo really does like you.”
“Hex is your cat, then.”
Jayden scratched Hex’s back and sides, one of which, his left side, had markings that closely resembled the letter “x.” It could have been painted there. His white fur was as bushy as Halo’s, and the letter on his side was black.
When Hex had first appeared, Jayden had wanted to name him X, but his mother, an English teacher at the community college, thought that maybe they should invest a few more letters than that.
Besides, he had another curious habit: everyone noticed not long after he’d arrived that he had a talent for staring into people’s eyes—like maybe he was trying to cast a spell.
They’d compromised by naming him Hex.
At the sound of a can of cat food being peeled open in the kitchen, both pairs of cat ears perked up, then they both took off, Hex in the lead, his bushy tail pointing almost straight up. Halo made a more leisurely effort, perhaps knowing from experience that there would be plenty of food for both of them.
With the door closed, Jayden Blue and Raylene Hawkins stood at the edge of his long, narrow porch. He’d helped his father paint it dark gray the summer before, but there was too much snow to see any of it.
Three wooden steps, also gray and hidden by snow, led to a concrete walkway that ran straight from the house to the sidewalk. The wide sidewalk curved away with the road in each direction, under cover of thick evergreens, their bristly branches hanging low.
Another short length of concrete beyond the sidewalk led to the street, where the bus stopped for them every school day.
A narrow stone path to their left, near the porch and also buried in snow, ended at the driveway.
Jayden’s warm knit hat couldn’t contain all of his thick, wavy brown hair. Tall for his age, and thin, he most often seemed to have hand-me-down clothes that he’d rushed into early. But his only siblings were Hex and Halo, and they’d never handed down any usable wardrobe. They did leave clumps of hair everywhere, though, for whoever might want it.
Raylene wasn’t quite as tall as him, and she took advantage of the cold weather by wearing boots every chance she had. Her favorites were tall, brown, and slipped on and off with ease. Like most winter days, she’d pulled on a snug knit hat, leaving the ends of her long and straight dark brown hair just barely visible where it brushed across the shoulders of her puffy parka.
Her cheeks were already turning red from her short walk from her house next door, and her cheerful dark brown eyes shined no matter the weather.
The door swung in, and Jayden’s father, a plain tie visible beneath his long overcoat, joined them on the porch. Despite the cold, he wore no hat, relying on only his short brown hair to keep his head warm.
“Hi, Mr. Blue.”
“Hi, Raylene. You’re certainly dressed for the cold.”
She giggled and said, “It sure is cold!”
“Snowy too,” said Jayden.
He stood with them, looking toward the street, with Jayden in the middle. Before anyone could say anything else, a big black bird screeched and launched from one of the trees by the street, shaking thin clouds of snow to the ground.
It swept low, its claws nearly scratching the drifts and its strong wings chasing up swirls of snow, then angled toward the sky, flying toward them. They all leaned back to watch as it flew over them and probably over the roof too.
Jayden felt something funny inside. Or maybe like he’d forgotten something. He didn’t know what it was.
He scratched at his chin with a cold glove.
Something isn’t right, he thought.
Then, he realized that he’d wanted to watch more of the bird’s flight, but he couldn’t look any farther behind him than straight up.
He glanced first at his father and saw that he’d given up on the bird and again looked toward the road. Then, he pushed up on his left sleeve, trying to uncover his wristwatch.
He turned to see Raylene, and she was still staring straight up—not back and over the roof where the bird had gone. She looked down and toward the road again too.
“Where did that bird go, Dad?”
“Probably nowhere, Jay. I can’t even imagine. Why does it matter?”
“I just wonder where it flew. That’s all.”
“Well, that sure is something to wonder about. Okay, I need to get to work.”
“Are you an engineer, Mr. Blue?”
“Yes. Have been for a long time, Raylene.”
He started down the steps.
“It’s serious stuff. Lots of things to figure out all the time.”
“See you later, Dad.”
“Okay, you two. Have a good day at school. Learn a lot.”
They watched him trudge through the deep snow to the car in the driveway, making two trenches more than a set of footprints. After brushing some of it away from the door, he yanked it open, sending more snow down around his shoes. He climbed in, started it up, then got back out to clear the windows before getting in again and fishtailing it out into the street.
“Want to go sledding later?”
“Yeah, that’s always fun. It sure did snow a lot, Rayl.”
He glanced up again, tried to see where that bird might have gone, and found that he couldn’t look any farther in that direction.
He sighed and said, “Rayl, where do you think that bird went?”
“How would anyone know? No one knows, Jay. It sure was a big bird, though.”
She held up a hand, warm inside a mitten, to block the bright sun streaming between the branches from across the street.
“Look at how much snow is on those roofs,” he said and pointed.
“It’s like a mirror, Jay! It’s so bright!”
“Do you like seventh grade?” he said.
“It’s fun. I feel more grown-up than sixth grade. It’s kind of fun to meet new friends too.”
“I, um . . . I don’t like gym class.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember. Maybe it’ll be better today?”
He looked down and kicked at the snow but only for a second. At the sound of a big engine growling, they both looked to their left and saw the bus approaching.
It was long and yellow, with a thick layer of snow crusted onto its roof, and two wispy lines of exhaust smoke trailed behind it. Like some giant mechanical beast exhaling into the icy air, he thought.
“Time to go,” he said.
They hurried down the stairs, slogged through snow almost up to their knees, then climbed up the bus’s steps.
While the door whooshed and clattered shut behind them, they waved to the driver, who smiled and waved back, and they sat next to each other on the cold vinyl seat.
The bus was almost full because Jayden and Raylene were the last stop before school. Everyone was already chattering and laughing, and the driver put the bus in gear.
They gave each other a grin when they were bounced around by the sudden start, on the way to their next stop: the only junior high school in their small Nebraska town.
Chapter 2 – Tweet, Tweet
Leaning a shoulder into a nearby locker, Jayden said, “I’m glad you have science the same period as me.”
“I know, Jay. Me too. That’s a fun class.”
Raylene stuffed a few of her books into her locker, and Jayden waited for her, scanning the halls full of students and lined with lockers, most closed and the rest getting slammed closed.
Every bell around them rang.
“Five minutes sure goes by fast! We should probably get in there,” he said, pointing to the doorway only a few lockers away.
“Yeah, but your locker is way on the other side of school. Do you need to go get your book? Or do you already have it?”
He smiled and said, “Got it. It’s in my pack. I sure am starving, though. I wish we were going to lunch now instead.”
“Yeah, me too. And I hope they have something good on the menu.”
Jayden grinned and said, “Let me guess: you don’t like slop?”
“No!”
“Tweet, tweet,” came from the back of the room. It wasn’t much more than a whisper.
Jayden sat in the second row, his science book open. He started to turn his head to look but stopped himself.
Their teacher, Mr. Penton, a stout man with short gray hair and glasses almost too big for his face, paused the lesson and scanned the back of the room. Through the thick lenses, his eyes appeared as two odd fish, each in its own bowl. Most of the students had gotten used to the sight and noticed more his genuine, almost always present smile.
Everyone seated at the back of the room had become quiet, all imitating statues that would attract no notice.
“Whoever has aspirations of being a bird can come right up here and sing for the class.”
He squinted and studied each of the statues in the back row while pointing at the floor near his desk.
Not a single statue even blinked.
“Oh, come on, guys. Now’s your big chance. Come on up and sing like a little birdie. Who wants to tweet us a song to start the week?”
No volunteers.
“No one? Okay, then. Moving along. What have we learned about the sun from the weekend reading assignment? Who would like to take a shot at that?”
Jayden tried to submerge himself into a school desk that could never hide anyone. He knew all about the sun from reading his science book, but he didn’t want to tell anybody. At least not the class. Especially not the one that had aimed that tweet at him.
“It’s big, and it’s bright, right?” said the teacher. “But how big? Just how far away is it?”
Jayden allowed a slow, steady sigh to leak out when a girl two seats back and two seats over got called on. Although he thought she’d done a good enough job explaining it, he knew more details than she did. He knew that he could have done better than her.
Maybe not in front of so many people, though.
Maybe not in class.
He glanced to his right, caught Raylene’s eye, and she gave him a quick smile. He gave her one right back, but they both put on more serious faces and turned back toward the front of the room.
“Alright, class. Don’t forget your next reading assignment. Next time, we’re going to take a look at how light and shadows and mirrors all involve lots of fun calculations. There will be extra credit for anyone that can explain this: how you need a mirror only half as tall as you to see your entire height reflected back at you.”
Everyone stared in silence. Even the one who had tweeted.
“Sounds silly, huh? Don’t believe it? Well, things aren’t always what we first think, are they? Give it a try. See what you can figure out.”
Jayden’s science class ended with no more classmates tweeting like birds. Walking to the lunchroom with Raylene, he had a moment of dread, remembering that his next class was gym. It was his least favorite class, and he wished the lunch period would drag on and on.
With his backpack slung over one shoulder, he set his food tray down and sat across from Raylene. All along the table, on each side of them, students ate and laughed and sometimes yelled. The cold brick walls seemed to magnify the chatter.
“If you don’t want those fries, Jay, I’ll take them.”
He glanced down at the hot pile of them, which he always preferred with gravy covering it all.
“Not today you won’t—I’m starving. You can take that weird vegetable stuff, though.”
“Oh, no thanks. You can keep that.”
She smiled at him while digging her fork in for another bite.
“Hey, Rayl, that was weird today with that bird, wasn’t it?”
“What bird?”
“When we were on the porch. I think maybe it was a crow.”
“Oh, that one. I don’t know if it’s weird. I see them around a lot.”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean where it flew.”
He jammed in a couple of fries and chewed, waiting for her answer.
“What about it, Jay? It was just a bird flying.”
He swallowed and stabbed a few more with his fork. He held it up close, ready to go.
“I just wonder where it went, that’s all,” he said before taking a big bite.
“Who knows what birds do? They just fly around all day.”
He managed to swallow and said, “I know, but it just seemed funny. Are you coming over after school? I want to ask my dad about it.”
“Sure. Will your mom make us hot chocolate again?”
“If she won’t, I will.”
“As long as somebody makes it,” she said with a grin.
Still chewing, she said, “You have gym next, right?”
He gulped down the food in his mouth and stared at her.
“Ugh. Yeah. Gym class is next.”
Jayden managed to change clothes quickly in the locker room, which always suffered more than its share of burned out lights and peculiar odors, and he slipped out onto the basketball court. He’d gotten there as early as he could, and he suspected the boys he wanted to see the least were only now changing.
I wish we could just hurry and start shooting baskets and running drills, he thought. We should forget the usual stuff. Can’t we just go right to the game?
He dribbled a ball and tried spinning it on his fingertips, but he hadn’t mastered that yet. He and a few others practiced layups until Coach Kurt blew his shiny metal whistle.
Jayden turned in time to see the whistle drop down onto the coach’s belly, which held it out pretty far. A blue ball cap covered what most of them thought must be a bald head. With a serious look, Coach Kurt watched the class all lining up in front of the bleachers.
Why do we have to line up? And why alphabetically? Jayden wondered. Why can’t we just start playing already?
The coach held a clipboard with all of their names, and he looked from one end of the line to the other before beginning.
“Adams, T?”
“Here,” said Travis.
Oh, boy, thought Jayden. One more, then me.
“Benjamin, Q?”
“I’m here,” said Quinn.
A voice at the other end of the line said, almost too low to hear, “Here it comes.”
Another boy said, “This is just too funny.”
After the coach had marked that Quinn was present, he looked up and said, “Blue, J?”
Almost everyone chuckled, some more loudly than others, until the coach gave everyone a stern look. They quieted down, but Jayden knew that the damage had been done. Another dose of laughter at his expense. Like every other time.
He raised his hand.
Coach Kurt looked at him and though he seemed sympathetic, he always stuck to his rules.
“I can’t hear you, Jayden.”
“Tweet,” said someone farther down the line.
More laughter.
Jayden cleared his throat and said, “Here.”
“Finney, G?”
Oh, it’s about time, thought Jayden. Let’s get through that list!
“Right here, coach,” said George.
He knew the other boys liked him well enough. They weren’t being mean. But they sure were having fun with his name. He wondered if he’d ever like hearing anything from a bird.
Their history and English classes had gone by without incident, and Jayden and Raylene kept each other company for visits to their lockers. Dressed for the frigid weather, they left the building.
On the bus ride home, again sitting with Raylene, Jayden took a deep breath and sighed.
“Hey, Rayl. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, Jay. What?”
“Do you think my name is funny?”
She leaned back and looked into his brown eyes for a second or two. She sat back against the seat.
“Jayden Blue is a nice name. Why? Oh, you mean because of the blue jay stuff?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Should I stop calling you Jay?”
“No, I like that name. I know you don’t mean anything by it.”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t think I’m a bird, do you?”
She laughed and bumped her shoulder into him, causing him to laugh too.
“That’s silly. No. You’re not a bird.”
“I don’t think so either.”
She wiped at her window with a mitten, smearing the wetness around.
“Those boys are just being dumb, Jay. They’ll get over that.”
“Yeah, but when? All through seventh grade? Then eighth? Then―”
“Jay, no! They’ll get bored with it soon. You watch.”
“I hope so,” he said, and blew out a long breath, letting his lips flutter.
“You know, Jay, maybe it’s too cold to go sledding today.”
“I think you’re right. You can still come over, can’t you?”
“Of course. I’ll just drop my books at home. Besides, Halo would miss me too much.”
Jayden smiled before turning toward her, and he said, “Yeah, he would. How could he not?”
Chapter 3 – A Whole World out There
Jayden swung in the front door, and his eyes immediately aimed toward the couch. Two lazy cats stared back at him.
“Welcome home, Honey,” his mother said as she turned toward him and gave him a smile. She wore jeans and a t-shirt and a ball cap.
“It’s done?” he said. “It’s all dry?”
“It sure is. Do you like the color?”
She posed like a model, with both palms raised to one side, then the other.
“Yeah, it looks good. So, you’re all done?”
“Almost. You caught me gathering up all the masking tape everywhere. Your cats have been no help at all.”
She paused with her hands on her hips, she and Jayden looking at two cats whose eyes seemed synchronized—taking turns studying them in unison.
“They kept you company, at least.”
“That’s true.”
She turned toward the side window and poked around at the bottom left corner. With a few scratches of her fingernail, she’d pried up the edge of the masking tape, and she pulled it away from the woodwork.
Jayden dropped his backpack near the closet and watched.
Although it was actually many shorter pieces of tape, they’d all become stuck together and came off of the wall in one long piece. Mrs. Blue pulled the partially-painted strip up along the left, then across the top, then down the right, then along the bottom. She balled it all up and tossed it onto the pile that she’d been building.
“Perfect. I like how that zipped all the way around. We should do something about those shrubs, though, don’t you think?”
The bushes on the outside were horribly overgrown, and all they could see from the inside was a wall of green.
“Maybe just cut a hole to see through? Let the sunlight in?”
She laughed and said, “I love that imagination of yours, Jay. We’ll see what your father thinks about that.”
Jayden called out from the living room.
“Hey, Mom, what time is Dad getting home?”
“Like usual, Honey,” she said from the kitchen. “Probably around 5:00.”
He and Raylene sat on the couch, the television on but neither of them watching it. Hex and Halo lay between them, purring from all of the attention they were getting.
“How did that game of yours ever start?” she said. “You know, that thing where they kind of hunt you when you’re leaving?”
“Oh, that. It started back before we got Hex. I think it was because I spoiled Halo too much. One time, I got up from sitting here with him, and he didn’t like it one bit. I’m sure he was frowning.”
“Cats don’t frown, Jay.”
“Halo sure does. He followed me to the door, and he was pawing at me the whole way.”
“That’s cute. You still left, though, right?”
“Yeah, it was time to go to school—the bus was out front. After I closed the door, I heard him scratching at it on the inside.”
“I bet you went back in, then, right?”
“Yeah, I did but only for a few seconds. How did you know?”
“I bet that’s what did it. He learned somehow that he could make you stay. Does that make sense, Jay? He learned how to make you stay?”
“I think you’re right. Anyway, it never stopped. He started running at me and jumping on me. And when we got Hex, he must have learned it from Halo.”
“It’s cute. Do you ever make it out? Can you even be that quiet?”
He grinned and shook his head.
“Today was the closest I’ve ever come.”
“Uh-oh. My fault,” she said with a smile.
“That’s alright. Can I tell you a secret?”
“Well, sure. What?”
“I like it when they catch me anyway. They’re good cats.”
She only smiled at him and nodded, then looked down at Halo, on his back and getting his belly rubbed.
“Hey,” he said, “let’s go outside, alright?”
“Sledding?”
“No, I just want to look at something. Come on.”
She opened her eyes wide when she saw that Halo had wrapped both arms around her hand.
“Halo won’t let me,” she said with a giggle.
“Tell him we won’t be gone long.”
“Halo, dear,” she said, her face close enough to be tickled by his lengthy whiskers, one of his paws gently touching her cheek, “I’m going outside. I promise I’ll come back.”
He dropped his paw and stared up at her.
“See?” Jayden said with a smile, pointing at Halo. “That’s his frowning face.”
She laughed and sat back up.
“So, Jay, what are we out here for? It really is cold.”
They stood on the porch as if waiting for their bus. They’d put on their thick coats, gloves and mittens and hats, and with her hood up, Raylene’s hair was nowhere to be seen.
“Well, it is January.”
“Yeah, Jay. In Nebraska too.”
Jayden felt his feet already getting cold in his sneakers.
He leaned toward her and bumped shoulders, then said, “Come on. Let’s go to the sidewalk.”
“Through all that snow?”
Jayden laughed and said, “Unless we can fly.”
He led the way, and she followed him, both trying to step into their footprints from earlier in the day. At the sidewalk, they stopped, and Jayden looked up into the trees above them.
“See, Rayl? We can look up, right?”
She looked where he was pointing.
“Well, yeah. Of course. So?”
Patches of blue sky were visible between the thick boughs, but night was approaching and with it, a deeper freeze.
He pointed across the street.
“Okay, now look over there.”
She looked across the street at a row of two-story houses, all mostly the same as on their side, but with fewer trees near their sidewalk.
“Yeah. Our neighbors’ houses. The snow’s really piling up on them.”
“And you can see them, right? You can look right at them?”
She turned to look at him, her eyebrows raised high.
“Jay, what are you talking about? I’ve seen those houses a million times. Even just when I look out my bedroom window.”
Both starting to shiver from the cold wind, they turned enough to face each other.
“That bird, today. It was up there,”—he pointed up, still holding her gaze—“and then, it flew toward us on the porch. Remember?”
“I don’t get it. Yeah. It was a crow, probably.”
“Well, where did it go? Don’t you wonder?”
“It probably went over your house, Jay. So what?”
“Can you point to where it went?”
She squinted her eyes at him and shook her head. Without looking, she pointed a mitten toward his house, her arm angled up.
“There, Jay. That’s probably where it flew.”
He turned to look, his eyes drawn immediately to their footprints in the snow.
Looking farther up, he saw his porch, no roof to keep snow from mounding up on it, and the lights through the two windows of their living room.
He looked higher and saw the second floor windows for the two bedrooms up there.
With a low groan, he tried to look at the roof and whatever was above it. He couldn’t.
He couldn’t make his eyes look there.
“I can’t see it, Rayl. I can’t.”
“Well, Jay, it’s gone. That bird flew away a long time ago. That was way before school!”
“But, Rayl, I can’t see it. I’m trying, and I can’t make myself.”
“Maybe it’ll come back tomorrow, Jay? If it’s so important, you can see it then?”
He gave up on looking in that direction and again looked into her brown eyes.
“No, you don’t understand. I’m trying, but I can’t even talk about it.”
She nodded slowly when she spoke to him.
“I really do think it was a crow. I’m cold, Jay. Let’s go inside, and we can look up crows, alright? I think that’s what it was.”
“Yeah, probably, but I can’t explain something that I—”
“Jay, I’m cold. Come on. I miss Halo too.”
She tugged on his arm to get him started, and they crunched through the snow that was getting crustier as night fell and the temperatures began a quick countdown.