But I wouldn’t have long to question things. I grabbed Tippy, pulled her close. Even though I had been infused with the deer’s strength, I could feel it waning. I wanted to be ready.
From the broken window, I could hear the wind. Calling my name.
Beckoning.
We rose, the two of us. Tippy and I were a team. Where I went, she would follow. No force on earth or otherwise could ever keep us apart again. I would make sure of it.
I opened the door. Walked onto the snowless porch, down the cement stairs. Didn’t even say goodbye to the house as we made our way through the side yard and out toward the field.
Wind whipped around me, wound itself in my hair, danced along my cheeks. I could hear it whispering to me, letting me know that it had missed me as well. That the Earth Herself had mourned while I had been locked away.
Behind me, the structure burst into flame. Fire licked up its sides, a giant campfire lighting up the winter landscape. The blaze reflected in Tippy’s eye, making it look like the deformity in my own.
We walked into the darkness. Through the graveyard of obliterated corn stalks. Past the stream, the safe spot where our friends, the deer hunkered down, and to Mr. Wyckoli’s house, his light still on, the cackle of his television set invading the silence of the night.
I paused. Wanted to say something to the poor guy, tell him why we had stopped coming over, why we had abandoned him.
Instead I watched his program through his dirty kitchen window. Saw the glittery ball as it dropped on its annual countdown. Listened as the crowd roared with excitement, welcoming the New Year. The new millennium.
The new me.
The End
The Eye Unseen Page 27