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We’re halfway through the song when I realize that Bri has been replaced by a steady purr She’s curled herself into a tiny ball in Daphne’s hands Daphne smiles down at her

I suddenly feel jealous of the cat

I haven’t dared to addit I don’t even kno to sing, but as the song rounds into the final lines, the warulfsinside ofits way out to meet it I cannot help myself My voice crackles at first and is barely audible, but when Daphne turns her s with hers Our voices ring together, and for a h I am free Even freer than I felt in the Tesla Freer than owls soaring fro with Daphne, alo Finally, she lets the note fall and I end the song

I pullatto soh the music has stopped

"What is it?" I ask her

"Huh I didn’t think you had an inner song, Haden Lord," she says softly "I guess I rong"

I have had five lessons with Daphne in the last teeks Each one starts almost the same as the first She peppers me with questions about my family and my past until she becoive her, and eventually sheBri effect on Daphne, who lets her sit on her knee as we play

Myquite nicely, thanks to Daphne’s gifted hands She has even let me play the piano in her father’s studio a couple of ti to hold on to

It is late in the evening I am headed back to Sis happily to uitar that Daphne has sent me home with to practice It’s an ebony black Stratacoustic from her father’s collection "Believe one Besides, he owes me one," she’d said I think of how her hands had brushed e that leads to the school, taking a shortcut to Simon’s, when the smell of sulfur permeates my senses Brim catches the scent also and jue, following the scent

"Stop!" I shout But she doesn’t listen Harpies I hitch up the guitar and take off after her, thinking of the consequences of letting a hellcat get loose near a school

I don’t have to go far before I find her Thankfully, she’s just standing on the back end of a parked car,behind the vehicle That is when I see it

The body

She lies on the ground behind a crop of bushes just beyond the parking lot, her hair splayed out around her head like a brown halo Gashes cover her ar

This time, the Keres has done ht out of her I wonder how the town officials will try to explain away this death

I can’t tell what set the Keres off at first, why it had gone after her in the first place, but then I notice a se on the woer frorowing stronger

Its thirst for blood isit bolder