Call Spirits in Your Past **Book Two**

Chapter 17 (Wednesday)

"How could you possibly think that?" Kwayo exclaimed from his bed.

Ana's lip twitched. "I'm telling you, teddy bear girl, or whatever her name is, has a giant, invisible creature following her around."

"But how?" Kwayo exclaimed again.

Ana looked to Dryda, in the chair by Kwayo's bed, for support. Dryda just blinked in reply.

Ana sighed. "Okay. So. I started following her around after lunch," she didn't mention her conversation with Teremki. Or the part where she'd left early from melon picking. Teremki and insect-boy were using both the knives, so she'd been somewhat useless anyway. "She has a surprising amount of freedom. Other than maybe Ghost or Asha, no one bothered watching her at all."

"I would like that," Dryda said, staring at her red, scraped up hands. "I don't much like hammering roof eaves."

"She just skipped through the town with that teddy bear of hers, sometimes stopping on a patio to play house or something. But then," she paused for dramatic effect, but Kwayo just grumbled. "She sat in one of the open intersections. And things started appearing in the dirt."

"And?" Dryda prompted.

"Well..." her gaze flicked to the ceiling. "Lines appeared, and little circles, like it was an arena. Or game field. She watched all of it happen, then marched into one of the bigger circles. And then she started...wrestling?" she paused. "She floated sometimes, and growled a lot."

"And how does that equal giant invisible creature?" Kwayo asked. "That sounds more like...I don't know. Sand manipulation? Plus flying?"

"After a while, she left," Ana continued, "and erased all the sand drawings. But I walked over the area, and found this," she concentrated, making an illusion over the floor of the sandy intersection, and forming the paw print right in front of Dryda.

Dryda bent over to study the floor. "It looks like a bear. Only, it's got six claws."

Ana squinted. "Okay, maybe that's not completely accurate. I don't remember how many claws it had," she let the illusion disappear. "But still, it was a paw print."

"Wait, make that again," Kwayo told her.

Ana stared at him. "What's that going to do? I just told you I don't remember how many claws it had."

"Just, make it again," he repeated.

She sighed, but made the paw reappear. "Is that good? Or should I make a whole set on your sheets?"

Kwayo frowned at his boring beige bed sheets. "You know, I didn't think I'd end up in a hospital bed again so soon."

"Really?" she asked. And, since he didn't say no, she made a bunch of sandy paw prints all over the cream pillow and bed frame.

"I've just spent an awful lot of time lying in one of these."

Dryda nodded seriously. "You have. Maybe, Kwayo, you should stop getting hurt so much."

Kwayo glared at her.

"Anyway..." Ana said.

"Right, yeah," Kwayo traced one of the paw prints with his finger. "Ana, I'm pretty sure her creature actually has six claws. You made every single one of these the same. And they all have six claws."

Ana groaned. "I don't think that proves anything."

"But also, this looks like a panda's foot," he grimaced. "Shapeshifting's really hard right now, but do you see these two little nubs at the base?"