Forest of Riddles (Reverse Falls, S1)

FF: Part Eight

Pacifica's eyes glazed over a page in her mystery book as she sat on the couch. With an irritated sigh, she blinked a few times and tried to read the page again, but to no avail. Gideon's chicken was being too annoying.

It was after dinner, and both cousins were in the living room. Pacifica sat on the couch, and Gideon was seated on the floor, watching Clucks the chicken run around the room.

Pacifica absolutely hated it when she couldn't focus on a book. And she couldn't focus on her mystery book at all, only because Clucks was clucking very loudly and pecking on everything.

She'd have to live with a chicken now.

This was going to be an experience.

She imagined hanging out with all her homeschool friends after the spring and then they'd ask her what happened on her break. "Oh, nothing," Pacifica would say. "Déjà vu. Had to work. My cousin somehow won a pet chicken."

Gideon noticed that Pacifica was staring at Clucks instead of reading her book. "Gave up on your book?"

"Only 'cause your chicken is being too loud," Pacifica said.

"Sorry, but I dunno how to get her to stop."

"Have you tried feeding her?"

"Ooh, good idea," Gideon said under his breath. He got to his feet, scooped Clucks into his arms, and ran out of the living room, calling, "Aunt Priss, do we have something to feed Clucks?"

Pacifica shook her head to herself. She reached for her book but then realized that, to her great annoyance, she couldn't remember where she had left off.

With a grumble, she tossed her book onto the sofa. It wasn't worth it to read something at this point.

She got off the sofa and wandered out of the living room. It was almost seven, and the sky was just starting to turn into a dusky dark blue. With this knowledge, she set off for her room for no reason in particular.

Once she got to her room, however, she was struck with an inspiration to do something creative. To . . . write poems.

She somehow wanted to write poems.

Hadn't she written a bunch of poems when she was younger? In fact - yes, it felt familiar! She didn't know how, but it somehow tied into the feeling she felt whenever she got déjà vu and thought something looked or sounded familiar. She didn't know why she had stopped writing poems.

Or, come to think of it, why she had stopped baking with her mother, too.

With a determined air, she hunted down a pencil and her notepad and then sat cross-legged on her bed, staring off into space as she thought of an idea. After a couple minutes, she started to scribble down the beginnings of a poem.

A few lines of her poem later, she had written:

Stuck in a house with nothing to do

Too many options, too many too few

Baking was fun, but it didn't last

You can only do it so long before it's in the past

Now you're in your room, hearing the squawks of a chicken

What a strange house this is to live in.

A smile appeared on her expression. Clucks was invading her creativity, it seemed.