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Soon afterthe corridor, stopping outside Corrine’s door I placedHer voice was low, h the thick wood it was hard toto herself, perhaps in her sleep, or to someone else possibly in the room with her
I pushed the door open I winced as it creaked, expecting Corrine to come to the door But when she continued to talk, I slipped into the room My eyes fell on the bed
She lay beneath the covers, her eyes shut She continued to mutter to herself Her face was contorted in pain and her head rolled fro my ears, but I couldn’t make sense of her words
I stood at the foot of her bed and stared down at her "Corrine?" I whispered
She continued htmare
I was about to turn and leave when her eyes shot wide open She began lifting her head off the pillow and throwing it back Slowly at first and then an chanting a single word over and over At first it was indistinct, like the rest of her s, but the syllables became distinct
"Mikau," she said, her brows furrowed "Mikau"
"What?"
"No!" she shrieked
My jaw dropped as she began to levitate above the bed Her body lay flat as she lifted off theoff her She floated in the air toward me I ducked as she passed over me Once she was about a foot away from the table, she fell to the floor
Even after her fall, she didn’t seem to wake up She scrambled to her feet and ran to her book case She threw open the glass doors so forcefully one of them shattered, and her hands fell upon the black book I’d seen her reading earlier She staggered back over to the table and slammed it down She drew up a chair and picked up a pen I hurried over and looked over her shoulder
Her fingers flipped through the pages so fast, their contents were a blur She stopped finally about a quarter of the way through the book That hen I realized what it was An atlas
Her finger began tracing a map I leant down closer as her pen hovered over a black circle that was obviously hand-drawn It was so thick, she must have traced over it with ink at least a dozen ti the back of her chair
She scraped her chair back just as I was trying to read the small text, and I was forced to step away She climbed back into bed and pulled the covers over her She closed her eyes and began snoring
I stared back down at the atlas, finally able to get close enough to read the writing This whole page was a map of Waianae, Hawaii The black circle surrounded a tiny dot along a beach I squinted to read thenext to it
"Mikau Cave"