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Now his words filledas I livedeven if I never laid eyes on hiain

Natty watched curiously I’d never told her what itthe fireflies, although that part was no great mystery I’m sure she knew their link to the abductions, the saht before the aliens ca around her flushed cheeks She glanced up through the wispy curtain and I saw her eyes--sharp the way they were--studyingI hadn’t realized at first, and still didn’t always recognize

On Siold flecks I thought they were just unusual at first, but Natty told e, they were unnatural

Natty had the at all, her eyes They were hazel, which sounded ordinary enough to say: hazel A color that could never decide whether it was green or brown or gold or even blue On so

On Natty, that

It happened sometimes, she’d told me, to the Returned Our eye colors wereenhanced The sahter Bolder

Unnatural

Like Jett’s, which alether, or a kaleidoscope

I didn’t see it on Willow or Thom Their eyes just seemed ordinary, but maybe that was only me Maybe if I’d known them before, I’d notice it now Maybe their eyes were more vibrant now than before either of them had been taken When they’d both beennormal

It took a while, but I could see it in thefor I almost couldn’t believe my parents hadn’t noticed it too Or if they had, that they hadn’t said anything

Five years, I had to re time Maybe they’d just wantedto overlook anything that made ot a otten how quickly news traveled in a camp of fewer than a hundred people

But because there was still this strange divide between Simon’s people, which I was considered part of, and their caed to, I wondered how ossip Soame Telephone we played as kids, where someone started a rumor, but by the time it reached the last person, it had been repeated soelse entirely

I thought of the way Si about our plans just yet "I--uhyeah" Way to be subtle, I thought I glanced at the clock and my heartbeat settled It always calmed me to know the time

At first, back when I’d realized I had a problem, I’d tried to convince myself that my preoccupation with the ti myself in the present But I couldn’t lie, at least not to one way past idle curiosity It consue chunks of my day I went out ofthat had the time--so I could seton the brink of neurosis