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"The fate of false prophets is death," Nerezza said "But you are the true Prophetess And you will be protected by your faith Believe, and you will be safe Make others believe, and you will live"

Orsay stared in horror What was Nerezza talking about? What was she saying? Who were these people ere telling lies about her? And ould threaten her? She wasn’t doing anything wrong

Was she?

Nerezza called out in a loud voice tinged with iirl ca her doll, holding on to it for all it orth

"Sing for the Prophetess," Nerezza ordered

"What song should I sing?"

"It doesn’t really :

Sunny days…

And Orsay stopped thinking of anything but sunny, sunny days

TWELVE

45 HOURS, 36 MINUTES

HUNTER HAD BECOME a creature of the night It was the only way Aniht Opossuest prize of all: deer The coyotes hunted at night, and Hunter had learned froo after in the daytiht was the tie ide, froe of tohere raccoons and deer caardens, to the dry lands, where snakes andthe shoreline he could kill birds, gulls, and terns And once, he had bagged a lost sea lion

He had responsibilities, Hunter did He wasn’t just Hunter, he was the hunter

He knew the tords were the saer spell the word

Hunter’s head didn’t work the way it used to He knew that He could feel it He hada very different life He hadhis hand in a classroom to answer a hard question

Hunter would not have those answers now The answers he did have, he couldn’t really explain ords There were things he knew, things about the way you could tell if a rabbit was going to run or stand still Whether a deer could smell you or hear you or not

But if he tried to explain…words didn’t coht It kind of didn’t have any feeling in it Like one side of his face wasn’t anything but a slab of deadspread into his brain But the strangeheat wherever he wanted, that remained

He couldn’t talk very well, or think very well, or form a real smile, but he could hunt He had learned to walk quiet He had learned to keep the breeze in his face And he knew that in the night, in the darkest hours, the deer would head toward the cabbage field, drawn there despite the killer wor that stepped foot in one of their home fields without permission

The deer, they weren’t that smart Not even as s on the balls of his feet, feeling through his worn boots for the twig or loose rock that would give him away He moved as quietly as a coyote