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As I lay wondering about things I didn’t want to wonder about, I heard a scratching sound under my bed Had Arte but grew louder the longer I lay there It wasn’t like a dog pawing, butto claw through it Then again, that could just bethe better ofunder end for me Next I would hear a drip only to discover it was the blood ofdead from a tree Luckily, I had no trees in ht, Hey, a tree would add a nice touch

No, I didn’t need to think about things like that at the

I inched to the side, leaned over it slowly, and pulled up the bed skirt A set of huge blue eyes stared back at th I had not to screa aze She looked about seven, judging by the size of her eyes and the shape of her round cheeks She was lying on her back, scratching the wood that heldover her eyes, partially obstructing her view Her childlike face was dirty, her hair completely covered in a slick, oily , but she looked absolutely frantic She clawed at the ith a panicked aggression Her eyes wide, searching She was terrified Period She wanted out of wherever she was

"Hi," I said as softly as I could She didn’t h trying to escape, and ernails were jagged and broken They wouldn’t have broken on my bed The dearly departed coernails were frayed and broken, it happened while she was still alive But she kept clawing anyway, splintering the ith her nails, trying frantically to get out of wherever it was she was trapped

I climbed off my bed and lay flat on the floor beside her

"Honey," I said, reaching out, hoping to ease her fears

She paused, but only for a ure out what I was or what I was doing there Then she went back to clawing

Angel, ator and partner in cri I reached under the bed and putthe boards under my bed, but she did seeain, only with less of a frenzied panic She clawed absently at the board in front of her face

She had a pixie face with a bow-shaped e eyes I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had wings If pixies did exist, I was fairly certain they would look exactly like her

Because I didn’t knohat to do for her, I stayed beside her the rest of the night with my hand on her shoulder I fell asleep that way, on the floor So hours, Artemis had joinedturns with her I didn’tup with a ninety-pound dog on ht think I liked air I liked to breathe withouton fire So when I woke up with Arteid body like ice, the fact that I was shivering should not have been surprising Normally I was under the safety of covers when she slept with me The floor did not conduct heat well

Then I relanced under the bed The girl was still there, only she had scooted to the corner farthest away from me and lay curled into herself, her knees on the floor, her eyes peering out from underneath her dirty hair And she was lovely With the sun peeking over the horizon and casting a soft glow in the rooht I could see the departed in any light, but the darker the area, the grayer the departed became Now I could see the blond hair beneath the mud more clearly The crystal depths of her blue eyes

My hand was still under the bed and there was soments of wood from where she’d scratched I rolled over onto my side This , and od, Artes," I said to the pixie She didn’t seeed to settle onto coax her closer To coax her to cross

Then I heard breathing, panting, and not from Artemis I rolled onto my knees and looked over htstand and leopard skin floor lairl, only this one was older She looked about nineteen, but she was very similar to the pixie Matted blond hair, slick oily own Her bare feet were covered in scratches, as though she’d fought back, kicking at soirls were related Then I noticed ligature marks on her neck I hadn’t seen them on the pixie, but her hair and position had et a probable cause of death of this one at least She had been strangled, and judging by the broken blood vessels in her eyes and the swollen face, that was very likely the way she’d died

Arte under the bed I orried she would scare the pixie Instead, the girl seemed fascinated by her Her features softened and she almost smiled Almost