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My heart stops.Don’t say its name, Claudia!
I didn’t. I only thought it.
The First Nations kids at my school taught me well. Never say its name. Never whistle at night. And if you hear something weird in the woods at night, no you fucking didn’t.
Granted, that was about all kinds of bad things that go bump in the night, and I didn’t know what all applied to the Wendigo specifically, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Immediately, I stopped looking for it and put my eyes on my lap.
I also remember how they described it. A gray death pallor, bones pressing against decaying, shriveled skin. Thin, bloody lips and suppurating sores covering its emaciated body.
They said it’s the embodiment of greed. Of consuming hunger and malevolence. That’s why it’s eating us. It can never get enough.
Claudia’s voice in my head trembles with fear.He’s quite a feat of magical lore to behold. I imagine this is what I was meant to see. The cards wanted me to see how belief creates both monsters and heroes.
I didn’t know what she was going on about.
Do you believe in yourself, Omega 1?
I—what?It’s getting harder to keep my eyes on my lap and not on the battlefield in front of me. On Drago collecting power one by one as the Wendigo bides its time, hidden in the tree line.
Do you believe in yourself, Willa?
I guess? Why? What are you—
You’re going to have to make a choice, love. I pray you make the right one.
What does that mean, Claudia? I don’t like cryptic shit.
She doesn’t answer me, and the weight of her hands on my shoulders disappears.
No. No, no, no! Whatever you’re about to do, don’t!
She doesn’t answer, and I twist behind Jonah and Rafe, trying to see through their legs and beyond Claudia’s cloaking spell.
But it’s too late. Claudia’s already made it to the middle of the clearing when she sheds her cloaking spell and lets out the loudest, longest dog-whistle.
“Claudia!” I scream, reaching out to her despite the distance between us. “Stop it! Don’t draw attention—”
“Ever tasted a witch, Wendigo? We’re like nothing you can even imagine.”
Why? Why are you taunting it? Stop making yourself a goddamn target, Claudia, and get your narrow ass back here!
Claudia chuckles lightly in my head.This is why it’s always cryptic, babe. If the cards told me everything all at once, I’d chicken out. Tell my sisters I went out like a fucking badass.
Claudia!
Her body lifts off the ground and disappears, and I’m screaming.
I can’t hold it back.
Why would she do this? She was safe. The only one of us to have a fucking cloaking spell.
She’s gone a long time. Longer than any of the wolves. So long, my screams give way to hope. Had Wendigo carried her away to wherever it came from?
Had she saved the rest of us from it? Given up her life to distract it?
The hope dissolves like shadows in moonlight as Claudia falls back to the clearing with a sickly crunch.
