Della stood back and continued to stare. Kylie cupped her hands around the blue jay. She'd healed Sara. Was it possible that she might be able to...?
Kylie closed her eyes and tried to think healing thoughts.
The bird started quivering. Kylie opened her hands and its wings spread. Its feathers, a bright royal blue and white, caught a spray of sunshine and shimmered in the light, then the bird lunged to its feet and flew away. Kylie watched it disappear into the tops of the trees, her emotions ambivalent. On the one hand, she'd given something life, and that was cool. On the other ... Well, it was just too freaky.
"Did you do what I think you did?" Della asked. "Did you just bring that dead bird back to life?"
Kylie looked up. "I'm not sure." Suddenly silence filled the forest. The spirit's words echoed in Kylie's head. They're coming.
The lack of noise seemed ominous.
She looked at Della. "Can you sense anyone here?"
Della sniffed the air. "No. But it's too damn quiet."
"We should go," Kylie whispered.
"You don't have to ask me twice." Della tore out.
Kylie was right behind her, hoping to outrun the silence, the feeling of danger, and another startling realization about her powers.
* * *
"You sure it was dead?" Holiday asked.
"I didn't listen to its heartbeat." Kylie paced the small office. "But do birds regularly fall out of trees unconscious?"
Holiday bit back a smile. "I don't think so."
For some reason, this news didn't seem near as startling to her camp leader as it did to Kylie.
Kylie, still winded from her run, had left the woods and come straight to find Holiday. Della, who took the job of shadowing seriously, waited outside.
"The ghost was there. Do you think her presence did this? Maybe it had nothing to do with me. The bird came back to life when she left. So maybe it was just her."
"It could be. However, I've never heard of a ghost's presence killing wildlife, even temporarily. Maybe the bird was just stunned. Maybe all this is a clue."
"To what?" Kylie asked, frustrated.
"Her identity, maybe."
Kylie stopped in front of the desk. "How is a bird dying going to tell me who she is?"
"Sometimes the spirits have crazy ways of communicating."
Kylie rolled a few things around her already confused mind, and then she remembered. "Jane Doe has no brain pattern. Nothing. It's blank."
"Blank?" This time Holiday appeared genuinely puzzled.
"Yeah. I kept trying to refocus, thinking I was ... just not seeing it right. Because I thought we all had brain patterns, like fingerprints." Kylie dropped in the chair across from the camp leader.
"I've never seen one that's blank, but..."
"I think she's supernatural." Kylie chewed on the side of her lip.
"Why would you think that?"
"Because she knew about the death angels."