The Other Ones
Prologue
Preparations
"In the day you see us not,
we sleep in shadows beneath your bed.
In the dark is when we wake
to sprinkle nightmares on your head."
the rat sang the words softly into the ear of a hooded figure.
"Be quiet! I need to concentrate!" snapped the girl under the hood. It was cold and dark in the forest that night, and a light fog had settled in on the place making the trees and other foliage appear to glow eerily. The girl knelt to the ground and dug her right hand into the wet soil, sinking her arm down as far as the earth would allow.
"Send this likeness to the other world," she muttered, then pulled her hand out of the ground. As if in response a wind blew causing a stick to break off a branch and land in the hole the girl had made with her hand. The girl carefully covered the hole with dirt and sighed.
"What now?" the rat asked.
"Now we wait," said the girl.
"And if the others find out?"
"They wont,"
"Not unless they have an inside source,"
"If you tell any of them I'll break your legs and leave you for whatever should come and find you," the girl's voice was calm and steady, a monotone that kept all emotion locked within her being. With a last look at the place where a hole had once been she turned and walked silently back the way she came, the only evidence of her being there was the dirt on her arm. But, of course, that could be washed off.