Deer in South Carolina must have a tough life. Hunters shoot at them and send dogs to chase them for five months every year. Whenever they aren't trying to dodge bullets, they're running from other predators such as bobcats and coyotes, just like the coyote that was terrorizing the little cul-de-sac I lived on. It had already killed two cats, threatened a dog, and destroyed plenty of trash cans. Although the cul-de-sac was located on a lone road in the middle of the woods, the few people residing on the sac were afraid it would hurt their pets and younger children.

So, my neighbor, Johnny took the responsibility of hunting it down himself. Johnny had been my closest friend since we went to church together as toddlers. We went to school together since preschool and we even tried to form a relationship which just turned out to be a fake summer romance. Besides, other friends of mine sincerely liked him and I wasn't about to keep them from him. He didn't want to go alone, but instead of asking one of his hunting buddies to go with him, he asked me. He considered me before anyone else because of the unique "gifts" that I possessed. I enjoyed going deer hunting with him, but I didn't realize agreeing to hunt a coyote with him meant waking up at four in the morning.

My limbs were spread out lazily all over my couch with my eyes closed as Johnny rummaged through my kitchen for Lord knows what. The spacious house allowed him to occasionally yell out at me, asking if we had tea or chips or Moon Pies, even though I could've heard him perfectly fine without him yelling. "Hey, Marie! Do y'all have any batteries?" he shouted in a distinct Southern accent.

"For what?" I shouted back.

"For the flashlight."

"What do you need a flashlight for?" my voice rose in annoyance. I wasn't a morning person and Johnny's plundering wasn't helping my mood.

"We might need it later tonight."

"You're trippin' if you think I'm staying out there all day and night," I mumbled loud enough that he could hear.

Despite how dark it was outside, it wouldn't be dark for long and I could see much better in the dark than Johnny. My superior sight was apart of the gifts I'd been born with. No human could smell or hear what I could. My senses were even better than those of Bloodhounds. Unlike Bloodhounds, or even German Shepherds, I also had abnormal speed and strength. They probably weren't as impressive as Superman, but I had lifted a car far enough off the ground to stick a lever under it.

Nobody knew about my abilities besides my mother and Johnny. I never told Johnny. He figured it out himself when we would play football together as kids. Eventually he noticed that normal little girls weren't supposed to be as powerful as full-grown linebackers. As for Momma, she was the only other person I knew with similar gifts.

Momma did what she could to make us seem normal, though it was much harder being normal Americans when we spoke fluent Japanese despite our obvious European-American appearance. We were both tan blondes with large, strikingly blue eyes. Yet, Momma taught me Japanese just as she taught me English. I noticed that she had a bit of an accent when I was younger, but it disappeared after a few years. Sometimes we spoke Japanese at home or when we needed to say something private in public.

Nobody else spoke Japanese. Everyone around us learned Spanish or French. I picked up some Spanish being around so many Hispanics and I decided to take French since I needed a foreign language to graduate and get into college. French was the only thing offered at my school other than Spanish and Latin. French was the most appealing to me since Momma claimed we were part French. I wasn't sure if we were or not, but the language sounded so romantic to me—much more than Japanese or English.

Then, I met someone else who spoke Japanese. A girl named Alicia moved from Japan into the house next to ours when I was eleven. She was a year older than me, but she was placed in our class since she started school a year later. We quickly became best friends, especially since my knowledge of her first language brought us closer.

Alicia didn't have super powers, but she told me that she was found in a well as a baby and she didn't know her parents. Her adopted parents confirmed her story for me. I could relate somewhat since I never knew my own father, but being found in a well was pretty different. The couple that adopted her was stationed in Japan and had just moved back to the states. She taught me more modern Japanese about technology and slang whereas Momma spoke in an older, more proper dialect. Alicia looked more Japanese than we did with dark hair and fair skin, but she had beautifully large, dark blue eyes that seemed more Hispanic than Asian. She was gorgeous.

What's more, Alicia didn't have a scent. Everyone had a scent, including Momma and me. But, Alicia didn't smell like anything. When she put on clothes, the scent of cotton or polyester disappeared. I couldn't even smell her shampoo or perfume while humans could. She proudly asked me to smell her hair or her hands after she put on new hair or body products from Bath & Body. It bothered me sometimes, but I kept telling myself that it wasn't weird for me not to smell Alicia. It was weird that I could smell the scent of everyone around her.

Alicia wasn't the one that was weird, it was Momma and me. The Japanese sword hanging on the wall above the loveseat across from my couch reminded me of our strangeness. Momma called it a "katana" and she went out of her way to keep telling me and my friends not to touch it. It seemed harmless enough with dust on the sheath and rust on the blade. The guests we have at our house comment on how interesting a decoration it is until they see the blue beads. She seems like she's joking when she answers their questions with, "They're blessed beads to keep the evil spirit that possesses the sword dormant." However, she once scolded me, saying never to touch it, when she caught me trying to pull them off the sword when I was younger.

My eyes flickered open and close as I tried to struggle to stay awake until a loud bang from the kitchen startled me. "What the hell are you doing?" I asked Johnny with my brows furrowed, shuffling slowly into the kitchen.

Johnny came out of the walk-in pantry just after stuffing something onto a shelf. "Nothing," he answered innocently. "Let's go."


I expected to get soaked with the awful hurricane that had just hit the day before. Hurricane Cameron had been the worst hurricane that tore through South Carolina in seventeen years. Parts of houses were scattered in yards and on the streets, and trees were destroyed. Johnny decided that the day after would be a good time to go hunting since the wind and rain washed away any distracting scents. Despite that I told him that the storm could have killed it or drove it away, he wanted to be sure.

After Johnny sprayed some type of urine at the base of the tree supporting our stand to attract the coyote, he climbed up into the stand with me. With nowhere else to rest my head, I leaned it against his shoulder with some of his shaggy, blond hair sticking me in my face. The August air was hot, even in the dark under a blanket of trees with a puddle of water seeping through my denim shorts. The water was warm and soothing rather than cool and refreshing. All I bothered to put on that morning was a black T-shirt, dark Daisy Dukes, and a pair of waterproof Sperries on my feet. I would have worn comfortable, cool Rainbows, but I knew better to wear flip-flops in the woods.

The patch of forest we settled in was right behind my house with hundreds of acres of swampland further in the woods. As kids, the woods behind our houses were where we played while other kids had swing sets and slides. Simply walking into the woods a few yards left us with little scrapes and bruises that could barely be seen. When Alicia came along, or anyone who didn't know our woods, we had a blast luring them into the trees and scaring the life out of them. The fun we had was worth all the trouble we got into. Momma never liked us playing in the forest. I didn't tell her I was going hunting with Johnny. I figured I would just do it and she could deal with me after she got home from working at the hospital, then I would blame Johnny. It was payback for dragging me out of bed so early in the morning.

"Don't go to sleep," he whispered as quietly as he could, his awful morning breath causing my nose to wrinkle.

"I'm not going to sleep, I'm resting," I replied to him a little louder than his whisper.

"I need you to keep your eyes out for the coyote. I can't see."

"I don't need to open my eyes. I'll smell it long before I see it." He sighed before a comfortable silence grew between us. All I could hear was the steady rhythm of our breathing, the rustling of trees in the wind, and the drip-dropping of leftover water from the storm. That is until a pair of footsteps stirring up wet leaves caught my attention.

There was no moon, so I couldn't see too much better in the dark than Johnny could. When I perked up to try to look for movement, he asked, "What is it?"

"I hear footsteps."

He tensed up under me, pulling his gun into an easier position to reach from. "What does it sound like? Can you smell it? Where is it going?"

"It sounds like something kind of big," I answered him. "It's coming closer and it smells like a wet dog." I paused for a second before continuing, "I don't know what a coyote smells like, but this smells familiar." The leaves and cracking twigs kept coming closer and getting louder. Johnny pulled out the flashlight, shining it in several directions before a large, light golden dog stepped into the light.

"Tanner!" we both exclaimed in relief at the sight of my dog's friendly face. His fur was so light, we could still see him when Johnny turned the flashlight off.

"Get your dog out of here," Johnny commanded.

"You were the last one out of the garage," I accused him. "That means you let him out."

"Just, get him away," he huffed.

"Fine." I snatched the flashlight from him and was about to descend the stand when a growl from behind the stand stopped me.

Tanner was the sweetest Golden Retriever in the world. He was more likely to lick an intruder than bark at one and it definitely wasn't like him to growl at anything. When I aimed the flashlight behind Johnny towards the growling, there was Tanner standing his ground against a darker, grayish-brown dog about the same size as him. Johnny had his gun positioned and aimed before either dog could move and shot at the darker dog three times. Three blatant pops echoed through the woods before an eerie stillness settled in the trees.

"Tanner!" I shouted, rushing down the stand to him. My heart slowed down when I saw his blonde fur run into me. He seemed more excited than scared. I didn't think Tanner was afraid of anything, but I still crouched down to embrace him as Johnny climbed down from the stand to examine his kill.

Ignoring the rustling of Johnny's feet, I kept cooing to Tanner to calm him down, "Are you okay, baby? You're alright. Calm down. Shush. I'm here, baby. You're alright." Tanner took advantage of the situation to get attention from me, pawing at my arm gently and pushing his body against mine.

My dog had me completely distracted when Johnny started hollering for me, "Marie! Come here! Look at this!" I assumed he was just going to show me something about the coyote like how big it was or how large its teeth were, but when I found him staring at something other than the dead coyote at his feet, I was struck with bewilderment.

Behind some fallen trees and the remains of shrubs, was a door standing in the middle of the forest. It wasn't leaning against the trees and it didn't seem stuck in the ground, though it was standing up perfectly straight as if an invisible force was holding it up by its frame. What was even stranger was that it wasn't just a normal wooden door. Other than the dark wooden frame, the door was made of cream-colored, translucent paper like the sliding doors in those Asian temples shown on TV and Asian spas and restaurants.

We probably wouldn't have even been surprised if it was just some door that seemed to have been thrown into the woods carelessly. There were all sorts of junk in the forest behind our houses, but this door was just bizarre. Johnny brushed some of the little trees leaning against it out of the way to touch it, shining the flash light on it with his other hand. Nothing answered him when he knocked on it before he peaked behind the door. Placing his hand behind the door, he created a duck out of the shadow of his hand until I nudged him out of the way to touch the door myself.

"What do you think that's doing here in the woods?" he asked me.

"Do I look like I know?" I retorted with an expression that seem to say, "you're a dumbass."

"I thought you would with those superpowers of yours." Instead of responding, I just rolled my eyes at him.

The door didn't feel like paper. It didn't even feel wet. It wasn't as hard as wood, but it was much less fragile than I expected and there were no imperfections in the paper. Despite the storm the night before, it was completely intact with no blemishes or scars that I could see. "Open it!" Johnny insisted enthusiastically.

"And what do you expect to find in it?" I asked, going along with him.

"Narnia?"

"Oh my god," I mumbled at his stupidity. This was one of the many times I asked myself why Alicia liked him so much, as she was one of my friends who had a legit crush on him.

"Well, it could be!" he tried to argue. "There's this freaky door in the middle of the woods, standing perfectly unharmed after the most powerful hurricane since we were born came through. I'd be surprised if there wasn't anything in it."

"You were arguing with Miss Wells about the center of the Earth because people haven't been there to say that it's hot," I pointed out the type of logic he used against our science teacher when she was lecturing us about the layers of the Earth.

"Because they haven't! If they haven't been down there to actually see that there is a core and mantle with hot metal and everything, how do they know that's what's really down there?"

"Because the earthquakes..." I stopped myself mid-sentence from wasting my breath to explain it to him in vain. "You know what, never mind. I'll open it for you so you can see that this is just a door."

The door was stuck, so I had to struggle a little bit to yank it open. I gasped in shock when the door jerked open a few inches and light shone through from the other side.