A/N: Hope you all enjoyed that last cliffie ;) Well I was in a bad mood when I wrote that, so I'm sorry for having to do that to you guys. Now, one with this story. When we last left off with Jani, she more confused than a deer crossing a busy highway . . .

Knowledge

I blinked open my eyes. I squinted at the sun's light striking my eyes-Wait!

My body felt slightly cold. I looked down. Two legs, two arms, faded blue jeans, a pair of red shoes, and my hair draped over my shoulder.

Crap! I was human!

I almost fell into the pool of water as I tried to get up. Wait, I remember that. The water, me falling into an abyss of brightness, the StarClan cats, the Witch-I mean Mother Gana. All of it. Was it a dream? Did I just simply dream all it up?

Well I had no time to think of that. It was a little past dawn, I could tell that by where the sun was. Hurrying on to my feet, I exited the cave. I almost killed myself while running fast down the hills, but I had to get home before my parents woke up. It should take me fifteen minutes to get to house. It was five minutes from here to David's ranch, then ten minutes from there to my house.

The grass and pebbles tickled my bare feet as I ran through WindClan territory. Oh hope I didn't into a dawn patrol.

I thanked every Hindu god and goddess when I reached my house, climbed through my bedroom window, and thumped onto my floor. It took me a few minutes to catch my breath.

I looked over to the clock on my dresser. It was 5:30. Oh thank God! Papa will be getting up soon to get ready for work. I figured I might as well get ready. I took a shower, washed my hair, tied it back into a braid, put my clothes on, and finished up some homework I didn't do last night.

While I answered questions about World War II, I thought about what happened last night. For some reason, I knew it wasn't all a dream. Bluestar was there and she was dead. And they were mentioning Tigerstar. And on top of all it, Mother Gana (formally known as the Witch) was there. How could I explain that? And were those people and animals floating on clouds really Spirits? How could that happen? And what are Spirits anyway? Are they like angels or something?

A planned formed in my head. Yes, I knew what I was goanna do. And I knew just the person who I could talk to about it . . .

Mary placed her books on her desk next to me. A cat book was sticking out from her bag. It had a cat that looked like Jayfeather on it. Wait what?

I stared at it a little longer. The title said Fading Echoes on it.

Mary caught me staring. "My cousin knows the person that does the cover art and managed to snag me a copy of the next book." She tapped the book. "It's not due to come out for months, but I got it anyway."

I was still staring at the picture. "Who's that cat?" I asked.

Mary looked at it for a second. She shrugged. "Not sure. I think it might be Jayfeather, the medicine cat."

Ah ha! The Jayfeather I know is the medicine cat apprentice. Still, it's close.

Mr. LaRocca, our chemistry teacher, was out today. So we had a sub that honestly could care less about what we were doing. Perfect. This was a perfect opportunity to talk to Mary.

When I turned to Mary-what a surprise-she was reading the Warriors book. I tapped her on the arm and got her attention. "Can I ask you a question?"

Mary nodded.

"Mary," I said. "As a Wiccan, do you believe in spirits?"

She looked at me weirdly, closing her cat book and putting her it in her bag. "Well," she said. "Mainly we believe in the God and Goddess, creators of the earth. But however, there is a story that my mom told me once about spirits."

I nodded on for her to continue.

"It is believed, by some Wiccans, that there are spirits from the Spirit World, a world parallel to ours. Some crossed over, some choose to stay behind. The ones that did cross over took forms of anything they wanted, from something as simple as a flower, to something as big as a whale."

So the Spirits could transform into anything they wanted. They could be humans or animals, whichever they felt like.

"Why would they choose to come over to our world in the first place?" I asked. "And what do Spirits look like before they transform into plants, animals, or humans?"

"For protection," Mary said simply. "Many Spirits come to here to protect all living things."

"Against what?"

Mary sighed. "Anything. From evil spirits, from world dangers, from each other. You see, they live in a world filled with such peace and tranquility, some of them fell guilty for leaving us human to suffer in our chaotic world. So, they come over in different forms to help protect us. As for what they looked like before, my mom never told me. I guess they were like glowing balls of light before they transformed." She looked at me. "Jani, are you alright? You look pale."

I shook my head. "No, thanks I'm fine. Um, is that all you know?"

"Yep," Mary said. "That was only thing my mom every told me."

I nodded. "I see. And how exactly did this story get passed on? Like, did someone just make it up, or is it fact?"

"You're certainly a questioner today Jani." Mary smiled. "You usually don't ask this many questions about Wicca."

I smiled. It felt good to have a conversation with Mary about something we were interested in. Most of the time we talked about casual things, like news, the school, gossip, and stuff similar to that. But once, we were talking about an actually interest. Something we both wanted to talk about.

To her answer her question, I just shrugged. "I've decided to become a multiculturalist."

"Oh, well in that case," Mary said. "I'm not too sure. All I know is that they started getting passed on just a little after Wicca was created. Whether they're true or not, you'll have to ask the God and Goddess."

We spent the rest of the period talking about-wouldn't you know it?-cat books-I mean Warriors (the title of the book series). I had to tell Mary that I was planning of maybe reading the series soon so she wouldn't get suspicious. Mary told me, without spoiling anything, that the books were about four clans that try to thrive in a forest, whiling battling each other for food, territory, and leadership-sometimes. I was surprised to see who familiar this series was to the clans I knew. But again, there was just no way could it be possible. No way. Nothing could be that weird.

I had a study hall after chemistry. As normal, I went to my study hall classroom. When the class was settled, and the teacher took attendance, I asked for a library pass. I got one like a Christmas present, and was on my way.

Once I got to the library, I took one of the computers that weren't occupied. After I logged in, I went to the internet. In the search box, I typed up "Spirits" and pressed Go. Naturally the first few things to pop up was a Wikipedia site, a couple of YouTube videos, Spirit Airlines tickets, and a site for the movie Spirited Away (which freaked me out the first time I saw it). I just clicked on the Wikipedia site, hoping to find something. Nothing. All there was the definition, the origin of the word, dealing with religions, and other sites.

I went back and typed in the search box "spirits in nature" then clicked Go. About a hundred links showed up, but I finally found a site that caught my eye.

It was called "Unseen and Untold: Spirits of the Forest".

I immediately clicked on it. The homepage of website was covered in earthy pictures. Rocks, flowers, grass, trees, and water were scattered throughout the page. Along the side were topics to pick, and then in the center of the page was a summary. I read it.

It is only natural for most humans to deny the existence of any supernatural power or force. Humans prefer to think of themselves as the "superior living creature". Spirits pose a threat to that, with their powers and ways with the nature, to control it. So, since humans learned to farm, read, and build things, they've tried to get rid of that threat, by silencing their existence. Of course no human can destroy a spirit, only spirits can destroy spirits. They simply slandered the word of such spirits existing, causing misery to anyone who suggests that there are such powerful spirits. Humans could silence thoughts of the spirits, but they could not silence the spirits themselves. Spirits live in our world to this very day. They live either from us, or within us. We don't see them, but they see us. They protect us from the harm that may be caused to us, despite our negative way to them. Spirits are the soul to our earth, the keeper of our light. They are our protectors. They are our guardians. They are the great and powerful Spirits.

No way I was goanna leave this page! This sounded sort of like the story Mary told me. Okay, so far so good. I looked at the topics on the side of the page. I clicked the one that said "Spirits in Our World".

A page popped up with pictures of animals, and people, similar to the people I saw that might by the pool. There was a small summary on the page that I read.

Spirits take on the form of parts of nature when they cross into our world. They take the form of plants and animals, sometimes even abiotic things, like air, dirt, sand, even water. Some spirits, though not that many, take the form of humans. Very few that take the form of humans, take the form of young humans, especially pretty young humans. Seeing as humans tend to care about outside beauty, if a spirit was to take the form of a young, beautiful human, it would seem complicated to hide their powers seeing as humans would notice them more. Spirits mainly prefer to take on older humans, being as humans tend to not care much for the old, thus making it a perfect life for a Spirit to live without worry of being discovered.

Coming into the human world is a very risky thing for a Spirit. Trying to blend into a habitat they're not use to is what makes some Spirits stay in the Spirit World. However many of the Spirits pity us, and simply wish our lives were easier. A responsibility of the Spirits is to keep evil out of the human world. According to history, sometimes the Spirits don't succeed in their mission, but they do nevertheless stop evil from doing the worst it possibly could. That, and that alone, is the Spirits one at only job.

I wrote down the name of the website in my binder. I don't know who made this website, but they were a genius! This information was going to be really helpful in the future, I could tell.

I was about to press another topic on the side, when I heard a sound behind me. I turned around to see four girls giggling in their palms, and one standing in front of them with an evil smirk across her face.

"That's an interesting website there Jani," Ellen said. The girls behind her giggled more.

My cheeks were burning from embarrassment. I could feel sweat rising from my pores as Ellen bent down to see my computer screen. Scanning the page quickly, she jerked backwards and covered her mouth with her hand, but that wasn't enough to muffle her annoying laughter. The other girls joined with her, covering their mouths too.

"So," Ellen said wiping away tears. "I thought Indians were Hindus, not Pagans. God, you're just messed up one-hundred percent." They all laughed, ignoring the librarian who was trying to shush them.

I packed up my backpack quickly, feeling my whole face go hot with embarrassment, and raced out of the library. Walking down the hallway at a fast pace, I ducked into the girl's bathroom. Taking a paper towel and wetting it, I tapped it all over my face. Then I hid in the bathroom stall for the last twenty minutes of study hall.

Once home, I ran to my laptop. It hummed to life, and I turned on the internet. As the internet page opened, my belly twisted into a knot. My homepage was Facebook, and I was logged in, so when the internet opened, it showed me I had fifteen notifications. I don't know why, but I clicked on the first one that said that I had been tagged in Ellen Wilson's photo. I clicked on it. The picture was of me sitting in front of a library computer, looking at the website. The title "Spirits of the Forest" written across the page in big letters. I read the caption at the bottom of the picture.

Someone's studying hard XD Guess she couldn't get her God to forgive her, so she had to find another one.

The terrible feeling in my stomach began to rise. It increased as I read a few of the comments.

Rose Turner: Well there's something you don't see every day.

Ethan Woods: I thought she would be looking up porn instead :/

George Hills: Wow. That's just pathetic man.

Tiffany Harris: Sad. Just sad :/

Ruby Isaacs: How can she live with herself? What, her social life is so bad she's talking to spirits? I would hang myself before I would do that! :p

I couldn't take another comment. Each comment felt like someone was wiping my back with thorns. But I would have to deal with it later. Right now I had something more important to do.

Wiping the tears from my eyes, I typed in the search box the website I had found, and clicked on it when it came up. Looking down the list of topics, I found one that really caught my attention. It was called "Spirits' Punishments". I clicked on it, and read the small summary that came on the page.

Spirits normally don't mean to harm humans, but if they see a human acting in sinful matters, they will punish them. Spirits are allowed to punishment humans anyway they want. Anything from transforming them into a rock, making them deformed, or even killing them. The fate of the human is up to the Spirit that they are dealing with them. Some Spirits give humans a second chance and don't punish them at all, however other Spirits believe that punishing a human is the only way for the human to learn their lesson.

The crimes in which a Spirit punishes a human can be one of three things: An act against another human, an act against nature, or an act against the Spirit. A Spirit is allowed to punish if a human does any of these three.

Now I was confused. I didn't do any of these acts, yet Mother Gana still placed this curse on me. Something was fishy. I recalled her explaining to the other Spirits and to StarClan that she had found a human and was going to use her to help in this war they were talking about. She couldn't be talking about me right? I mean, what if it was another human that she was using.

No matter how many times I tried coming up with an excuse, it always lead back to me. So, did she cursed me because I did something wrong, or did she have bigger plans for me?

Closing my computer, I looked at my clock. It was four. Still enough time to do my homework before the sun went down. Okay, so, tonight I would go to the clans, as normal. But then tomorrow, after I came home from school, I'll say I'm going to the library with Mary, which of course was not true.

I had no choice anymore. There were too many questions left unanswered, to many secrets unrevealed. Tomorrow, I would test my courage. Tomorrow, I would go to the old wooden shack and talk to Mother Gana.

A/N: OH OH OH! And I'm just getting starting people ;) Btw, thank you alll for the wonderful reviews! Keep in touch for the next chapter :)