Ship of Souls

trails across the cat’s soft fur. “How’d it do that?” she asks me.
    “It can tell what you like and don’t like,” I explain. “You try, Keem.”
    He steps forward and reaches out his hand to pet the cat, but it shape-shifts into a basketball.
    “No way,” Keem says softly. He raps his knuckles on the ball but doesn’t try to take it from me.
    “D prefers this form,” she says, turning herself back into a bird. “Do you need further proof of my abilities?”
    Keem frowns, still unconvinced. “If you’re so special, why didn’t you help D when that… thing was trying to drag him underground?”
    The bird turns to look up at me. “Did you see anything remarkable while you were in the park?”
    To my surprise, I laugh a little. “Aside from the crazy trap biting into my leg?”
    “And the creepy smoke thing crawling toward us?” adds Nyla.
    The bird nods solemnly. “The earth—and all that lies above and below its surface—that is their terrain. My domain—”
    “Is the sky!” I exclaim. Suddenly it all makes sense to me. “It wasn’t a hawk we heard—it was you, wasn’t it?”
    The bird nods and modestly lowers her eyes. “The nether beings detest light.”
    Keem speaks up. “Wait a minute—you were that flash of light in the sky?”
    “So you did try to help D,” Nyla says, relieved.
    The bird looks at Nyla. “He is my host,” she says simply. “If I lose D, my mission will fail.”
    Keem kicks a crushed soda can into the gutter. “D’s just a kid—why does he have to be mixed up in your mission?”
    Nyla nods reluctantly. “He is kind of young.”
    “Hey—I can speak for myself! And I want to help the bird. She has to gather the dead—they’ve been waiting a really long time!”
    Nyla and Keem stare at me with their mouths hanging open. I want to explain, but realize I don’t really know much more about the mission.
    The bird flutters up to my shoulder and says to them, “Again, I thank you for the service you have rendered my host.” To me she says, “We should leave now.”
    Keem steps forward and points at my leg. “He’s hurt, you know. Your ‘nether beings’ nearly tore his leg off!”
    The bird flutters its wings and settles on my knee. “Are you in pain?”
    “A little, but Nyla’s stepmother fixed me up.” Suddenly I feel a tickling sensation in my knee. I force myself not to laugh as the funny feeling moves down my calf and settles on my wounded ankle. “The pain’s gone!” I whisper with awe. After the bird flies back to the bench rung, I lift up my pant leg and unwind the bandage Sachi carefully wrapped around my ankle. The wound is no longer bleeding—in fact, it no longer looks like a wound! All I see are faint zigzag marks where the stitches used to be. “You did that, didn’t you?”
    The bird is less modest this time. “My host must be healthy and whole,” she says proudly. “Ready?”
    “Ready. Where are we going?” I ask.
    “Back to the park—and we must get there before sundown.”
    Keem blocks our path. “I don’t think so, bird—do you even have a name?”
    “I do. You may call me Nuru.”
    “Well, D’s with us now, Nuru.”
    Nyla steps between them and tries to soften Keem’s stance. “What Keem means to say is, we really can’t let you put D in danger again.”
    “He won’t be in danger if we reach the park as soon as possible.”
    I unzip my jacket, tuck the bird inside, and then turn to Nyla and Keem. “I appreciate what you guys have done for me, but…I think I better do this alone.”
    “Do what—get yourself killed?” asks Keem.
    Instead of feeling grateful for this brotherly concern, anger flashes inside of me. “What do you care? You can always get another math tutor. A week ago you didn’t even know who I was—and didn’t want to know.”
    Nyla touches my arm, and I turn to face her. “What about now, D? What about that scene in the park—can you really blame us for being worried about you?”
    “No. But I have to do this. I can’t explain—it’s just something I have to do.” I push past them and walk away with my heart thudding in my chest. Part of me hopes they’ll follow us to the park, but then I remember how cozy Keem and Nyla were getting before. “They’re probably glad to be rid of me,” I mutter under my breath. Still, I can’t stop myself from glancing over my shoulder when I reach the end of the block. Nyla and Keem are sitting on the bench absorbed in their own