Klickitat by Peter Rock

notebook. There, just below where I had written my questions, new words:
    A wild bird can choose a person to follow
,
    from place to place. A friend is a thing to
    learn how to be and always changing. A
    pencil sharpener, a paper clip, a stapler—
    now those are other weapons. The sea looks
    like metal, the sky like water. We saw
    you waiting for the bus with your sister
,
    looking up and down the street with your
    hair in your face. That was a sweet sight
,
    a pleasure to notice. Animals quickly take
    notice of white teeth and the whites of
    the eyes. During cold weather, the breath
    should be directed along the body, so the
    plumes of air are not visible to animals
.
    Blindfolding increases children’s ability
    to travel at night. Wisely take advantage
    of new experiences. It’s important to push
    yourself beyond what you’ve done before
.
    Sometimes we’re blindfolded without
    knowing it, like horses we wear blinders
.
    There is a world beyond that of the five
    senses, different than the realm of the
    imagination. It is unseen, the world of
    spirit and vision. It is a dimension of life
    that very few people of today are aware
    of, or perhaps care to know, one that even
    fewer can access
.
    It was a relief to see those words, to know they hadn’t stopped, and it made me feel good, too, because whoever sent them believed that I could be aware of the unseen world. I didn’t know what that meant, but I wanted to believe that, too. It reminded me of thethings Iceland had said; she had called me “special,” which can be a compliment but sometimes it is a nice way of saying you’re different, unable to do the things other people can do.
    I felt different—I didn’t need the messages to tell me that. I needed the way I was different to help me, to find my sister, to see things and understand things. I wanted instructions and information. What I was getting instead were riddles.

TEN
    Without my pills, it was harder to fall asleep. I turned over one way, then the other. The house was quiet except for Mom sighing, in her bedroom, and the soft scrape of an antenna shifting on the rooftop, pointing across the sky to somewhere, someone else.
    I opened my eyes, closed them, opened them again. Through a gap in the curtains I could see the tall trees across the backyard, the tops of them leaning back and forth in the moonlight. And there was another sound, then, a tight sound, a kind of rubbing. The swing in the front yard, it had to be, the rope where it was knotted around the branch, where it slipped a little and slid and squeaked when someone was on it.
    Quietly, I pulled the covers aside and stood up. Barefoot, I crossed the hall, into Audra’s empty room. I didn’t turn on the light as I stepped close to the window. Below, outside, the black circle of the tire swing cut back and forth, back and forth, but there was no one on it.
    I stood there watching. The moon was full, so the swing’s shadow was another black circle, sliding along the grass, slower and slower, the swing finally coming to a rest, the shadow a still black puddle beneath it.
    In bed again, I lay flat on my back, even though I can’t sleep on my back; I didn’t want one of my ears to be pushed into the pillow. I wanted them both listening. And what I heard, after a while, I wasn’t sure if it was anything, but then I thought it sounded like a scratching, a soft slap, then silence, then another sound. What it sounded like was someone trying to climb our house, the wall of it, right under my window.
    I stood up, next to my bed, not moving for a moment, listening. The sounds stopped, or I thought they stopped. My blood rushed around and around. I stepped closer to the window. My hand was shaking as I pushed one edge ofthe curtain aside, as I leaned in. There was no one looking in at me. My forehead against the cool window, I could see no one on the wall, no one close against the house. But then a