The Encounter Read Free

why Cassie had birdcages. Her father and mother are both veterinarians. Her mom works for The Gardens, which is this huge zoo and amusement park.
    Her dad runs the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic in the barn on their family farm. The Clinic takes in wild animals that are sick or hurt and cares for them.
    The cages Cassie had to get home to clean were filled with sparrows with broken wings and eagles who’d been shot and seagulls who’d gotten tangled in trash.
    Cassie is our expert on animals. She also gets us access to animals to morph. She’s a gentle person. She can also morph better than any of us.
    Everyone stood up and started to go.
    “You coming, Tobias?” Jake asked me.
    
    “Cool,” he said. “I’ll put some food up in the attic for you in case you get home late. I don’t want anything getting at it, though. Can you open one of those Rubbermaid things?”
    I saw the way the others kind of looked away when Jake mentioned the attic. They feel sorry for me.
     I said.
    Tom is Jake’s big brother. Tom is one of
them.
    Everyone said good night. I saw Cassie and Jake touch their hands together in a way that could almost have been accidental. Then they were all gone. All but me and Rachel.
    “I don’t like thinking of you living in a cold attic,” Rachel said.
     I said. I wondered if I should tell her what I had seen, the darkness within darkness, the hole in the sky. But the truth was, even I didn’t know what it was.
    It would just worry her. And she worried about me too much.
     I said.
    “Yeah. Take care of yourself, Tobias.”
    I flew out through her window into the night. Rachel’s sad eyes seemed to follow me. I hated the way they all felt sorry for me. All they could see was that I was not what I used to be. All they saw was that I had no home.
    But they didn’t really understand. I hadn’t had a real home since my parents died. I was used to being alone.
    And I had the sky.

CHAPTER 4
     
    T he next day I decided to go back to where I had seen—or not seen—the big thing in the sky.
    I had a feeling about it. A bad feeling.
    I flew up over the same area, rising as high as I could on the thermals.
    Hawks are not quite as good at soaring as eagles or some buzzards are. (Man, you should see the way a turkey buzzard can work those thermals! Awesome.) And actually, the red-tailed hawk in my head would be just as happy perched patiently on the branch of a tree, waiting to see its next meal go scurrying past.
    But I didn’t eat like a hawk. I ate food that Jakegave me. I didn’t hunt. Although sometimes the urge to hunt was pretty strong.
    I could just hear Marco making some smart crack about me eating mice. Or roadkill.
    When you’re in a morph, it’s hard to resist the animal’s instincts. Jake found that out when he became a lizard. He glomped down a live spider before he’d gotten control of the lizard’s instincts.
    I hadn’t done that. Yet. I was afraid if I did it once, I’d never be able to stop.
    I soared high above the city, over the area I’d been through the day before. But nothing. Nothing moved in the air above me.
    Then it occurred to me: Whatever it was, maybe it only happened at certain times of day. It had been almost sunset when I’d felt its presence last.
    I decided to come back around sunset. Which meant I had the whole day ahead of me with nothing special to do. This did not make me happy. See, the fact is, a hawk spends almost all its time hunting food.
    As for me, Tobias, when I hadn’t been in school, I used to spend most of my free time watching TV, hanging out at the mall, doing homework, reading … all things that were difficult for me to do now.
    I missed school. Even though I had constantly been picked on by bullies. I didn’t really miss myhome, though. See, when my parents died, there was no one who really