What Lies Beneath ▸ House of Anubis [1]

chapter four. house of dares

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She's in my room.

The elderly woman from my dream before, she's in my room. Except she's not asleep this time. She's wide awake and staring at me, and my Ankh charm is in my hand. She's saying something I can barely make out.

"You have the power."

"Are you Sarah?" I ask carefully.

Victor flashes in and out of the dream, holding his stuffed raven Coriberre.

"Beware the black bird."

"Caw, caw, caw!" someone shouts, pulling me out of the dream. I shoot up again, looking around my room wildly before laying my eyes on Patricia, who's standing over Nina's bed dropping black feathers on her. "Beware the black birds, beware the black birds!"

"Patricia, knock it off!" I exclaim, jumping out of my bed. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Patricia retorts. Nina wakes up, coughing as she pushes the feathers off herself. "She woke me up. 'Beware the black bird!'" I snap my eyes toward Nina. She had the same dream I did? How? "Aww, are you scared? Are you going to sleep with the light on, newbie?"

Patricia switches her lamp off. Nina does the same. I go back to my bed, wrapping myself in the covers.

Beware the black bird.

—

I glance at Nina as she ties her tie. Patricia's long gone, which gives me a chance to genuinely ask about the dream last night. "What does 'beware the black bird' mean to you?" I ask carefully. "'Cause, uh... I think you and I had the same dream."

Nina looks at me with wide eyes. "Really?" I nod. "Uh, Sarah told me that yesterday," she answers. "When she gave me the locket. I wonder how you and I had the same dream."

"It's a locket?"

"Yeah, check it out."

She removes the locket and opens it up. On the inside is a portrait of a young pretty woman, and she looks vaguely familiar to me. "She's pretty," I remark. "Who is she?"

"No idea," Nina replies with a sigh. "Maybe it's Sarah. I don't know. I'm gonna go down for breakfast."

"I've got to finish getting ready. I'll meet you down there."

I spend the next five minutes finishing getting ready for the school day, throwing my hair into a ponytail as I skip down the stairs and enter into breakfast, where Patricia, Clarke, and Alfie are taunting Nina with 'caw-caw' bird calls.