(THE LIVING PLANET, EARTH BET) CHAPTER FIVE

Taylor was sure the animals were watching her.

Every time she glanced around, there seemed to be one nearby, staring at her with its little beady eyes or making its way towards her. Sometimes it was a pigeon on a windowsill, while other times it was a stray cat or dog that stopped whatever it was doing to look at her. There had even been a squirrel, which was strange enough on its own, considering she only saw them in parks and forest patches.

She couldn’t tell anyone, though. Not that she had anyone to tell, least of all her dad. He would probably worry about her, and she really didn’t need that. Besides, he would definitely think she was crazy.

Or more crazy, anyway.

It was hard to blame him, considering what she was beginning to suspect. The animals had been acting strangely ever since that voice had spoken to the entire world, and Taylor couldn’t shake the feeling that the two things were connected.

Practically everyone on the planet had heard it, after all, and people had spent days arguing about what it meant, whether it was some new kind of parahuman power or an elaborate hoax. Eventually, though, the news moved on to other things, because that was what the news did, and most people seemed content to treat the whole thing as a bizarre one-time event they would probably never understand.

Taylor couldn’t do that.

She had tried to convince herself there was a perfectly ordinary explanation for what was happening. After all, animals were unpredictable, and there was no reason a stray cat or a pigeon couldn’t take an interest in her. Still, it was getting harder to explain away every encounter, especially after what had happened yesterday.

A pigeon had followed her halfway to school. She’d stopped to look at it, and it had stopped too. When she’d started walking again, it had followed.

That was probably a coincidence.

Probably.

She was beginning to hate that word. It seemed to be the only explanation she had for any of this, and she was running out of ways to convince herself it made sense. One pigeon following her around wasn’t worth worrying about, and neither were a couple of strange encounters. The problem was that there had been more than a couple, and every time she thought she could dismiss the whole thing, something else happened.

Like the cat she spotted on her way home, sitting on a low brick wall. It was a scruffy thing, mostly grey, with one torn ear and a tail that curled around its paws. As she passed, its head turned to follow her.

Taylor slowed down.

The cat watched her, and when she took a step backwards, it hopped off the wall and padded towards her.

“Oh, come on.”

It stopped a few feet away, leaving Taylor to wonder whether someone was playing a prank on her. She looked around, but the street was mostly empty, and the few people nearby were busy with their own lives. Nobody was paying her any attention.

When she looked back at the cat, it was still there.

“Do you want something?”

The cat blinked, and Taylor sighed. She was talking to a cat now. Great. Maybe she really was losing it.

Even so, she crouched, keeping a little distance between them, and held out her hand. The cat sniffed her fingers before rubbing its head against them.

For a moment, Taylor forgot to be nervous. It was a cat, after all, and cats did things like this. There was nothing particularly strange about a stray wanting attention, and she had always liked animals.

Then the cat sat down in front of her and stared directly into her face. The uneasy feeling returned, the same one she’d been experiencing all week, as though something was happening around her that she couldn’t quite see.

Taylor stood up.

“Okay. That’s enough of that.”

She walked away, although after a few steps she couldn’t resist looking back.

The cat was still watching her.

At that point, she hurried the rest of the way home.

That night, Taylor lay in bed staring at the ceiling, trying to work out what she was supposed to do about any of this. She couldn’t exactly tell the PRT that animals were acting weird around her. They’d either laugh at her or decide she needed to be evaluated, and neither option sounded particularly appealing.

She could try ignoring it, of course. That was what everyone else seemed to be doing with the voice, after all. But Taylor had spent most of her teenage life being ignored, and she knew how easy it was to miss something important when you decided it wasn’t worth looking at.

Besides, ignoring the problem hadn’t made the animals stop following her.

So tomorrow, she would pay attention. She would write down what happened, where it happened, and which animals were involved. If there was a pattern, she would find it.

It wasn’t much of a plan, but at least it gave her something to work with.

Outside her bedroom window, a small bird settled on the ledge.

Taylor didn’t see it.

Contessa placed a fedora on a rather weird-acting squirrel, then stepped back to inspect her handiwork.

The squirrel stared at her, and she stared back.

Well, this was new.

After watching the animal shift its paws on the branch for a moment, she found herself wondering how things had come to this. It had been behaving strangely for the past few minutes, and now, for some reason, she was putting a hat on it. She couldn’t help wondering why.

She could ask, of course. There were ways to get the information out of her power, assuming the answer was available, but she had other things to do. Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to spend time figuring out why she was supposed to dress a squirrel, even if she was rather curious about it. It wasn’t every day she found herself doing something like this.

Then again, she supposed that depended on the day.

As she watched, the fedora slipped sideways, prompting her to adjust it. The squirrel gave her another long stare, and she almost laughed. Almost. She wondered briefly whether it had any idea how ridiculous it looked.

She considered taking the hat off again, but decided against it. The Path had brought her here for a reason, and she wasn’t about to abandon the task halfway through just because she didn’t understand it.

With that in mind, she gave the hat one final adjustment and straightened up.

“There. Much better.”

The squirrel twitched its nose, apparently satisfied with the arrangement. Or perhaps it was simply a squirrel. Contessa couldn’t say for certain.

Either way, she glanced at it once more before turning to leave. She still wanted to know what the point had been.

Maybe the answer would become obvious later.

She hoped so, anyway.