"It's not my job to explain all of your powers. You need to discover most of them yourself," said Atticus. "But I am sure of quite a few. Most of them are evident through your past life." I nodded, impatient.
"So what can I do?" I asked hastily. "Tell me!" Atticus waved me down, like fanning out a large fire.
"Patience, Samuel. I know for sure of one thing...you can talk to every creature that has and will ever live on this planet."
"I don't understand," I began, but Atticus stood up and whistled. A small animal, as large as a cat, twirled its thick bushy tail. It padded towards me, reddish brown coat twitching in the wind. A pair of sharp eyes watched me stand up.
Then it began to talk.
"Are you a Chosen?" I jumped, but Atticus looked like it was perfectly normal.
"I can't hear a thing," he explained. "It's all barking to me." I nodded, then knelt.
"Yes," I told the fox. "I am. Can you tell me where I am?" The fox nodded.
"In the Never Wood. 'Cuz no one 'never wood' go into it!" With that he collapsed on the ground, barking in a pitch that sounded like laughter.
I sighed. Great: a joker. Just what I need right now.
"Why doesn't anyone go in?" I asked. The fox stopped laughing and leaped up.
"Because only the innocent and right can come in," he explained. "It's a sacred wood. Not even Naga can come in."
"Why can't--" But the fox was gone. I suddenly spun, falling into a deep hole. But the hole was larger than a canyon...when I hit the ground, I bolted upright.
Helen was trying to fix something edible out of some berries and a box of crackers. Jared stared at me, like I was delirious.
"I had the most strange dream last night," I said. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
They didn't.
"Sam!" yelled Helen. "You look like you're dead! We're fleeing an army of goblins! We just saw your dead mother in that mountain! And now you have strange dreams where foxes talk to you in a place no one else has gotten in for centuries! Only one person could go into that wood and she's dead!"
"Who?" I whispered. Helen dropped her voice.
"Your mother."
"Aaah!" I groaned. "Why does everything here circle around your family?"
Helen looked sympathetic.
"They were one of the first to reunite the clans," she explained.
"Wait a second..." Jared frowned. "One of the first? RE-unite? Someone has done this before?" Helen eyes grew sad.
"Yes," she whispered. "Naga."