Whispers In The Stacks
1042 Words
I didn’t sleep after the dream. Not really. Just stared at the ceiling, watching the shadows shift until the sun finally dragged itself over the horizon.
By the time the rest of the house stirred, I was already dressed and halfway down the main road toward campus. The air was crisp, desert-cold in the mornings, my breath puffing white as I hurried across the courtyard toward the university library.
I needed answers. And I needed them now.
No one questioned me when I slipped inside—the place was still mostly empty, the hum of lights and the soft scent of old paper the only signs of life. I made my way toward the folklore section. My fingers scanned spines like I was reading Braille.
Yee naaldlooshii.
I didn’t even know how to spell it. But I trusted my gut. I always had.
I found it by accident.
Tucked between a battered book on desert legends and a thin, brightly illustrated volume on spirit animals was a children’s book. The cover was faded, the title worn:
“The Girl with Two Skins”
I opened it, heart thudding.
It was a story. Simple. Rhymed. Written for little ones.
But something about it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
⸻
The Girl with Two Skins
(a children’s tale)
There once was a girl who was quiet and small,
Who ran through the woods at the owl’s lonely call.
She walked like the wind and she watched like the crow,
But inside her chest, her bones didn’t know.
Her mother said, “Daughter, your heart’s not quite right.”
Her father said, “Child, you howl in the night.”
But still she just smiled, and danced in the rain—
Until one dark day, she wandered again.
She found an old woman with skin like dry bark,
Who lived in the canyons and slept in the dark.
The woman said, “Child, your skin is a lie.
Take it off now. Be beast. Let it die.”
The girl tried to run, but her feet turned to stone.
The voice in her head said, “You’re never alone.”
The fire came next, and it licked at her chin—
Then tore from her body the other girl’s skin.
She howled to the sky, with eyes full of flame.
She had teeth like a knife, but no real name.
She ran on all fours through the whispering trees—
A shadow of something not quite at ease.
And now, if you’re walking alone in the night,
And the wind feels too sharp, and the stars burn too bright—
You might hear a whisper, a voice in the trees…
“Yee naaldlooshii walks where the wild things breathe.”
⸻
I shut the book.
My mouth was dry. My skin felt too tight.
A children’s story. A warning in rhyme.
Yee naaldlooshii walks where the wild things breathe.
And suddenly, I wasn’t so sure I was the girl looking for answers.
Maybe I was the girl who already knew.
I stared at the last line of the poem until the words blurred.
Yee naaldlooshii walks where the wild things breathe.
My fingers trembled against the paper, but I didn’t close the book. I couldn’t. Something about the girl with two skins felt too familiar. Like a mirror tilted slightly sideways.
“Interesting choice for early morning reading.”
I nearly jumped out of my chair.
Professor Calder stood a few feet away, a worn leather satchel slung over one shoulder, his gray-streaked hair still windblown from the cold. He wore his usual long coat and a scarf that looked older than most of the undergrads.
His eyes flicked to the book in my hands, then back to me.
“I didn’t take you for a picture book type,” he said, lips twitching into something not quite a smile.
“I’m researching something,” I said quickly, sitting straighter. “It’s for… folklore.”
It wasn’t a lie. Not exactly. And I didn’t owe him anything.
But Calder didn’t press. He just studied me the way he always did—like he was reading a puzzle no one else had noticed yet.
“The yee naaldlooshii,” he said slowly, like tasting the word, “has a hundred versions. Some say it’s just a story to keep kids from wandering too far. Others say it’s older. Much older.”
I swallowed. “What do you say?”
He stepped closer, pulling a chair and settling across from me without asking. His voice lowered, like the walls might be listening.
“I say it’s dangerous to assume any myth survived this long without a reason. I say stories like that don’t stay alive unless they’re fed by something real.”
My throat tightened.
“You’ve been looking into the clan records,” I said quietly. “Because of me.”
Calder didn’t deny it. “You’re… interesting, Millie. An anomaly in a place that doesn’t usually tolerate them. And I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”
“Should I be worried?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Should I?”
Something about the way he said it made my pulse skip.
“You were rooting for me,” I said before I could stop myself. “Back when they tried to fail me out of the combat track. You wanted to see if I could do it. If I was… more.”
“I still do,” he said without hesitation. “I want to know what you are. I think you want to know, too.”
The silence between us stretched.
The book sat between us, open to the rhyme that now felt more like prophecy than bedtime story.
“You ever hear of a black wolf with glowing blue eyes?” I asked.
Calder’s expression didn’t change. But something in his eyes did. Sharpened.
“Why?” he asked carefully.
“No reason,” I lied, closing the book. “Not really.”
But his gaze followed me all the way out of the library.
Like he already knew I wasn’t telling him everything.
And like he was waiting for me to figure it out first.
- Writer
