I found it easier to learn than teach, and after the whole Entra affair, there was so much to learn.
My days were made by fitting into the seams of the couch like any would do in small towns like this, watching the news flutter by like a slow butterfly on the wind’s wings. The news was same and same again - telling it was safe for everyone to go outside and such.
The empty houses were strung around the edges of Apholite like a perfect claw, the same off-white paint flaked and torn by the flames of the sun’s rays, the same black rooves painted with snow from the passing days of cold.
Occasionally me and my sister would gather at the window panes of the house, she grabbing the hem of my short as I pressed the nightgown-weaven curtains to the side of the pane, checking the garden that was same and same as always. My sister, for whom fear went easily, delighted at my telling that only the stems missed their buds and that the footprints of the Entra were disappearing quickly as the rains came and went.
Days passed and rumors spread that the empty houses on the edges were cursed by the spirits, possibly even by the will of the crystal tiger. Even Rob’s mother believed the rumors, for she was not fooled or tricked easily by the rumors of hauntings, but she even went as far as pulling away her daughter by the ear from the house she threw white pebbles at. Time and time passed as my sister reported seeing a flicker in the windows of the houses, but it did not surpass my strong beliefs against ghosts.
Time passed as I eventually began to see flickers from the houses from my own window, my mother beginning to quietly break down until the point I could go outside without her asking. I enjoyed the cool, light breeze running swiftly on my sleeves, my legs, watching as it rippled the fields of green stem, the tiny budding flowers from the tips, the soft ground. The Entra footprints were no longer in sight, purged from by the rains and the breezes running down our field. I sat under the white, old oak in our garden and finger-played with the stems of the flowers, taking light care not to break the stems, or the budding would be lost, and many a step from losing our small rainbow.
But eventually the Entra footprints came back as a small fresh pair was evident in the garden, smaller than from the past affair, but still there, running down around our garden, around the oak and through the beds of buds, the small rainbow that sat in our garden. My sister ventured less into the gardens, but I still strayed in to sit underneath the red leaves of the oak, playing with the stems as I usually did, letting my mind wonder to its usual fantasies.

My Entra was young, I think, she did not understand the terms of age my kind did. I felt the watching of piercing cat eyes on the blade of my shoulder at night before my curfew, sometimes running my short hair and my little ears flapping in the winds, but as I turned she fled my vision, as the fences were empty. But when the days came she ventured into the garden more, staying out of my sights, plotting fresh prints deep into the garden’s earthbed, but the flowers were left intact, blooming more as spring began to rise from the depths of the snowy winters passed. Eventually when she passed my sights, I nearly struck her and ran.
She spoke rarely, her mouth a crease on her little furry head, her feet delicately treading on ground agmost the flowers, and it shook me to wonder how such a creature could avoid the flowers alike that. She pressed her tiny nose to the buds to smell the aroma that bloomd from them, her arms tucked neatly at her sights, her small legs nimble as she crossed the fields. The days in passing, I watched her flutter around the field, my small fears draining, wondering how my sister could hide from such a harmless creature. She rarely came, however, when the moon bloomed from behind the far mountains, refusing to come under the light of the twinkling stars, and at times I saddened at her absense, and developing a growing fierceness towards my sister’s disapproval. My mother seemed to have broken down to an empty shell, rarely talking to me or my sister, only moving from the kitchen to the outside to call me in from my place in the gardens, only eating the foods from the cupboards slowly, not moving to give us our plates. We even had to prepare our own food, usually some cheese and bread and milk. Finally I gave up in my mother’s presence, ignoring my sister’s cries for awakening, ignoring her tugging at my short not to go outside, for Entra lurked, but this did not stop me. I wanted to see the creature again, for our mother had drifted from this world, and we were not of that mystic power to bring her down. I spent most of my free time in the beds of flower, of earth, underneath the oak that brought me to peace, cleaning and washing my mind of the thoughts that took me. Eventually the Entra came back, delighted at seeing me. “Your flowers are handsome,” she said, and I delicately said while I did not own the beautiful buds, I took care of them when I could.
We grew a bond. She told me it took her years to learn English, then weeks for her to learn before she came, I helped teach her word by word, and she copied my every word, taking in my vanilla-smooth voice, as she called it, watching me with those eyes, twinkling with the want to learn, but she rarely spoke, and when she did, she picked her words very carefully, yet they sometimes made no attempt at the situation at hand, not hearing my corrections as she gazed her amber eyes into the light skies above us. I eventually stopped trying to correct her, eventually giving up my sights not to the gardens, but the skies, my hands forgetting how to play a stem and eventually tucking onto my knees as I watched clouds go by. The occasional bird, butterfly, as this was a sign that spring was close. When spring came after days on end, school started. I could not spend as much time as I could with my Entra, and yet I did not focus in class as much as before the recent affairs, but our teacher did not scold us, as she seemed to have changed as much as I from the affairs, as with many of the kids. Eventually Rob did not come to school, and one cold day her mother came, weeping that her daughter had not been seen since a few days ago, wandering too close to the houses, and us kids were reminded of the houses in a long time. Eventually my sister strayed towards the houses with a gaggle of her friends, even going inside despite her fear of Entra and the rumor that they were haunted, I rarely saw her, but I did not mind, for my Entra occupied my time in the gardens, and when I turned ten my mother left too, leaving me alone, but as all of us would eventually have the fate of being orphaned or lonely, I thrived.
My Entra rarely came at night, but she eventually started walking down the fence to my garden at starlight, hugging close to my leg, her cream fur soft at my side, her little bell softly playing away, the chimes washing all my other thoughts, I was not alone as long as this Entra was with me. She talked for long about the stars, the moon, how the mystic light of it bathed her in a way I could not understand, and eventually as man or woman or child passed, she cooed with awe, pointing at one and saying, “Look, look. The moon’s light cloaks him.” I did not understand, as she said, but she kept it up anyway, saying one day I would understand, and as I walked through the field from under the oak, she watched me, seeing the moonlight glistening my soft skin leafed with cream fur, my chocolate eyes, my raven-black hair. She told me how I soaked in the moonlight, used it as a cloak, and she told me how all of my kind did the same, without effort, and her kind did the very same, that they lived to feel the touch of the vanilla light filling their every pore. I began to become blind to the world around me, ignoring what was left of my sister, ignoring the dwindling numbers of the people around me, ignoring the fact that the houses became more empty. But my Entra reminded me I still lived in a town of people, pointing at them.
“Look how her moonlight weaves around her,” she said to a child. “His skin simply absorbs the light,” she said to a man. I was intrigued by how I and she and they all took in the light of the moon, wondering how it would take days for her to learn the skill of moon-taking when I could simply soak it in without a single thought or effort. Eventually I saw less and less of her, to my dismay, and I wandered under the moon, trying to see the cloak of moonlight weave around me. I began to venture towards the houses, seeing the strange flicker in the windows, and wondered what she did at midnight when I slept. My sister never came after a time, and I began to feel lonely, as my Entra had left me. I felt the loneliness for the first time, no mother, no sister, no furry creature to accompany me, to be at my side, to intrigue me with tales that were only a tiny whisper until the eaves of the cliffs. Days passed and I saw Rob again, to my sudden delight, but she was different, her skin was lighter and her fur almost white, her hair dark grey instead of light black, her eyes a mint color instead of the lovely green, and when I spoke to her she would not utter a word, but point to the house and cried silent words that I could not read.
Eventually my Entra came back, a look of anguish and relief on her face, she snuggled beside me next to the oak, and when I talked of Rob she said, “I know”, but she would not explain further, nor point at the passerbys and coo in awe as she usually did, and as more days passed I almost swore I could see a very faint, small, yet apparent glow of moonlight on Rob’s shoulders when I went to school, when I told my Entra, she said that I’m learning, and one day she will be just like me. I shook my head, and wondered about what my Entra talked about. Eventually I gave up and began to venture around the small town, the news stated nothing out of the ordinary, my Entra did not appear, and as spring gave way to summer, the days warmed and the earth heated, I continued to play with the stems as I usually did. I had nearly forgotten my birthdate and turned eleven, falling to a coughing fit and having to stay inside, my Entra not coming, and I feared to think that this time, she had abandoned me forever, but I felt she may come back to me, and we could be at eachother’s sides, as always, and I felt a wrench for my sister, who would be nine at this time, me myself had the body of a five year old, as people usually had at this age. I spent my days lying in bed, snuggling down underneath the think silk blanket, looking out the window to the garden but never going outside, I secluded myself from the world around me, my ache for my lost sister growing, and eventually I saw Rob in my garden, but did not think much of her, and eventually I lost the strength to even move, or gaze into the moon, and the ache for my sister and for the companionship of my Entra growing so bad I fell asleep and did not wake for a long time.
Eventually she came, her furry coat glistening, settling beside me in my bed, her purrs comforting me, my head clearing of bad dreams and nightmares, and eventually I opened my eyes, she coaxed me from the luxury of bed and into the cold night air, down the road and into one of the empty houses.
“I told you I would teach you,” she said, her voice soft, she sighed and shook her head, and I looked at the wooden walls, off-white and yellowed out, dark from the night, the moonlight not reaching here, and shadows flickered and moved at an unnaturally pace across the paint skin. My Entra shook her head again. “We seek moonlight, we love it, we bathe in it, we absorb it. We collect the light of the moon.” I told her I already knew, biting my lip as a wall twitched, and she played her fingers in the air, letting moonlight twine around them, and I noticed the walls covered in moonlight, which was strange as it had not been like that before. The walls seemed to have rearranged themselves, and they joined at awkward, unnatural angles, broken in, the wood old and torn from neglect. My Entra tilted her furry head and gazed at me with those amber eyes of hers. “We,” she said, “but you, you collect it in every way. It follows you, yet you collect it without thought. Effort. Help. The moonlight, it takes us years, even centuries to twine with it, to let it fill us, but yet it fills you in every pore. How?”
I told her I didn’t know. She sighed, told me I was eleven and old enough to know these things, I let out a soft “oh” as she gestured to the wall behind her. A figure was encrusted, carved even, into the very wall itself, the blue eyes staring at me, the body covered in strange patterns, my sister. Beside her was my mother, Rob’s mother, many other people, I looked around the room in despair and anguish, tears filling my eyes as I saw every single person I knew, loved, liked, noticed, even Rob herself, trapped into the evil wall, the wall with a mouth for the people who absorbed moonlight, who collected it without effort. I twitched as my Entra came towards me, and whispered to me, “I had to borrow them, so I could get it.” Moonlight, she meant. “Don’t be afraid.” I was suddenly aware of her hugging my leg, looking down I noticed the silver gleam of curved, unnatural claws sticking out from her paws, her amber eyes a red gleam to them, bloodthristy, hungry for moonlight. I shivered as she scored my neck, her claw clicking onto my spine, coming down.

“I need you to keep still.”