“How about your turn signal?”

She opened her car window, and was screaming across the lane. Both cars veered.

“How about this signal, huh?”

An old hand thrust a finger into the air. The ceremonial white robes with golden trim gave it even more emphasis.

Shock and horror from the large woman in the other car. Her eyes bulged, and she sped ahead and pulled away. As serene as Mr. Mori was in his garden, it all disappeared when he got behind the steering wheel. He stomped the pedal to keep up with her.

Lei groaned in the backseat. I felt her embarrassment overflowing from behind me. She sat in the middle between Arnold and Ramsey, all crowded into the sedan. I was shotgun. None of them wanted to sit next to me after learning I could hear their thoughts. I couldn’t blame them, but it still hurt. Even among this strange lot, I was already the outsider.

This night is going all wrong, Lei thought. I wish I’d never invited any of them.

I closed my eyes and tried not to listen to their thoughts. I pictured myself back in the garden, with Mr. Mori telling me about the Old Ones.

“We have to go tonight,” Mori said before we left, after I told him about the wolf. “You will all come with me, yes? You will be safe with me. We shall see Martin’s hunger for ourselves.”

“Why tonight?” Lei had asked.

“The Old Ones like to keep their secrets. They attack those who see them, because they do not want them discovered. I have never heard of an Old One trying to show us something. Time is not on our side. The longer we wait, the more of their attention we will gather.”

My second dose of medication was only last night. My power would only get weaker from here.

“Then I will go tonight,” I said.

Please don’t roll down the window, grandfather! Lei nearly shouted in my head.

“Hey lady! Keep driving like that. You will be a pancake on the wall!”

The car swerved sharply to the left. I jolted. I opened my eyes. We were turning off the freeway, and onto a rough dirt road. It was about five o’ clock, still an hour or so before dark. I was glad of the company, even if they weren’t glad of me.

“Thank you all for coming, anyway,” I said behind me. I said it to all of them, but mostly to Lei. I felt horrible about intruding upon her private thoughts. I only wished she could feel my remorse without me saying so.

“Thanks for bringing me,” Arnold said with surprising earnestness. “I always tried not to think about the things I saw. It’s good to finally get some answers, and not just hide from it.”

“I’m just here to keep Arnold from going completely insane,” Ramsey admitted. “I was just joking about the aliens. I’m worried about my bro.”

“Bro…” Arnold said, so sickly laden with emotion that I gagged a little.

Lei was a little stew pot between them. She said nothing, but gave off steam.

I turned to Mr. Mori. “There’s something I still don’t understand. I get how a random mutation could allow people like Arnold to detect these things. I even see how my medication could give me the same heightened ability. But how does someone like you and Lei learn to sense the Old Ones?”

Mr. Mori smiled, his tranquility returned now that he was the only one on the road. “Part of it is nature’s gift. The ability does run in our family, and my ancestors for many generations have been sensitive to the craft. At a certain level, the thoughts of all humans are mixed together with the stuff of the Old Ones. No matter your genetic gift, it is always possible to quiet your mind enough to see the doors and windows where thoughts creep in.”

“Your brain makes its own thoughts,” I said, treading on unfamiliar ground.

“Your brain is like a radio receiver. It does not make the signal, but only chooses what part of it to focus on. My own grandfather told me that out there is a sea of unformed thoughts. In the sky, in the water, in the space between stars; every thought which could ever be, hidden in the whispers of the Old Ones. When you focus your mind, you snatch one of those thoughts from the sea. And when you notice too much, and see the world too deeply… When you take too many thoughts, and steal them from the Old Ones… they come along to take them back.”

The backseat was quiet now, but for a shared dread between my friends. Lei didn’t feel safe, and Mr. Mori replied to her as if she’d spoken out loud.

“But you are safe, so long as you stay close to me. I have been noticing things for a great number of years, and nothing has ever been hungry enough to eat me yet. Although let me tell you, there are many who have tried.”

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“Grandfather! You never told me something tried to eat you before.”

“Do you think your mother would let you study with me, if I did?” Mr. Mori laughed. “Do you feel the hunger yet, Martin?”

I shook my head. I looked at my phone GPS. Down to 1 bar, but still got a connection. “We need to circle round the woods, toward the south side. That’s closer to where I live, and where I saw the wolf. What sort of studying do you do, exactly? How can I fight back against them?”

“You will not fight back.”

“Oh hell on,” Ramsey said. “I thought we were going to be trained into some kind of super hero team to battle them.”

“You will accept what punishment they deal you, and you will not resist,” Mr. Mori said sternly. “Whatever you think they are doing to you, they are capable of far more. If you fight back, then it will make them certain that you can see them. Then they will be far more vicious in protecting their secrets. But of course, that won’t happen, while I’m here.”

“The hunger is here,” I said. I closed my eyes, and tried not to be afraid this time.

“Oh man, me too,” Ramsey whined. “I didn’t want to be the only one to complain, but I usually have dinner by now, and…”

“Are you certain?” Mr. Mori asked me, interrupting. “I do not feel what haunts you.”

I nodded. I even recognized a great oak tree on the side of the road. I hadn’t come this far into the woods when I ran, but I saw it during my out of body experience after my second dose. I was a squirrel that ran along its branches. I tried to remember what else I felt that night, but it was all rather like a dream. The empty hunger was growing more powerful in me by the passing moment.

“Then it is only hungry for you, I’m afraid,” Mr. Mori said.

“Lovely.”

“How are you going to keep us safe from something you can’t sense too?” Lei asked.

“The same as I always do, by learning quickly,” Mr. Mori said. “Besides, I do not think I am your only protector tonight.”

“There’s something beside the car,” Arnold said. He pulled at his hair, and buried his face in his hands. “It’s too dark outside. But I bet that spot beside the car is even darker. I bet there’s no color at all.”

I felt the peace of its presence even before I looked out my passenger window. There was my wolf, my mist, my shadows. There was my protector and my tormentor, sprinting alongside the car as we drove. It didn’t make a sound, and didn’t stir the earth or kick up dust despite its speed.

“That creature is too beautiful to mean us harm,” Mr. Mori said. “A lesson for the Old Ones only, mind you. I would not take the words to heart when you are dating.”

“Grandfather, be serious!” Lei scolded. “You have us frightened half to death with your stories. I don’t know if we can survive your jokes too.”

“Let us meet your guide together, shall we?” Mori asked. He eased the break, and rolled the car smoothly to the side of the road. The wolf slowed its frantic pace to a trot. Mori parked, and shut off the engine. The wolf stopped too.

Arnold looked at it directly from his window. Or not quite. He was looking through it. I searched his mind, and found:

Wild. I’ve always wanted to see them less. But now that the others see it clearer, I wish I could see more of it too.

Ramsey was looking out the opposite window, in the wrong direction. He really didn’t feel it there at all. Lei looked at me. Her mouth didn’t move, but she was practically shouting the words with the sharp focus of her mind.

As long as you’re stealing thoughts, then steal this one too. I hope we both make it to school tomorrow.

“We will get out of the car now,” Mr. Mori said calmly. He opened the door part way, pausing as the wolf trotted by. Then the rest of the way open, he got out onto the dark dirt road and stretched. We all got out of the car.

“Okay Mr. Wolf. Lead the way,” I said.

The white wolf sat down and cocked its head to the side, looking at each of the five of us. It stood, luxuriously stretching, just as Mori had done. Then turning, it trotted away from the road and through the trees. The swirling insubstantial presence moved directly through the trees. I couldn’t get used to that. Mr. Mori followed at once. The rest of us quickly joined behind.

“This is the way the hunger lies?” Mr. Mori asked me over his shoulder.

I nodded. I gripped at my t shirt, and saw that my fingers were trembling. As powerful as the night I first saw the wolf, the hunger was growing even stronger now. Arnold and Ramsey fell a bit behind, their heads bent in a quiet conversation. I could have listened, but thought I better take the chance to apologize properly to Lei. I would have been here all alone if it wasn’t for her.

“I really am sorry. You don’t have to walk way over there. I’m not going to read your thoughts anymore,” I said.

“Oh yeah? I thought you couldn’t stop it?”

“I’ve got a little song loaded in the chamber. As soon as I hear your thoughts start to bubble up, I’m just going to start repeating that so loud that I can’t hear.”

Lei giggled. “What’s the song?”

“Oh just some song. Doesn’t matter.”

She stomped her foot. From blue sky to storm in no space at all. Suddenly her grandfather’s driving made a lot more sense.

“Excuse me,” she said sternly. “Just because you said sorry doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you. If you took things from my mind, then you have to tell me everything I ask. It’s only fair. I want to know what song.”

I didn’t see the wolf anymore ahead. Mori must see it though, because he kept on going. And anyway I felt the hunger so strongly that I knew we must be going in the right direction.

“One Week. By the Barenaked Ladies.”

“What? That is not a band.”

“It is absolutely a band. Arnold, Ramsey, back me up here.”

“He’s making it up,” Arnold said without hesitation.

“Never heard of it,” Ramsey, almost at the same time.

“Why are you even here, if you don’t have my back? It’s a real song, and it’s got a fast rhythm, so I really have to concentrate on it. Do you want me listening to your thoughts, or not?”

Ramsey started laughing. I didn’t think I said anything wrong. It was starting to make me mad.

“How about when we’re thinking?” Ramsey asked. “Same song? Or do you only think about Barenaked Ladies when you’re thinking about Lei?”

He and Arnold howled with laughter. Lei flushed red, but laughing too. It was such a pleasant sound, that even without words I knew she wasn’t making fun of me. We were all nervous. We all needed to laugh. I needed to laugh too. My mouth was open. I thought I was going to laugh.

I wasn’t ready for the barking snarl which came out of me instead. The others stopped laughing at once. Mr. Mori stopped and turned. They were all looking at me, but I could stop. Like a rabid hyena, yipping and snapping and growling. So low and harsh in my throat it felt sore and raw after. I covered my mouth with both hands. The hunger was growing so intense. I didn’t know how much longer I could control myself.

“Martin? Are you okay?”

I kept my hands over my mouth. I nodded, not trusting my own words. None of them could feel the hunger. It was something inside me after all. On the way here, I just wanted company to feel safe. But the closer I got, the more I worried about keeping my company safe from me.