The townsman is looking at me and stared a few seconds at my white hair before talking to me again. She speaks fast: she's stressed. It's normal after the exam. I see that she wants to share her feelings, but I'm not in a mood to make new friends and laugh.

" I'm Cassiopee Evan and you?" she insists.
" Diane Fox! "

My typical orphan name doesn't make her react. Yes, she is really a girl form the " Outside ".

" Your exam went well? Which area do you want to explore? " she asked me.

Is she trying to know if I'm a potential concurrent? I don't care about her curiosity and her stressed look makes me want to eat her like a fox who eats a rabbit.
I hold myself back.
North, South, East, West... only one area is not enough for me!

"Everywhere!" I said with a challenging look.

"Everywhere?" she whispered. "Is that possible?"

Yes... well no... it'd depend for who. Saying something like that in my exam is risky, but I had to try it. I had to. Because lying would obligate me to stay in the same place for my missions to perfectly know my environment until I can camouflage like a tree in the middle of the forest. I'm not interest by that. I don't care about the missions... I have my own ambitions and for that I have to go where I want to.

The one we call Red did it, why not me?

"My brother passed the exam too, have you seen it?" she asked
"No", I said crossing my arms.

That doesn't surprise me that more than one person in the same family can come for the same exam. Maybe their roles are different? There's riding hood but also hunters in some groups.

For a long time, it was the norm: a riding hood and a hunter form a duet welded to infiltrate and fight.
The riding hoods are faster and more discreet but their physical force and their fighting skills are less developed than the hunters.
Sometimes, the hunters are chosen to protect a Granny. These one are the most valorous and are trust. One of them that I secretly admire is the one who protect the Great Phythia of Delphi. His name is Minos.

There are women in among the hunters, as there are men among the riding hoods. I even heard that some are riding hoods and hunters at the same time. Their mission is the hardest.

I shrug my shoulders. I don't want to linger.

"Hi!" I said. "That the seasons are mild to you!"

And I leave the corridor, direction the only place where I want to be right now. My refuge, my home.

In this huge academy made of grey and cold stones, I have my little place. I push the door, I go up the spiral staircase and exit in a smaller and darker corridor. A red door made in wood decorated with iron arabesque is facing me. I enter without telling my presence and sigh with relief.

The library!

Of course, no one's there. Who will come and study during an exam when all is already done? I walk between the shelves of thick and austere covers books. In the back of the library, a ceiling hatch. I use a shelf like a foot board and jump nimbly. The trap opens without a sound when I pull it. I get in.

Here I am safe. Alone. Finally.

The little room under the rooftops looks like an attic, it is antiquated but do not rely on it. The window in front of me gives to the principal entry of the school, it's my favorite observation point.

How many hours do I spent here? Night and day, reading or looking at others playing or talking, coming in or coming out. I don't attend any of the students because I don't talk to them, but I know them more than themselves because I watch them for a long time. I know that they think and how they will react. I guess sometimes faster than anyone else their totem animal. I can see it by their way to move. The girl from sooner... a Rabbit... it's a rabbit. That's why I wanted to eat her. Scared rabbits, it annoys me!

I smile and shrug my shoulders. This faculty to detect people's soul won't be of any use I don't success the exam. And if I fail? What will be left to me? What will the villagers do with me? A teacher? A wife? Will I stay the witch here forever? A ball forms in my throat. I want to leave. To find a place who will be " mine ". Here, it's impossible.

I sit on books. My revisions manuals. My only friends. My forehead sticks to the wall. Waiting until tomorrow for the results announces is like a torture.

I don't want to live and die in the Village. People say that some never go out and they walk only in other villages in the entire world. Everywhere where there is a forest in the real world, a village can hide. In the mountains, in the savanna or the jungle. There are so many villages and exams that are taking places right now, but so few elected.

The one who fail the exam can stay in the Village or are banish. However, I ignore what become the banned. People said that they lost the faculty to see our world. They can walk beside of the Villages, they won't see them. They become miscreant and only see their reality.

I don't want people to hide this world to me. I want to know both. Is that possible?

"I want to go everywhere", I whisper to myself. "EVERYWHERE."

Slowly, my shoulders collapse. I think I'm falling asleep, my body releases pressure. I feel myself going away. Suddenly, something hot touch my cheek. A hand?

I woke up and stand in panic. The books, on the one I was sitting, fell in thud on the dusty floor. The night as fallen and it is dark in the mansard. How long did I sleep?

"Hi the Vixen. How did it go?" said a voice that I would recognize between a thousand.
"Shawn?" I said with surprise. "Black sheep, why are you here?"

He laughs. His black curls fall on his forehead and his big grey pupils hold to mine. He walks towards me, take my hand and bring me closer to him.

"Come on Diane don't take your wrathful face. It was an evidence that you will come here after the exam. I know you by heart."
"Shawn, leave! You passed the exam last year. You're not allowed to be here."
"Here? Or with you Diane?" he asked and my heart tightens by fixing his lips whispering my name.