"You're super serious now," Lauren pointed out, and Amber could only nod.

It was a couple of days since she'd had the chat with her Mom about that, and Amber had tried hard to throw herself into all the things that she enjoyed. She knew that she couldn't just keep worrying about the monsters, because she wouldn't be able to fight them as well if she was upset. But it was still hard.

"Sorry," she shook her head, "I'm still thinking about the monsters."

"The guy on the news said they won't be coming back. They're in other countries now, and there's like hundreds of countries to choose from, so they're not going to come back here."

"No, they're coming back," Amber answered confidently. "Look, it's hard to explain, but I think I got to tell somebody or I'm going to burst. But it's a secret, right? Can you keep a secret for me? It's a big one."

"About the monsters?" Lauren's eyes went wide, "If you know something about the monsters, you've got to tell a policeman, so they can tell the army. Or a teacher, I bet they'd know what to do."

"No, I can't tell anybody. This is important." She glanced around the schoolyard, at all the other kids hanging around in groups or playing whatever games they felt like today. Nobody seemed interested in her secret, but she was sure they would if they knew what it was about. "I could tell the police, but they wouldn't believe me. I'm just a kid, right? But they couldn't do anything anyway. It's special, it's secret. Please, promise you won't tell anybody, if I tell you?"

"Okay, I promise. Cross my heart. You're my best friend, of course I won't tell anybody. Do you want to..." she jerked her head in the direction of a couple of trees near the school wall. They weren't particularly secret or private, but it had been a special place for the girls. A place where they could tell secrets, and imagine the screen of leaves around them would keep anyone else from listening in. They were too old to believe in stuff like that, and Amber knew that Lauren didn't really believe the place had magic powers any more. But it was a sign she was serious.

So they walked over to the privacy trees, and stood with their backs to two of the trunks. And there, Amber shared the secret that she knew she never should.

"When the monster attacked here, I went to find it. I led it away on purpose. You know that right? Do you think it was brave or stupid, or... Well anyway, I knew I had to do that. It was like, where I was meant to be. I think maybe I can tell you the truth. And if you told anyone, they'd just say you're a little kid. Just like me. Except I'm not, not really."

"Are you a genie again?"

"No," Amber found herself blushing furiously. She'd said that before, and it had slipped her mind for a moment now. It had been when she was much younger, when her imagination was so full of amazing things that some of them spilled out into her mind, and sometimes it wasn't easy to tell the difference between a dream and the real world. Amber had still been young enough to get carried away in her dreams like that, and she'd share them with Lauren sometimes, even after she learned that most people would just laugh. "No, that was just a game. Or something I didn't understand. But you know like Mrs Carlsen and Cleopatra? That's not just a game, not just a fairytale. That's something grown-ups believe in too, and some of them pay loads of money to find out who they used to be."

"You were Cleopatra in a past life?"

"No, listen. I was a demon hunter. Or a lord. Or something else, I don't know the word for it. But I've been having these dreams, and I thought they were pretty crazy. But when that monster came, I wasn't thinking like me. I wasn't thinking about how weird it was, and telling myself all kinds of stories about what it might be, just watching and not doing anything. That's what you expected me to do, right?"

"Ummm... I guess?"

"I acted like the person I used to be. In a past life. And then I met other people who had the same dreams. There's six of us, who are supposed to stop the monsters. And we did. When it chased me up into the woods, you saw that thing didn't you, we found a way to get rid of it. The police said it just disappeared, but it didn't really. We made it disappear. That means those dreams are real, we all had the same dreams and now we can stop the monsters."

"So you've got some kind of superpowers?" she could hear that Lauren didn't really believe. But she wasn't certain. Amber could almost see the confusion in her friend's eyes. Amber knew she sometimes came out with weird things that most people wouldn't believe. But this time, Lauren was wondering what sounded crazier. A friend with superpowers, or a monster attacking the school and then just disappearing into nowhere. Both seemed kind of odd, and maybe odd enough that it might be hard to decide which one was real.

"Kind of. I haven't learned to use my powers properly yet, because I was born at the wrong time. Like, I'm too young, and I've still got to learn. Some of the others are better. But we're learning what the monsters really are, and we're trying to find out who brought them back so we can stop them."

"You should tell the police, I think. Maybe they could do something then!"

"No, you can't tell them! It's a secret, right? We've got... superpowers, I guess. But our powers are like little tiny things. We have to not tell anyone else, because they wouldn't believe us and they might even try to stop us. Because even if I can learn to do it properly, I could only do it when the others are around. So I need to hide, and not let the bad guys find me. That's why it's got to be a secret, so we have to fight the monsters without anybody knowing."

"Like a real superhero, I think," Lauren smiled a little, "A secret identity. This isn't like the stuff you make up, you know. I love the stories you tell me, and when you get all confused about if it's real or not. But this isn't like any of them, this has got like, reasons behind it, and it makes sense more. I think I don't like this story as much, but it sounds like it could be real. Like you're worried about it instead of all excited, you know?"

"Thanks. I don't really like it either. I mean, being an ancient knight, or wizard, or whatever you call it sounds so cool. But a wizard who can only make little things that don't even seem magic, that's not much of a power. And when I hear about some monster in another country killing people, I think like that's my fault. Because I'm not old enough to go there and stop it."

"You can really stop them? Like, really?"

"No, not really. Once or twice, we got lucky. We should be able to do something, but it's always going to be tough. We're just tricking them, when we're not strong enough to fight them properly. And the same trick won't work twice. We have to do better, we have to be stronger. We need to find the Princess."

Amber opened her hands. While she was talking, without really thinking about it, she'd made something. Like the little animals that some people made out of folded paper, But this was an inch-high spider, folded from the living leaves of the tree. She put it down on the side of the trunk and it stood there without falling. Amber looked at it, wondering what she'd been thinking to make something like that, and if it was somehow magical. She had no idea if it would continue to grow, but she knew that she hadn't practised anything like enough to do that without special abilities.

"Thanks, Amber," Lauren smiled, and hugged her. It was the last kind of response she expected. "Thanks for telling me, I can see how hard that's been. And I'll still be worried about you, you know? But I think that's kind of awesome too. I know you can do it. And you get to meet a Princess too? I'm jealous now, I've never even seen a Princess. You might get a knighthood, or anything! You beat a monster already, I think that should be enough. And if you need anybody to talk to you know I'm here, if there's stuff making you upset it's good to have somebody to say it to, right?"