?The constant foreshadowing really helped build suspense in the story because no matter how much information it seems like Julian is giving away, you really don’t know the ending until you get there. Upon reading the story a second, third, and fourth time, I learned a lot about what was actually going on.
?Julian is very much a typical psychopath, but he has some pretty clear differences as well. Normal psychopaths (obviously) don’t have powers that allow them to kill people with their minds, but Julian does—or does he? Are those deaths just coincidences? Whatever the case, the intent behind his actions mirrors that of a regular psychopathic murderer. He believes somebody deserves to die, and it happens. As for Julian’s ability to get away with anything: it’s a pretty well-known fact that psychopaths are master manipulators and can essentially talk their way out of anything (seriously, have you seen Dexter?). So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Julian can get away with murder (literally or figuratively) and break any rule as well.
?To me, Julian felt like a normal teenager. Who hasn’t in a fit of rage wished someone dead? But for average teens, it doesn’t actually happen (at least, I hope not). And just like any other guy his age, he faces awkwardness around girls, jerks from school, and the stresses of hosting a party.
?Julian’s inner voice remained very lighthearted throughout the story, which was a great contrast to his sinister thoughts and behavior. He also didn’t stick to any moral code like Dexter does, which dehumanized Julian a bit and made him more frightening. Despite all this, I was completely on his side the entire time. This is a slightly terrifying thought when you’re reading about a psychopathic killer (!!!), but I often find myself rooting for the villains.
?Speaking of Julian being a stone-cold killa, the ending of this story knocked my socks off. Here I was, thinking Julian would remain a quasi-telepathic murderer until the end of his days, but nay! This is the day when he plans to take control at last and kill the hated Steven Kemple with his own two hands. I didn’t see that coming, and it had me itching to flip to the next page to find out what happened, but THERE WAS NO MORE. Touché, Mr. Smith. Touché.
Although this story left me with plenty of questions, it also provided me with a lot of ideas and theories. Does Julian actually go through with killing Steven? We’ll never know! How far can he push his power of manipulation? To the moon, perhaps! The openness of the ending hurt my soul (just a little bit), but it was the perfect note on which to end the story. Strange, suspenseful, and definitely psychopathic, Julian Powell is a teen psycho extraordinaire.
INDIGO AND SHADE
BY APRIL GENEVIEVE TUCHOLKE
I didn’t believe the Beast was back. Not at first. No one did.
The redheaded Bellerose twins claimed they saw it roaring in the moonlight at the edge of the Hush Woods. They said it was ten feet long with six-inch teeth and it seemed to “worship the night” . . . whatever the hell that meant. They said they took off running and barely escaped with their lives.
I just laughed in their faces.
I was sure they’d seen a bear or wolf or something else furry and large and got so scared, the cowards, that their reason and common sense shut down and their craven, sixteen-year-old brains conjured up a monster.
People in the Rocky Mountains had been trying to kill the Beast since the Colorado gold rush. It would appear, slaughter a few kids, and then vanish again. On and on and on for the last hundred and fifty years. It had all happened before, and it would all happen again. Unless I could stop it.
I’d been waiting for the Beast to return to our woods since I first learned how to use a bow. I practiced archery, hour after hour, while other kids did stupid, unheroic things like kick balls and fall off skateboards and take piano lessons.
I was ready. I was born for this. It would be stopped, right here, right now, by me.
Three nights after the Bellerose twins said they saw the creature, three nights after I laughed them off and called them cowards . . .
I saw the Beast for the first time.
I was night-hunting in the Hush Woods. I felt my skin prickle, instinct, basic and primal. I froze in my tracks and looked up . . . and there it was, crouching over a fresh kill, teeth ripping into a deer, bones crunching, blood spraying.
There isn’t a cowardly bone in my body. I didn’t run like the twins. I sucked in my breath, slipped lithely and shadowy behind a tall pine tree, and watched the creature that had killed so many people, the creature that had loomed so large in my imagination since I was a little kid.
The Beast was lupine in shape, broad nose, short ears, angular limbs, soft-looking fur. But there was something sentient about it, too. Sentient and savvy. It seemed . . .
Aware.
The animal tore off the deer’s hind leg in one hard jerk, held it in its mouth, and sniffed the air. It turned and looked at me—straight at me.
I’d watched a lot of animals in the woods. Killed them, too. I knew them, knew their emotions. I’d stared into their eyes and seen surprise, and hunger, and fear, and indifference. But I’d never seen anything like the Beast’s. Its eyes were sad, lonely, angry, proud. Human.
I should have nocked my arrow. I should have shot it, whoosh, slice, fur parting, skin tearing, muscles ripping.
This was my moment.
Instead, I called out, “Who are you?”
The Beast flinched at the sound of my voice, gaze still locked with mine. We both watched each other for one second, two, three . . .
And then it bolted through the trees, deer leg tucked between its jaws.
I didn’t tell a soul. I was Brahm Valois, after all, heir to the Valois fortune and not some idiot redheaded twin. I couldn’t tell people I’d seen the Beast bloodily eating a deer in a cursed patch of Colorado woods . . . and then had let it go.
People were counting on me.
They were expecting me to do what no one else had ever done.
Kill the Beast.
I dreamed about it, every night since then. But in my dreams the Beast didn’t run away. It just tilted its head back and howled.
Someday I would put an arrow through its heart. I think it had known. I think it had seen this in my eyes. I held its fate in my hands, and it had run away.