The Wanderer was merely a shadow flickering through the mist within the pine trees.  It was a great talent, being a shadow.  Only the Dreamers could really master it, and even then some were too absent-minded to remember to be silent.  That was really all there was to it: wearing dark clothing and making absolutely no noise.  And sensing someone from a mile away, which only people with the Dream could do.   

The Wanderer paused, feet still on the soft cold earth, at the steadily nearing sound of heavy boots—many pairs of them—stamping down the path.  She decided they were close enough, ducked down, and flattened herself out underneath a tree, grateful for its enveloping branches.                                                                                                                   

A whole line of them marched by, not a single word shared between them, unaware of the shadowed girl watching them from under a pine tree.  They were incredulously loud in their steel armor; she had heard them from even further off than a mile.                                                         She waited patiently for them to pass by, too aware of those heavy head-bashing maces they carried, and stayed under the tree for a moment to gather herself.  She didn’t know where she was going or what she was doing or who she had become, though, oddly, she knew exactly where she was.                         Okay.  I know I’m not known by any name.  I’m just the Wanderer.  I had my hair cut recently.  I have a dog, a husky, but I don’t know where he is or what his name is.                           While trying to pull these seemingly insignificant facts back to herself, the Wanderer observed her clothing.  For some reason it seemed strange on her body, too light, too tight.  But it felt like a relief, just like her hair.  She was wearing pants, oddly enough.  A long-sleeved shirt that was tight at the wrists but loose like a skirt at the waist,  knee-high boots with brown leather laces,  gloves with the fingers cut off halfway, a long hood that covered up most of her face.  The clothes were tight, and everything was black except the hood and gloves, which were dark purple.

She waited a long while before creeping out from the safety of the trees.  It was obviously winter; it was freezing out here.  The last thing she remembered, she was being indignantly shoved into a covered wagon, a gag muffling her and her hands tied behind her back.  Her head had been aching terribly, as it always did when she had Dreamed too much.  She was eight years old then, a companion to a princess, and she was fifteen now, she knew.  She also knew that the entire city she remembered living in—Goldenwood—had been gone for a long time, burned to the ground, and so had Princess Emily.                 She looked around cautiously before pushing her hood down.  She pulled at a short lock of hair with numb fingers and observed that it was pale blonde, almost white.  Had it been that way before?  She didn’t remember.  She wished she had a mirror; maybe it would make her remember a little, seeing her own face.  

But now was no time to wish for things.  She pulled her hood up.  She had to keep moving, she knew, and in the same direction of those steel-clad men, unfortunately.  She set off, still silent on her black-clad feet, and though she didn’t notice, she left purple footprints behind.                                 

She had been walking scarcely an hour before she heard the rumble of wheels behind her.  She knew vaguely at the back of her mind that she should immediately dart back into the thick and comfortable shelter of the trees, but being a Dreamer, she had lost herself a little, as they tended to do.  Snow had begun to fall, and it mesmerized her, for each one made a tiny music note as it hit the ground.  As the snow grew heavier, the music grew more and more harmonious, until an iridescent melody was pouring through her ears, a melody only she could hear.  She smiled in joy, and didn’t notice the carriage until it was right behind her.

 A sudden fist gripping the back of her shirt startled her out of her quiet bliss, the snow-notes shattering into a discordant screech.  She looked up, careful to keep the hood shadowing her face.

Relief washed through her when she realized it was just a soldier in green—not one of them.  He was in his twenties, with short brown hair and a slim figure.  Probably new.  She knew he was just doing his job, being extra cautious because of all the terror attacks lately.  She knew she definitely looked like someone who was up to something.

“Who are you?”  he demanded.  “What are you doing on the road alone?”    

Quiet but urgent knowledge told her that if he knew she had the Dream, she would be bound in the back of the carriage immediately.  Thankfully, her purple tracks faded quickly, especially in cold or heat.  

She tossed back her hood and smiled enthusiastically.                 “I’m going to Freezebound, sir,” she said, though of course she had no idea why she was going there.  All she knew was that the great city of ice lay at the end of this path.                                                                                   “What business do you have in Freezebound?”  

“My mother sells ice way down in the Solar Hold, and I’m going to collect it for her,” the Wanderer informed him, knowing she was lying.

The soldier seemed to understand that, and slowly released his iron grip on her shirt.                                                                                 “Be on your way, then.  And next time, wear warmer clothes.”  He scrutinized her carefully.  “Are you wearing pants, girl?”

 She nodded, feeling as though if she pretended to know what she was doing, he would accept the lies more easily.  

“My mother always sends me wearing pants.  It’s a lot warmer than dresses.  That’s why I’m in all black, too.  But I had to cut holes in my gloves because—I—”                                            Here she choked up, feeling a sudden stab of guilt over all the lies.         

The guard waited expectantly.                                                                       She swallowed and continued in a rush.  

“Because I like to sew and I can’t take my gloves off in Freezebound so this was the next best thing to do.”  A weak explanation, but one that the soldier would probably accept.  

He looked rather bewildered.  He waited a moment before speaking, just in case she had something else to add.  

When she didn’t say anything, he said, in a much kinder tone,     “All right, then.  Sounds adventurous, I suppose.  Do you need a ride to Freezebound?  I’m stopping at the castle and it’s not far from there.”                                                                             She hesitated, digging for her hidden knowledge.  She was on the side of the soldiers in green, though they generally hated people who had the Dream.  Everyone did; they were considered a danger to the nation.  It would be safe to ride in the carriage with the soldier as long as he didn’t see her footprints, she remembered, which weren’t likely to show up very noticeably in this cold anyway, and as long as she tried to keep her attention extremely focused and not let herself wander off.  “That would be great! Thank you,” she gushed like a little girl.  She was great at faking emotions, she discovered.

The soldier held out his hand for her to climb into the carriage, and she grabbed it before she knew what she was doing.
 

the cold the cold it’s always so cold today ma’s been gone for three years can’t wait to get out of training wish my sister was here dog’s asleep in the back hope he’s warm poor thing wonder where his owner is might keep him if no one comes looking real pretty thing almost like a wolf
miss home
what the heck is she doing? going to get in the carriage or not, kid?

She snapped awake from the Dream, feeling the blank stare etched across her face, and quickly pulled herself into the carriage, wishing desperately she didn’t have these stupid holes cut in her gloves.  Why had she done that, anyway?  If they weren’t there, and they were normal gloves, she wouldn’t see into people’s lives because she wouldn’t technically be touching the person.  She knew that much.  She would only hear the song that moving water or snow or fire created, would feel the incredible energy that living things had, would see the quiet beauty in everything good that existed, not accidentally pry into others’ lives.                 She opened the carriage door, praying that the soldier (his name was Luke, she knew now that she had seen into his mind, and he was a good person) wasn’t looking at her feet, and slipped inside to the warmth.  

The “wolf-like dog” lying on the floor looked up and gave a loud yelp.  He was a magnificent dog; his body was white but his legs and ears and tail were a unique silver that almost shimmered, and he had a streak of the same silver on his head.  His eyes were dark blue.  He watched her expectantly, wagging his silver tail.  He whined.

“Oh!” she gasped after a moment.  “You!”  She smiled in relief and recognition, and reached out to ruffle the dog’s ears.  She knew her dog would find shelter somewhere.  She ducked her head out the door of the already-moving carriage.                   “You found my dog!  Thank you so much, mister!”

She closed the door before he could say anything and lay down on the floor with her dog, Silverwind, who was indeed part wolf.  She didn’t feel in the least tired—actually, she felt as if her quest, whatever it was, was just beginning.

The carriage interior was lit by a single lantern swinging from the ceiling, and held only two cushioned benches on opposite walls and a large brown leather bag with brass buckles, the kind that soldiers used.  The Wanderer settled onto one of the benches, grateful to be out of the cold but apprehensive about whatever her quest was.  A deep fear had been growing in her that she wouldn’t make it in time—but she had no idea where she was going or when she had to be there or why.                          An idea occurred to the Wanderer that she hadn’t thought about before.  Using some hidden knowledge—that is, she knew, but she didn’t know where she knew it from—she reached into her tight sleeve and found a pen.  She slipped it back and reached up to her left shoulder.  Hidden on the inside was a little pocket, this one containing a folded piece of paper, which she put to the side, as it wasn’t something for her, she knew.  There was a wide pocket at her side with a flat glass bottle in it, protected with leather on the sides, like something a pirate would use; a little bit of luminescent blue liquid sloshed around in the bottom of it.  A pocket in her pants held a few coins, and one last pocket in one of her boots held nothing.

She replaced everything but the paper and sat back against the wall of the carriage.  This wasn’t everything she owned.  There was something else out there, something she had hidden that she needed.  A box?  A bag?  No—a box in a bag.  It was a fairly large box, so it was the only thing that fit within the bag.  Or were there two boxes but she had thought only one would fit?  

The vital information shuddered at the edge of her mind, like a loved one in pain behind a dirty glass wall.  She couldn’t reach it no matter how hard she tried.                                                                    Suddenly she remembered the folded piece of paper.  The background knowledge that she had come to know as “the old Wanderer” told her that it was maybe a message for someone else—something she was supposed to deliver only as a backup if she failed.  She had written it herself.

She unfolded the paper only for her shoulders to sink in dismay: it was written entirely in a number code she didn’t remember.  Disappointed, she folded it back up and put it back in its shoulder pocket.  

The carriage pushed on while the Wanderer tried and failed to sleep, because she knew she needed it.  The bench wasn’t very big, for one, but more than that, the fear of the unknown deadline made her restless.  No matter how warm and safe the soldier’s carriage was, it wasn’t fast enough for her; she wanted to get back out and run with her dog through the trees, fast enough to pass any carriage like this in seconds.  She needed to be there, right now, so she could tell…

Her thoughts trailed off quickly here, almost like they were pulled away.  She was going to tell someone something!  That much she remembered.  It was someone close to her.  But she had no idea who it was; it could have been her grandfather or her little sister or her twin.

A bit placated by this new knowledge—at least now the pressing burden of not knowing her mission was lightened a little—she managed to find a somewhat comfortable position on her side and dozed off.

The doze had deepened into full sleep before they found her, and it took her a minute upon waking to figure out where she was.  She heard their silken voices outside the carriage, and Silverwind frantically pawed her arm.

She jumped up, silent on her feet, and listened intently.

“…aware that you’re harboring a fugitive?…something of utmost importance…a danger to society…”

It was impossible to hear Luke the soldier’s voice. She focused her attention, with some difficulty, on finding an exit where they wouldn’t see her leaving.

They want the hope, she thought rapidly.  They want the hope.  They won’t get it.  It’s for him.  I need to save him.  I can’t lose him.  They can’t take the hope from me.  He needs it…

A face vaguely flickered in her head, a pale face with dark eyes and short dark hair.  Laughing while rain streamed down his face.

After the lovely image faded, she realized, with a horrid panic, that there was no way out of the carriage except for the door she’d come in through—and their voices were coming from that side. 

What will they do when they realize I don’t know where I put it?

She pushed that thought away, because the old Wanderer knew exactly what they would do.

She looked down at Silverwind, who gazed back at her with mournful eyes.  He was such a loyal dog; she couldn’t let them hurt him.  She stroked the great dog’s head and whispered in his ear.

“Stay here, boy.  I’ll come back for you.  Take care of the soldier.  He’s a good man.  Be good yourself.”

Silverwind sat down obediently and whined a little.  She rested her hand on his head one last time and turned to open the carriage door.

All of them—every one of them—looked straight at her when she came out.  A sick dread came over her.

They looked back at Luke.

“Well, then!  Did you lie? Or did you not know she was with you?”

She blinked, surprised.  The soldier hadn’t given her away?

She spoke up on his behalf.

“He didn’t know I was there.  I snuck in when he stopped.  He’s done nothing wrong.”

One of them stepped towards her, steel armor glinting in the fading light, and she backed away, fists up, though it wouldn’t do any good.  He laughed a little and spoke with a venomous voice that would make a small child cry.

“Think you’re clever, huh?  Escaping like that.  Tell us where you hid it and we won’t harm you.  If you don’t…well…”

He didn’t have to say more.  Fear making her hands shake, she slipped the glass flask out of her side pocket and held it up.

“I don’t have any idea where I put it…and I think it has something to do with this?”

He stared at it, all trace of taunting intimidation gone, and snatched the bottle from her.  Before he could make another move, she was in the trees.

Furious yells pursued her from behind, but the men were large and slow in their steel and couldn’t move as fast as she could.  She tore through the pines just like she had before, and got an eerie sense of déjà vu.  She prayed she wouldn’t forget again; she was close to remembering something important, she knew.

The trees were thinner here, so she supposed she was close to Freezebound.  The yells grew fainter as she pressed forward.

I hope I didn’t need whatever was in that bottle, she thought.  It must have been what made her forget—she had just been guessing that that was what it was, but the look on his face told her she was right.

She slowed a little, and gradually came to a stop.  There was Freezebound; she could hear the people.  The snow on the ground was thicker than ever, and the wind threatened to knock her over.  She trudged on through the chilly slush as the daylight began to fade.  She wondered what day it was.  She wondered how she would know who to look for.  She wondered if the boy was even there at all, and if she was actually just crazy.

Mostly, she wondered what would happen if she couldn’t find the box.

As she reached the wall of Freezebound—a solid cold mass of impenetrable stone—and started circling around to find the entrance, she thought about the box until her mind was sore.  She was certain it was in a bag.  A brown bag.  A brown leather bag?  And she knew the box was blue.  But what about that other smaller box she kept coming back to?  That wasn’t as important, she didn’t think, at least not to anyone but her.  The other box must be of sentimental value, she mused.

Suddenly she froze and gasped.

A brown leather bag.  With brass buckles.  A soldier’s bag.  It was my father’s.  I put it on Silverwind’s back, the straps were around his front legs so it wouldn’t fall off, just like Father showed me…and…Silverwind was picked up by the soldier, Luke.  So what did he do with the bag?

The realization hit her.  She put her gloved hands to her face, feeling like a total idiot.

That soldier bag in the carriage wasn’t Luke’s, was it?

Oh, no.

What now?  Had they picked it up?  They can’t have the hope!

She tried not to get discouraged.  Maybe they wouldn’t realize what it was?  Maybe they would assume, like her, that the soldier’s bag actually belonged to the soldier?  Sick dread twisted in her stomach.

A sudden noise from behind made her jump (it was actually just a squirrel, but she didn’t know that) and before she could turn to see what it was, she took off for the doors into Freezebound.

The seemingly endless pines encircled all of Freezebound’s enormous stone wall except for a wide path straight to the massive front gate, which was closed and opened at certain times of the day for security reasons.  She plodded on doggedly until, at long last, she wearily pushed through the last pine branch.

The path was solid dark dirt, cold and hard-packed.  Her boots made a heavy noise as she ran for the gate, which was, thankfully, wide open.

Freezebound was a city of ice, but it was not actually made of ice.  The buildings were stone and the streets were stone and the wall was stone, but nothing was made of ice (although everything was encrusted in it).

When the Wanderer stepped in through the gate, the very first thing she noticed was the warmth.  Not in temperature, that was for sure—but the people themselves.  Everyone looked so happy.  No one would glare disgustedly at her footprints here.

Maybe it’s a holiday, she thought as she looked around at all the smiling faces.  All around her was laughter and cheer, and it made her happier, and a bit relieved.  If something bad had been going to happen, it obviously hadn’t happened yet.

Despite the warmth she felt in her mind, she definitely didn’t feel it in her body, so she found the nearest brightly lit inn and stepped inside.

The old Wanderer in her told her she should save her money, so she merely sat unnoticed at a table and looked out the window.

Well, she was there.  What was she going to do now?  Ask around about a boy her age with dark hair?  Go door-to-door and tell them the Wanderer was here for a friend?

And then she saw her.  Someone she knew.

She was a tall lady with tan skin and black hair, working behind the counter, and she moved from task to task as swiftly as a hummingbird.  The Wanderer stared, blank, for a second, before the lady looked up.

When the lady saw who it was, her face broke into a wide grin, and she gave the Wanderer an energetic wave.  She halfheartedly waved back, and before she knew it the tan lady was beside her with a mug of some kind of sweet warm liquid, chattering in an Indian accent so quickly the Wanderer could barely comprehend what she was saying.

“…you look so pale, dear, were you running again?  Oh, and you cut off all that long pretty hair of yours!  Have you seen your friend yet?  He’ll probably be terribly excited to see you—are you wearing pants, dear?”

“My friend!”  the Wanderer gasped, as his name began to take shape in her mind.  It started with a J.  Oh, what was his name?

“Yeah, Jedrek, he’ll be so happy to see you.  Well, if he’s still here.  He didn’t say when he was leaving.”  She gazed thoughtfully at the Wanderer, sitting frozen in her seat.

“Are you sure you’re all right?  Dear…Mim?”

Mim?  Mim is my real name?  I thought it started with a B.

“I’m sorry,”  she spoke up suddenly.  “Look…something happened…”

The lady watched her expectantly.

“I think I drank this blue stuff and it made me forget a lot of things—probably more than I meant to, because I can’t remember anything from after I was, like, eight.  I was running through the woods away from these…people, and I didn’t know what I was doing except I had to get something to someone.  I think it was Jed.”

The lady stared at her, seeming shocked, and then put her hands to her face.  “Oh, little Mim, you’re always getting into some kind of trouble, aren’t you?”  She shook her head.  “Why on earth would you…?  We told you it was only for emergencies!”  She looked up.  “How much did you drink?”

“I don’t know…but there was this much left in the bottle.”  She held her fingers a little less than an inch apart.

“Well, no wonder you lost seven years of memory!  He said a sip, Mim!  He didn’t know if it would work or not!  Do you still have the bottle?”

She realized that she still didn’t know who the lady was, so she shook her head, but she didn’t say who was now in possession  of it.

The lady sighed.  “Take your drink and come with me.”

The Indian lady led the Wanderer—Mim?—down a maze of hallways, up stairs and down stairs and around corners so much that she felt like she was bobbing in the ocean.

Finally a door opened and the Wanderer followed the lady into a room full of, oddly, clothes.  It was well lit and crammed with all kinds of warm apparel, from boots to gloves to capes to hats.  It was a familiar room; she’d been down here many times.

“Okay,” the lady said.  “I don’t know how much I can help you.  If you don’t remember the last seven years, you don’t remember us.  I am Sanya. My brother and I run this inn.  My husband died years ago and you brought beautiful flowers to his funeral all the way from the Solar Hold for us—you told us you stay there sometimes—because you and I always got along really well, and I gave you discounts on everything.  I remember you told me you loved this inn because you felt like you were at home…we used restored wood from Goldenwood to panel the second floor.  You lived in Goldenwood when you were little—you remember that, don’t you?

“My brother makes things—illegally—that have a strange effect on  the human mind—he wants to help the Dreamers fit in a bit better—and he made something that he wanted you to test out for us.  I was against it, but you weren’t.  Evidently, you drank it.  Almost all of it.  And evidently it didn’t work, because it was supposed to make your memory better.  Though I don’t know why he asked you to test it, you have a better memory than all of us.  Your best friend was staying here.  Jedrek.  I don’t know what you were bringing to him or who was chasing you.  That’s…well, that’s it.”

She stopped to breathe, and the Wanderer took all this in.  At least she knew now that the stuff in the blue bottle wasn’t terribly important—unless the steel-armored men were some kind of authority and could arrest Sanya and her brother for making things illegally, but she didn’t think they worked for the king.

And why did I drink almost all of it?

She looked up.  “Your brother doesn’t put his name on anything he makes, does he?”

Sanya looked at her indignantly.  “Of course not!  You know—well, you used to know that.”

Relieved that they wouldn’t get in trouble, the Wanderer asked a different question.                                                                          

“Where’s Jed?”

Back through the maze of hallways and flights of stairs, to the second floor, or so she assumed (the inn was so confusing she couldn’t tell where one floor ended and another began).  Jed was staying in a nicer room than most, because he was the Wanderer’s friend, according to Sanya.  The hallways on the upper floor were paneled in a pretty wood, almost golden, and the floor shone a pristine white.

Sanya unlocked a door near the end of the hallway, and before she opened it, she hesitated.  A man’s voice—her brother—was calling her from downstairs.  Without a word, she gestured to the unlocked door and turned to rush downstairs.

The Wanderer opened the door, and it swung wide open without a creak.  She stepped in, looking around with an apprehensive burning in her stomach.

“Jed?”

No answer.

“Jed!”

The room was gloomy, deep in impenetrable shadow.  Nothing stirred.  Nothing spoke.  Nothing breathed.  The Wanderer fumbled for a lamp and, when it was lit, saw that the room, besides the furniture, was totally empty.

Empty, that is, but for a slim, small, nearly-flat box of nearly-golden wood sitting on the bed.  Shaking, the Wanderer went to it and picked it up.

She undid the latch and flipped the lid open.  A tiny melody began to play, the song of the wind through vibrant green leaves, the song of the sun shining down on a land of peace, the song of the sky over the rolling ocean.  The inside of the box was pale white in the bottom and, in the top, painted with birds and clouds.

A note sat in the box, and a tiny little key, the kind for padlocks on diaries.  She unrolled the note with one hand, afraid to put the box down lest it disappear.

Three days.  I cannot stay among this happiness anymore.  The darkness is spreading, and the joy here makes it angry.  It’s threatening to destroy me.  I hate it with soulfire, but I have to go further north.  I don’t see what the point is any more, but please, Bermimpi, BRING THE HOPE!  I left the key for you.
--your dearest friend                                                                                                                                                                    Bermimpi, she thought.  I always hated that name.  That’s why I called myself Mim.  Should I call myself Mim again, now, or should I keep calling myself the Wanderer?  Why did I start calling myself the Wanderer, anyway?

The darkness is spreading.

She sat on the bed to scrutinize the note.

Three days.  Did he mean he had been in Freezebound three days, or that he had three days left until the darkness consumed him?

What was the darkness, anyway?  It had something to do with the armored men, she knew, but she didn’t remember what, exactly.

I left the key for you.  The key to the hope?  That was the only explanation that made sense.

The little golden box was still chiming out its jubilant melody. She held it carefully, fondly.  Someone had made this for her, and it was a common form of communication between Mim and Jed to leave notes in the box and leave it in a specified location.

Mother, Mim realized.  Mother made it.  For my birthday.  My last birthday before she passed away.  She was…sick?  Yeah.  I was eleven or twelve.  Father never remarried.  He must be worried sick about me; I didn’t tell him where I was going.  Only that I had to go.  I need to get back to him soon.

She slipped the note in her pocket, put the key back in the golden box, and quietly shut the lid.

At that moment, an inn-shaking crash came from downstairs.  Mim—she supposed she would still call herself that every once in a while—nearly dropped the box.  She pushed it into her wide side pocket and bolted from the room, shutting the door behind her.

She expected the room to be full of screams or chaos or fire, but it was completely and totally silent.  She pulled her hood up and stepped silently down, to find herself staring through a dense crowd at the backs of the armored men.

The leader—whom, she noticed, had the bottle of memory loss sticking out of his pocket—walked slowly and purposefully around the room, gazing into each and every face in the crowd of terrified onlookers.  Everyone was completely still and completely soundless.  The huge china cabinet that took up an entire wall of the dining area, full of every dish the inn owned, was facedown, shattered glass glimmering on the floor around it.

Mim stepped forward, hiding behind a woman with a baby, straining to see past the people.  There were five of the armored men, and one person they speared to be holding captive; his hands were chained and he stood as still as the rest of the people in the room.  She looked at him for a minute before realizing who it was—the soldier from the carriage.  Luke.

Her mind raced.  Where was Silverwind?  Where was the hope?

The leader of the armored men paused in front of Luke.

“Boy,” he muttered, “if I don’t find that girl soon, you will be arrested for lying to an official.”

Luke jerked out of his stillness and gasped suddenly.

“I don’t know where she could be,” he said in between breaths.  “All she told me was that she was going to Freezebound.”

The leader of the armored men motioned to another, and he held up her father’s soldier bag and pulled the box out.  The blue box.  The hope.  “Do you know what’s in this box, soldier?”

“No, sir, I most definitely do not.”

“In this box is…well, we don’t know for sure.  But it brings hope to people.  Hope so resilient that whoever holds it doesn’t want to listen to their officials, doesn’t know how to obey or be complacent.  Just like the Dreamers themselves.  That is why we must destroy it.  Once this box is gone, the Dreamers will fade away,  because our darkness will spread—mind you, the darkness only affects the Dreamers, not us normal people—and we can get on with building a strong and practical nation.

“But we can’t get at the box itself.  It simply won’t be damaged.  You were there.  We tried burning it, crushing it, taking it apart—but nothing can break it.  That’s why we need to find the key to open it to destroy the thing inside it.  And the Dreamer girl has the key.  Do you understand?”

She didn’t see Luke’s reply.  She stepped backwards and made a loud scuffling noise on the floor.  All five of the armored men and Luke jumped and turned at once, and the Wanderer remained still.

The leader of the armored men pushed through the frozen crowd, easily picking people up and setting them aside.  She wondered what kind of sorcery one had to use to steal the motion of an inn full of people.

When he reached her, he seized the Wanderer by the arm, and a stab of pain hit her head.  It quickly faded, but it left a numbness that she couldn’t shake away, no matter how hard she tried.

And he hadn’t done anything but touch her arm.

She let herself be pulled into the center of the room, surrounded by the armored men.

“All right, no nonsense,” the leader said.  “We have the hope.  There’s no point in running.”

“I know that.”

“So where’s the key?”

She pulled the box from her pocket and handed it to him without a word.  He eyed her curiously and opened it.  The tiny key still sat in the box, simple and insignificant.  The man picked it up and studied it, apparently lost in thought.

The Wanderer turned imperceptibly to Luke and widened her eyes, just a little.  An expression of pained indecision crossed the soldier’s face.  She mouthed a single word, one syllable, to the soldier.

He turned slowly and politely took the hope and the leather bag from the man who was holding it.  Mim’s heart lifted just to see it, and the Dream in her head pushed back the numb nothing the armored man had left behind.

The leader of the armored man turned suddenly, shaking his head, and Luke, in a terror of loyalties, spun around and bolted for the door.

The armored men gaped after him for a frozen three seconds before they, too, sprinted for the inn entrance.  Mim could have laughed.  Instead she pushed through the crowd of people—who, she noticed, were starting to breathe and move and yell, now that the armored men were outside—in the opposite direction, to the back door around the corner, on the opposite wall.

She kicked the door open and caught sight of Silverwind streaking off towards the woods like a shooting star, with none pursuing.  She let out her breath, relieved.  Evidently Luke had understood when she mouthed that word.  Dog.

Or maybe Silverwind was just running from the chaos?

She tore around to the front of the inn, trying to step lightly and silently, and peered around the corner.

The armored men had Luke the soldier by the arms.

“How could you?  After all the Black Militia has done for you?  We took you in, fed you, clothed you!  What did you do with the hope?”

Luke was silent.

“Tell us!”

“He’s gone,” Luke replied simply, turning his head slightly towards Mim.

He.  The dog.  Silverwind.

She turned and raced after her half-wolf.

She was running through the woods for the third time now.  Again the déjà vu disoriented her as she ran—but this time it was aided by something else.  Something more sinister, wrapped in shadows of the deepest sort.

She slowed, a weak tremble in her legs.  The numbness.  It was back again.  She realized what the armored man had done to her.  He had implanted that darkness in her, just as one of them had done to Jed.

She knew the effects of this darkness all too well.  She would try to ignore it, but it would eat away at the Dream, little by little.  Dread and disturbance and depression would take its place.  Then it would start to whisper to her, little things at first, like anger at something that didn’t matter, or tears over something that normally she wouldn’t care about.  It would torture her with guilt and doubt, telling her she didn’t matter.  Telling her she was worthless.

It would make her try to kill herself.

And she would have no control over it.

So my only hope is the hope.  But the hope is also Jed’s only hope.

She stood still, staring straight ahead.

I need to find my dog.

And who came shuffling out of the cold pines just then?

She ran to the dog and opened the soldier’s bag still strapped to his back.  Yes, there it was.  The blue leather box.

She pulled it out and plopped down in the thick soft snow.  It filled in the empty space where the darkness was, laughing it away.  She smiled to hold the hope, this simple thing that cured all of the world’s despair.

It’s God, she thought calmly.  God is in this box.  Or, rather, God put something in this box.

She stroked the top of the blue box.  She didn’t know if the darkness would come back after she let it go.  But she knew that someone she loved dearly needed it more than she did.

She closed her eyes and stood up.  Silverwind sat at attention, and she slipped the box back inside the soldier bag.

She knelt and held the dog’s warm head in her hands, the way she did when she needed to tell him something important.

“You are the very best dog I’ve ever had the pleasure of keeping,” she whispered.  He licked her nose.  She smiled and stood up.

“Go find Jedrek,” she commanded sharply.

He knew who Jedrek was, and he knew his scent.  He put his nose to the ground, sniffing urgently, until he tensed, lifted his head, and took off.

She followed after her dog’s tracks, sure he knew where he was going—he was an army dog, her father’s dog, used to tracking people down.  She let her spirit float, light wings of color carrying her to far places.  She had the Dream.  She had God.

And then she collapsed.

The numb darkness hit her hard, like a snake suddenly striking, and filled her entire body.  She lay paralyzed, scarcely able to breathe.

She clenched her hands into fists.

No, she thought.  I haven’t come all this way to die right here.  You won’t make me do it.  I refuse.  Do you hear me?  I WILL NOT DO YOUR BIDDING!

A sickening voice spoke up, almost laughing.

Of course you will.  Don’t try to deny me.  Submit where you are.  Just go to sleep.  It would be so much easier than trying to fight…

For a moment, she almost did.  It would be so much easier than struggling.  All her strength had been demolished in that instant.

But then she was lurching to her feet, a feverish feeling blurring her vision and filling her head with steam.

I won’t do it.  I won’t let you take me.  I belong to God.  I have the hope.  I have love and happiness and the Dream.  I am free.

It began to speak again, the darkness, but she didn’t hear it; she blocked its nasty little voice out with the sound of the Dream’s music as more snow began to fall.  She shoved the darkness back, forcing it away with a hope that flowed not from the box, but from somewhere within her.  It came from God, Christ above who absolutely could not be defeated. Stronger now, she concentrated on finding her dog’s tracks.

When it comes down to it, the darkness is nothing.  It’s just the absence of light, the empty place where hope hasn’t reached yet.  All you need to do is let God fill it.