At only 7,650 words, this is not quite a novella, is it? I'm not quite sure how else to classify it, by Wattpad standards. Perhaps it's a very long short story. A novelette?

It's no more mature than Bridge to Terabithia, The Giver, or any other Newberry Award winning novel, but I should disclose for the sake of anyone who battles depression that the protagonist of the story reaches the proverbial "despair event horizon" at the climax of the story, rather in the same way the "ugly duckling" in Hans Christian Andersen's despairs just before finding out he was really a swan all along. 

   She sat in the back of the classroom, quietly chewing her pencil. Later, she knew, Mrs Leonard would lecture her on her slatternly and unclean habits and would throw away her creatively decorated writing instrument. The truth of the matter was that she was doing this to annoy her teacher. School was boring without some small amusements. Second grade had been so much better than third.

   "Patricia, are you daydreaming again?"

   "What?"

   Mrs Leonard sighed with exasperation.

   "I asked you the question twice already. What is the square root of eighty-one?"

   "Five?"

   "Patty, you'll never get out of remedial math if you don't try hard enough. Have you been chewing your pencil? If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, pencil chewing is unsanitary..."

   It only made matters worse that Patricia appeared to be totally unashamed of herself. It was a mask, of course - she was far too sensitive to be completely unaffected by criticism - but her apparent invulnerability made her teacher see red and charge, over and over again.

   She smiled to herself and lifted the top of her desk. On the inside, she had taped a special picture to the old, yellow wood. It was a scene of a magic, golden kingdom. To the right of the drawing was a high mountain, on which perched a spired crystal castle. Rainbows burst forth from its windows, falling hundreds of feet to the ground. In the misty green valley beneath was a wild herd of unicorns.

   The drawing was magical. She was afraid to show it to anyone else because she didn't want anyone to see anything but beauty. Her ideas were perfect, but her artistic ability was not.

   "Class is dismissed. Patty, you may go, unless you wish to see me."

   "No, ma'am."

   She frowned. The teacher looked genuinely concerned. Patricia couldn't help but feel sympathetic to the poor, unimaginative woman, who had probably never meant any true malice to her. It wasn't Mrs Leonard's fault that she never understood Patricia, or that Patricia was outside the teacher's realm of blandness.

   "No. That's all right. I don't need anything."

   "Are you sure?"

   "Yes."

   "Your parents say you've been having problems adjusting to this new school, and your testing performance seems to indicate an LD of some sort. Perhaps I can help."

   "No, that's all right."

   "How are you getting along with your classmates? You don't seem to have many friends."

   "I'm fine." Patricia was good at being brave to her teachers.

   Mrs Leonard sighed. "You'd better go, if you want any recess left." Then she blurted, "I'm sorry if I seem unkind, but I'm thinking of your future. I don't want to see you held back. You have so much potential, if you'd only use it. I hate to see you struggle when you can do so much better. You read library books far beyond your grade level - yes, I know you read when you should be doing your workbook - and there's nothing I want more than to see you become a well-adjusted, straight-A student. Why can't you learn to fly?"

   "Perhaps," Patricia said quietly, "it's because I haven't hatched yet."

   Once she had escaped the classroom, she sat down on a bench and methodically ate her cold turkey sandwich. Hopefully today her classmates would ignore her for once.

   Soon she became aware of a presence sitting quietly beside her. She sensed nonviolence, so she looked at the person beside her with relative calmness.

   He was a short boy who smiled at her.

   Although her first impulse was to angrily demand why he was smiling, she quelled it and gave him a tight smile back.

   "You must be the chosen one."

   What? His words threw her off guard.

   "Come. Soon the gate will be closed, and we will not be able to pass through."

   He took her hand, jerking her up, and began to stride quickly toward the wood that bordered the school property.

   "Let me go," she shrieked. Her words seemed muffled and faint to her, as if they were being strangled in a set of heavy mittens. She tried to pull away, but he was stronger than she was, and it was no use.

   They marched on.

   A luminous golden door appeared in the woods, seemingly from out of nowhere. Through it projected bright rainbows of light. Stars danced in the dazzle of color. The boy leaped in, pulling her with him despite her desperate struggle against him. They fell through space and time, surrounded by blinding brightness.

   She felt ground beneath her feet, and she pitched forward, landing with a crash and a thud.

   Her eyes gradually adjusted to her surroundings. She was sprawled on a grassy knoll with her face in clover and dandelions. She breathed in the sweet green smell and rolled over, lifting her face to the warm golden sunlight. If she stayed there much longer, she would get hot and sunburned. Pulling herself to her feet, she looked around for the boy who had brought her to this oddly familiar place.

   Down the hill was a bubbling brook, which made its way noisily toward a grove of pines. The boy was there. She strode up to him purposefully, but then she stopped in amazement.

   Before him, a pile of wet rocks was hovering in the air. He gazed at the pile of rocks with intense concentration. Soon, another stone rose from the creekbed and joined the others.

   He looked up, visibly became aware of her presence, and the stones crashed down.

   "I'm sorry your entry into the world was so abrupt," he said. "We don't have much time. We have to reach the castle before the Grey People arrive."

   "My home -"

   "This is your home."

   She sighed from confusion.

   The sun was, however, warm and dry on her hair, and she was, for some bizarre reason, insanely happy. Suddenly she realized that she was very tall, over five feet, even. She was also rounder, fuller, more grown-up. Her flame-colored hair had grown so that it brushed past her hips. Her clothing of before - the grey uniform jumper, the white round-collar blouse, the forlorn knee socks, the beat-up regulation saddle oxfords - was gone. In its place was a flowing, full-trousered garment of opaque silk. It was a brilliant white and was cut lower than she was used to, although she was still well-covered. Low around her waist was knotted a deep green sash, which was embroidered with a leaf and vine pattern in blue silken thread.

   She looked at her head, reflected in the water, and saw that around it was a golden circlet that had been engraved with some sort of intricate pattern. She then saw that she was barefoot. It did not matter. Wiggling her toes in the thin grass, and digging through the moss to the soil beneath, she decided that she was pleased with her appearance.

   The boy, she noticed, had also grown, and was taller than she was at full height.

   Oddly, it seemed unimportant to her that they had aged in a matter of minutes.

   "Come," he said in a pleasant tenor, and they set off for the castle.

   For days, they roamed lush valleys and flowered meadows. She was so exhausted that every night she fell asleep before she was even aware that her eyes had closed. She and her companion awoke each day with the first rays of dawn and journeyed more.

   One day they came to a large orchard, and she finally asked, "What is your name?" How silly of me to forget a thing like that, she thought, embarrassed at herself.

   The young man smiled. "I have only the name that you give me."

   This was a new one.

   She thought hard and looked blankly into his dark eyes, for none of the names she immediately came up with - John, Andrew, Timothy, Shaun - seemed to fit. His eyes pierced her, and suddenly an idea struck her. "Hawk," she said with a smile, staring into his raptor-like eyes. They were a shade of hazel that seemed to change from amber to mahogany brown to olive to something that could almost have been a shade of blue, depending on the light, and in the shadows, they looked black as pitch - but they were always sharp, always on the verge of capturing whatever they observed. They were sharp like talons, like wind.

   "I will name you Shadowfire," he told her, "since you are woven with the stuff of starry nights." He took her hand. "Where I come from, it is part of the naming ceremony to seal the naming with a kiss." He pulled her to him. "Shadowfire," he whispered softly, and kissed her solemnly on the forehead. The spot where his lips touched her tingled.

   "Hawk." Hesitantly, she began to repeat his movements, but she realized that she was too short to reach his brow. Oh, well, she thought, he never told me where to kiss him.

   They remained in the orchard for a very, very long time.

   They lay tangled together in the grass as apple blossoms fell around them. A gentle breeze played with their hair. Hawk smiled.

   "Here, only lovers name each other. People are considered adults once they have exchanged names. They are expected to build a home for each other and for the children they will raise."

   "Ah. Thank you for telling me. That was a piece of information I had not known."

   "But since this is a special case, we do not have to pledge ourselves to each other if we do not want to... Your face is as red as an apple."

   "If I were of your world... would you want to... would you want children?"

   "In time. If you were willing. But not necessarily immediately. It is understood that these things take time."

   There was an awkward silence.

   "How close are we to the palace?"

   "Close enough. But we will have to cross the rocks first." His face clouded. "It is also called the Sea of Pain. I was spared having to cross it when I came for you, but the only way to reach the castle overland is across the rocks. We should rest, and fill our bellies, and bathe, for this will be the last chance we have to do so for a very long time."

   "Oh."

   "There's, ah, a water hole nearby. It's quite pleasant." He flushed. "Would you like to join me, or would you rather have me wait while you wash?"

   "If you think I'm going to share a pond -"

   "Hmm. The pond's this way."

   When she saw it she gasped with awe. The water was clearer than a mirror. Dumbstruck, she walked down the slope until she reached the water's edge. It would be nice, she thought, to see what she looked like. She stared eagerly into the crystalline depths and saw a girl who was a few years older than the young adolescent she had seen reflected in a stream some days ago. Her flaming hair was now so long that it fell nearly to her knees. Her deep blue eyes seemed to have grown lashes, finally, and her nose was long and straight. Her cheekbones had matured, becoming high and prominent. Her body had grown lush, curvaceous, and was spattered by dark freckles where it had been exposed to the sun. What truly amazed her, though, was the glowing mark on her forehead. Although her body was tanned and in many places, sunburned, the oval spot on her brow was white, and shone when the sun hit it. Wondering, she put her fingertips to it, and felt it throb and tingle. It was not an unpleasant sensation.

   She disrobed, and bathed thoroughly.

   The next day they left the green hills behind, and life ended abruptly.

   They stood at the edge of a great stone wasteland. In the distance, she could see a sheer cliff rising up to brush the sky.

   "Well, once we manage to cross this, we will have reached the valley of the unicorns," said Hawk.

   She had no desire to leave the rolling farmlands and wooded foothills, but she did want to see the castle of her dreams. They set off.

   She was infinitely grateful for her tough soles, for the rocky ground hurt her feet. It tore subtly at her callused flesh until, almost before she was aware of it, her bare feet were covered with blood. Her eyes were no more pleased with the landscape than her flesh was. There was no recourse from the endless grey surrounding her. She could see nothing but grey stone - to the left, to the right, in front of her, beneath her. Even the sky was grey. She began to turn around her, to look back, but Hawk prevented her.

   He was the only relief from a world of grey, for in his eyes, like a memory, was a shade of green. The rest of him was caked with grey dust.

   "There is no turning back," he said sadly, and when she wept, he held her.

   Finally, they began to walk again.

   Their food and water quickly began to dwindle. The grey ate into her soul. Her stomach was grey and empty. Her throat was so full of dust that it seemed on the verge of crumbling away. When the ground tormented her feet, she no longer bled; rather, wet grey mud oozed out from her ragged flesh. Her hollow, grey cheeks were chiseled stone, streaked with clay.

   Hawk, although he was as grey and gaunt as she was, did his best to support her. He gave her half of his dwindling food supply when hers ran out, and let her drink from his waterskin. When the supplies became too small to share, he gave her the rest of his provisions.

   "But this is all you have," she protested.

   "It's yours." He looked up at the cliff wall that now loomed ahead of them. "You'll need it for the journey ahead."

   "The valley..."

   He staggered and fell limply against her, and lurching under his dead weight, she tumbled to the ground with him.

   Grey sand insinuated itself into her flesh.

   "Take the food. There are a couple of bites left, and there's a swallow or two of water. It's all there is." He gulped several times, spat out flecks of grey-stained foam, and closed his eyes against the dust and the mortal ashes of his life. "Do not worry. We will see each other again in another life. I brought you here, and I named you, and I love you -"

   She brought her cracked lips to his as if kissing him could make everything better.

   "Don't die. I can't go on without you."

   "Horsefeathers," he stated, with a shuddering but emphatic breath, as if he were the final authority. "We will be together again. Have patience."

   "Don't leave," she croaked, as his head fell against her breast. Then he was still at last, his once-black, tousled hair lying still in the breezeless air.

   To the grey skies, she lifted her ashen face, feeling the glow of his life leave her forehead. She wanted to scream, to cry. She wanted very much to rest. However, something dragged her to her feet and made her stumble forward. Three times she fell. The food and water was lost. Finally, she tumbled down and felt her mouth fill with dust. Her hands clutched at the abrasive pumice beneath her. She closed her eyes, waiting to become a pile of ash, at one with the dust around her.

   She became aware of something tickling at her fingertips. Hesitantly, by degrees, she lifted her eyelids open.

   It was grass.

   Before her was a white alicorn with luminous wings and a glowing, opalescent horn. His deep eyes shimmered violet, and his beard just barely skimmed the ground. She stared at his snow-white mane and tail, and felt tears - real, clear tears, not just greyish mud - flood her eyes.

   Gently, the unicorn nudged her with his nose.

   She looked up. The world dipped crazily, and she lost consciousness.

   She dimly became aware of a healing warmth engulfing her. With a sigh, she gave herself up to true slumber.

   When she awoke, she found that she was alert, albeit very shaky. She stared at her clothes and hands with distaste. There was a stream nearby, so she went to it, hoping to wash herself and what was left of her garments.

   In the water, she saw a tall and gaunt woman with hair not of flame, but of rust - the brownish-red hue of dried scabs. She decided to put on the shreds of clothing again. She did not particularly enjoy staring at her body. To cover the empty place on her forehead where the white mark of love had once been, she fashioned a band from what had been the hem of her tunic.

   The alicorn approached her; after a significant moment, it occurred to her that she was actually supposed to mount him. She gulped and climbed onto his back. Into the air, they rose. His wings beat steadily and gracefully as they rose higher. At last, after they had passed through banks of clouds and dazzling rings of rainbow, they came to the edge of a cliff, and he deposited her on its edge.

   Where were you when we were dying in the grey waste?

   "Goodbye," she said.

   He hovered for a while before her, as if in farewell, and then he turned and flew away, disappearing into the distance. She was left with a single opalescent feather, which she held to her like a sacred fetish as she stared out at the crystal palace before her: the palace of her dreams.

   A woman came out of it, stretching her arms to greet the crisp morning and the new light of day. She saw the woman who a young lover had named Shadowfire and gasped.

   "Merciful stars!" she cried and ran forward.

   Shadowfire allowed herself to be led by the wrist to the palace. There she was bathed, clothed, fed, watered, bandaged, salved, and nursed in every way known to the human body, and probably some ways hitherto unknown. She took all of this in dazedly, registering none of it. At last she was led to a great soft bed, where she was tucked in under lavender-scented silken sheets. A set of filmy curtains was drawn about her. It was impossible. She closed her eyes and surrendered.

   When she awoke, she saw that it was late evening. She was naked, so when she emerged from the fantastic bed, she was grateful to see a pale blue surcoat, a white tunic, and a white sash left out for her, as well as an assortment of ribbons that she surely could not be expected to use all of. She settled for weaving a gold cord into her hair, placing her motley headband, the closest thing she had to an engagement ring, on top, and knotted the sash about her waist.

   There, she thought, and she stared out the window at the stars.

   A man walked into the room.

   "Greetings. Welcome to the Palace of Alabaster and Crystal. You may call me Tice. Mora sent me to check on your well-being. She wishes to see you."

   "Now?"

   "If at all possible. Are you rested?"

   "Yes. I'm ready."

   Tice led her through winding hallways. They were delightfully solid. The castle looked like crystal on the outside, but inside it was as substantial as a medieval fortress, with walls of luminescent, pale stone.

   "Where do you come from?" Tice asked at last.

   "Michigan. Does that mean anything to you?"

   "No."

   "I didn't think it would. Are you royalty? That looks like some kind of crown you're wearing."

   "Yes. I am a prince."

   "Ah."

   She couldn't think of anything else to say, so she said nothing, and they walked the rest of the way in silence.

   They came to a cozy wood-paneled room. The walls were covered with tall bookcases, except for brief patches of plaster and wooden carvings, which merely had books lined up in piles against the wall. Some of the piles seemed dangerously on the verge of tottering over. A large fireplace occupied one section of the wall, and a blazing fire had been built in it.

   Tice was speaking again.

   "As you can see, Mora always has her nose in a book," he said, smiling.

   The woman glanced up.

   "Not so. I ride the unicorns, look into our gazing globe, and pore over maps."

   "Maps count as books."

   "Who built the fire?"

   "I did, Mora."

   "I will concede this match," she said, "but just you wait until the next time we are attacked, and must defend our very lives with arrows and liquid fire, and see if you can hold the castle on your own. Oh, no, then it will be, 'Mora, help!' 'Mora, shoot this bloody chimera!' and you will see that I do not always have my nose in a book." Her voice trailed off when she saw Shadowfire. "Don't worry. It's not always like this. He knows I'm the superior warrior."

   "Ha!"

   "But heaven forbid he admit it."

   Shadowfire decided to attempt a diplomatic change of subject.

   "Are you Mora?" she asked. It wasn't terribly original, but it was the first thing that came to mind.

   "Of course."

   Mora smiled.

   She had long golden hair that tumbled down past her waist, eyes of the same color that were almost as piercing as Hawk's had been, and aristocratic cheekbones. She was even taller than Shadowfire, as tall as Tice, in fact, although her thinness was tempered by well-defined, sinewy muscle. A loose purple tunic hung unsashed over pale yellow trousers, and a golden cord kept her hair out of her face. Unlike Tice, she seemed dressed for comfort rather than for show.

   "Princess Mora, to be exact, although I promise to not throw my title around the way I used to. How on earth did you get here?"

   "With great difficulty," Shadowfire said shortly.

  "What happened to Alaric?"

  "Who?"

  "Your companion. Nobody ventures casually across the wastes and up the cliff to our castle; I presume you are the off-worlder Alaric set off to fetch. You would not have found your way here without some guidance."

  A lump formed in her throat.

  "Hawk."

  "Did you give him a name?" Mora cried out, flushing with joy. "Well, it was about time. Where is he? Is he still in the orchard? I could send a unicorn -" At that point, she met Shadowfire's eyes, and stuttered. "Oh, dear. He's not in the orchard, is he?"

  "We were in the grey sands together. We had to cross. He gave me the last of his food..."

  "Oh, hells." Mora swallowed, looked at the fire, then at her feet, and closed her eyes. "I should never have let him fetch you. Never. Why did I not try to send a unicorn? Why did I not go myself to bring you here? I'm stronger than he was. I should have done it. I -" Allowing herself a faint smile, she asked quietly, "What did he name you?"

  "Shadowfire."

  "Shadowfire... Yes. That fits. Oh, cold hells, how could I have been so stupid?"

   Mora drew one hand to her mouth and bit, hard. A few tears escaped her eyes before she drew a shuddering breath. Tice went to her and held her.

  "He lived here?"

  "He was my brother..."

   Mora gave in to a fit of sobbing. She wept not with the quiet, fluid way of a person given to outbreaks of emotion, but with the almost animal sobs of a person who cannot weep even when she might wish very hard to do so. Then, as suddenly as they started, the tears stopped. The cork was replaced.

   "There are other things that should be explained," she said. "First, and probably least important for you: Tice gave me my name. He calls me Lightning, for speed and fury. I've known him since I was a child. The two of us, along with Alaric, have lived here for most of our lives. Had lived here..."

  "In this large castle? Alone?"

  "There were others," Mora replied grimly. "Susana - Summerwind - was driven out in the last attack, along with her lady love. We don't know quite what became of them. Columba and Cerri are questing, as is our custom prior to adulthood - the choosing of the mate and the naming ceremony generally comes right after the quest, although we're expecting Cerri and Columba to choose each other, since they've always been sweet on each other. It was quite unusual for Alaric to go alone for several years after his quest. He actually dwelt in a village far away for a while afterward. We thought he might possibly have found someone in the village, hence his choice to live outside of the castle, but no... And then there's Allicia. She used to be called Star, then she pledged herself to a man who called her Phoenix, and then..."

  "We don't like to talk about that incident," Tice said.

  "Anyway, Allicia is no longer present."

  "How many people were here before?" Shadowfire asked.

  Tice counted on his fingers.

  "Nine others, four, ah, five of whom - deserted."

  "Twelve total."

  "Yes. Not including the staff. Our governess. Our tutors. The cook..."

  "This isn't getting us anywhere," Mora said waspishly. "We shouldn't bore our guest with our family problems, and it hurts to talk, now. Besides, she needs to know why she's here."

   Tice gritted his teeth.

  "The Grey People."

  "Yes," replied Shadowfire, "who, or what, are they, exactly?"

  "They are some of the many neighbors who attack us, and they're the least threatening of the lot. Really. They live on the other side of the grey wastes. Every ten years or so they get agitated and try to take us over. Unfortunately for them, most of them lose their way and perish, and only about five or six manage to make it here. And they're usually starved. They'd die of famine, if only they didn't have this tendency to turn on each other before we even get the chance to mount a defense against them."

  "What do you want me for, then?"

  "This time they've managed to bring the Black Cloud of Endar with them," Tice replied. "When it reaches us, the cloud will hover over a different part of the castle every day, raining corrosive black droplets. When the rain stops, nothing is left but a pile of sludge. As you can see, this worries us far more than the Grey People."

  "You must try to get them to see reason," Mora added, "or, failing that, save the unicorns and fly away. We must stay within the castle because we are a part of it, and it is a part of us. The magics that created it give us life, and even when we dwell far away from its walls, its fate is our fate, so we might as well stay where we are if the castle is to be destroyed. The unicorns, however, are quite separate from that, and they must be preserved because they are of the land itself. However, aside from our obvious desire to remain alive, we really think you should try to save the castle at all costs."

  "Why?" Shadowfire heard herself asking.

  "Because if you can't help us, you'll never be able to get back home."

   "Why on earth would I want to go back there?" Shadowfire answered. "There, I was... nothing. I was a child, a child nobody liked and who nobody had any use for. Here, I am a woman, a beautiful woman, and I am desperately needed. Here there is magic and beauty. My life before had none of that. I'm not disputing that I need to save your royal skins - of course, I want to do that - but returning to the world that I came from isn't appealing to me."

  Tice raised his eyebrows.

  "Not so. Shadowfire, do you want to spend your life in a dream? Let me consult the glass."

  He led her to a tall, black mirror.

  "This is a scry glass, also known as your friendly magic mirror. It has been enchanted to show the future. Some people are better at using it than others. Mora can shoot arrows and hurl spears like lightning bolts, but she has yet to bring a good picture out of this instrument..."

  "Oh, stop."

  Tice smiled faintly. "She's the warrior in our family. I'm the prophet and wise guy. Of course," he argued, taking the other hand, "she's a pretty prophetic storyteller, and I'm reasonably good at swordplay - but we both have our own bailiwicks, and we know it." He sighed. "Alaric was the thinker. Mora and I are bright enough, I suppose, but he was truly gifted. He was always inventing things. And he was even more idealistic, in some ways, than Mora, which is saying a good deal... Well. Anyway. There seem to be two fates open to you, and right now, both of them are equally possible. You must choose one. We can't do it for you. First, here is what will happen if you must run away with the unicorns..."

  She was in a hospital bed. She was attached to all sorts of machines. A doctor in white scrubs entered the room, leading her parents.

  "Has she made any progress?" her father asked.

  "I'm afraid not, Mr Eanes. There's no chance of her coming out of the coma, as far as I can see, although we can still hope. Hope seems to be all we have left. Of course, we will continue to do all we can to keep her alive."

  Her mother collapsed on the bed, sobbing.

  "It's my fault. The teacher said she just collapsed on the playground one day. If only I'd showed her how much I loved her before. And now it's too late. It's my fault, I know it -"

  "Now, darling, you know that's not true," her father said, taking her mother by the shoulders.

  The machines continued to whirr and breathe and click, whining their sad litany as she lay unresponsive under the sheets, as she had done for months, as she would continue to do, until her mother and father finally decided that it would be in her best interests to pull the plug...

  "This is what will happen if you succeed in saving the castle, and if you choose then to return home," Tice said quietly.

   She was lying on the asphalt of the playground. No one was paying any attention to her. Suddenly, a little dark-haired boy ran up and knelt beside her. He placed a hand on her forehead; she moaned and opened her eyes...

  "That's Hawk!" she cried out. "That's what he looked like when he came to fetch me from my world. Oh, rats. I have to go home, don't I? I'll do anything to have him back." She turned to Tice. "I'll die if I fail, anyway, won't I?"

  "In a sense, yes. This is not reality that you are in, not for you - nor is your own world real here. It wouldn't be good for you to stay here forever."

  "Think of this as a dream," Mora said.

  "This isn't your world. Would you live on here if your real body - the body you left behind - died? Who are we to know? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Life is full of gambles. Still, we do not recommend that you remain here any longer than you absolutely must. It is not just for our sake that the castle must be saved. Your fate lies in the balance as well."

  Days passed, and she lived with them for what felt like a long, long time. She spent her days in the library with Mora, sampling the books (were they real books, she wondered, or books that had never been written, save in dreams? Would she read some of them in school or in the bookstore, years later?) and trying to learn from Tice how to work the mirror (the mirror never worked for her, she found, much to her chagrin). She learned the rudiments of fighting with a bow and arrow, and with a sword; she never grew brilliant at this, but she acquired a certain competence.

  One day she woke up, and when she looked out her window, she saw a large, faceless army camped out in the distance, in the wastes. They sat, colorless and gaunt, under the protective canopy of a great black cloud. There seemed to be no end to them. They stretched for miles, a swarm disappearing on the horizon. She could feel their stares, even though she could not see their eyes. She knew that they would never move without something to move them. Dispiritedly, they huddled in the grey sands, and watched her with numb fright.

   Part of the cloud detached and hovered over an obscure wing of the castle. Large droplets of black rain poured down.

   It continued to rain for the rest of the day.

  Near sunset, the rain stopped. She could see nothing where the cloud had been - not even the sludge of dissolved stone, which logically she knew ought to be there.

  The next day the cloud was larger, perhaps because more nothingness had been added to it. It rained that day, too, and again the day after that. Two more parts of the castle, the art wing and the former servants' quarters, were now nothingness. The cloud grew bigger, more menacing. When the castle was gone, it would find something else to rain on. It always found something.

   Shadowfire went to Mora, frantic.

   "What can I do?" she asked, but she already knew the answer, in a place of her heart that she preferred to not examine very closely. Mora's reply was cryptic and full of pain. The more castle was eaten away, the less Mora and Tice were able to function. Tice had taken to his bed with severe pains in the head and stomach, unable to see or eat. He was not as strong as Mora.

   It was getting late.

   She prepared herself. She tied her hair up in a knot and put on her thickest garments, covering those with a layer of leather armor. It was the best she could do to protect herself from the winds and grey sands of the plain. Then she went out and summoned a unicorn. One came to her swiftly. She recognized him as the one she had met before.

   He shied away from her.

   "What's wrong?" she asked. Then she realized. It was the leather armor that was bothering the unicorn. She was wearing something that had been made from the skin of a once-living creature. Of course. She should have known. Still, when she stripped the offending accoutrements off, she felt naked.

  The unicorn allowed her to mount and carried her to the edge of the grey wasteland, where he waited motionlessly until she forced herself to disembark and venture into the dustpit.

  The rocks were eager to receive her again. They ate at her feet gleefully, and the dust entered her skin with an almost supernatural speed. She stumbled on. Surely the Grey People were closer to the castle than this. And what of the black cloud? It should have been there, protecting her from the winds and dust storms, at whatever cost to her self. It was as if the invaders were fleeing from her, leaving her to search fruitlessly for them in all her pain.

  She sank to the ground despairingly.

  "Come take me," she shouted hoarsely. "I don't seem to be able to take you. Here I am. Come and get me."

   She closed her eyes in surrender.

  Gradually, she became aware of a multitude around her. She looked up. Not surprisingly, she saw gaunt, blank, grey figures sitting around her. She tried fruitlessly to distinguish features on them.

  There was an eerie calm in the darkness around her, so she looked up.

  The cloud was directly above her.

  Quickly, she looked down again.

  All of a sudden, she saw one of the figures staring up at the cloud, at the thing she had not been able to face for more than a second. It began to shriek, a horrible, jarring noise, loud and shrill, and jerked about - trying, she realized, to flee.

  A black mist began to fall. The cloud rained down until all was quiet again.

  The cloud seemed infinitely humane, infinitely wise.

  "Send it away," she shouted to the blank stares of the multitude around her, "send it away!"

  They gave no sign of having comprehended her. The only thing they sensed was her outraged anger, and from that they shrank, crawling away into the distance.

  The winds began to eat at her again.

  "Don't go," she moaned quietly, as she sank into the dust. She had failed. She would never go home. She would never hold her soulmate in her arms again.

   The dust and rocks ate her with gratitude.

  One of the creatures was sitting beside her. He happened to lack a mouth, but he contrived a smile.

  She smiled hopelessly back at him and regarded his grey body. "I have nothing left. You might as well let me become one of you."

  He stared at her but shrank from her when she reached for his hand.

  "Please," she sobbed hysterically, holding onto his shoulder.

  The rocks told her with depressing certainty that she would never be accepted.

  "You must send the cloud away. For me. Won't you, please?"

  The Grey One cringed. No.

  There was a knowing murmur among the sharp crevasses of the rocks. No, of course not. To send the cloud away would be suicide, no matter how noble. Besides, the cloud was doing the work of the Grey People. Sending the cloud away would not be in anyone's best interests, would it?

  She watched the Grey One shrink away from her. She was useless. She had nothing left to live for. She could not even call the unicorns to her, now, for she had no strength; what then could she save? Surely not herself.

  "Take me," she screamed at the cloud, "waste yourself on me. I am yours now."

  The cloud hovered, hesitating. It was not used to giving gifts, and it sensed that here was a being who wanted something to be given. It did not give - it diminished. That was its function. Still, it sensed a fearful hunger beneath it, a gnawing horror that seemed to draw it like magnetism. It could feed.

  With relish, the cloud poured itself into her.

  She welcomed the black rain, loving the numbing corrosive torrents, and hating herself for it. She had so much pain. She wanted to drown it all. Let the cloud feast on it, and her. The pouring went on forever. She was insatiable, as insatiable as the cloud.

  She sucked the cloud itself into her; the more she received of it, the greater her hunger. She became nothing on the outside. Only her inner self, her soul, was left.

  Finally, the black torrents vanished.

  The absence of self was ecstatic. She looked up and saw that the cloud was gone - no, not quite gone. It was contained within her soul, now. And she was still very much alive. This astonished her. There was no logical reason for her existence.

  She looked herself over. Despite her feeling of unreality, her arms were still there after all, although they bore scars - they were as pale as snow, now, and almost skeletal. Her whole body probably looked like a pile of bleached bones. She beheld her hair: it was blanched white. Her body felt strange, partly faded from reality, partly vivid with life.

   She could feel the cloud inside of her churning. It came to her then what she had done. She had given herself up to the cloud that she had been sent to drive away. She had been selfish, and had not only failed in her mission, but had in fact become the cloud.

  Dejectedly, she made her way back to the valley. She doubted if the unicorns would have anything more to do with her, but it was worth a try. Nothing mattered anymore. Dimly, she noticed that the sands of the wasteland were shrinking away from her. This was logical. If she was the cloud, then naturally, the sands would be repelled by her, as they had been repelled by the cloud when the cloud had been embodied outside of her. She could eat away at pain itself; what grey grain of sand would not be repelled? Her nerves were dead. They felt no pain. They felt nothing anymore. She could fall to pieces on the rocks and not notice or care.

  When she reached the brook in the valley she tried to wash the marks of her shame off, but it was no use. The dust and rain and miasma had sunk into her very pores. She had become a creature of stone. She looked at her reflection, thinking, I have become ugly, but it took too much energy to muster pity for herself. She closed her eyes.

    And opened them, for her alicorn was standing beside her, waiting.

  "Go away. I'm evil," she said.

   The alicorn blinked at her.

  "Don't you understand? I am the cloud now. There is nothing left. You should not be near me."

  A pair of violet eyes continued to stare placidly at her.

   "Oh, all right," she said with a sigh. "I guess I can believe in miracles."

   She climbed on his back.

   His wings beat the air; impossibly, she felt herself rejoice. It was a great relief to leave the grey plains behind, even if she did dread what was in store for her in the future.

   When the alicorn reached the top of the cliffs, it knelt, and allowed her to dismount - but it remained by her side, rather than flying away as it had before.

   What?

   She found herself accosted by Mora.

   "Thank you," the woman was crying, "thank you..."

   She felt she was embraced more by Mora in those fifteen minutes than she had ever been embraced in her life, save by Hawk.

   "Mora, I failed," she said.

   "Oh, no! You won. You dissolved the cloud. Tice and I could not have done it. It would have destroyed us."

   "But - but I felt the cloud go into me. I can still feel it inside. It was an accident. I hadn't meant to become the cloud. I'd meant for the cloud to dissolve me..."

   "Shadowfire," Tice said gravely. "You dissolved the cloud, not the other way around, by taking it into yourself. That was the only way it could be done. You are not the cloud. Please trust me when I say this. You may feel like the cloud has taken you over, but your scars say otherwise. And if you were the cloud, you would not be here. No unicorn would have anything to do with you if you were the Black Cloud."

   She stared at him.

   "I know it's a bit much for you to understand right now," he continued, "although I think I could explain things if I had a bit of time, but there is no more of that. You must go back."

   "Back? Now?"

   "Yes. The door only stays open for a short time. You are the strongest person I have ever known, for what you have done - and now you need to hurry. Get on the unicorn and go." He grabbed her and kissed her on the cheek. "Go."

   They put her on the back of the alicorn.

   "We will meet again," Mora called, as the alicorn flew away. She sounded very much like Hawk at that point; of course, they were siblings.

   The alicorn flew over the wasteland - it was almost beautiful, from this distance, but it was hard to look at - and the orchards, and then the hills, until at last they set down on the ground.

   She saw the glowing, golden door beckoning her.

   "Farewell," she called to the alicorn, and then she met the door and thought, Hello.

   She fell, tumbling through time and space, and then all was blackness, and she lost all sense of time and space.

   She opened her eyes and moaned. Her head hurt.

   A dark-haired boy was crouched beside her.

   "Where am I?" she asked.

   "Are you all right?"

   She felt asphalt beneath her cheek. She was nine years old again; Shadowfire was fading into her memory, was being replaced once again by Patricia.

   "I'm fine. I must have fainted. My head hurts... What's your name? Are you new? I've never seen you here."

   "I'm Eric."

   "Eric?"

   "But my other name is Hawk," he said proudly. "My dad says I'm one-fourth Shawnee."

   I know you in my heart, and in my bones, she thought.

   "I'm Patricia. I don't have another name, though. The teacher calls me Patty, but I don't like it."

   "Oh! We'll be in the same class, then. I heard about you."

   "Let's be friends," she said, knowing to herself that they already were friends - and that some day, they would be even more than that. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew.

   The wind blew her hair about, and she saw a whitish streak in a lock of hair that had not been there before. Her mouth twitched involuntarily. He would understand. She was sure of it.