The dark was frightening, being alone in it was terrifying. I needed them close to me.


    “I can’t,” he told me.


    “I can’t do it again. It’s too hard. We cannot live like this, let us die.”


    “No, we stay together,” I said pushing him to sit in the Lamplight.


    “They won’t let us stay together,” he said drifting away into the dark.


    “They will take you away again. We cannot survive and you did note.”


    My arms became huge in the dream. I hugged them together and pulled them all to my chest. They


    couldn’t escape back into the ckness. I would make them stay in the Light with me.


    The crushing despair I’d escaped only a few days before started to creep back in. They had wanted to


    be together with me so badly and I had note. They had waited and then they had decided to get


    me themselves.


    The men had tried to get back to mypound to check on me, but Nu-reeh had stopped them. She’d


    taken their transport and scolded them.


    “You have permission to be here only,” she’d growled at Damien.


    “I will bring your transport back when your free days are over. You cannot go to thepound.”


    A N G E L A ‘s L I B R A R Y


    The men were left at the cabin to deal with their desperation. Panic and hopelessness set in. They


    were sure something had happened to me. Their family was ripped and torn, never to be whole again.


    The anger had taken hold of them.


    Eventually they would find the men that did not bring me and hurt them, but it would take a long time.


    They were too weak to hold their family together. I could be gone for many turns of the moon before


    they could know. It had to end if we could not truly be one being.


    Property ? N?velDrama.Org.


    I woke from the dream sweating and shaking. Master Christof was shivering behind me and I turned to


    face him. He looked desperate and yet somehow relieved.


    I knew when I looked at Master Christof he had had the same dream. We all had. The weight of their


    misery hung around me and I felt it.


    We were bonded, the six of us. I understood the anticipation suddenly, whispered memories told me


    how they had waited for me at the cabin. We had four days again, but I never came and they couldn’t


    come to me. They were so upset, thest vestige of good they had coveted for themselves was gone.


    In the end they just felt pain, so they inflicted it on one another.


    Nu-reeh found them finally like that when she came to get them and brought them here. She tried to


    help them, but there was nothing she could do. They whispered my name to her. That’s why she went


    to get me.


    “It cannot happen,” Master Christof said, “you are not like us. You are not of this world.”


    He was right. I wasn’t Like them. No part of me could form that strong a bond with another.


    It was why I got better when the bond broke.


    I didn’t need such a thing to be happy.


    I could survive alone.


    My mind felt Like it did all those days when the funny thoughts flitted through my head. It was much


    stronger now and more constant. The chain and cor irritated them. The clean mats were nice and


    what had I done with their boots?


    My belly twitched and rolled. The little life inside me was awake and moving. Master Christof’s hand


    had been on the side of my stomach and he felt the movement.