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classics and kept a journal instead of a diary. She drew whenever she could—fine-line pen-and-inks, sketches, watercolors, all in the Romantic tradition of Burne-Jones and William Morris. She held animistic beliefs and was positive that everything from the moon and seasons and winds to the trees and mountains and lakes had its own individual personality.
    Though she could never explain how she knew it at the time, in that chance encounter, in that other girl’s eyes, she saw a kindred soul looking back into her own gaze,
knowing
just as she
knew
. In that moment a curious relationship was born between the two.
    The other girl’s name was Esmeralda Foylan. Her father was Cornish, her mother Spanish, so her name reflected a touch of either culture. They exchanged addresses and phone numbers, but when Button went to call Esmeralda that night, she found herself setting pen to paper instead. She drew an ink sketch of two tousle-haired waifs on an autumn cliff, the wind blowing their tattered clothes tight against their thin bodies. Under it she wrote, “Autumn meets the West Wind on a distant shore,” and mailed that instead of phoning.
    Esmeralda didn’t phone either. She wrote poetry and stories, it turned out, and she sent back a letter addressed to “My Lady of Autumn” and went on to tell a story relating to the drawing Button had sent her. She signed it “a Westlin Wind.”
    In the years that followed they corresponded regularly—even though they lived in the same city. Button went on to become a commercial artist, while Esmeralda took to university life and lost herself in her studies. They saw each other only two or three time in all those years, and although they got along splendidly, each knew some irretrievably precious thing would be lost if they allowed their relationship to go too far beyond the exchanging of letters.
    What they had was a truly Romantic love, unsullied by physical concerns. Neither had leanings toward a lover of the same sex, but what they had went beyond a plantonic relationship. It was something only two women could share, though it had deeper levels than a simple friendship. They were two souls united by some curious bond. To see each other, to do things together, would only bring the relationship down to a mundane level that would steal its magic.
    For magic was what it was.
    In time they drifted apart, the letters becoming more sporadic, finally one or the other not replying until neither had heard from the other in years. But the magic never died. That spark that flew between them at that first chance meeting lived on, long after the letters stopped. Then one day Button received a card in the mail. The outside was a reproduction of a Rackham print from his illustrations for
Rip Van Winkle
. It showed a raggedy girl, holding a cat, while behind her another figure climbed the boughs of a dead tree that were hung with red blossoms. It reminded Button of the first drawing she’d sent, all those years ago. Inside the card it said:
    My dear Autumn friend,
    I heard a whisper on a sister Wind. She said the waves have carried a blade of Winter across the seas and its point is aimed for your heart. Oh, beware, dearheart, beware. The knives of Winter are ever cruel. I fear they will cut you deep.
    your Westlin Wind
    Button stirred restlessly as she slept, remembering, but then her dreams changed from memories to those dreams we all have, dreams that shift and flow like chameleons and have only as much meaning as we wish to put to them. When she woke in the morning, all she retained of them was one word. A name. Esmeralda.
    5
    Blue’s fingers danced on the keyboard and the words HELLO, JAMIE appeared in green letters on the screen. There was a moment’s pause, as the cursor moved to the next line. Blue rested his chin on his hands and watched the screen as a reply appeared under his greeting.
    HELLO, BLUE. BROUGHT HOME A GUEST, DID YOU?
    “You ever miss anything?” Blue asked.
    NOT WHEN IT