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trees as wide as two or three men lying end to end, as tall as the great canoe placed upright, even taller. Yet he was not looking for these. He had to find a single trunk, the one right for him, the one that would be his own. He walked through trees, trees and trees, vaguely tracing a large circle, keeping the upslope of the volcano on his right—for he was in the forest on Zjhuud-geh. Suddenly he saw it—his tree—a taat-eh trunk about his own age. It was slim and straight, its branches not spreading from the trunk until high above his head, possibly two, three times his own height. He knew it was the one he should select. Mentally, he tried to mark its position.
    Explain.
    I have found my tree.
    Continue.
    The scene shifted, and he was skimming across ocean waves, clipping white tops in a brisk breeze. Then he dived into the depths:
    Underwater… Shah, the sea…
    Green sunlight slanted through the waves in sharp bars. Then all kinds of sea life was writhing nearby: shoals of the ever-present kree-eh refracting every rainbow color through the translucent water; groups of lilac rruush-oh billowing dreamily; a sinuous Shah-skur rolling its beige and cream coils along the sandy bottom; even a majestic taa-zjhur gliding along, its purple and gold hide flashing in the sunlight. He showed all this to Taashou.
    All at once the marine life disappeared. Cloud covered the scene , and he was again on the surface, but now it was calm. The water felt hard and heavy like molten metal.
    Describe.
    It is… No… It can’t be...
    Describe.
    He was looking down into the water. It was not possible. Trance during initiation gifted visions of possible future pathways, yet this was unreal. If he was seeing what he thought he saw, it could no longer be a glimpse into his own future or any other reality, but a creature from the realm of pure myth.

Unse ttled
 
    J ade was feeling fragile despite Dr. Bilges having given her the all-clear. She must have been out for a bare few minutes, because when she came to—vomiting over the gunwale—even though the pot-bellied old fisherman in the stern was nearly shaking his tiny outboard off its mountings, they were still a good five hundred yards from the beach. Her mother had her arms tightly around her waist, squeezing her, making her vomit up all the water she had swallowed. She spent the rest of the journey to the beach coughing herself stupid and puking over the side while Joan went and held Kyle. Her brother had barely been conscious when they pulled him into the boat. Face, limbs, and body were plastered with the dark sludge, the color of a bruise. Added to that, the smell of it was revolting: a strange blend of rotting things and vinegar… and something else, like turpentine. Kyle was trembling and shaking, seeming to get continuously weaker in Joan’s arms.
    Jade saw all this in glimpses every time she raised her head. Her nausea was back in force. She felt as if she were reliving her dream. Blotches of red, blue, orange, yellow, pink, and white exploded before her eyes, and a black mist hovered at the edges of her vision, threatening to drag her down again into unconsciousness. Through the haze, she noticed her mother’s cell phone lying in a puddle of water in the bottom of the boat. It was still open, as if she had dropped it in the middle of a conversation to do something else. Jade picked it up, but the screen was dead.
    As they neared the shore, the old fisherman aimed his boat straight at the beach. Through luck, or experience, he managed to catch a perfect wave , and they surfed in with a speed and skill that Jade had to admire. As the aluminum hull rasped onto the concrete boat ramp, Patrick—Jade and Kyle’s stepfather—was there, reaching over the side. He scooped Kyle up in one swift movement and began running up the beach, yelling over his shoulder at Joan to help Jade. A small crowd had gathered and were staring at them as if they were aliens come down from a distant