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intimately as he did.
    “In death, I will be unable to reassemble my... Reassemble what? Was it a word? If so, it was not one she could immediately identify, not one whose sense she could fully comprehend, but it was important, no, more than important, vital that someone...something...a situation be rectified. The burden lay heavy on her heart.
    “Help me or I will die. The... she/they/it will die.” This time, a sense of eight individuals connected as one, like a circle of skydivers she had once seen, hands joined, descending through the air like a sixteen-point snowflake. This joined group of eight was not physically linked, though. Their confederation went much deeper than that. But how? And why? And who? “Come to me. Come to me and you will understand all. Lenore, I beg your assistance.”
    So intense was the plea that Lenore found herself back on her feet, found her feet walking toward the back door. Her hand lifted, turned the knob, pulled the door open and she stepped out into a frosty night.
    The cold ground against her bare soles brought her back to her senses.
    “No,” she said, and fought the strong tugging, the powerful insistence that she move forward despite herself. One foot lifted. It planted itself another step away from the house, away from safety, away from warmth. The other followed.
    Again, she resisted. “No. I must dress. I will freeze if—”
    The wrenching need to move onward, into the blackness of the forest, to go to the cave, continued to assault her mind, to power her body, but she fought it with all her strength while the outer compulsion battled back.
    Swaying, she remembered what he could give her, what he had promised, and knew that his pledge was true. She had only to keep walking, to go to him and he would release her from the terrible need she had suffered for so long.
    But...a small part of her that remained her own knew that if she did it now, in this way, they would both die. They would...all? die.
    “I will come to you. I will,” she vowed, weeping in her effort to resist the influence of his need, of her own. “But let me go, first. I need...things.”
    “You will come,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but a conviction, and she felt his relief, his satisfaction and gratitude and joy. It danced in the air around her, vibrated on her nerves like a bow on violin strings tightened to near-breaking point. The very air seemed to shiver with his emotion. “You will!”
    “I will,” she said as she let acquiescence flow through her, out of her, flow into him. There was no point in fighting it any longer. He needed her. And she—Oh, how she needed him! What he had, what he could give. What he would give.
    The mental force eased its grip on her. She turned, rushing back into the house.
    “But hurry,” the faint voice whispered in her mind. “Hurry...Help me.”
    Time seemed to slow for Angus McQuarrie as he sipped his hot tea and listened to the sizzle of ham in the pan, the sharp cracking sounds of breaking eggs. As Jane punched the toaster into action, the urgency to find that cave, to discover the gold Angus knew would be in it, dwindled but not completely, leaving him feeling confused, unsettled, as if he were being torn by forces he couldn’t understand.
    He picked up a fork and attacked the meal as Jane set it before him, the desire to seek gold growing less and less compelling with each bite. And with its passing, the strong conviction that this time he knew, also faded.
    Knew? Knew what? He scratched his head, looked down at the plate before him, showing smears of egg-yolk, bright yellow, a few bits of ham, rich pink, brown crumbs of toast and crusty hash browns. He glanced at the big clock on the wall over the stove. Twelve-fifty-four? The window outside showed him it was dark. Nighttime. He gave his head a rapid shake.
    “What are we doing?” he asked Jane. “Why did you cook me breakfast at this time of day?”
    “You wanted to go out,” she said. “You