I woke up for the second time with Ursa shaking me.  "C'mon, Cubby.  Wake up."  I grumbled something and heard him laugh.  "When you sleep, you really mean it, don't you?"

"I was having..." I thought about it for a moment.  Some might say that dreaming about falling through the ice and drowning would be a bad dream.  Normally I would say it was a bad dream.  Yet in this case some good things seemed to have come of it.  "I was just having a dream.  Guess it was better than I thought it was."  I yawned and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.  "What happened?" I said.

"Whatcha mean?" Ursa said, looking around at the castle grounds.

"Everything's different.  Like it's falling apart or something."  I was looking around at the courtyard of the castle.  The stable we had been in looked as though a strong wind would blow it apart.  The shed that Ursa had gone through was missing it's door and most of its roof.  Everything had an abandoned feel to it.  There was dust, leaves, and dirt all over the place and everywhere I glanced, there were signs of dilapidation.

Ursa gave me an odd look.  "Different than what?"  He gestured with his arm, encompassing the surrounding area.  "It looks just like it did yesterday.  Are you sure you're alright?  That was a pretty high fall you took, even if you did say it was nothing."

"What fall?"

His look became one of concern.  "Don't you remember?  When we were coming down from the cliff?  You slipped and fell about ten meters.  You got back up almost immediately and said you were okay.  You remember any of this stuff?"

"Uh... I guess.  It must have slipped my mind for a minute or two.  It was quite a tumble.  Not like falling out of a tree at all."  Ursa nodded and seemed satisfied with that answer.  We gathered our stuff together and got ready to leave.  "So where to now?" I asked.

"There's only one place left to explore," he said.  I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise and slowly followed him to the door in the cliff, dragging my feet.  There was something I didn't like about this door, even though I had no idea what was behind it.  Part of me was crowing over the fact that it just proved I was the most cowardly Lost Boy, but a deeper part of me was telling me that if I went through it, things might change and there wouldn't be any going back.

I held my breath as Ursa boldly strode up to the door, and wondered why I couldn't be more like that.  He put his hand on the knob and tried to turn it, but it wouldn't budge.  He messed with it for a couple of minutes, and even tried crashing into it, but it remained stubbornly locked.  I felt a great surge of relief for some reason.

"That's totally strange.  Pindrop didn't mention anything in his journal about the door being locked.  I wonder what..."  He stopped and we both read the wording that suddenly appeared, seemingly floating above the door.

Each may enter, when the time is right; 'til then the secrets will be hidden from your sight.  An explanation, a curse, a clue; all may be revealed when it is about you.  Things you may discover some which cause despair; if you're still bound to enter be sure you take a care.  One may pass, more happy would be two; regardless of the number the path to thine will always be true.

We both watched as the words slowly flew away as if scattered by the wind.  "What was that all about?" I finally said."

"I dunno.  There wasn't anything like this in the journal.  I wonder what time it is that's supposed to be right?"

I had a feeling I knew what that answer might be, but didn't feel like sharing at the moment.  I also didn't try the door myself.  We spent the rest of the day climbing back up the cliffs to the beach.  In spite of my earlier fears, I did manage to get up the rope, with a fair amount of help from Ursa.  We stopped off by 'his' cave for a moment.  "You're not going to tell anyone about this place, are you?"

"Naw.  It's your place.  I figure you'll let the rest of them know when you're ready to."

"Yeah," he said slowly.  "I will, but somehow I figure it's not quite time yet.  It's like there's something else that needs to be done first."  He looked at me with an undecipherable expression on his face.  "One cycle."

"Huh?"

"I want to try the door again in one cycle.  And this time, you try the knob.  Okay?"

I didn't think it was, but after a moment's hesitation I nodded agreement.

Late that afternoon we approached Hangman's Tree and stopped as the upper branches became visible from where we were.  There was the normal yelling and screaming that you'd have expected and I wasn't really surprised to see Stumble appear and disappear in the air as though someone was tossing him up there.  I grinned and started forward when Ursa grabbed my arm.  I turned and looked at his suddenly solemn face.  "Thanks."

I stared at him for a couple of seconds, trying to decide what he was thanking me for.  It was impossible to tell, so I nodded.  "You're welcome," I said simply.

He still managed to beat me back to the tree.

Another week went by.  The weather outside had moderated a little and Horatio/Ursa's 'aunt' let us wander outside for a few minutes at a time.  Ursa pointed out the lake behind the house and the small copse of wood.  There wasn't another house in the area and the land around looked totally deserted.  "Why does your aunt live here?  Don't you and her get lonely?"

There was a brief hesitation.  "Naw, it's not too bad.  There's a town about ten miles from here.  It's quiet and there's not a lot of stuff to bother us.  Wait 'til summer comes.  It's awesome then. 
There are butterflies and fireflies.  There are sheep in that meadow," he said pointing, "and the lake is perfect for swimming.  First we have to get through spring, though.  Four months of school but it'll be over before you know it."

The whole thing was sort of weird, and sometimes it was easy to forget that this dimension had apparently been created by the castle for some reason.  There were only two things that I was sure about.  Ursa was real.  Although he thought he was Horatio and lived with his 'aunt', there were certain things he did and the way he acted that prcatically screamed "Ursa'.  There was also simply the basic knowledge that this was my best friend.  The second thing I knew beyond doubt was that Ursa's 'aunt' wasn't a construct of the castle either.  I would be hardpressed to say why I felt that way.  I think it was the way the two interacted as well as what the monk had implied back at the castle.  Anything the castle would make would seem to be utilitarian and have specific purpose.  I doubted that it would be able to create anything that showed the love that Ursa's 'aunt' did for Ursa.

One night Ursa's aunt called us into the sitting room.  "I'm going to be going to town tomorrow and will be there for most of the day.  I'm going to leave you two boys here."

"Cool!" Ursa said.  It never failed to bemuse me that even though we were living in something that appeared to have come out of the middle of the nineteenth century, we used words like 'cool', 'awesome' and 'dude'.  "Can we do some exploring?  Maybe out by the lake?"

Auntie nodded.  "That would be acceptable.  I want you both to look out for each other while you're out there.  Remember, you're responsible for one another while I'm not here.  Understand?"  We both nodded.  "I mean it, don't take this lightly."

"I won't auntie, I promise."

She looked at me and I found myself unable to agree fast enough.  She nodded, apparently satsified.  "Good.  Now I think it's time for two boys to find their way to their beds."  She led us to the kitchen and poured each of us a glass of milk.  She handed each of us a chocolate chip cookie, still warm and smelling like heaven must smell like sometimes.

"But I can't have this."

"It's okay this once, Cubby.  Sometimes you have to indulge yourself as long as you don't make a habit of it, or overdo it."

I finished the most delicious cookie I'd ever had, along with the milk.  Ursa's 'aunt' gave him a huge hug and kissed his cheek.  Then she walked over to me and gave me a hug as she tosseled my hair.  I looked at her in surprise.  "Take heart," she said.

A few minutes later we were both headed upstairs.  "This is going to be so cool," Ursa said excitedly.  "Wait 'til you see some of the stuff around here.  it's going to be awesome."  He looked at me for a moment.  "You know, it's been a lot better since you've been here.  I always wanted a brother."

Later that night while I was trying to fall asleep in my room, I once again wondered what the castle was trying to accomplish.  Ursa did have a brother, or had, had a brother, back in the real world.  It seemed in this world or construct or whatever it was, he didn't.  I tried to ponder on what it all meant, but eventually just fell asleep, listening to the soft sound of whimpering coming from Ursa's room.

The next morning dawned clear and warmer than it had been.  "Spring is coming," Ursa said with a grin.  "You won't need to worry about that coal nearly as much now.  It gets warm pretty quickly once the clouds finally break."

Ursa's 'aunt' had left us a note stating that she was on her way to town and would be back this evening.  There was oatmeal we could have for breakfast and we should fend for ourselves for lunch.  I passed on the oatmeal, since I was highly allergic to cooked oatmeal unless it was baked into cookies with raisins, but had a couple of apples.

Ursa grabbed his jacket and we headed outside.  I skipped the jacket since it was warm enough that the bear pelt seemed to be warm enough.  For the next couple of hours we explored the meadow and small forest under a sky that was crystal clear.  We had a snowball fight (Ursa won), built a couple of snow creatures, and climbed trees (I only fell twice).  We had exhausted the possibilities of wood and field when Ursa suddenly remembered the lake.  "C'mon, you gotta see this.  If the ice is right, you can slide like a zillion meters with just a push."

We walked out onto the ice and for about twenty minutes flew along the ice.  It was perfect for sliding with just a slight sheen of water on top to add to the experience.  It wasn't quite as good as mud, but worked rather nicely in its own right.  "Hey, what's that?"  I asked, noticing something brightly coloured red and green towards the middle of the lake.

Ursa looked out and stared.  "I dunno, I've never seen it before.  Probably just some trash or something."  He shrugged and turned away from it.

"Let's take a look.  Maybe it's something cool or some sort of treasure.  It'll be cool."

The smile disappeared from Ursa's face and he looked a little hesitant.  "I dunno, it's probably nothing and we should probably just hang out here.  No sense in asking for trouble."

In my mind, I agreed with him.  It didn't appear that interesting.  It could have simply been some cloth or paper that had gotten caught in the ice.  Therefore I was very surprised when I heard my voice say, "C'mon Ursa, it's just a little way out.  Nothing will happen.  Promise."

Ursa didn't appear to notice I hadn't called him Horatio.  He looked for a moment as though he were completely out of it as he slowly nodded his head in agreement.  "Not too far though, and we gotta be careful, okay?"

"Sure," I said, a lot more carefree than I felt.  "Let's go for it."

We slowly moved farther out onto the lake.  Part of me was demanding to know what the heck I thought I was trying to prove.  There was aboslutely no way I wanted any part of this at all.  Another part of me simply kept my legs moving forward, until I was about a dozen yards ahead of Ursa, regardless of what I wanted.  That part of me seemed to vanish when there was a sickening cracking sound and my feet seemed to fly out from under me.  I fell to my knees and then screamed at Ursa to stay back.  I seemed to be in control of my destiny once again and tried scrabbling back towards where Ursa was standing in shock.  There was another crack and the next thing I knew my feet and most of my body was in the water.  My shoulders and head were above the water and my arms were somehow keeping a grip on the ice.  I tried pulling myself up, but that only resulted in more cracking of ice and I almost lost my grip.

"Don't you dare come any closer," I snarled as Ursa started forward.  "Stay back.  There's nothing you can do.  Promise me you won't come any closer, no matter what happens."

He reluctantly nodded, and I could tell, even from where I was, that it took him a massive amount of effort to agree.  I could no longer feel anything below my chest and my arms and hands were hurting beyond belief.  I was so terrified I could hardly stand it, but I knew there was some stuff I had to do.

"Cubby, don't move.  I'm going to get help.  Don't worry, it'll be okay.  This is all my fault, I should never have agreed to this, it's all my fault and I'm going to make it right,"  he turned to start away.

"Ursa, don't.  It's not going to work."  There was another crackling of the ice.  "Just stay here, I... I don't want to be alone.  I'm scared."

"Oh man, don't say that.  You're not scared of anything," he said, tears flowing from his eyes.  "It's... I..."

"It's okay, Ursa.  Some things are just meant to be."  There was another crack and I was suddenly trying to tread water.  Ursa moved another step closer and once again I snarled at him, reminding him of his pledge.  "Don't lie to me while I'm dying, Ursa.  It wouldn't be fair.  You know we'll meet in the next adventure.  I promise.  Understand?"

"Yeah, but... It's not fair and I..."

"And don't you dare hasten your journey to the next adventure, you understand?"

"Noooo, I wouldn't but I can't and..."

"Ursa, shut up and listen."  I couldn't feel anything and I was so tired that even the terror had taken a backseat to fatigue.  I wanted to simply sink, but there was something important I had to do.  Something that seemed 'not right' to me and totally uncalled for, but something that I suddenly realized was very necessary for one of us.  I drew all the strength that I could muster while wondering how the heck bear fur could get so heavy when wet.  "Ursa, I forgive you.  Do you understand?  I forgive you.  Tell me understand what I'm telling you."

For an instant Ursa got completely silent and then nodded once.  In a normal tone he said, "I do understand.  I realize everything."  There was the ping of something magic happening again and then the scene shifted back to chaos.  Insanely there was a huge black horse standing on the water with a black hooded rider.  Ursa was crying and I was screaming and suddenly there was nowhere to go but down.  As my head vanished beneath the water, I heard Ursa howling to the heavens.

I tried to hold my breath, but between the cold and the screaming I'd been doing, I wasn't able to hold it real long.  I involuntarilly took a breath and waited to feel the burning of water in my lungs.

I opened my eyes to see Ursa's aunt placidly knitting as she rocked in an ornate rocking chair.  Above me was a stone ceiling and there was a murmur of voices all around that I seemed to be on the verge of understanding, but couldn't quite make out.  It sounded as though there should be dozens of people in the chamber, but there was only myself and the aunt.  At least visible.

"That sucked," I said, mustering all the outrage I could.  "I can't believe you made him go through that again.  That was... Was..."  I couldn't come up with a word or sentence that could even begin to contain all the outrage I was feeling at the moment.

"It had to be done.  There was no other way around it," she said quietly, ignoring my anger.  She lay her knitting down and gave me her full attention.  She no longer looked like an elderly spinster aunt, but instead appeared as a matronly grandmotherly type person.  Her serious face looked as though there was tons of mischief hidden within the myriad wrinkles that covered her face.  Yet even looking as she did, her hair was raven black without a sign of gray anywhere.  "He loved his brother.  More than life itself, at least the life he carries within him.  He could never forgive himself for what happened that day, even though he wasn't at fault in any way.  Ursa survived by trying to change what he remembered happening.  Thus the stories he imparted that seemed to change about how he became lost."

"I know why he became lost, I guess," I said slowly, "but I don't understand how."  Ursa's scenairos had always included his family abandoning him or moving away without him or something like that.

"That is not for me to impart, young one, but for him to give when and if the time is ever right."

"Then that whole thing was for nothing?" I asked, my voice beginning to rise towards outrage again.

"It was for everything.  There is a difference between not wanting to tell someone something and not being able to.  You helped make Ursa realize what happened that day.  You did what needed to be done and helped him overcome.  Is that not what you would have done if given the opportunity to?"

I nodded without hesitation.  "But now Ursa thinks I'm dead."  I thought about it a moment, remembering the black horseman.  "I'm not, am I?"

"No, you're not dead.  Let's just say there was a communications failure with certain parties who appeared to have been a bit overanxious.  Ursa will not remember your death, nor will he remember at all specifically what has happened in the last month.  Ursa will remember his brother's death differently as well as that which happened before and after.  He'll remember his brother not allowing him to leave to get help that was impossibly out of reach and he'll remember his brother forgiving him before he died.  Things that didn't happen the first time."

"You mean Ursa's brother didn't..."

"Nay, Ursa's brother doted on him.  The love that Ursa felt for him was returned.  Ursa left his brother to get help which couldn't be gotten in the time that remained.  Ursa felt he abandoned his brother, was responsible for going out on the ice, and didn't think that he could ever be forgiven for what he 'did' to him.  All you did were those things that Ursa's brother would have done if he'd had an opportunity to.  You didn't change what happened, you only clarified it for Ursa."

"But what about the weird time period and all that?  I mean it seems like it would have been more like what happened before."

"Nay, Lost Boy.  It was necessary not to have too much the same or things would not have worked out the way they would have.  Thus the different time period and other circumstances."

"I guess that sort of makes sense.  So I won't remember any of it either, then."

She shook her head.  "There must always be one who remembers, to keep continuity flowing within the line of time.  Otherwise chaos will ensue and devour us all.  You have some coyote in you, but I don't think you'd want him to rule the world, would you?"

"Who are you?" I blurted out.  She didn't answer but gave me a look of such understanding and tenderness my heart ached with something and I had the feeling I wanted to bawl.  I blinked my eyes to get rid of the tears that had formed.  When they reopened, I was in the middle of the castle courtyard, the moon and stars riding high above.  I could almost believe that I had just dreamed the whole thing except for the fact the mop of hair on top of my head was damp and a few feet away from me, Ursa was sleeping against a small tree, a small smile on his face and not a sound coming from his mouth.

After Ursa/Horatio opened up about how he felt about his size, it seemed to get easier for him to open up about other stuff too.  Equally remarkable is the fact that I found myself telling him stuff I'd kept bottled up for awhile.  It wasn't earth shattering stuff, just stuff that felt better for being able to tell someone else about it and get their take on it.

I spent a whole afternoon telling him about diabetes and how depressed I sometimes got about the requirements and restrictions it seemed to place on me.  "I know I can still eat chocolate, but I'm afraid if I eat one piece than it's going to snowball and before you know it I'll have eaten a pound or something.  Sometimes my willpower is nonexistent.  Yet I never have to worry about that with broccoli or salad."  That did get a grin out of him.

As he predicted, the 'help' I was providing left lots of time to do other stuff as well.  My chores consisted mostly of making sure there was plenty of coal for the furnace, wood for a couple of fireplaces, and drawing water from the well.  None of it was too arduous, although I often wondered how the water never froze even though it was so cold outside.

The cold itself seemed to be an abstract thing.  It was always warm within the house and although Ursa practically begged, his aunt wouldn't let us outside to explore.  "You need to wait until it warms up.  It should be any day now."  Although I loved the cold weather and the snow, I was satisfied to stay inside.  This probably was because of something that happened the first night I was there.  I woke up in the middle of the night with a sudden demand of nature.  I was pretty sure I hadn't seen a water closet anywhere nor was there a chamber pot (Ursa told me later his aunt considered them unsanitary and wouldn't allow them in her house).  After debating for several minutes, I finally went to Ursa's room.  He was whimpering softly in his sleep the same way he had before.  He leapt out of his bed when I shook him awake and it took a moment before he seemed to realize where he was.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, sorry.  Guess I was dreaming too hard," he said with a sheepish expression on his face.  He looked halfway between angry and sad.

"I thought you were going to attack me," I said, half-jokingly.  "What were you dreaming about?"

"Nothing really.  I don't remember too much about it.  What's up?" he inquired, neatly changing the subject.

"Nothing much.  Nature is calling, and I guess I'm not sure where to answer it?"

He looked puzzled for a moment and then burst out laughing.  "You really should have taken care of that earlier."  He shook his head.  "I'll show you where the facility is.  C'mon."

He led me to the backdoor of the house and I immediately knew what was coming next.  Being a Lost Boy, I was used to the absence of indoor plumbing and had made more than a few trips through the night to the latrine.  No big deal.  Or so I thought.

He looked at the bear pelt.  "I guess that should be warm enough."  He lit a kerosene lantern and handed it to me.  It took him a minute to open the door against the snow that had blown against the door as well as the wind that was shrieking along.  He pointed to a rope that was tied to a railing and disappeared into the night.  "See that rope?"  I nodded.  "Hold onto it and follow it to the outhouse.  Whatever you do, don't let go of it 'til you get there.  If you do, you'll never find your way back and we won't find you 'til spring.  If you're not back in like ten minutes, I'll have to come looking for you, so try to be quick."  He said that last with a grin and seemed to find the whole thing inordinately amusing.

I didn't get a dozen steps away from the house before I was freezing.  By the time I got to the facility, I felt as though my entire body was numb.  It took me a moment to get the door open and a longer time to steel myself to doing that which needed doing.  By the time I got back to the house I began to wonder if I'd ever be warm again.  "Man, I should have mentioned that yesterday, but I didn't even think about it."

"Me either," I forced out through my chattering teeth.  "I guess I won't make this mistake again."  He laughed as we walked back to our respective rooms.  It only took me a few hours to get warm and fall asleep.  I vowed from that moment forward there would be no consumption of liquids after dusk.

The days turned into a couple of weeks.  We seemed to have finished letting those things out that had spent too much time being hidden and bottled up and had moved on to other topics.  It was strange seeing Ursa in this setting.  There was a whole different side of him that I'd never seen before.  He loved, no he was passionate about reading.  We'd be discussing something and all of a sudden he'd grab a book off the shelf and excitedly launch into an explanation about it.  He was thrilled that I loved to read too, and before I knew it, I had a stack of books in my room 'I just had to read'.  It was amazing to see how animated and excited he got discussing it.

Every night before going to bed, we'd go into the kitchen where his aunt would have two glasses of milk and a chocolate chip cookie for him and an apple for me.  They both asked if it bothered me and reluctantly accepted that it didn't.  We'd finish milk and cookies/apple and then Ursa's aunt would hug him and give him a kiss.  I watched that and didn't feel jealousy, but maybe longing.  I wished I knew what the connection between 'aunt' and Lost Boy was because there was a look of sheer love and contentment that passed between the two in the simple act of hugging.  It sounds a little corny to say the love between mother and child, but that's exactly what it looked like.

Ursa was still the same strong, solid, dependable person he was as a Lost Boy, but he was different somehow too.  The silences didn't seem as though they were forced upon him.  He smiled more and seemed a bit more relaxed.  Yet almost every night I' hear him whimpering in his sleep from his bedroom.  It was the one thing I couldn't get him to tell me about.  He'd simply shrug and say he didn't remember and then quickly change the subject to something else.

"I don't know what to do," I told Horatio/Ursa's aunt one afternoon.  She had sent Ursa to the well to get water this time and we were alone in the sitting room.  "Ursa seems happier, but still sad somehow.  He dreams about something I think, something that's bothering him, but he won't tell me what it is."  For some reason I felt totally miserable about that and felt like a failure.

'Auntie' sat placidly knitting, gently rocking back and forth.  She completed another row before speaking.  "There is still one thing which he keeps inside of him, but it is not something that you'll ever be able to draw forth by talking.  He's tried to lock it out of his mind, but it is something that will continue to haunt him until it is resolved."

"But what can I do to make it better?"

She looked over at me.  "Why do you think you have to do anything but listen and be a friend as he needs one?"

"I don't know.  It just seems like I should be able to do something to help.  I feel..." I stopped and thought.  I couldn't tell how I felt or why, but I just knew I should be able to help him somehow.

"Not everyone can be helped you know.  Sometimes a person has to help themselves.  Sometimes nothing can help them.  You can't fight everyone's battles for them, nor can you take the responsibility of everyone on yourself.  It's simply not practical."

"So Ursa is always going to have that thing eating at him, whatever it is?"  I asked that last part a bit bitterly because I was pretty sure she knew what it was all about but she refused to tell me.

"I don't recall having said that.  I just gave you some information I felt would be beneficial for you to be aware of."  She lay down her knitting and looked me squarely in the eye.  "So you will do what needs to be done to help Ursa be at peace?"

"What do you mean 'be at peace'?  That sounds like he's going to die or something.  I won't help do that no matter what!"

She sighed and shook her head.  "My apologies, I sometimes forget how you manage to interpret things in the worse possible light."  She didn't say that in a mean or disparaging way, simply as a matter of fact.  "What I mean is, there is something you might have to do that will be extremely unpleasant and uncomfortable to you.   Are you willing to do that to help your friend?"

She held up a hand as I asked what she meant by unpleasant and uncomfortable and refused to answer.  I looked at her in frustration for a moment and then simply said, "Yes."

"That may be the death of you one day.  Very well so have you accepted so shall it be."  There was that slight tingle in the air that signified something had just happened.  I shivered.  "I want you to remember two things.  The first is, you should never ask or allow anyone to do something or volunteer something that they are unable to accomplish when failure can have extremely significant consequences.  The second item to always remember is that there are times you should forgive someone even if they have done nothing wrong, they have nothing to be forgiven for, and they don't ask forgiveness."

"But..."

"Just remember.  Go with your instincts.  They haven't treated you too badly yet, have they?"  I shook my head no.

I wanted to ask about a couple zillion questions but at that moment Ursa burst into the room.  "Oh man you should have seen the deer that flew by a moment ago.  It was huge.  It was just like something that happened in this book.  I gotta show it to you, c'mon."

I followed him upstairs, caught up in his exuberance and excitement about the treasure he wanted to give me.  Yet at the same time, I couldn't help but ponder on what his aunt had said.

I went back upstairs to where Ursa/Horatio was reading a book.  He glanced up as I entered the room.  "So what are your duties going to be?" he asked.

"Just the usual stuff," I hedged, suddenly realizing I had no idea what they were going to be.  "You know, odd and end stuff."

He grinned.  "The usual stuff doesn't exist around here.  That means there's going to be plenty of time to go exploring and stuff.  That is, if the weather ever warms up," he added as a gust of wind rattled the window behind him.  "There must be a foot of snow on the ground."

"That reminds me, I'm supposed to ask you about that coat."

"Oh yeah, that thing.  Hang on a second and I'll get it."  The way he suddenly looked, I figured it must have pictures of puppies and kittens on it or was pink or something.  He went to a closet, rummaged through it for a moment and then returned with the coat.  It looked 'normal' and in fact appeared to be almost new.  More importantly it looked as though it would keep one very warm and cozy outside.

"Wow, not bad.  You sure you don't want it?  I mean..."

"Yeah, I know."  He shook his head and handed me the coat, then dropped onto his bed.  "I just don't want it.  There's nothing wrong with it or anything."

"Sweet.  Thank you."  I took the coat, put it on, and discovered what the problem with it probably was.  Even though it looked large, there was no way I was going to get it to button across my middle.  I sighed and took it off while Ursa watched.  "I guess I'll have to decline after all.  I guess I'm not in a bear pelt for nothing," I said with a grin, trying to make a joke of it.

"I hate it," he said with an intensity that was shocking, especially coming from Ursa.  "It doesn't matter what I eat or how much I exercise or anything else I try to do.  I always look like this."  He scrubbed his face with his fists.  "I hate being fat.  Everyone teases me and I don't feel like I can do anything, and it just sucks.  Why did I have to be born this way?  What did I do?"

For a moment I stood there stunned.  I'd never heard Ursa mention his size as being a problem before.  Then I wondered if that's what his 'aunt' was talking about when she mentioned the things he was keeping locked up inside.  I could relate to how he felt and the teasing he got from the time before I was a Lost Boy.  I'd never really worried about it too much after becoming one though.  The other boys made fun of the fact that I was fat all the time, but it wasn't mean-spirited.  It was the same as me teasing Leo when he managed to get his tail tied around a limb once, or teasing Tig the time we were playing hide and seek and he accidentally found a real tiger who wanted to play.  As for doing stuff, I usually did whatever I wanted to and I was pretty sure my clumsiness was due more to my natural inability to walk and chew gum than it was my size.  Yet...

I nodded slowly, "Yeah, it definitely isn't my favourite thing.  I get teased a lot too and nothing ever seems to fit right.  Except this thing I'm wearing now.  It's the latest fashion and didn't need any alteration at all."  I twirled to demonstrate and managed to hit my head on his desk when I got my feet tangled together and tripped.  "See?  I didn't even break the floor."

That got a bit of a smile from him.  "You know, I don't think it would bother me that much, but I never seem to fit in anywhere.  It's always like I'm the outsider or something.  They see me and immediately figure they know all this stuff about me.  It's not fair.  I feel like I should simply vanish or something."

I immediately thought about the time someone had told me I reminded them of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer because of that attitude.  I doubted that 'Horatio' knew the story and wasn't even sure reindeer existed in this 'place'.  "So tell me," I said looking at him.  "Tell me about Ur... Horatio.  The kid that's inside."  He thought about it for a moment, and looked as though he was going to refuse.  "Dude, if you can't tell another fat kid, who can you tell?'

He looked thoughtful and then nodded and started to talk.  I don't know how long he told me about himself and the teasing he got and how he didn't have any friends.  It sounded like a kid in London once upon a time.  I listened and told him some of the stuff that had happened to me along the way.  When he was done, he let out a deep breath.  "I can't believe I told you all that stuff.  It's so stupid.  I shouldn't let it get to me."

"Why's it stupid?  It's the way you feel.  Don't belittle yourself over it, it's important stuff."  I went on to explain how I'd dealt with some issues of size.  I didn't mention what I'd been doing at the time Peter found me, nor did I mention Neverland by name, but I did tell him about the fact there were real friends in the world and that sometimes they seemed to appear when you needed them most, didn't judge you, and were the best people ever.  At first I think he believed I was being condescending towards him and was just trying to make him feel better by lying to him.  But as I told him about the way the other Lost Boys and I joked with each other and how we always stood up for each other and things, he began to nod.

"You think I'll ever have friends like that?  Ones who don't care about my weight?"

"Yeah, I know it will happen.  Believe it."

He pondered that for a moment and then slowly said, almost as if to himself, "Yeah, strangely enough I really do believe you."

'Horatio' looked at me curiously as I studied him. It was definitely Ursa, but he was dressed in denim pants and a flannel shirt. "How come you look like a bear?" he asked.

I wasn't quite sure how to answer. I looked at the aunt who stared back at me with more of an expectant look than a curious one. She gave a slight nod as though to encourage me. "Uh, it was the warmest thing I could find to wear outside," I ventured.

"Really?" Ursa asked. I bet I have an old coat or something you could wear instead. That looks like it must itch really badly. Would that be okay with you auntie?"

"Of course you may." She stood up and walked over towards me in a brisk manner. She might have been older, but that definitely didn't show up in her stride. "Horatio, this is Cubby. Cubby, this is my nephew Horatio." He looked at me shyly and nodded. "Cubby will be staying with us for awhile. He'll be helping out and doing errands and things like that. I think I'll put him in that spare room upstairs. Would you show him where the linens are?"

"Sure," Ursa said eagerly. "C'mon Cubby. We'll get you set up in no time." He turned around and started out of the room.

"When you're settled in, please come and see me and I'll let you know what your responsibilities will be." She nodded a dismissal.

I followed Horatio down a hallway and up a flight of stairs. The best way to describe the house would be simple elegance. It wasn't filled with riches or anything like that, but you could tell that someone had taken pride in the things chosen to fill it. Light was provided by oil lamps and radiators in each room kept the place comfortably warm. There wasn't a thing out of place and the wooden floors practically glowed. The interior of the house was a lot larger than the outside would have suggested it was.

"This is my room," Ursa proudly announced, leading me into a neat looking room. The first thing I noticed was that two of the walls contined bookcases which were overflowing with books. The rest of the room was neat with a desk facing another wall and a bed on the fourth. There was a window above the bed through which the wind and snow were beating upon. The desk had several journals on it and what appeared to be three or four quill pens.

I looked around at the books. "Wow, have you read all of these?"

Ursa opened his mouth, started to speak, and then stopped with a confused look on his face. "I... What did you ask?"

"Nothing important," I said. I was afraid if I pressed the issue it might upset whatever strange balance was holding this whole image together. Looking around the room, it looked just like I'd have expected Ursa's room to look like. The whole thing was confusing me and I was afraid to say too much. Ursa went over to a door and opened what turned out to be a closet. He grabbed some sheets and blankets.

"This is going to be so cool. There's a ton of stuff to explore around here. Wait until you see the lake in the back. It's completely frozen over and you can slide for a mile on it. There's a forest with a bunch of trees to climb. I bet you're pretty good at climbing..." he stopped. "That's weird. It's like there's something on the tip of my mind that I can almost remember about... something. I..." He shook his head again and grinned. "Oh well, it's not important or anything. C'mon and I'll show you your room."

He led me to a room next to his and opened the door. It was a standard room with a desk, a bureau and a bed. It smelled a little musty and disused, but was warm and cozy. Ursa dumped the linen on the bed. "You better go and talk to my aunt. I'll take care of this for you. Do you like to read?" I told him it was one of my favourite things to do. "Great. What's your favourite book?"

I came very close to saying Peter Pan, but didn't even want to think about what that might cause. "Oliver Twist is good," I finally said.

"Yeah, I like that one too. Let me know when you're done and I can show you some of the books I have."

I went downstairs and found 'auntie' in the sitting room, rocking in a wooden rocking chair while knitting. She indicated with a gesture that I should take the stiff upholstered chair next to the rocking chair. It creaked alarmingly as I gently sat down. "I trust you're settling in without any major problems?" she asked. I nodded. "I also believe you probably have a great many questions?"

"Yeah, I mean..."

She shook her her head slowly. "While I said you may have a great many questgions, I didn't say anything aobut answering them. Do you know why you are here?"

I scratched my head. "Because the mailman brought me since I was addressed?"

She gave a long suffering sigh. "I can see Elijah has been chatting with you, and in a way that's correct. You're hear to help Ursa..."

"You know who he really is?" I interrupted and then sheepishly ducked my head as she indicated with a glare that interrupting was not an appropriate activity.

"You're here to help Ursa get through that which has happened and that which is. There are a lot of things that boy keeps inside of him. You'll help him get rid of some of those things right away. Then there's the bigger thing. That will take a little longer to solve. It may happen next week or it may take a year."

"A year?" I wailed, although I don't truly know why that would have been so upsetting.

"Do you have some sort of time limit on your friendship that if you aren't able to help in an allotted time you wail and gnash and give up?"

"No," I said guiltily. I just was... surprised I guess. And the other Lost Boys may need me."

The ticking from the grandfather clock in the corner was the only sound in the room for a moment. "I think that may need to be worked on as well." She finally said while continuing to placidly knit, "Never mind," in answer to my questioning look. "Your task will probably be unpleasant, confusing, and will probably scare the tar out of you. Simply go with your instincts. You'll know what to do when you need to do it."

"I'm not going to end up hurting Ursa, am I?" I asked a little heatedly. There was no way I was going to do that, regardless of what it was supposed to help.

She put her knitting down and reached out and took one of my paws in her hand and looked me in the eye. "Don't you ever think about the hurt inside?"

I grinned. "Me? I'm tough. This is for Ursa."

She looked as though she was about to say something, frowned, and shook her head. "Have faith, don't lose hope, and go forward knowing that nothing will hurt you."

"But..."

"Exactly. I can see you understand the situation." She picked her knitting back up and started to rock and knit again. "Horatio is probably wondering what you're up to. Be sure to ask him about that jacket he has too."

I stood next to him and looked around the place.  I supposed I could have hit my head when I tried to open the attic door and ended up knocking myself out somehow.  I wasn't exactly the most coordinated person around and, in fact, could probably lay claim to one  of the most uncoordinated people.  The whole thing seemed way too real though.  I looked around the attic that wasn't anywhere near big enough to contain Hook's ship, much less the entire universe and all it's suburbs.

"What's impossible?" Ursa asked, curiously.  "It's just an attic.  A pretty uninteresting one too.  You were right, we shouldn't have bothered."  He took one more look around and shrugged.  "Let's check something else out."

I agreed wholeheartedly and waited while he clambered back down the ladder.  I took a final look around and then followed, closing the trap door behind me.  We left the stable and Ursa looked around the compound.  "How about over there?" he said, pointing at a small white stoned building that stood off to the side by itself.  It looked about the size of a garden shed and wasn't anywhere big enough to present a 'universe' threat.

"Sure, I guess.  What do you suppose it was used for?"

He shrugged.  "Don't know, but it's got to be more interesting than an old attic."  We approached to find the door was open.  About fifty meters from the door, Ursa came to a stop.  "Oh my gosh, I don't believe it."

"What?" I asked, looking around trying to see whatever it was that Ursa was exclaiming over.

"There, in the doorway.  Don't you see him?  It's Ripley."

"Ripley?  Who the heck is Ripley?  And where is he?  I can't see anyone."

"He's right there standing inside the doorway.  Oh man, I can't believe it.  Ripley is the most absolute, positively bestest friend I've ever had in the world."

"Oh," I simply said.  "Hey wait," I called out more urgently as he broke into a run.  I roundly cursed myself for being so slow as Ursa quickly outdistanced me.  I watched helplessly as he approached the door and went in.  Naturally by the time I got to the door, it had closed and, of course, was locked.  I took a few steps back and ran at the door as fast as I could, hitting it with my shoulder.  It shuddered a little, but that was it.  I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to break it down, even with my size.  I repeated it a couple of times with the same result.  I had run back about 100 feet and was ready to try again when I felt a hand drop on my shoulder.  I probably leapt a good ten feet in the air without even trying.

"Excuse me," the voice belonging to the hand said.  "It's not possible to do what you're attempting.  I'm assuming a friend or companion of yours has gone in there?"

I turned to see a tall, skeletal looking figure in monks robes standing there.  He had a bald pate and a sympathetic expression on his face.  The robes were tied with a rope and a hood was hanging behind his head.

"Who are you?  I didn't think there was anyone here.  Can you help me open that door?  Ursa's in there."

"In due time, my son.  In due time.  Am I correct in my assumption that a comrade of yours entered the darl?"

"You mean that building?  Yeah, he said he saw someone and ran in."  That had totally surprised me because Ursa was one who knew better than to believe coincidences like that.  I also wondered who this Ripley person was.  "Is there some way I can get in there?"

The monk nodded.  "Oh, yes.  I can provide you access to the darl.  The question is, do you want to go?"

"Why wouldn't I?  Ursa may be in trouble and need help."

"Indeed he probably is in trouble and there is a chance you might be able to help him, especially if you are a boon companion of his.  Yet there is an equal measure of the possibility that you will not be able to help him and will come to the same undesirable end that he comes to."

"What are you talking about?  Are there dragons or things like that in there?"

The monk scratched his head.  "There might be.  It all depends on what one finds within one's self that is giving them problems.  You may find the most ferocious being in all the four realms or you may find a place of bliss that encompasses all your dreams.  Yet either may result in your soul being rended from your body and being lost forever."  He looked at me expectantly.

"What is that thing?"

"Of that I may not tell you, for I have given you most of the knowledge that I know.  Do you choose to enter or do you choose to wait and see what may be?"

I had a feeling that like the attic, this wasn't simply going to be a small 3 x 3 foot room.  "Will I be able to find Ursa when I get in there?"

"If your friendship is strong enough you should have no problem locating the lost one.  This is the final time I may ask you.  Do you choose to enter or do you choose to wait and see what may be?"

"I want to go find Ursa," I said in a voice only slightly betrayed by a tremor.  I couldn't imagine what I was going to find in there, but knew for Ursa's sake I had to go.

"Very well," the monk said.  "You must leave everything here but the clothes you have on and one weapon.  Choose now."

I looked down at the wooden sword and the club.  Neither seemed anywhere near adequate for what it was beginning to sound like.  I was more used to the club, yet for some reason the wooden sword seemed like a better choice.  I picked it up and hefted it, then looked at the monk.

"A wise choice, I believe.  Now it is time for you to head after your friend.  Are you ready?"

I definitely wasn't, but it didn't really seem to be the thing to say.  "Will I end up with him when I get to where this is?"

"No, my son.  You must find him.  Now..."

"But how will I be able to find him?  Is there any, I dunno, clues or hints you can give me?"

"Trust in yourself and the way will be clear.  Now it is time to go if you are going."  He led me back to the door of the shed while I silently cursed those who seemed determined to talk in riddles.  "Face me, please.  That's right."  He reached behind me and I suppose he opened the door.  "Forgive me, my son, for this is the way of it.  May your journey be fruitful and may you find what you seek."  With that final benediction, he placed both his hands on my chest and pushed.  I was surprised at the amount of strength the skeletal frame possesed and was propelled backwards, off my feet.  I landed in something that was freezing and looked down to discover I was in a snow drift.  Where the door should have been in front of me, there was nothing but grey cloud and falling snow being whipped around by a strong steady breeze.  I stood up and turned around to find the same thing in all directions.  From where I stood to the horizons, all I could see was white, snow covered ground.

I had a sudden feeling of being scared to death, knowing my task was hopeless and a feeling of total profound loneliness.  For a moment all I wanted to do was drop to the ground, curl up, and go to sleep, never to wake up.  Then I thought of Ursa and wondered if he was feeling the same.  I took a deep breath, and although the feelings were still there, chose a direction that put the wind on my left cheek and started walking.  I figured as long as the snow was blowing in front of me from left to right, at least I wouldn't be walking in circles.

"Of course I'm ready to go exploring," I said.  I looked down on the castle and then around the area we were in.  A few feet in either direction and it would have been impossible to have seen the castle below.  "How'd you ever manage to find this place?  You had to have been in the absolute right place at the right time."

Ursa grinned.  "I guess you could say another Lost Boy told me about it."

"Really?  Who?"  I was a little shocked at that statement.  The rest of the boys, with the exception of Stumble probably wouldn't have been able to keep this place a secret and Stumble didn't do that much exploring.

"Pindrop."

I realized that there were times my mind was so muddled that I could barely remember my name, but I was pretty sure I'd remember a Lost Boy named Pindrop.  I looked at Ursa who grinned even wider at my confusion.  "Who's Pindrop?" I asked.

"You remember the teddy bear ornaments?  The one that the Elven Queen had given us some time ago?"  I nodded.  "Well the 'polar bear' she gave them to was called Pindrop."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I found his journal in the cave, hidden under a crate he'd managed to drag in somehow" he said, gesturing back towards where the cave was.  "He liked to write about some of the stuff that happened to him.  One of the things he wrote about was finding the castle.  That's how I knew where to find it."

I almost asked Ursa what had happened to Pindrop, but didn't want to know.  At least not at that moment.  "That's awesome.  Can I read it sometime?"

Ursa hesitated for a moment.  "I guess so.  I sort of get the impression he didn't want a whole bunch of people to read it for some reason, but I don't think he'd mind if you did."  He looked down at the castle below.  "Got that rope?"

"Yeah," I said holding it out.

I let Ursa tie the rope off around a large rock that was embedded in the ground, since my knots had a tendency to come undone under pressure at the most inconvenient times and watched as he tossed it over.  It seemed to fall forever before it landed on one of the battlements below.  I don't think I'd ever seen Ursa as excited as he was at the moment.  "All set?"

"I think so," I said.  I looked down again.  "It sure is a long way down, isn't it?"

"It's not that far.  Besides, I've seen you fall farther out of trees."

"It ain't getting down that worries me.  It's the getting back up part.  The last time I had to climb a rope like this was in gym class.  I'm not exactly built for it and only got about a foot off the ground.  I seem to get stuck if there aren't any of those branch things to put my feet on."

"You really worried about that?" he asked earnestly.  I tend to forget that unlike the other Lost Boys, Ursa sort of realizes that sometimes I joke about serious stuff.

I thought about it.  "I'm not really worried about it, I guess I'm just sort of chicken that I wouldn't be able to get back up.  I can see you having to go back and get Leo, Tigger and Surefoot to help pull me out of there.  They'd never let me live that down."

"Aw, don't worry.  I could pull you up myself if it came to that.  But I'm pretty sure we can find another way out and I think you could probably get out yourself anyway.  Remember, you can brace your feet against the side of the rock as you climb.  It's not like it's suspended in the middle of nothing."

The thing about it was, Ursa probably was strong enough to pull me up by himself.  Besides, I wanted to see this castle and was sort of curious to know about this other Lost Boy who must have explored down there.  "Let's go for it.  Hey, did Pindrop write about what he found down there?"

"What, and spoil the surprise?  Actually he didn't say a whole lot about what he found."

 Ursa decided to go first, even after I warned him that if I fell he'd be the first thing in my way.  He rappelled down the rope without any problem and a moment later I was standing next to him in some sort of courtyard.  To the left of us was what looked like a stable.  In front of us was a huge building that should be the castle proper.  There was a huge door. with a massive lock bar in place, in the castle wall towards our right.  There were only three outer castle walls, as the fourth was the cliff we'd just come down.  The whole place had a feel of both desolation and something a little bit... not sinister, but something that fostered caution.  It was similar to the feeling I got when I saw a rattlesnake.  It wouldn't do anything to me unless I bothered it, in which case it would attack without thinking twice about it.

"Man, this place is strange feeling," Ursa said as he looked around the courtyard.  "It feels funny, but not in a bad way."

I wondered what he'd consider a bad way, but let it pass.  "Isn't it sort of weird they'd build a castle against a cliff where stuff could be thrown down on them?" I wondered aloud.  It was just one of a handful of 'off' things about this place.

"Maybe they had something to shield them against that.  Could have even been magic.  I suppose," Ursa said, not sounding very certain about it at all.  "Where do you suppose that leads?"

I turned to see him pointing to a plain wooden door that was in the cliff that the castle was built against.  There wasn't a mark on the wood and it easily looked as though it had been put up yesterday.  "Did Pindrop mention anything about this in his journal?"

Ursa shook his head.  "He didn't really mention a whole lot about what he found.  I was sort of kidding about the surprise part.  He wrote about discovering it and that he was going to explore it.  Then there's an entry about some wild stuff he found and that no one should ever explore the castle by themselves but that it shouldn't be any problem explored with a friend."

"Yeah, but didn't you say that he explored it by himself?"

"That's what he wrote down.  He never says that he had a problem doing it by himself and it's more like, I guess you could say, a suggestion that you have a friend with you when you explore this place."

"What?  In case you get lost or something?  This place doesn't seem big enough to get lost in, even if you tried."

"Yeah, it's something like that, I'm sure.  Getting lost can happen, but he doesn't really go into a whole lot of detail about things like that."

"Sounds like he wasn't very descriptive," I grumped.

"That's the weird part about it.  A lot of his entries went into a bunch of detail, but he hardly said anything about this place.  I mean he wrote tons about a place in the forest he found once and how he found the perfect tree to climb.  For a moment I could have thought you'd written it.  But as far as the castle goes, he hardly wrote half a page about some of the things that go on."  He looked around the courtyard again and then turned to me with one of the widest grins I'd ever seen on anyone's face.  "So where do we start?"

"Anywhere but there," I said, nodding towards the door in the cliff.  "I have a strange feeling about that place."

"But we will check that out too, right?"

"Yeah, we can.  I don't suppose he said if he spent the night when he was here, did he?"

"He didn't come out and say it, but I sorta got the impression he did.  I figured it'd probably be best to plan ahead so I brought flint and steel."

"Cool.  I'm afriad of the dark, especially when it's in a spooky castle."

Ursa rolled his eyes.  "Save the coward routine for someone who actually believes it," he said.  "C'mon, let's to check out the stable."

"Lead on," I said, pulling my trusty club from my backpack.  I wondered why I had brought the wooden sword as well.  I get teased a lot about that, and have used a real sword a time or two, but for some reason I figure that when I give up the wooden sword for good, then I've probably lost something else that I'm not ready to lose yet... if ever.

Ursa went boldly up to the door and flung it open as if it was something he did everyday.  I followed him in to see that the buiding was a stable with six stalls in it.  "This sure seems small for a keep the size of this place."  I was whispering for some reason, even though it was obvious from the undisturbed layer of dust on the floor that nothing had been here recently.

"I imagine there's a reason for that," Ursa said in a normal voice.  It was all I could do to keep from shushing him.  "Probably this is where the lord's private horses were kept.  There could be a larger stable around here somewhere."

We spent about a half hour poking around the place.  With the exception of the dust on the floor, it was almost spotless.  That seemed a little suspicious because the shutters over the glass-less windows hadn't been closed, and I couldn't believe something wouldn't have flown or crawled in to take advantage of the shelter.  I mentioned it to Ursa who didn't seem too concerned about it.

We were about ready to leave when Ursa spotted the ladder in the corner leading up to a trapdoor.  "Hey, we should check that out.  If we don't, you know it'll be the most interesting place here."

"Yeah, and if we do, you know it'll be the most boring place," I retorted.  "It's probably just a hayloft."

"C'mon, Cubbs.  Please?  You know you'll regret it if you don't.  Maybe not today, but you'll always wonder what you missed by not looking."

I doubted that I'd have thought that.  At least I doubted it until Ursa spoke the words.  I groaned, knowing I was hooked.  "Fine, whatever.  It shouldn't take that long, I guess."

"Great.  Thanks, Cub.  You go first."

I thought about arguing that point, but suddenly just wanted to get the whole thing over with and decided I'd be sounding petty to boot.  The ladder didn't look very sturdy and creaked alarmingly when I put my weight on the first rung.  I figured it couldn't be any worse than dismounting a tree though, so went up the next few rungs.  When I was right under the trapdoor, I saw that what had looked like a pattern in the woodgrain from below was actually a small drawing of a bear's face with a grin on it.  It was just a simple circle with two round ears, a nose, two eyes and a big grin.  It looked like someone had done it in charcoal, but rubbing it didn't cause it to smudge or anything.  "Hey there's a bear's face drawn on the door," I called down to Ursa.

"Sweet!  I bet that means Pindrop was here.  I knew there was something worthwhile up there."

I wondered how he gathered that simply from the fact that a Lost Boy had been here before us.  The trapdoor seemed to be stuck and I finally resorted to climbing another rung on the ladder, putting my shoulders against it with my head down and shoving with all my might, waiting for the ladder rung to snap.  There was a screech as the trapdoor gave way and opened.  It was so unexpected that I followed it into... the place.

It wasn't a loft, or even a room.  It was everywhere.  It was what being in space must be like.  I was surrounded by blackness and stars, all around me, over me and under me.  The trapdoor and stable below me were gone.  There was nothing anywhere except the twinkling stars, yet it seemed as though I was in the midst of something huge and massive and that it was I who was nothing.  I instantly felt lost and knew I could never be found and would die here all alone.  I screamed and heard nothing.  I couldn't stand it anymore and closed my eyes to get rid of the sight.

"Cubby, wake up!  C'mon.  Are you okay.  Take it easy.  Here have some water."

I opened my eyes to see Ursa looking down at me holding his waterskin towards me.  I looked arounjd to find myself lying on the floor under the trapdoor, which was closed.  The floor beneath me was solid and everything looked as it had before I had gone up.  "What happened?" I finally managed to get out.

"Don't you remember?" Ursa asked, his voice tinged with concern.  I shook my head 'no', not wanting to tell the stuff I did remember all too well.  "You couldn't get the trapdoor open and you tried to force it up with your back.  I guess you hit your head or something because you fell.  Man, you scared me because you've never gone unconcious from falling out of a tree before and you were totally out for a few seconds there."

"Just a few seconds?  Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it probably wasn't as long as 15 seconds.  You must have clobbered yourself when you hit that door."

I felt the top of my head, but my fingers only touched tangled hair.  No bumps, apparent bruises or blood.  My head didn't even hurt.  "Didn't the door open?"

"Nope, it moved a little, but that was it.  You said something about a bear's picture, thumped against the door and ended up at my feet."  He grinned.  "I'm glad you're okay.  That was just too weird."  He dropped the waterskin next to me and started up the ladder.

"What are you doing?" I asked in a panic."

"I want to find out what's up there.  I think you may have losened it a little."

I tried to get words out so fast I couldn't get any of them out.  I felt as though my mouth had gone sand dry.  Ursa reached the top and started pushing on the trap door as I tried to claw my way up the ladder to my feet.  I looked up to see the trap door swing effortlessly inward and fall with a bang.  I was halfway up the ladder when Ursa put his head through the door and an ill timed lunge for his ankle left me with nothing but air and a sore chin.  I looked up, terrified of what I was going to see, and saw Ursa's broad face wearing a sour expression.  "Man you were right.  It stinks up here and is just a bunch of dust bunnies."  He sneezed as if proving the fact.

"What?  That's impossible."  I clambered up the ladder, closed my eyes and winced when my head went through the opening, and opened them to see a dust encrusted uninteresting room with a peaked ceiling.

I shrugged. "You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to. I know how that seems to work."

"Really? I'd have never guessed that fact in a hundred, million years." His grin turned serious. "It's okay though, I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. When it's time and when I feel like it, I'll know." He thought about that for a moment and then the grin came back to his face. "Anyway, there's tons of time to worry about that. I want you to see the place I found and go exploring first."

The next few minutes were spent getting supplies together. Water, rope, a torch or two ("You mean 'flashlight'?" Ursa asked with a grin) and a lot of waybread.

"How long do you plan on this taking?" I asked when I saw the amount of waybread he'd loaded into each of our packs.

"No idea. This place looks like it could be pretty big and I don't want to have to stop in the middle and come back if it gets dark. Besides, what can happen?"

I could think of at least a dozen off the top of my head, but put them aside in the face of Ursa's contagious excitement. Besides, weirdly enough, although I was the biggest coward among the Lost Boys, I also enjoyed the night more for some reason. The night was something that I was both scared of and rejoiced in. Sometimes I thought it was because a lot of good stuff had happened to me among the currents of the night.

"Hey Cubby, how come you carry a wooden sword and not a real one?" Ursa asked at one point as I was making sure I had both it and my club.

I hefted the sword and took a swing with it. The sound of it slashing the air was less than terrifying and the same thing could probably have been accomplished with a piece of two-by-four. "I use it because it helps me remember something I don't want to ever forget."

"What's that?" he asked.

"I forgot," I said, waiting for the good-natured laughter to follow.

Instead of laughing, Ursa nodded and quitely said, "I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes we need the wooden swords in our life to help us remember the things that have brought us happiness."

I was a little startled that he had caught my meaning so well, even when I hadn't been absolutely certain what I'd meant. I followed him and blinked in the bright daylight that had appeared while we were in the cave. If anything the temperature had dropped a little, but it had turned out to be a good day for wandering. Ursa started walking along the beach in the direction away from the southern beach. The sand was dotted with seaweed, driftwood and odd and end debris that had apparently washed up in previous storms. Naturally none of us were certain where the island was actually located in regards to the 'real' world and we never saw freighters, tankers or things like that on the horizon. Yet we were apparently someplace not too far from some sort of shipping lanes, becasue we found all sorts of stuff on the island's beaches after storms. We'd even found a continer a time or two. Unfortuntely the last container we had found was stuffed full of shoe lace ends which we were still trying to come up with a use for.

What looked like about a mile away, a spit of land jutted out into the water. It was both rocky and hilly and I couldn't tell what was on the other side of it. "Is that what we're headed towards?" I asked Ursa.

"Yeah, we climb up and then the place I want to look at is on the other side. We need the rope to climb down because it's almost a vertical drop to where we'll be going."

"A cliff? Doesn't it just lead to the water? Is there some sort of cave there? And will I be able to climb back up?"

He grinned at my questions. "Let's just say that once we get there it's going to be a big surprise. As for getting back up, I don't know why you wouldn't be able to." We continued on for another hundred feet and he watched as I got soaked to the knees splashing through tide pools in the sand. "Why would you think you wouldn't be able to get back up, anyway?"

I looked at him ready to make some joke or roll my eyes and saw that he seemed to be curious about the question. "Well... I mean, c'mon. I'm not exactly built like Leo or Tigger. I've got a lot more to pull up."

"No reason you should look like Tig or Leo. They're already looking like themselves. You'd look silly in stripes, anyway. It's just whenever you talk about yourself, you always seem to put yourself down a little. It's like this courage thing. You're always telling anyone who'll listen that you're the most cowardly Lost Boy and yet you've faced down a lot of stuff. We all know that even the most cowardly Lost Boy is braver than a lot of other souls."

I briefly wondered who Ursa had been talking to. It seemed a really weird thing to bring up. Almost as though he were going to 'force' me to talk about my fears and insecurities so he wouldn't have to talk about his. I immediately felt guilty for thinking that and decided my paranoia was working in its normal manner. "You're right," I said. "I can do anything I want to. See that rock? The one that's shaped like a dragon on the hill up there? I'll beat ya!"

Ursa looked to where I was pointing and nodded. "You're on. To the rock that's shaped like a dragon."

I took off as fast as my paws would move, with Ursa right behind me. I was determined to prove that I didn't always think I was hopeless, although it would be tough to beat Ursa. It'd probably have helped if I hadn't managed to gallop through every tide pool anywhere near where my feet hit the ground, but by this time I figured that was hard-wired in my skull. We both flew over the sand. I just knew that the pack was going to fall off my back or I was going to go tumbling after tripping on a grain of sand or something like that. However, I was not going to let it bother me this time, and to my shock and surprise, managed to slap the flank of the stone at the same time Ursa did. I bent over, breathing hard and watching the little black dots in front of my eyes form and vanish for a bit. Ursa sounded like he was panting as hard as I was and neither of us said anything for the next couple of minutes.

"Next time I have a brilliant idea like that, how about putting it out of my misery," I finally managed.

"You're not fooling me Cubbs. You enjoyed it. Running comes as natural to you as it does to me, regardless of our size."

As strange as that statement might have once sounded, it almost made a kind of sense. I had enjoyed running along the beach like that and figured after a month or so, I might actually be able to do it again. I took a look at the rock we had been running towards, took a couple of steps back and sat down hard. "Uh, Ursa..." Now I knew why he had put that emphasis on 'shaped' when talking about the dragon rock. It hadn't been shaped like a dragon at all. It was a dragon. Or an extremely good likeness of one. It wasn't the long sinuous type of dragon, but the type with a large body and stubby legs. It didn't have wings, but more than made up for it by the fearsome expression on its face. It looked like it was stone. There were no pits, marks or seagull leavings, nor was there any lichen or anything else on it. I could easily imagine that it had either been made or turned to stone within the past minute, as clean as it was.

Ursa was looking at the dragon as well. "Yeah, the first time I saw it was at twilight. I thought I was dead and stood as still as I could forever because I knew the moment I moved, it would snap me up. I finally sneezed and couldn't believe it when it didn't do anything. I crept back down the beach until I got far enough away to run to the cave. The next morning it was still here, just like it looks today."

Mustering my courage, I stood back up and walked over to the stone and put my hand on it's flank once again. The stone felt warm under my hand, but not unduly warm. The stone was sort of dark, and it wouldn't have been too hard to believe that the warmth was caused by the sunlight hitting it. I felt a normal stone nearby. It didn't feel as warm, but that could have been me. "Is it..."

Ursa had been watching me and knew exactly what I meant. He shrugged. "It's never moved while I've been here and it's always been in the same position when I arrive that I left it in, but it's totally creepy. It never gets dirty and it always feels sort of warm. If someone carved it, I'd love to meet them because they have got to be a master. There aren't any tool marks or anything on it and shaping a piece of rock this big must have taken forever. Look at the detail. It's amazing."

"Man, you weren't kidding about it being a surprise. I've never seen anything like this before."

"Me either," he said, "but this is nothing. Wait 'til you see what's next." He started leading the way up the hill and beyond the stone dragon. I followed and grew a little winded as our climb seemed to continue higher than it had first appeared. We finally got to the summit of the hill and I looked down and gasped.

"Whoa! How did this get here? I didn't know there was anything like this on the island, and can't believe that I haven't seen it when flying around with pixie dust."

"How do you think I feel? The first time I saw this, I knew I must have ended up through some portal or something, but if you look back towards where Hangman's Tree would be, you can see that mountain with the big bald spot where the trees don't grow."

I turned towards where he indicated, and sure enough there was the mountain that we had gone 'skiing' down one winter, although skiing was probably a massive overstatement for what actually had happened. Regardless, it was definitely Baldy Mountain (I can't take credit for that name, it was there when I arrived) and the weird cleared comma shape at the bottom of the clearing was right where it should be. I looked down the hillside again and still couldn't believe what was there. Nestled against the flank of the hill we were on and extending out over the water was a castle. It was obviously deserted and there was a wall and tower that had collapsed on the side closest to the sea, but there was no doubt that at one time this had been a huge castle.

"Ready to go exploring?" Ursa asked with a grin.

The next morning I woke up early and found that porridge was on the menu for breakfast.  That meant two things.  The first was that Ursa had gotten up before me.  The second, that I was only going to get half of a serving because he made it with a ton of honey.  I supposed it was worth it, but sometimes it was extremely depressing not to get a full meal of anything but stew because it had too much sugar in it.

I finished my portion of stew and squeezed out my trap door to the outside world.  I took the long route to Lost Boys' Meadow, making sure that I didn't leave a trail for pirates to follow back to The Tree.  Unfortunately the Christmas truce had ended and the first month of the new year always seemed to be concerned with making up for lost battles that weren't fought over the holiday season.  I was prepared though, because I had both my trusty club and my wooden sword with me.  I'd never won a battle with the wooden sword, but the wooden club had served me just fine.  Lost Boys' Meadow sparkled with frost as the weather had once again turned seasonably cold.  As always when Jack Frost had visited the meadow, there were a number of tracks running through it.  Fox and lynx, squirrels and raccoon, rabbits and skunk.  All boy sized footprints left by those who liked to revisit their former stomping grounds.  Ursa was sitting against the trunk of the oak sentinel that stood watch over those who had gone on before.  I wandered over to the tree, climbed to the lowest branch and hung upside down from my knees.

"I like this place," Ursa said once I'd started the blood rushing to my head.  "It's peaceful and things, most things, are always as they appear.  It also reminds me that the boundary between this adventure and the next isn't always static.  It lets me know that things that seem massively important aren't always important and that the little things you take for granted can be the most fantastic things ever.  There are always fireflies here too, even in winter."

Most of it made sense, especially the part about fireflies, even though I didn't really understand all that he was talking about.  Ursa was brilliant and it took me pains to keep up with him sometimes.  He could outrun me and out-think me, but he was still my best friend.  He gave me a mischievous grin and laughed.  "C'mon Cubby, as you're so fond of saying, it's a day of opportunities.  Let us see what's in the offing.  Have you ever been to the area west of the southern beach?"

"The southern beach where the Midnight Walks take place?" I asked in surprise.  "I hate that area.  I never go there unless I have to."

"It's not the southern beach, but west of there.  Where the bay is and you can see the mountains across from it.  No one ever goes there, so I guess you could say it's my hideout.  The place I go when things twist around and need to be untwisted.  Game to see a portion of the Neverland you've never seen before?"

"We don't actually go to the southern beach, do we?" I asked.  It wasn't that I was scared or even nervous about the southern beach.  It was just one of those places that didn't feel right to me.  A place that made me think of things better left unthought of.

"Don't worry, Cubbs, I wouldn't do that.  I know what it's like to go someplace where the memories suck.  We skirt it, but we don't actually go there.  I don't like it either, you know.  No Lost Boy does."

I nodded, being very familiar with that last fact.  "So let's go for it."  I had been hanging upside down long enough that both of my legs had fallen asleep, although I supposed that meant my head was wide awake.  I tried a couple of times to swing up so I could grab the limb I was hanging from, but only succeeded in making my arm cramp as I tried to stretch for the branch.  Ursa waited patiently as I attempted to exit the tree in a conventional manner.  After a few attempts we looked at each other and I shrugged.

"You sure you don't want..."

There was no way I was going to accept help in leaving a tree.  I might not be the best Lost Boy or even a decent one, but I did draw the line at some things.  I unlocked my knees and left the tree in the normal manner rather than the conventional one.  Being so low, the only thing I bounced off of was the ground when I hit it with my head.  The stars didn't last too long, the benefits of having both the bearskin hood on and a thick skull.  Ursa no longer looked overly concerned when I did that, although Reynard still sucked his breath in when he saw me take a header out of a tree.  He'd get used to it eventually.

I slowly got to my feet, shook my head to clear it and followed Ursa along the path that Lost Boys took when they felt there was nothing else to do.  I loathed this path and took it almost as a personal affront that anyone would feel the need to use it.  Roo had felt the same way and I'm sure every other Lost Boy who tried to talk their peers out of trodding it had also despised it.  For a fleeting moment I was sure that Slightly was one of those who had felt that way.  About halfway to the beach, Ursa seemed to disappear to the right in a thicket of brambles.  I slowly pushed my way in, managing to get a shallow cut on my cheek somehow.  It wasn't too difficult as long as I kept low to the ground and I eventually came out on the other side where Ursa was waiting for me.  "How did you ever find this path?" I asked.

He stared at me for a moment in that uncanny way of his.  There were times I swore he could see into my head and those of the other Lost Boys and this was one of them.  Whatever he saw, must have been a bit lacking because he finally shook his head.  "Another time, Cubbs.  I promise, but not today."

I was pretty sure I knew what the reason behind that was and sighed.  I just hoped it had been a long while since he had found the path and not recently.  The new path was as nondescript as any of the ones that run through Neverland.  It was a bit narrower than most and was overgrown in a few places.  It wound through some woods, a swamp and then spat us out on an area above a rocky beach.  I looked across the water and could see land across from us with mountains reaching towards the sky.  "This doesn't make sense," I said.

"Yeah, you're right about that.  All there should be across from us is open sea, not a bunch of other islands and stuff.  I don't know where or why, but I am sure we don't go through one of those gate things.  We're still standing on the shore of Neverland here."

"Have you ever tried going down the beach to see if you come to that other beach?"

"Yeah, but even when the tide is out, it's impassable.  There's a grove that's so thick it's a wonder air could get through it.  It reaches down to a beach that's nothing but dagger sharp shale and huge boulders that look like they'd just love to tear something to pieces, whether it was alive or not."  Anticipating my next question, he added, "It's the same in the other direction too."

"I guess it's no wonder no one else has stumbled across this place before.  I wonder if Peter knows it's here."

"Oh, I'm sure he does.  Pan knows everything that happens on the island.  He may act like he doesn't sometimes, but you can bet your last farthing that he knows exactly what's going on."

I looked at him in surprise, but he was staring out at the islands across the water and didn't seem to put any special meaning to the words he'd uttered.  "Yeah, I guess so," I finally mumbled.

"C'mon, let me show you the cave."  He led me, almost running, to a place where the land rose almost vertically straight from the beach.  In the middle of the wall was a small opening that he crawled through.  I followed after him, managing to snag my pelt on a rock and wondering how he did it so effortlessly.  I stood up in a cave that looked like something from a fairy tale or The Hobbit.  There was apparently at least a couple of holes through which light filtered through and it bounced from crystal to crystal in the cave walls, lighting the entire place up in a zillion colours.  There were a couple of crates that looked as though they were used as tables, some plant material or hay on the cave floor at various locations and other odds and ends.  "I've found most of this stuff washed up on the beach at one time or another.   The grass I pulled from the sides of the trail, although you can't tell it.  It's just a good place to... ponder, I think you'd say.  Anyway, there's a spring in the back if you're thirsty.  Then we can go out and explore a little bit.  There's a couple of cool looking places that I can't get to by myself, but I have some rope.  There's also a place that you totally won't believe.  It's the most unreal thing I've ever seen.  There's also a bunch of stuff to eat, plants and things, that even you'll probably like and we're here early enough that it won't get dark when we're in the middle of something exciting and... well you know."  Ursa seemed very nervous and if I didn't know better, I'd swear was beginning to babble.  "I suppose while we're exploring, I could tell you that thing I mentioned the other day too.

It was a bright, warm summer day with a breeze strong enough to make the pine trees moan like a thousand ghosts were just out of sight.  It probably wouldn't have been that unusual, except that we had just celeberated New Year's Day with about a foot of snow on the ground.  There were definite advantages as far as weather went to living on the island.

Cubby was lying on his back in the middle of a meadow near the Christmas tree, feeling the warm sun on his stomach and trying to decide what each cloud looked like as it flew by.  He'd already seen a castle, a few knights on horseback to defend it from the sinuous cotton candy dragon that had drifted by, and a face that was obviously underneath a wizard's hat.  At the moment he was trying to figure out exactly how the transit bus tied in to the other things.  "Ever see a bus battle a dragon along with a bunch of knights?" he asked.

Lying about a foot away where he'd flopped to the ground on his belly was Ursa.  He was busy watching a bunch of ants who had apparently become irritated when a much larger ant, obviously not part of this hill, had blundered across their nest.  He was rooting for the big ant and had considered simply scooping it up in one of his hands and depositing it elsewhere.  He decided that wouldn't be right for several reasons though.  Nature needed to run her course.  The big ant was giving better than it was taking until a bunch of reinforcements had boiled out of the anthill.  "Are the knights battling with or against the dragon?" he asked, still watching the fight in miniature a foot below his face.

"Against it.  They came out of the castle."

"Are they elven knights?"

Cubby considered that for a moment.  He looked back towards where the figure in the wizard's hat was slowly being shredded and reformed by the wind.  It did look like the ears may have been pointed and perhaps there was a tiny slant to the eyes.  If Cubby squinched up his eyes and closed the right one... yup.  "Yeah, there are elves involved."

"Then a bus makes perfect sense.  If they're elven knights, I'm sure they'd use a bus so they could take the carpool lane as well as save money on oats for the horses.  There's probably a requisition for it filled out triplicately in triplicate to back it up."  Ursa looked down at the big ant again who was now beginning to look as though he was getting ready to give up.  He thought he probably knew exactly what the ant felt like.

"Yeah, that's probably true," Cubby allowed as the bus was slowly transformed into a dirigible by the wind.  The dragon was long gone, although the castle's outline and turrets still remained even if it was beginning to look more like a cottage.

"If an ant gets jumped by a bunch of other ants because he wandered into the wrong place, should I save the ant or should I let nature take its course?" Ursa asked.  The big ant didn't have much longer and was being swarmed and buried by its smaller cousin's bodies.

"How do you know if you save it you won't be following nature's course?  Maybe that's why you're here now and the ant didn't wander into the wrong place an hour earlier or later."

"That sounds reasonable," Ursa said as he picked up a small twig and started tumbling the smaller ants away.  A moment later, Ursa managed to sweep the twig under the large ant's feet and whisk it away to a safer location.  The ant stood on the twig that Ursa placed on the ground as though wondering what had just happened, stepped off the twig, and began foraging or whatever it had been doing once more.  Ursa rolled over with a grunt and was staring up at the clouds being driven before the wind.  "It must be elves, there's a unicorn."

"You sure it's not a two-headed horse?  Naw, you're right.  It looks like a unicorn now.  Did you save it?" Cubby asked having decided he was just a bit too lazy to turn and see if Ursa had rescued the ant or not.

"Yeah.  It had a familiar ring to it, so I figured that would be best.  Lightning."

"Lightning?  Where?  I didn't see it.  Don't tell me it's going to rain.  I just dried off and warmed up from the snow."

"Not lightning, lightning.  That cloud.  It looks like a lightning bolt."

"Oooooh.  Maybe it's actually a spell cast by the wizard."

"What wizard?"

"That one over there," Cubby said pointing to the cloud that had drifted almost to where the trees would hide it.

"Wizard?  That's no wizard.  That looks like Andy Jackson."

"Who's Andy Jackson?" asked Cubby who was more familiar with British monarchs than with American presidents."

"He be heap big white father who live in Washington," Ursa replied in an exagerrated phony American Indian voice.

"Your dad lived in Washington?" asked Cubby with wide-eyed innocence dripping from his voice.  "Whoooa."  There was a moment of silence and then in a subdued, miserable voice, "I'm sorry Ursa.  Sometimes my mouth moves faster than my brain does."

"You goof, I've told you it doesn't matter.  It's not like I'm the only one who deals with stuff like that around here.  Rabbit."

"Rabbit?"

"That cloud.  It looks like a rabbit.  Obviously a giant rabbit attacking the castle which is being defended by a golden dirigible."

"A golden dirigible?  That reminds me of something about somewhere."  Cubby let out a huge yawn.  I guess we might as well finish up, huh."

"Yeah, it'll be dark soon.  It's winter length sunlight even if it feels like the middle of summer." 

Cubby heaved himself to his feet and watched as Ursa appeared to simply float to his feet.  "How do you do that?  Magic?  Pixie Dust?"

"Naw, just strong leg muscles I guess.  It's not anything special."  They both walked to the Christmas tree which had a variety of boxes around it.  "We're almost done.  The worst part left is going to be getting all this stuff back to the Tree."  Ursa started removing a number of pelt tails from the tree.

"Leo and Surefoot said they'd help.  I didn't get a chance to ask Tig, but I'm pretty sure he's probably tied up anyway," Cubby said as he removed the blown glass ornament Tigger had made.  They worked silently for a little while longer until Cubby spoke up again.  "Ursa," he said seriously, "do I really look like this?"

Ursa turned to see Cubby staring at a figurine he was holding in his hand.  "What?  You think you're too round?  I did put you in the wolf pelt."

"No, it's not that, although I do think I'm not quite that fat.  It's the expression on my face though.  It looks so... I don't know, so sad or serious.  I'm not really like that, am I?"

Ursa thought about it for a moment and then slowly nodded.  "Yes, you are.  When I first got here it seems like you were always laughing and joking and had a smile on your face.  But ever since around the time Reynard and Cat got here you've changed.  It's like you're getting older or something."

"I am not," Cubby said heatedly.  "You take that back, right now."

"Peace, Cubby.  That wasn't what I meant.  Maybe it was that you seem like you're taking on more responsibility or you're becoming more mature."  Ursa seemed to puzzle through it for a bit.  "Yes, that's definitely it.  You need to laugh more.  Become the court jester you used to be.  What happened anyway?"

"I don't know.  Things are different, somehow.  I'm not sure what it is.  I guess some of it is that people have wandered away.  Some have left.  Sometimes it feels like the same people I made laugh simply aren't there anymore.  It's partly my fault too, I suppose.  But whatever it is it seems to hurt a little."

Ursa digested that for a moment and nodded.  "Nothing stays the same, but that doesn't mean our attitudes towards them has to.  You know when I first got here, I remember someone telling me that you were like a big St. Bernard.  There wasn't a Lost Boy here that you probably couldn't have taken apart if you wanted to, but you always patiently took the jokes and the pranks in the spirit they were intended and were usually belly laughing as whatever it was being done to you played out.  You're still just as patient, but the fun part is missing.  You worry about the others, but in the wrong way.  Not in the fun, happy way you used to."  He gave Cubby a searching look and then smiled, dimples forming in his cheeks.  "But you will.  Not too long from now either.  You have the spirit of... not a trickster but a jokester.  There's a lot of Lost Boy heart inside of you and the way it shows is through your laugh and your grin."  Ursa nodded as though he'd made a decision.  "It'll be back and I'll have to change the face on the ornament.  I'm not guessing.  I know."

Cubby looked at Ursa in amazement.  Partially because of what he had said, but just as much so because this was one of the longest speeces Ursa had ever made.  "What about you?" he finally asked Ursa.  Cubby tried to choose his words carefully because so he didn't violate the Lost Boy code of 'before'.  Lost Boys had been known to volunteer about 'before'.  To tell the story of what happened 'before' to cause one to end up being rescued and how they'd met Peter and why they believed in Neverland.  But one never asked about 'before' unless it was being told about.  "Ursa, sometimes you just seem so down.  And I... well, at night sometimes you mumble in your sleep and thrash about over on your pallet.  Even Leo's noticed it, and you know how well he sleeps."

Ursa grinned.  "Yeah, almost as deep as the wolf turned bear or bear turned wolf.  That's one of the reasons you need to laugh the way you used to.  You're attuned to those who need it."

"You know, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

Ursa looked a little bit startled and then laughed.  "I used to be able to change the subject on you pretty easily.  Guess you got wise to that one, huh?"  Ursa looked down.  "Listen, let's get this stuff put away because it's going to be dark soon.  Tomorrow meet me by Lost Boys' Meadow and maybe, just maybe, I'll tell you something about my story.  Okay?"

"Yeah, if you want.  No worries.  Can I ask you something else?"

"I guess.  I might not answer it."

"Who's the beaver represent?" Cubby asked, holding up the figurine.  "I'd recognize him if I ever saw him because of how good you did him.  But I've never seen him before."

Ursa took the figurine and frowned at it.  "Yeah, I've been wondering that too.  It's what the wood wanted and felt right, but I have no idea who it is either."