excerpt

"Byrd!” she cried, breathlessly, “Byrd, I’ve got it; I’ve got the ring! It was just as you said, all of it.” She trailed off, coming to a stop and looking about more carefully.

“Byrd?”

She had thought for sure that he would be waiting there for her. This was their tree, was it not? She sat down among the roots to wait. Certainly he would appear at any moment, to collect the ring and celebrate with her.

Coralie turned the ring over and over in her hand. It didn’t look like anything special; but then, he’d said it wouldn’t. The longer she studied it, however, the more peculiar it seemed. She felt a strange pulling sensation on her mind and body, an increasing heaviness which she struggld in vain to ignore. There was something about this ring. Something...

Before she knew it, Coralie was asleep.

She dreamed that a handsome young man was standing right beside her, dressed all in white, and Byrd was perched upon his shoulder. With one hand the man leaned against her tree, and the other he held out to her, as if asking for something. Byrd flew from the young man's shoulder and landed on her knee. He cocked his head to one side beseechingly, a pleading look in his familiar grey eyes.

“What is it?” she tried to say, but her mouth would not form the words. She looked back and forth between the man and the dove unhappily. “What do you need?"