The immense tree woman of my spirit dream turned her face up to the lances of sunlight that shafted down onto her through my many leafy branches. Her grey-green hair cascaded down her back. She smiled up at me and the flesh that wreathed her face echoed her smile. “You did it. You stopped them. This is your success.” I felt a surge of pride in myself. I understood. The healing of the earth that I worked in my world would be a healing of this other world as well.

A moment later, a wave of horror replaced it. My enemy had corrupted me. I did not love her and her forest. My love was for my homeland, my loyalty to my king. I saw her as she really was. She was fat and disgusting, her many chins wobbling like a frog about to croak. I could not give my life to that.

I woke to Spink gripping me by the shoulders and shaking me roughly. “Wake up, Nevare. You’re having a bad dream!” he was shouting at me as I became aware of the darkness of the dormitory. I fell back into my crumpled blankets gratefully.

“A dream. Oh, thank the good god, just a dream. A dream.”

“Go back to sleep!” Natred pleaded in an agonized groan of weariness. “It’s still a couple of hours before reveille. I need all the sleep I can get.”

In a few moments, the room was quiet around me again, save for the heavy breathing of my roommates. Sleep was a very precious commodity to cadets; we never seemed to get enough of it. Yet the rest of that night, it eluded me. I stared into the dark corner of my dormitory room and told myself over and over that it had only been a dream. I wrung my hands together, trying to eliminate the itching feeling that the roots had left on my palms. But worse was the burning in my heart. I had fretted before that I did not possess the natural leadership that Spink and Trist manifested so plainly, but I had never doubted my courage. Yet in my dream, I had clearly chosen to ally myself with the tree woman. Was my dream a truth from my soul? Did cowardice lurk in me? Could I be a traitor? I could conceive of no other reason that I would turn away from patriotism for king and family.

The next day was torture for me. I could scarcely keep my eyes open, and earned demerits for myself in Varnian and maths classes. I was both exhausted and ravenous when we returned to the dormitory at noon. I could not decide which I wanted more, my lunch or a brief nap, until I spied the envelope awaiting me on my bunk. Spink and Natred had also received mail, and tore into it joyously. I realized I was standing and staring at mine when Kort nudged me. “Isn’t that something you’ve been hoping for?” The smile he gave me was both warm and yet teasing.

“Perhaps,” I said guardedly. He was looking at me expectantly, so I picked it up. It was addressed to me in my sister’s familiar hand, but it weighed more than one of her perfunctory messages would have. Kort was watching me avidly. I couldn’t send him away, for I realized belatedly that I had watched him with the same envy when he had received mail. At any other time, I would have resented his vicarious sharing of this moment, but it was suddenly comforting to have him there. Last night had been a dream, and Kort standing next to me anchored me in reality. This envelope might well hold a message from Carsina. A message from my future bride and the woman who would be mother to my children. I tore open the envelope and coaxed out the contents.

A dutiful letter from my sister, several pages longer than usual, enclosed another written on fine onionskin paper. I forced myself to read my sister’s missive first. She did, indeed, know of several things I could send her from Old Thares, should I have the opportunity to get into town. Her list was quite specific and occupied two pages of her letter. Beads, in certain colours, sizes and quantities. Lace, no more than one inch wide, in white, ecru and the palest blue I could find, in quantities of at least three yards each. Buttons shaped like berries, cherries, apples, acorns or birds, but not like dogs or cats, please. At least twelve of each, and if they came in two sizes, an additional four in the smaller size. After the sewing notions, there followed a list of drawing pencils and then several nibs she would like to have. I had to smile at her cheerful avarice. I suspected she well knew that I would do my best to get her some, if not all, of her heart’s desires.

Shaking my head, I refolded her letter and turned my attention to the packet of fine paper within it. A drop of crimson wax sealed that missive, and lacking a ring to seal it, the delicate imprint of a small finger. I tried to leave it intact as I opened it and failed utterly. It cracked into red crumbles. As I unfolded the pages, a fine dust of brown flakes cascaded from them onto my bunk.

“Look at that! His girl has sent him snuff!” Kort exclaimed in amazement. Several heads turned to see what he was talking about. I was already making my way through the maze of Carsina’s looping handwriting. The fallen fragments did, indeed, resemble snuff, but I could not imagine that she had sent me such a gift.

I read through two flowery pages of endearments and loneliness and anticipation before I solved the mystery. “And herein I enclose several pansies from my garden. These are the largest and brightest blooms I have ever rased, and I have presed them carefully for you so that they held their colours. Some people fancy that pansies have little faces. If these ones do, then each one holds a kiss for you, for I have plased them there myself!”

I smiled. “She has sent me pressed flowers,” I said to Kort.

“Oh, posies for her sweetheart!” he mocked me, but even in that mocking, there was an acknowledgment that we shared something, and I felt manlier for him knowing that there was a girl who waited for me. I slit the other side of the envelope and spread it open carefully, looking for my keepsake. But all I found was brown dust that dribbled out to float on the air before settling on to the floor. I looked at it in dismay.

“The flowers must have dried away to nothing.”

Kort raised one eyebrow. “How long ago did she send them to you? Has the letter been delayed?”

I checked the date. “Actually, it’s travelled quite rapidly. It has taken only ten days to reach me.”

He shook his head at me, a smile on his face. “Then I think your lady is having a bit of a joke with you, Nevare. Nothing decays that fast. Now your dilemma: do you thank her for her pretty posies, or ask her why she sent you a thimble-full of compost?”

Others of my schoolmates had overheard now. Rory had come into the room and brayed out his laugh with, “I’m thinkin’ that she’s testing you to see how honest you are, brother!”

I brushed the fine debris from my bed. It clung to my palm. My hand tingled strangely. I resisted the urge to stare at it and managed a weak smile. “We’re going to miss our meal if we don’t leave now.”

“And we’re going to fail our inspection if you don’t sweep up your ‘flowers’!” Spink added heartlessly.

I did as Spink advised, and then hastily washed my hands as they all waited on me. By late evening, I had convinced myself that it was silly to think my dream had foreshadowed this or that there was any significance to it at all. It was awkward to write to Carsina and tell her that her gift had arrived in the form of dust? but I was determined to be ever honest with her. I read her letter over several times before I slept that night, fixing each phrase in my mind and surreptitiously kissing her looping signature before I slipped it under my pillow for the night. I fell asleep determined to dream of my future bride, but if I dreamed at all, I did not recall it.