When I woke up the next morning, I dressed quickly. I brushed my teeth and hurried downstairs and then realized it was just eight o'clock in the morning. Only my mother was awake. She was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. She smiled when I came into the room. "You're up early," she said.

I didn't tell her that I was almost always awake early but that I stayed up in my room for a long time, sitting by my window or just thinking about things. What was really surprising to her was that I was downstairs so early. This morning I had somewhere to be, though. I had someplace to go, and I wanted to get moving as soon as possible. Still, I knew if I told my mother I was leaving the house she would wonder where I was going at eight o'clock when nobody else was up. So I reluctantly pulled out a bowl and filled it with cereal.

"I can make you some eggs, honey," said my mother.

"No, thanks."

"Do you want pancakes?"

I shook my head. I just wanted something quick and easy. The faster I ate the faster I could be out the door. Besides, my mother knew I didn't like hot food in the morning. My father used to cook breakfast every Saturday. He would be up with the sun, frying eggs or sprinkling cinnamon on French toast. I would lie nice and warm up in my bed, half awake and wallowing in the wonderful smells. I liked hot morning food then. I didn't like it now. If my mother cooked breakfast, she knew never to do it on a Saturday. Sometimes she asked me if I wanted something, but I always answered her with a no. I don't even know why she bothered to ask.

"I want some pancakes," said a voice behind me, and both my mother and I turned to see Vanessa. She was rubbing at her eyes groggily.

My mother gaped. "Now this really is a shock! Two of you up before nine! Are we in a time warp?"

"Stop it, Mom," replied Vanessa, going to the counter to pour herself a cup of coffee. Drinking the gross stuff made her feel older, I was sure. "I just couldn't sleep, that's all."

"Why not?" asked my mother. "Is something on your mind?"

I sat at the table and let them talk. I wasn't really interested in their conversation.

Vanessa hesitated as if she wasn't going to say anything, but then she began. "It's that boy in class. I had Nora tell him I thought he was a jerk for looking at me and that I didn't like him. She's a friend of his so it's OK. And so she told it all to him, and now he won't talk to me."

With a raised eyebrow, my mother replied, "Can you blame him? Whatever would make you say something like that to anyone?"

"Well I didn't mean it of course! I didn't!"

My mother began to ask Vanessa more questions and my sister grew defensive. During their argument, I finished my cereal and quietly slipped out the front door. When I was free in the cool, gray air a great relief flooded over me. I was certainly glad that I would never have the kind of problems Vanessa did. She could get worked up over things faster than anyone I knew.

I began to make my way toward the woods near Jude's house, but when I came to the area between the line of fence and the trees, I spotted a figure coming toward me. It stopped when I did, noticing me just as I noticed it. I knew at once who it was. The curly hair told me.

Jill began to move again, and soon she was face-to-face with me. "I was on my way to your house," she said, brushing a thick strand of hair off her chill-flushed cheek.

"Oh," was all I could think of at first. Then I added, "Why?"

She stamped her foot. "To take you to the mushrooms, of course! Don't you remember?"

I surveyed her with a lowered brow. "No."

"Well that's because you didn't know about it. But you see, that's what brought you here. You knew it in your mind without your mouth saying it – like an instinct. Now let's go! I want to get there and back before lunch. I'm having wild orange iced tea."

I was dismayed. I did not want to go with Jillian. I'd been waiting anxiously all night to head to Jude's house. I wanted desperately to watch him play his music, to spend the day waiting for it to come. And now I was stuck on a hunt with a bird. I knew Jill was a bird; she was pecking at my excitement like a chicken eating feed. I had to go with her. She'd come from across town just to take me, and I couldn't say no without seeming awful. I had no choice.

With a resigned nod, I followed the girl. She led me back toward town, across the main street, in the direction of our school. Jillian pointed out plants and clouds and even the graffiti on one of the buildings in town. She made me notice the way Mr. Jokish, the man who owned the bank, walked with his wallet in his hand as if afraid to keep it in his pocket. She turned my eyes to a thick, leafy squirrel nest and my ears to an argument between Sue Sheldon, the owner of the bakery, and Joshua Brighton, a boy from our class. They were talking about an iced roll that Sue thought Joshua fed to his cat, Merle. Jill asked me to keep my eyes open for a peridot ring, because a first-grade girl had lost one, and she told me to watch out for any acorns on the ground; she wanted them to keep in her pockets for luck.

By the time the two of us made it to the schoolyard and up the hill to the swing sets, I was looking for and listening to more things than I could keep track of. I was shocked at how quickly the walk had passed. I was about to exclaim my amazement when I remembered how I was supposed to go to Jude's house, and then my distress crept back into me. How could I be happy when I was missing his music?

Jillian didn't notice my change in temperament. "This way," she said, picking up her pace as we moved past the swings and monkey bars toward a fringe of wooded area. The trees there were much thicker than those around Jude's house. They were some sort of pine trees, with slender green needles and black trunks.

We walked the rest of the way in quiet. It was shadowy and almost spooky. The needles padded the ground, so my footsteps were muffled. There were some regular leafy trees scattered among the pines, but their fallen leaves were not enough to cover the carpeted floor of needles. This place was very different from the one behind the fences. When we had gone just far enough in so that we couldn't see light from the fields we'd come from, Jill turned to me. "We have to be very quiet," she whispered, her large eyes looking even brighter in the dimness.

"Why?" I asked, not bothering to lower my voice.

"Shhh! Because we aren't supposed to be here." She spoke as if I had been stupid to even ask the question.

Rather than say anything else, I kept quiet and followed her farther. Maybe she thought we were supposed to be silent for the animals, or for the ghosts. I didn't know. With Jill, any thoughts were possible. When my brain mentioned ghosts, I felt my skin prickle. I didn't like thinking about them. Usually I didn't believe in monsters or spirits, but there were some times when I sure felt as if I did.

"There!" Jill hissed suddenly.

I looked up to see an enormous tree stump, and I drew in my breath at the sight of it. The thing was gigantic – a good eight feet in diameter and nearly four feet high off the ground. Around the dark, black, gloriously monstrous thing were, just as Jill had told me, ring upon ring of shaggy white mushrooms. I had trouble speaking.

Moving forward, I stepped gingerly over any mushrooms in my path and went to touch the ancient tree remains. My fingers brushed against the rough bark, feeling the scratch of it on my skin. Jill persuaded me to let her help me climb on top of it. Then I pulled her up. The inner core of the stump was dark browny-yellow. Rings and rings spun out from the center of it, turning lighter as they swung toward the edge. The top was smooth and still looked fresh in some parts, but in the middle, thick green moss had begun to sprout, as if the very heart of the thing had started to turn to rot.

I had never seen anything so fascinating. Crouching down, I ran the palms of my hands over the rings, knowing that there were far too many to count quickly. There were notches and jagged parts to show struggle or hard times and extra thick rings to show years of strong growth. As the rings went to the outside they grew longer and longer, until they disappeared altogether. Maybe if I had been older I might have fathomed the history held in that stump, but as I was, I was only amazed by it.

Jill laid down on top of the tree stump along the edge. I lay down on the side opposite her. I can't say how long we were there, our backs pressed against rings of the past and our eyes staring up into the dark shadows of the pine trees. The air was as quiet as death, and it smelled like the needles carpeting the ground. I still didn't known why Jill had said we weren't supposed to be in that forest, but I did agree that we should keep quiet. The place felt sacred.

Eventually, Jill and I got up to leave. When I slid down from the stump I felt as if a curtain had drawn shut. I brushed the bark scraps off my jeans and took another look at the mushrooms. They were so white that they looked as if they were glowing.

"Come here," whispered Jillian. I went to her side and she led me farther past the old stump into the trees. I didn't have much time to wonder what she was doing, because the trees suddenly gave way to rocky ground. Jill and I were on the bank of a still, silver lake, and directly to our left was an enormous house.

"See?" said Jill. "We shouldn't be here. It belongs to him."

"Who?"

She only pointed to the house. It was made of stones and dark wood. A massive porch stretched around to the sides of it, and the windows all appeared to have drapes pulled over them. The place was ugly. It made me afraid. I suddenly wanted to be back in the town – as far from the house as I could get. The enchantment I'd felt around the old stump was replaced with heavy anxiety. I wanted Jill to take me back, and I think she sensed that.

"We should go now," she said. That was enough for me, and I followed her out of the woods back toward the school yard willingly.

As the two of us were passing through the town, we went by a small antique shop run by an old man named Mr. Pebble. I'd been in his shop only once, with my mother, and I didn't know Mr. Pebble well. But when Jill and I walked past his door, she stopped me. "Something's wrong," she said.

I glanced at the store windows. The door had its OPEN sign in it, and the lights were on. Everything looked normal to me. "What's the matter?"

She pointed upward. "His chimes are gone. They're always out, except when he's closed after five."

I thought. Then I knew what she meant. I vaguely remembered seeing several sets of wind chimes hanging from the eaves over the shop's door. Nothing hung there now, but that didn't strike me as being so strange.

Jill took hold of my arm and pulled me into the store. I didn't want to go. I wanted to head home. But I let her take me in. Jillian just wasn't a person I could say no to.

The shop was small, and the shelves and floor inside were crammed with stopped clocks, glass lamps, replicas of sailing ships, and old mirrors. Odds and ends were stacked in corners or displayed on little end tables. It was a very interesting shop; I remembered I thought it was neat when I went in with my mother.

Across from the door was a heavy wooden desk where Mr. Pebble had his papers and register. The one time I'd been in his store, the old man had stayed seated in that desk the whole time. Right then, we didn't see him behind it. I saw nothing wrong with that, but Jill did. She went to the desk. I watched her lean over it. "Mr. Pebble?" she called. Receiving no response, she motioned to me. "There's a door."

I followed her around the desk and through a door that led outside into a narrow back alley. Then Jill paused. I did too, when I saw what she did. There was old Mr. Pebble, a short man with white hair over his ears who wore a little pair of octagonal glasses, sitting on a squat stool, wiping at his eyes with a handkerchief. When he saw us come out the door he attempted to stop sniffling. But Jill and I had seen him.

"What's the matter, Mr. Pebble?" cried Jill. I was shocked at the honest concern in her voice.

The man got to his feet. "Oh, it's nothing, child. Nothing at all."

We saw through his shaking words. Jill stamped her foot. "Well, then 'nothing' has made you very, very sad. Tell me what's wrong." Catching herself, she added, "Please."

Mr. Pebble was no fool. He knew Jillian Lee. Everybody seemed to know her. Sighing, he pulled his hanky back out of his jacket pocket (where he'd stuffed it when he caught sight of us) and dabbed around his eyes. "It's just Sadie. She passed away this morning. She'd had all the aches and pains, and she'd been getting slower. I knew she was old, but I didn't see it coming. And this morning when I tried to wake her, she wouldn't. She was stiff as stone, and cold." His eyes watered. "Oh, my Sadie. I've had her for so many years that they're hard to count. I don't think I can get by without her. I don't want to, anyway."

I looked at Jill and saw her chin quiver. She took hold of the man's free hand and held it between both of hers. "She is the most beautiful sheep dog ever. I think she's got the loveliest fur, because it feels soft like goose feathers."

I was filled with wonder. Jill spoke to Mr. Pebble as if his dog was still alive. It was annoying. Dead things stayed that way, and to pretend they weren't going to was stupid. I was afraid that Jill would make the old man more upset, but she didn't. Mr. Pebble let her talk to him; I almost thought that he looked like the thirteen-year-old and Jill was the adult. That's how it felt, anyway.

Not knowing what to say, I let Jill do the talking. When we'd been there for a good while, I noticed the time on Mr. Pebble's watch. It was almost twelve o'clock. A thought shot through my brain. "I have to go," I said quietly to Jillian, praying that she wouldn't insist I should stay. I knew that if she told me not to leave, I wouldn't be able to. But she didn't even look at me; she just nodded, and I turned to go.

After I left the shop, I raced toward Jude's house, not stopping to do anything. I had to hurry. Maybe it wouldn't be too late. Maybe I would be just in time to hear him.

My hopes grew stronger when, as I drew nearer the house, I saw Jude sitting in the yard, his back against a white tree. Scanning the area, I made sure that his father wasn't in the yard. Then I approached him. He didn't notice me. Or, if he did, he didn't show it. His eyes were closed, and I wondered at first if he was sleeping. But when I stood right in front of him, I could see that his arms and legs were not relaxed. They were, in fact, so tense that they shook with strain. Jude's breath was coming out sharply. He was horribly rigid. Something was wrong.

I wondered what to say. "H-hello. It's me . . . Nat." His head turned very slowly from side to side, but he didn't answer. "Have you played, yet?" I continued, extremely unsure what I should or should not say.

Jude's head fell down between his hands. I watched his fingers close tightly around pieces of his hair. I drew in an anxious breath. He looked like he was hurting himself. "No," he said hoarsely.

Timidly, I asked, "Are you going to?"

His shoulders rose, and I was afraid for a moment that he was going to start sobbing. He was so tense. I felt sickly nervous just seeing him. "Yes," he forced out. The words came from his mouth like they hurt terribly but were a relief to say. "Yes. Not yet."

I watched him. He wouldn't look at me. He wouldn't lift his head. I was scared that he was in some sort of pain – that he hurt in ways I couldn't understand and couldn't help. I had no idea what to do or say. Because of how out of place I felt, I became certain that I shouldn't interfere at all. I was sure that Jude didn't want me there, and even though I desperately wanted to watch him play his music, the part of me that was frightened swallowed what little courage I had. There was no room for me in whatever torment he was experiencing. He couldn't want me there, watching something that seemed too private. I didn't stay. I was scared, and so I ran.