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"Snowflakes fall down

And get farther away little by little

I miss you (I miss you)

How much longer do I have to wait?

How many more nights do I have to stay awake?

To see you (to see you)

To meet you (to see you)"  ... BTS 'Spring Day'

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James was frantic, incessantly pacing in front of the fire.  Something was calling him to her.  He wanted nothing more than to have Grimalkin back safe in his arms.  He would never forget how it felt to be with her.  Nobody else thought she was in imminent danger.  They had all gone to get help to defeat the Kobalos and had left him to watch the house with the Bogart and Sally.  

He had tried his best to keep busy and do something productive with his time but being left behind was making him feel trapped and irritable.  Not even the Bogart could rest with his restless energy so close.  The cat hissed and jumped out the window when James stepped on his tail when the Bogart was trying to rub himself on James' legs.

Sally sat with her elbows on the table and her hands supporting her chin.  She was tired of James' restlessness also but was using it to distract herself from the eerie feeling she had at the Chipenden cottage.  The feeling that something evil or dark was near was ever-present here just like it was with the Kobalos.  She chalked it up to it being a spook's house when once again the hair on the back of her neck stood up bristling more from fear than chilliness.  

James wanted to leave and so did she.  He spent all day working hard making throwing knives, daggers and a staff with a retractable silver blade, while she busied herself reading some of the books in the spook's library and keeping the cottage tidy.  Although she found most of the knowledge terrifying, adding to the uneasy feeling she already had, still she had a hunger to know more.  She wished she could also be trained to be a Spook along with Tom.  She liked him and she wanted to be part of this little group.  She wanted to fight the dark just as they did and not stand idly by while the dark consumed them.   Finally, she could not hold it in any longer so she spoke up.

"I'll go with you," Sally said.

"What?" James said scratching the back of his head anxiously her voice intruding into his thoughts.  He stared at her like she was crazy but he was willing to hear her out.

"I'll help you find her.  I know that place like the back of my hand," she explained.

James' eyes grew wide in surprise. "You would?"  He couldn't fathom why she would risk her life again when she was finally safe.  

"Let's get everything ready," she said standing from the table.

"This is crazy you know.  We are probably walking to our death.  I don't know your motivation but I can't imagine living without her."  James smiled a little sad smile like he was resigned to his fate whatever that might be.  He pulled a map from his pocket and spread it on the table.  "Which route should we take?"

After carefully debating which route would get them there faster, they both came to the conclusion that horses were a necessity.  Sally started getting their provisions ready while James went into town to try to get some horses with the money Grimalkin had given him.   Most things are less difficult with money and this was one of them.  

That night the excitement wouldn't let James sleep.  He had contemplated the outcome of this plan and realized that he didn't have a clue how to entice Grimalkin to come with him and leave that man that could give her so much more than he could.  James had nothing to offer.  Even his home had been burned down by enemy soldiers hell-bent on destruction.  All that he had managed to save were the tools of his trade that he had set up a short distance away from the Spook's house.  But perhaps he had something better in his favor,  her heart.  How it happened or when he can't say but somehow he knew.