If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended:

That you have but slumbered here,

While these visions did appear. . .

—William Shakespeare

In the shadows of the lonesome trees, Nightwing had a moment to reflect. He hid in the tallest Douglas fir, and enjoyed the feel of the tree swaying, its sweet scent filling his nostrils.

He felt comfortable in the shadows.

Let's see, he thought. I've planted seeds of discord with Ben. Now all that I need to do is trick Amber, and Ben will be mine. I know. A dream! A dream just might do the trick. . . .

#

Amber lay in a deep slumber in the voles' burrow, and suddenly her body jerked. Her eyes came half open, but her eyelids were too heavy, and soon they dropped.

In the warm darkness, filled with the sweet scent of the friendly voles, Amber dreamed.

She dreamed she heard Ben calling her name from a distance, as if he needed her, and in her dream, she climbed to her feet and sniffed through the burrow.

Suddenly, there was a light in a tunnel, and Ben entered—wearing a walnut shell upon his head, and carrying a sharp piece of metal in one paw, and the glow-stone in the other. A silver thread with a golden hook tied to it was slung over one shoulder.

"Amber," he called desperately, "there you are!"

She gazed upon him, and no mouse of the field had ever looked so handsome. His glossy fur had been preened and stroked to a soft gleam. His eyes were as bright as stars in the darkness. Amber's stomach felt all gooey.

Ben rushed forward. For a moment he stared at her lovingly. "What have I been thinking?" he whispered, inching forward to nuzzle her ear. "I don't want to leave. I want to be with you. Forever. I want to be yours."

Amber's heart thrilled. She quivered with excitement. "Really?"

"Amber, without you," Ben said, "there could be no magic in my life. There could be no magic in your life. Think about it: you never could cast a spell until you met me. We're like two halves of a peanut. Together we are magic. Alone, we're just . . . nuts."

Amber stood quivering, not knowing what to say. Ben leaned whiskers trembling. He sniffed her ear. It tickled. She giggled, wondering if he really loved her.

He did kiss me, she told herself. Even when he was a human, he kissed me. He must love me a little.

She wanted him to love her so badly that it hurt.

#

After a long, deep sleep, Amber woke in pain. Not pain in her muscles, but pain in her heart, aching for Ben.

Vervane scurried about the burrow shouting, "Rise my friends. Rise. The night is old; the stars are dim. The owls have gone to roost, and the hawks have not yet awakened. Hurry. Now is the time to travel!"

Amber blinked in surprise. She'd expected to find Ben nuzzling her. But she felt cold, alone.

The scents of fungus, leaves, and voles were strong. Amber rubbed her eyes. Her magical light had gone out. She heard young voles rustling about the burrow.

The burrow! For the first time in her life, she had wakened to life outside a cage. She really was free!

I'll never go back to a cage, she vowed.

Amber needed light, so she wished that she had another glowing rock. A nearby pebble flickered like an ember, then went out.

Amber suddenly felt weak. She fell to her belly, and lay as slack as a slug. Something is wrong.

She lay, head spinning, listening to the voices in the burrow. She realized that she hadn't heard Ben.

"Ben?" she called weakly. "Ben?" Now she saw the truth. Ben had run away with her glow-stone!

She felt betrayed. In her dream, he had been so loving, so tender. Now, fear wormed through her belly. She didn't know how to find the pet shop without Ben. And there would be monsters all along the way.

I was such a fool to trust him, Amber thought.

Just as she began to cry, a light shone at one end of the burrow, and Ben crawled into view. He was wearing a silly-looking walnut shell on his head, and carrying a long piece of metal in one hand and the glow-stone in the other—just as he had in her dream!

In the dark, his eyes sparkled like droplets of water.

And as he neared, something strange happened. The stone that Amber had tried to make glow suddenly turned as clear as glass and flared like a star.

Amber gasped as she realized that her dream had held some truth, she couldn't do magic without Ben. They were two halves of the same peanut. They were magic only when they were together.

And what of the rest of the dream? Amber wondered. Was there truth in it, too? Is it possible that he really does love me, that he wants to be a mouse?

Old Barley Beard had once told Amber, "Sometimes we can see truths clearly in dreams that we are blind to while awake." Maybe Barley Beard had been right.

Ben's very presence seemed to revitalize Amber, to send strength pulsing through her limbs. She climbed to her feet. Trying to keep the sound of her fear and hurt from her voice, she asked Ben, "Where did you go?"

"Uh," Ben said. "I wanted to get an early start on our trip, so I went back to get some weapons."

"What's a weapon?" Bushmaster asked. The vole drew near, sniffing at the spike Ben held. "Is that it?"

"It's something we humans use to fight with," Ben said. He picked it up and showed the vole how to thrust and jab with it. "With one of these, you can beat up cats and stuff."

Amber didn't believe such wild tales, but Bushmaster drew close. "There's blood on it. And I smell raccoon!"

"Yeah," Ben said. "I almost got eaten by one. But I stabbed him in the nose, and he ran away."

The voles stared at Ben in awe, mouths falling open.

Vervane came and sniffed at Ben's spear. With a sound approaching worshipfulness, he asked, "You fought a raccoon?"

"Yeah," Ben said. "I got this needle out of the garage to use as a spear. But you could use a nail or a toothpick—anything that's sharp. In fact, if you get into someone's house, there's always a good chance of finding a needle somewhere."

Ben tried to hand the spear to Vervane, but the old vole backed away. "No, no, thank you," he shuddered. "I could never kill anything."

But Bushmaster hopped forward, picked up the spear, and tried a couple of jabs. He began laughing at his newfound sense of power. "I want one!" he said. "We don't really have to kill things. We could just use them to scare monsters off."

"I never thought of that," Vervane admitted. "Maybe I could use one."

"Me, too!" the younger voles all cried.

In seconds, the voles were crowding around Ben, talking excitedly, making plans to search every home in the neighborhood for weapons.

They gaped at the walnut shell on Ben's head. "What's that for?" one asked.

"It's a helmet," Ben said. "It protects your head. A cat would have a hard time biting through it."

One vole touched it, and the walnut shell popped off of Ben's head.

He looked down at it sadly. "It keeps coming off. If I had a knife, I'd whittle on it until it fit. I'd make it look cool, like a scary skull with teeth and stuff!"

Amber went to Ben, picked up the walnut shell. She imagined the scariest thing she could—the walnut shell carved to look like bone, with holes for Ben's eyes and ears, and teeth wrapping down over his jaws to hold the helmet on. Immediately, the walnut shell took the new form. The voles all squeaked in fear and backed away.

"A princely helmet for a princely mouse," Amber said.

"Cool," Ben said, slapping it on.

With a wave of her paw, Amber gathered all of the needles from Ben's house, and let them form in the air. They dropped at the feet of the voles. "A present," she said. "Here are weapons for all of you, so that Domino the cat will learn to fear the small creatures of the world!"

"Yay!" the voles all cried as they selected their weapons. "Hooray for Amber! Hooray for Ben!"

"So how far is the pet shop?" Amber asked Ben as the voles continued to cheer. "And which way do we go?"

"The sun rises in the east," Ben said. "All we have to do is follow it!"

"Great!" Amber said. "What's the sun?"

"You know," Ben said in exasperation, "they really should have let you out of your cage more often."

Bushmaster hopped close to Ben. "Between your weapons and her spells, nothing can stop us. All we have to do is get both of you to the pet shop, and you'll be human in no time."

"Wait a minute," Ben asked Bushmaster, "are you coming, too?"

"It's the least I can do," Bushmaster said. "You saved my life. Besides, six eyes watching for monsters are better than four. And now, I have a spear!"

Old Vervane laughed. "Bushmaster always was the adventurous one. He knows every backyard from here to the end of the block."

Somehow, the news that Bushmaster would come made Amber feel better. Bushmaster was only a vole, but he was a wild vole, and he knew how to travel through dangerous country, filled with monsters that she'd never dreamed of.

The voles began shouting farewells, and with that, Bushmaster picked up his spear and led the way from the burrow.

"Travel safely," the young girl, Meadowsweet, called. "Come back soon."

"Thank you," Amber told her. "I'd love to."

Ben dropped the magic light-stone, muttering, "We'll have to leave this. It would only attract attention."

Amber threaded her way out of the burrow, just behind Bushmaster, and glanced back longingly at her magic light. They dimmed as she left.

At their backs, the youngest voles teased, "Good-bye, mice! Good-bye, stinky mice!" They giggled and rolled on the floor while their older kin gathered up the spears.

#

At the top of the burrow, Ben took the lead. It was still dark, with just a hint of light. The scents of trees and bushes and moist earth clung to the ground. Ben climbed from the hole and shoved aside a young fern that spiraled up out of the humus. He trudged forward blindly into the pre-dawn gloom with spear in hand.

"What are you doing?" Bushmaster cried in horror.

"Heading to the pet shop," Ben said as he stomped over the pine needles, climbing toward a large yellow oyster mushroom that glowed in the shadows ahead.

"You can't just march around like that," Bushmaster argued. "You have to be careful. Hop, stop, and look. Hop, stop, and look."

"At that rate, it will take all day," Ben argued.

"Perhaps," Bushmaster said, "but remember: "The shortest distance between two points is getting there alive."

Ben said impatiently, "My teacher says that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line."

Bushmaster grunted in disgust. "I'd like to see your teacher walk a straight line through a field of weasels."

"All right." Ben hopped forward a few steps, hid beneath a wild daffodil and made a big show of peering around. "Whew," he groused. "I made it two feet alive. Hope I can keep it up." He darted forward three hops—enormous bounds that only a jumping mouse could manage, and pretended to evade an owl, zigzagging until he reached a pile of pine needles.

Amber's anger started to rise, but she kept her mouth shut.

The way "east" took them away from Ben's house, through a stand of fir trees, down a rolling hill. In the pre-dawn, it was spooky.

The shriek of some hunting bird shattered the darkness, and every shadow under every crooked bush and crouching tree was filled with menace.

Vapors rose from the ground, like the ghosts of woodlands past, and broken limbs on the forest floor seemed to twist like dazed snakes. They climbed down into a valley where green moss grew, and mushrooms sprouted from the moss, white as snow.

Amber trembled in fear as she wound her way beneath the umbrella tops of the mushrooms. She considered her plan. Old Barley Beard had told her she was destined to free all of the mice in the world someday.

Today is the day, she thought. I'll reach the Pet Shop and free my friends, fulfilling the prophecy.

But in doing so, she'd lose Ben.

Will I never be able to use magic again after that? she wondered. It seemed unlikely.

Amber had to come to grips with the fact that once Ben was human, she'd just be a common house mouse. Or at least one with a spear, she mused, grinning wickedly.

As dawn filled the sky, the sense of menace faded and the world displayed its wonders. They reached the edge of a meadow—a real meadow, just like old Barley Beard had dreamed of. There, the mice climbed a small madrone tree, whose peeling red bark revealed a honey-colored layer of pith beneath, and sat under its waxy green leaves as Amber took her first good look at the world.

The meadow was filled with lush green grass, morning glories opening their white petals to the world, golden daffodils, and wild mountain blue irises springing from the ground.

In the distance, Amber could see a shining disk, rising pink above the purple mountains and the morning fog that filled the Willamette Valley.

"That's the sun," Ben said. "We just head toward it."

Oh, Amber thought. It was like a light bulb back in the pet shop, only this one brightened the whole world.

Down in the meadow, her eyes caught the movement of animals. She saw cottontail bunnies bouncing playfully at the tree line, and by a small pool of water, a stately animal stood. It had some branches stuck on its head.

"What's that?" she asked.

"It's a deer," Bushmaster said, "with his antlers in velvet. With rabbits and deer in the meadow, that's a good sign. There shouldn't be any predators around."

"Hooray," Amber cried.

"We should have a song," Bushmaster said, "to give us peace of mind on our journey." And so he sat on the limb beneath the bush and sang in a loud, clear voice:

The trail is long and lonely,

And soon I'll reach the end,

In sunlight or in shadow,

I'll come to you, my friend.

When death is at your doorway,

And there's no one to defend

In day or utter darkness,

I'll stand with you, my friend.

In day or utter darkness,

I'll sing for you, my friend.

Amber took a long look at Bushmaster. "That's a song from the singing voles of the north, isn't it?"

"Yes," Bushmaster said. "It's what they sing when a friend is in danger."

They sat for a moment, looking out over the meadow. It was early spring, and as the morning light eased through the trees, birdsong trembled in the air. Indeed, birds were everywhere. Golden meadowlarks erupted from the fescue like hot sparks from a forge, while hidden, they whistled songs both sweet and haunting. Red-winged blackbirds clung to the tops of cattail rushes along a small stream, making ratcheting noises as they hunted for caterpillars and bees. Finches and sparrows hopped in the brush at the edge of the woods, cheeping. And suddenly, far, far up, Bushmaster spotted a red-winged hawk wheeling in lazy circles through the sky.

"Time to get under cover," he whispered, hopping to the ground.

The mice furtively crept through the grass, Ben taking the lead with his spear in hand, Amber in the middle, Bushmaster following at the end. The thick grass slowed them. Rye and fescue and wild vetch all competed for sunlight and grew in a tangled jungle. There were trails—hidden runways for small creatures—but the erratic paths didn't often head the direction that they needed to go.

"Who made these trails?" Ben asked as they nosed through some thick grass. "Mice?"

"Not likely," Bushmaster said. "The mice have all gone away. Voles are making these trails, mostly."

"So they should be safe to follow?" Ben asked.

"Others use them," Bushmaster said. "Pine snakes and garter snakes like to slither along them, and weasels. We have to be careful, even on the trails."

Amber was curious. "You said the mice went away. Where did they go?"

"East," Bushmaster said. "They went east. I asked, but they didn't know where they were heading, or why they were leaving. Sometimes they muttered, 'Into the shadow, but they couldn't tell me where the Shadow was, or why they wanted to get there. They left in ones and twos, the mothers leading their kittens."

"Did you humans notice this?" Amber asked Ben.

Ben shook his head.

Amber crept along silently, wondering what this could mean. The only animals she saw were small creatures—wolf spiders trundling along the grass, ants hunting in huge tribes, snails as round and pale as the moon, bright red ladybugs dozing in the dawn, a young mantis praying fervently for world peace.

So they nosed through the grass, panting and grunting, until they got hungry.

For the first time in her life, Amber foraged for oats and clover. She drank morning dew from golden buttercups, dined on wild peas. It seemed to her to be the finest feast she'd ever eaten.

(Please continue to Chapter 9, part 2)