—And then I’m Slumped again on the ice prison outside the Crone’s castle, the crying of the Child loud in my ears, and I know that the Dreaming is not quite done with me, not yet.

My hands and feet are throbbing, and I gasp, wondering how they got—

Oh, yeah.

I was punching and kicking the ice, trying to break it. And it didn’t work. I look down, through the clear, cold roof, and there’s the Child looking up at me, imploring.

Still crying, still with arms outstretched—the word that comes into my head is “beseeching.”

Emotion sweeps through me; tidal. Frustration pricks at the corners of my eyes. Why can’t I just break the ice? The Crone is dead. Why can’t I do it? Why can’t I get to her?

Why hasn’t Coyote come back?

And all the time, the sound of sobbing is filling my ears.

Please, I think. Please, I need to pick her up. Coyote, if you’re still there, help me, give me power, help me get her out. I will do anything, sacrifice anything, to save her. I don’t care about me anymore. I don’t care about my (mother), I don’t care about revenge, I don’t care about what has been done to me.

I am my own person, I think, and it doesn’t matter who my mother is, I am enough for myself. I am my own family.

The ice burns my hands, but I don’t care. The skin sizzling, I am half expecting to smell it soon, charring and—

Ice?

Sizzling?

Then I hear more sizzling.

And then I feel something drip onto my foot.

I look down.

My tears are falling from my cheeks and landing on the ice, and when they do they bore through it, straight through it, making holes in the crystal, which are expanding, the roof dissolving like that leaf in Coyote’s fire, what was there a moment ago disappearing; a magic trick.

I watch in amazement as the walls of the ice castle slowly, slowly, melt down, water running in rivulets onto the grass, soaking it. I don’t know if it was my tears, or if Coyote heard me and came to my aid, I don’t suppose I’ll ever know, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The thin wall between our hands fades—no, the right word is “effaces”; it effaces away, something rubbed out.

Until our hands are touching. Her tiny hands, in my big ones. I grip them tightly; they are so hot and so small it makes me feel like my heart might burst in my chest.

For the first time, the Child stops crying. I think it’s the shock.

Then the last of the ice drips away, and I am standing there, bending down to the Child who is looking up at me, clinging to my hands.

I go down on one knee, and she’s right in front of me, her face right there, her big brown eyes, her curly hair, and my hands are holding hers like they never could in my dream—it’s the end, the end I never got to, where I’m able to pick her up.

And that’s exactly what I do.

I put my arms around her, somehow I know exactly how to do it, like it’s written into my body, how to hold a child. I cradle her with one arm, under her legs, and hoist her until she sits on my hip and throws her hands around my neck and holds on tight.

She is crying again, but lightly, in a slowing rhythm, the sound of someone who has been hysterical but is calming now, calming.

I squeeze her tight.

It’s okay, I say, over and over. It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here. I’m here. I’ve got you now. You’re safe. You’re safe.

Her sobs become a snuffle.

Become long, deep breaths.

Go quiet.

And then …

And then something very strange happens.