The sky, bright and blue, luring him in. The forest, empty of people, because they had all been taken already—except for Oscar, and Wolf in a sack at his feet. The wind pushed over the wizard trees, tearing the roots from the ground, leaving great mourning gashes in the soil. The roots gulped and gasped and grasped. The gashes in the ground grew under his feet; the wind battered his body. And then it was all gone—the ground, the forest, all of Aletheia—and Oscar was left with the sky and its terrible hunger. He fell into it, and kept falling, and falling some more into the blankness. And then the dream-Oscar disappeared, expelled by the body-Oscar, who awoke with a start. He was sitting upright in his bed, surrounded only by darkness and the feelings the dream-Oscar had left behind—and he realized suddenly that his hand was clutching something tightly. He opened it to reveal the little wooden cat. Oscar stood the cat up in his hand and stroked it with one finger. “You need a name,”
