I stepped out of the tent. The night was silent as a crypt. Tiny burning holes appeared in the black canopy above the sinking moons. I walked for an hour under the stars, exhausted yet restless. I looked up into the face of the King. I gazed at the great city on the hill, now so close I could see the different colors of its shining buildings.

Never had I wanted so much to go home. To come home.

I returned to camp and rekindled the fire and read the book by its flickering light. I mulled over the King’s words, soaking them in like a dry sponge. “Those who appear to be foul sometimes prove to be fair, and those who appear to be fair often prove to be foul.”

Half of me was chilled by the dark night air, half comforted by the fire. I stared into the flames that stood in a row on the crackling fir branches and licked the air, reaching higher, ever groping for something above them and warming me by their pursuit of it.

I marveled that I’d come this far without electricity, pumped water, or sewer, without my car or computer or cell phone or even a schedule, without the stock market and gadgets and entertainment systems that had been so central to my life on earth, a place that had never been the home I’d tried to make it. I smiled, realizing this was the longest I’d gone in thirty years without calling out for a pepperoni pizza!

I came to Skiathuros with nothing but the clothes on my back, stripped of the things I’d depended on, things that had insulated me from seeing my true character, my deepest longings, from life itself. And yet here I was, my life reduced to my character, the road before me, the travelers beside me, the people we met on the road, the worlds beyond and the King above—and Charis, the destination that loomed ever larger by the moment. I’d been laid bare here. I’d seen myself as I really was. Now, perhaps, I could see myself as the King was refashioning me to be.

My eyes drooped. Overcome by fatigue, right there by the fire I laid my head gently on the book, which felt surprisingly soft.

Then I saw the Woodsman. He held in his hand something tiny and round, like a blue-green marble. He rolled it in his palm, and suddenly the ground lurched and heaved. I fell backward.

His footing firm, he stared down at the marble, deep in thought, seeing things in it I could not.