Away. He didn't care which direction. Away from the dream and the room that had held it, away from the bed where he'd dreamt it, away from anyone who might come running with candles and sympathy and tea and questions.

He simply walked straight until something made him turn. A brook, a stone wall, a slope too slick and steep. He stopped once, breathing hard, realizing that he had very nearly been running.

Slow down. Slow breaths. Be aware of where you are. Nothing is chasing you, you have nothing to fear.

He heard a slight sound behind him. Whirling, he lurched backward, his hands out as if to fend off an attack, his body crouched ready for a fight.

There was no one there. No one, except a dog, a shaggy multicolored thing. Lysander could see a gleam of its white teeth as its mouth hung open. It panted happily at him, and Lysander wondered how long it had been trailing in the wake of his mad rush. The animal seemed entirely pleased with him, as if Lysander had asked it along on a companionable ramble in the middle of the night.

There was no farm nearby but the house he just left. Did it belong to the lady doctor? Or the man?

In the dim moonlight, Lysander couldn't tell the dog's color but he could see gleaming dark eyes peering out from under shaggy brows and large feathery ears that looked very nearly bat-like in the dark.

Lysander supposed that people ought to speak to dogs, as he was certain that he used to do. However, the dog seem perfectly content to simply sit on its haunches with the end of its tail flipping methodically on the scruffy grass of the hill. The creature tilted its head at him curiously, but when he did not move toward it, the dog jumped up and scuttled awkwardly off a few feet away. Then it stopped and looked back at him intently.

It was exhausting enough trying to puzzle out the humans around him. Lysander had nothing left to give a dog tonight. He turned his back on it and continued on his way, albeit at a more leisurely pace than before. Perhaps it was the distraction of the animal, or the cool crisp night, or perhaps he'd merely worn the dream out in his furiously paced walk, but he felt much calmer now.

He tried to think seriously about what he ought to do next. Surely that was what sensible people did. They put some thought into what they ought to do next.

Lysander usually waited for someone in his family to indicate his direction. It was easier that way, for they became disturbed when he went off on his own, or reacted strangely. Since he woke in the hospital with his shoulder bandaged and his mind full of waking nightmares, Lysander had realized that there was something rather permanently wrong with him.