Here the Rebbe of Zubinsk smiled and lowered the cowl of his prayer shawl. Somehow, all the while, he’d been wearing Moshe Dovid’s battered, dirtied shtreimel—the hat that Yehuda Leib had knocked into the muck and ruined.

“The first person, whomever it may be, to mention Everything and Nothing to you,” he said, “shall be your Rebbe.”

“Everything and Nothing,” repeated Issur.

The Rebbe of Zubinsk nodded. “Whomever it may be.”

Now there was a sound like wind, and Issur looked down to see that the autumn leaves in his prayer book had all crumbled and blown away.

When he looked up again, the Rebbe was gone.

And with that, Issur woke.

The sun was just beginning to rise.

Swiftly, softly he made his way out of the house, up the cemetery road, and into the forest.

By the time Issur reached Zubinsk, he’d forgotten all about his dream. The crowds there were thick—there had been many Hasidim in town to attend the wedding of the Rebbe’s granddaughter Rokhl, and even more had crowded in as news of the Rebbe’s passing had spread.

This was why it was so strange to Issur that, when he arrived at the end of the Zubinsk road, there was a girl standing there, dressed for travel, peering down into the forest behind him.

“Hello,” she said. “Do you come from Tupik?”

Issur nodded. “Yes.”

“What’s beyond?”

Issur shrugged. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

The girl shook her head. “That can’t be true.”

“Well, it is,” said Issur. “There’s a river and a ferry, but there’s no road on the other side. It’s just a swampy mess.”

The girl gave a frustrated sigh. “That’s a shame.”

“Why?” said Issur.

“Because,” said the girl, “Zubinskers almost never pass that way.”

At this, Issur chuckled. “What are you, on the run?”

The girl shrugged. “Maybe a little.”

“How can you be a little on the run?”

The girl smiled. “By being mostly somewhere else to begin with.”

Issur smiled back. “And what are you running from?”

“Oh, everything,” said Rokhl, the Rebbe’s granddaughter, “and nothing.”

In a flash, the Rebbe’s words returned to Issur:

Everything and Nothing.

But how could this be? Every Rebbe Issur had ever heard of had been an old man.

And yet the Rebbe’s words were in Issur’s ear again:

Whomever it may be.

By the time he came to his senses, she had already turned to go.

“Wait!” cried Issur after the girl who was his Rebbe. “Wait!”

THE DANTALION

Prophet Margins

Hall QB, row 94, case K, shelf 7, volume H, page 390:

…and in those days, there shall come into the Farthest Land, up unto the very House of Death, a Pair of Eyes That Cut and a Pair of Lips That Lock, and theirs shall be a terrible peril.