I didn’t want the person standing there, beside the bed, to have the same face I’d found so attractive at the airport. But you were there all right: the blue eyes, blondish hair, and tiny scar. Only you didn’t look beautiful this time. Just evil.

Far, far away something made a single ghostly howl, like a banshee in the dark.

But without humans, the wild would take over. It would only take a hundred years or so for nature to win again.

The land wants you here. I want you here," you called. "Don't you care about that at all?

It was like I existed in a kind of parallel universe, thinking thoughts and feelings that no one else understood.

I thought you wanted to catch a camel," you tried again. "No." "I want to." "Well, you go then." You laughed. "I want your beautiful face where I can see it

Those blue, blue eyes, icy blue, looking back at me as if I could warm them up. They’re pretty powerful, you know, those eyes, pretty beautiful, too.