The baying had now ceased, as had the sounds of the footfalls. My heart was pounding and my lungs bursting, not simply from my running but from being this close to a place that held only death for those stupid enough to stray inside. I slowed and then stopped a few yards from where the Quag began. I neared the edge of this most terrible place that Wugs were repeatedly warned from the age of a very young to avoid. And since there was nothing beyond the Quag, there had never been visitors to Wormwood. No one had ever gone through the Quag because the terrible beasts in there would murder you within slivers. That's all there was in existence: Wormwood and the Quag. The Quag was an impenetrable barrier that circled Wormwood like a noose. I kept running, following the baying and the racing footfalls, and soon realized that my path was taking me perilously close to the Quag. They had other means to collect bad Wugs. And even if they had, I doubted members of Council would be out trying to round them up. But no Wug had ever escaped from Valhall. Or maybe some Wug? My next thought was that there had been an escape from Valhall, our prison. Now they were out in the forest with canines chasing something. Amid the trees, sounds bounced and echoed confusedly. It was difficult to tell from where the screams and baying were coming. My booted feet hit the dirt, and I looked first right and then left. Wugmorts did not, as a routine matter, scream at first light or at any other time of the light or night. The sounds shattered what had been a peaceful first light. This cry was now joined by the baying of attack canines. I hurtled to the edge of my planks and looked down to the ground from where I heard the scream once more. But I was not thinking about that, for a scream was ringing in my ears and it wasn't the scream of the blue mist, which apparently existed only in my mind.

And a stretch of waterproof cloth I had oiled myself draped over branches and tied down tight with scavenged rope represented my roof. Eight wide, splintered boards constituted my floor when I got up there. Twenty short boards nailed to the trunk were my passage up. At first light, I was almost always up in my tree- a stonking, straight-to-the-sky poplar with a full towering canopy.

I suddenly sat up straight on my planks atop my tree, the vision along with my sleepiness struck clean from me. Yet I always believed there was something of great importance that had simply not come back to me. When it finally disappeared, my befuddlement cleared as well. It enveloped my mind, pushing out all other thoughts, all memories. It was in a mist like a cloud on the ground. After the sound came the vision: the blue, the color blue.

Baldacci the finisher