And as the moon came low on the horizon Dunstan Thorn walked quietly down the cobbled streets of the village of Wall. He passed many a merry-maker—visitor or foreigner—although few enough of them observed him as he walked.

He slipped through the gap in the wall—thick it was, the wall—and Dunstan found himself wondering, as his father had before him, what would happen were he to walk along the top of it.

Through the gap and into the meadow, and that night, for the first time in his life, Dunstan entertained thoughts of continuing on through the meadow, of crossing the stream and vanishing into the trees on its far side. He entertained these thoughts awkwardly, as a man entertains unexpected guests. Then, as he reached his objective, he pushed these thoughts away, as a man apologizes to his guests, and leaves them, muttering something about a prior engagement.

The moon was setting.

Dunstan raised his hands to his mouth and hooted. There was no response; the sky above was a deep color—blue perhaps, or purple, not black—sprinkled with more stars than the mind could hold.

He hooted once more.

“That,” she said severely in his ear, “is nothing like a little owl. A snowy owl it could be, a barn owl, even. If my ears were stopped up with twigs perhaps I’d imagine it an eagle-owl. But it’s not a little owl.”

Dunstan shrugged, and grinned, a little foolishly. The faerie woman sat down beside him. She intoxicated him: he was breathing her, sensing her through the pores of his skin. She leaned close to him.

“Do you think you are under a spell, pretty Dunstan?”

“I do not know.”

She laughed, and the sound was a clear rill bubbling over rocks and stones.