He tried very hard to doubt Sally Sannazzaro's existence. To pretend that the pressure of her hand, the weight of her head, all was illusion. That her strength and kindness were drawn from his own need. That her temper and sternness had been created only to make her more plausible in the aftermath of Madeleine.

But when he opened his eyes, she was still there, looking up at him.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Trying to make you disappear."

She thought about that for a moment. "It isn't going to work," she finally said.

"Good," he said. And then he kissed her. It wasn't a perfect kiss. They bumped noses. They laughed. "If you're a fake," he said, "don't ever tell me."

And so they would go on, apart or together as love and chance and time might decree, surrounded always by the silent, beloved dead, and answering their silence with the shout of life. That was the invisible treasure box that Quentin had been given long ago but only now found and opened. There was power in it; the kind of power that disappears when it is taken, yet grows as fast as children when it is shared.

Copyright © 1996 by Orson Scott Card

ISBN 0-06-109398-X

Cover illustration by David Nielsen