So much has changed. Rowena walks the sames paths she remembers from years ago, but somehow it feels alien, like memories from a dream. The trees are different, somehow older, somehow wiser. Like the topography of her own heart, the weather of these years has uprooted parts of her unable to stand, and nourished those strong enough to remain.

Rowena doesn't know what she expected. Did she expect to smell him in the wind, or see tangles of his coarse, black tail hair snagged on low branches? Did she expect any of his mares to have lingered behind after all this time? Logically, no. But there is a small part of Rowena that hoped beyond all reason that she could return to the Ridge and find everything as it was. As much as she didn't think so then, it was a simpler time, a happier time. It was the best time of her life.

It isn't just visions of Vodnik playing behind her eyes now. Being here brings back a flood of memories. She recalls her first crush, Ailill, and his handsome face. How silly was the feud between Paradise and the Ridge then? Now it seems like child's play.

Rowena doesn't remember stopping, but when reality finds its way back to her, she is standing on the same slope where she last saw Macabre. It's quiet now, and there is no sign of the copper-colored mare. Rowena closes her eyes and lifts her chin to the sky. She's set out to accomplish such an impossible task. Macabre could be anywhere now. She may not even be on the islands anymore.