It was very early Saturday morning when Matt's alarm woke him from a pleasant dream. He lay in bed, enjoying its fast fading memory. He had been hiking with Gerallt along his favorite trail in the coastal hills above the beach cottage where he had grown up. Gerallt had been just about to share some Hawthorne family secret when the alarm rang.

Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Matt suddenly realized that he hadn't had a nightmare about his mother's death in weeks. He smiled, jumped out of ...