The wood blazed immediately from the concentrated heat she wasunleashing on it. Seconds crawled as the wood seared and burning sappopped and finally i...t parted with a whip cracking sound. Mitch gasped aragged breath as the coils about his neck loosened. Jim reached for himto drag him upright and stagger away again.He heard Singh screaming for them to duck. Jim obeyed without thinkingand felt the breeze of some heavy mass rush over his head. The constantthrumming of Pantra's wings abruptly ceased. “So when did you die?”Timothy looked down the creek. “It’s not a coincidence that we’re both back. You died during the eclipse of 2017, right at totality. I died in the middle of the 2024 solar eclipse, right at totality.”“What killed you?”“Lung cancer, same as you. I guess vaping wasn’t as safe as I thought it was.”“How long have you been back?”“Two months.”“It’s been fifteen months for me.”“You’ve been here for fifteen months? How did you manage to stay sane? I’ve been going crazy after just. The case is tricky as it involves Federal Money and stipulations so the young man cannot be simply executed for his insolent behavior.”“What are your thoughts on that, Grandfather?”“I sympathize personally with the entrepreneurial spirit and applaud his patience and skill to get through the Grant process, but he violated the traditions by going over the will and knowledge of his clan leader”Inside I was afraid Grandfather would say that and it showed me that, despite all his Cosmopolitan flair. There is nothing but horses and hay and her. She looks at each stall, seeing each dark. The girl already knows which horse is making the noise, though it is quiet now. One by one, her eyes move and settle, move and settle, until they settle of the single stall with a horse head poking out of it ... Blackie.She still doesn’t know how she knows the horse’s name. Maybe she heard on of the farm hand’s say it. Maybe her father mentioned it at the table. It doesn’t really know where she heard it..