She had Come through at the age of ten. In spite of this, she didn't remember much about the land she had come from, just a brief flash of a memory of her mother, a tall, slender woman who sang with the wind and twirled her daughter around through the forests; both of their feet bare. The only thing she remembered of her father was his deep bass voice, joining her mother's in song as they harvested crops and fed animals and cared for their small farm on the outskirts of the large city – Aroon.

She knew the place she had come from was called Borea, but that was more of an indication of intelligence rather than memory. The world of Borea was an infinitely peaceful place – there was no war, no famine – in fact, Miriam (for that was her name) wondered why such a place could exist at all. She had knowledge that other worlds were out there – everyone on Borea did. Because, if you knew the right route, and traveled far enough, you would come to a great forest : different than the ones that grew in the midst of Borea. For in this wood, there were thousands upon thousands of puddles, all exactly the same size. If you jumped into one of these pools, you were brought to a different world than the one you lived in.

It wasn't as if Miriam had meant to jump in one of the pools. That was the difficult part that she couldn't quite remember. She thought she recalled being chased, arrows flying through the air (which in itself was most confusing, as Miriam didn't even know what an arrow was at the time.) Her father fell close to the farm. Her mother, not pausing to look back, had gripped Miriam by the arm painfully and dragged her through the well-known paths to the forest of puddles. Their plan was to jump through any puddle, any world that might let them escape from this new danger. It was doubly terrifying. The people of Borea did not know danger. They knew not who attacked them. All they knew, for they had no weapons with which to fight back, was to run.

Her mother looked around hastily, frantically, until she seemed to find an acceptable puddle. She pushed Miriam toward it, and Miriam felt herself hit the water, holding her mother's hand. But then it was too late : she lost grip with her mother, or maybe she was just falling too fast. She fell through the water, strangely finding herself able to breathe through it, until…

She was suddenly in the crook of a tree, not high off the ground. The tree was very old, not as old as the ones in Borea, she could tell right away, but old enough to be called ancient in this place. Down her palm, a bright red liquid was flowing – was this blood? She had seen blood before; numerous childhood accidents had brought her encounters with it, but this was different. This was hurting, and it was not done by some household thing that Miriam had mishandled. This was done by someone else. Briefly, Miriam thought of the mysterious flying objects which were feathered at one end and pointed at the other, a stick holding the two sides together. They had looked like some kind of demented bird.

Miriam stared at her hand still longer. She was feeling weak now – perhaps she should find a way to bind this wound. But she was high up from the ground, and jumping from this height would only lead to further injury. So, Miriam thought, she was stuck up there, stuck in the crook of the tree, until she died.

While dwelling on the matter with all the drama of a ten-year-old, Miriam felt hands reaching around her waist, and she abruptly looked down, then had to clamp her uninjured hand over her mouth in order not to scream.

The beast now holding her cradled in its arms was… but there was no name for it. It was held up by the body of a horse, four spindly dark brown legs meeting with a sturdy back and swishing tail. One of the legs twitched, and a fly retreated from its resting place.

But the torso of the thing was entirely human – a male human, Miriam could tell. His hair was long and dark, and his ears stuck out horizontally from amidst the wild mane.

Within the space of ten minutes, Miriam had left her own world, possibly with leaving both her parents dead behind her. She had seen things that invoked injury – things she had never seen before. And now… now she was being held by an enormous man-horse.

It was simply too much for her young brain to process. Miriam went limp in the creature's arms.

oooooo

She awoke in a soft bed. It was too short for her; her feet came off the edges, and she curled her knees in so they would fit on the bed too.

"A Daughter of Eve… what is she doing here?"

"I have no answers to your questions, Nikabrik, I only brought her here because I knew you would have accommodations that I am not able to provide."

"That's very convenient, Glenstorm. Just because you live in the open and I live in a hollowed tree which I took the time to make comfortable…"

"Now, now, Nikabrik," said a smoother voice, "I believe that took the three of us to do. And guess who did most of the digging, eh?"

"Badger, it's no use, once he's angry, he's angry," a cynical voice was heard. "We know she is a human. All right, that's true. But we do not know if she came from the same Where as the Four, or the same When. I think it would be most provident for us to wait until she awakens and ask her questions."

The very deep voice spoke again, and Miriam attached in to Glenstorm. "Well, Whenever or Wherever she's from, she's young. You can tell that by looking."

"Oh that's quaint. I'm short, Glenstorm, does that make me a child?" Nikabrik spoke.

Glenstorm snorted, and Miriam heard the sound of a great hoof scraping the ground. "You eejit. Of course you're not a child, so don't try me. There's nothing innocent left in you, Nikabrik, but there was nothing but it in the girl. Wherever she comes from, she is not used to war."

"Then she won't like it here very much," snorted the cynical voice.

"Trumpkin," the smooth voice spoke.

"Yeah, sorry, all right? I just don't fancy introducing an innocent to a world of nothing but…" he sighed, "what we've got to deal with every bleeding day."

"Speaking of which," the smooth voice spoke again, "I better check on that hand of hers. It'll leave a nasty scar, if nothing else."

Miriam looked down toward her hand. The lines of her palm were rusty with encrusted blood, and she looked in wonder as more of the red liquid oozed out of the cut in the center of her hand.

There was the sound of beads swishing past each other, and in a moment, at her side was a rather oversized badger, who was holding his paws out to shake Miriam's shoulders gently.

Miriam took a quick breath in and backed away to the edge of the bed.

"Child, it's all right. You're safe here. Will you let me see your hand? We'll be able to mend it."

The fact that there was an animal speaking to her was less troubling to Miriam than the fact that he wore a makeshift belt around his middle, and something long and sharp was shining silver against his dark pelt. She pointed to it, wordlessly.

"It's just a knife."

"No, it's not," Miriam said, startled to hear her voice out loud. Knives were what you used when you cut down the waving harvest – no, that was a scythe. Was a knife what Mother used to put her clothes together, with the aid of thread? No… that was a needle. Miriam realized that she had never, in her life, encountered this "knife" object that the Badger wore so carelessly around himself.

He looked down at it as she continued to stare. Wincing, he saw that he hadn't washed it off properly from killing that deer that they were all enjoying for supper, and would enjoy for days to come. Not a Deer, of course. He always made sure of those types of things before… well.

"I said, it's all right. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Then why is that… knife… so close?"

"I keep it close so I may protect myself."

"That's silly. There's nothing to protect yourself against. At least there isn't…wasn't…?" Again, Miriam looked at her hand. "That," she pointed to the knife, "did this."

"Not this particular one, but yes, something like it most likely hurt you."

"But we don't have things like that on Borea."

"I'm afraid, child, that you are no longer in Borea, and here, we must use things like this every day."

Miriam drew into herself and shivered, not noticing her palm grazing her light blue dress on its way up to her opposite elbow, smearing blood onto it.

"Do you understand that I won't hurt you?" said the Badger patiently.

"You would have before now, if you were going to, I think."

"Now will you let me have a look at that?"

Miriam held out her hand, and leaned her head over it with the Badger.

"Well," he said, delicately touching the wound with his claws, "you're going to need stitches. Two, maybe three."

"What?"

"I'm going to sew you up, with thread."

Miriam laughed. "Like a piece of clothing? Why don't you just Heal it?"

"I'm afraid I'm the one that doesn't understand, now. Heal it? We heal through different methods – plasters, crutches, medicines."

Miriam scrunched her nose at the strange words. "Everybody knows how," she said matter-of-factly.

"Do you?"

"Of course! That's nursery-school stuff, that is." And so Miriam raised her uninjured palm and pressed it to the other. She glanced at Badger, pleased to see his eyes grow wide as the Healing began. From between the space of her palms, a light began to grow, brighter and brighter, until Badger couldn't even look at it anymore. As he focused his eyes on Miriam's, her face lit up with a brilliant light, so white that it seemed to be tinged with brightest blue. Then she took her palms apart, and set the cut one in front of Badger.

There was no wound. There was no scar. All that was left of the gash was the bits of blood and grime still ground into her hand.

Badger took the hand in his own paws, examining it carefully.

"How… did you do that?"

Miriam thought for a moment, then said, "I dunno. It's just something I do. You wouldn't ask me why I breathe, I do it when I need to. I eat when I'm hungry, rest when I'm tired. And I Heal when… when the occasion presents itself." She was proud of using these grown-up words, words that she had heard from the adults teaching all young children about Healing. Be wary of when you begin to use Healing, they would lecture. For once you do, you must Heal everyone you come across who needs it. Ify ou don't Heal someone because of who they are, or where they come from; for any reason at all, your body will have an adverse reaction. Depending on the need you ignore, you yourself may even die from holding back Healing.

Miriam concentrated hard on the memory, and then realized something - this Healing was the first time she had done it. Now - she must Heal everyone that was reasonably in her power to do so. And this place, the Badger had said, was in war. Would she have to Heal the enemy?

Suddenly, Miriam felt very afraid. She had just jump-started the one thing she had ever been warned about, and a deep sense of foreboding filled her. Enemy or ally, she would have to Heal... or die.