Peter and Bran went back to school the last week of August, Bran cheerfully anticipating his last year at Queen's, Peter grimly resigned to another year where his obligatory social activities would harrow his soul and interfere with his beloved studies.

Meggie saw them go with a few tears, but the letters that started coming that very next week helped comfort her.

"Dear chum," Peter wrote,

"I am settled in for another semester, and already wishing I was back at Echo Lodge with you. I am rooming with a chap from Bolingbroke, a grandson of one of Grandmother's college friends. She and Mrs. Blake—that's the grandmother—arranged it all this summer. I'm glad enough of a roommate, but Blake—he was named Blake for his mother's maiden name, Blake Wilson—and I are like oil and water. He's terribly social—rarely even looks at his schoolbooks—I'm not sure if he's shown up for more than one of his classes (and it's only the first week!)—he says he doesn't care if he graduates or not; he's only here for the fun of it.

"All this wouldn't be quite so bad, except he's made it very clear that he fully expects me to join in with all his social activities, and considers anyone who actually wants to study at college a bore.

"Aside from that, I think I'm going to like my classes. My Ancient History class promises to be quite fascinating. I'm glad I chose History as my major—I love looking at the past, seeing how it has affected us now, and wondering what our future will be like, based on past patterns. I'm sad to say I don't think our future is particularly promising—but whenever I get too discouraged about the direction our world is heading, I think of you and Matty and Polly, and I decide that the future can't be too bleak, as long as there are people like you in the world.

"I miss you very much, and wish somehow there was a way to take you with me as a sort of talisman against stress and frustration, everywhere I go. As there isn't, however, I will settle for asking for a snap of you—just a small one that I can put in my wallet, so that when I'm feeling too discouraged, I can pull it out and look at it, and remind myself that someone back home is loving me and believing in me, and I will be encouraged and inspired to do my best. You don't know how good you are for me, fawn.

"Give my best to your father and brother, and if you have time, take a stroll down to Echo Lodge and call to the echoes for me. Sometimes, amidst all the hurrying and bustle of Redmond and Kingsport, I stop and think of the little stone house, so peaceful and quiet, and I can almost hear the echoes mocking the sounds of city life, putting it in its proper perspective.

"Write soon, and don't forget about the snap. Love always,

"Peter Richard Campion Samuels, more fondly known as,

"Your cousin, Peter."

Meggie shook her curls wisely over the letter. "It's going to be a hard year for him," she prophesied to her vanity mirror. Although she didn't want him to suffer, there was some satisfaction in knowing how much he was going to need her encouragement this year.

She wrote him back that very night, including with her letter a recent snapshot Matty had taken of her one day when he was playing with his Brownie. She had been leaning up against Sakura's trunk, looking off across the fields and dreaming, while a light breeze ruffled the hair around her face. Matty had snapped her without her realizing he was doing so, and the result was a wonderfully natural capture of her spirit and dreams shining through her face.

"Dearest Peter,

"Here is the photo you asked for. In return, will you send me one of yourself? I'd like to set it up on my desk when I write to you; that way it will feel more like I'm talking to you, not just putting words on a blank piece of paper.

"School started up two days ago. Our teacher this year is Miss Craig. I think she'll be a very good teacher, but there's no poetry in her. She already told us that she will tolerate no nonsense in her classroom. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I'm afraid that I will have to stick to prosy facts in my essays this year."

Meggie paused and looked up for a moment. The truth was that Miss Craig seemed to have taken an unaccountable dislike to Polly, which extended to her cousins, as well, and the rebuke about "no nonsense" had been directly aimed at the two girls. Matty had noticed it as well, so it wasn't merely her imagination, but she didn't want to write that to Peter. He was so protective of Polly, and if he was worrying about her, he wouldn't be able to focus on his own work.

Besides, Meggie reasoned, it was really Polly's business. If she wanted her brother to know, she should be the one to tell him. She bent to the letter once more.

"Papa said there was some talk about expanding the school from a one-room schoolhouse with only one teacher into a school like they have in the Glen now—with different classrooms for each grade and a teacher for each. They decided against it, however, because Avonlea is so small there wouldn't be more than five students in the largest grade! I'm glad; it would just be strange not to have everyone in the same room. Besides, both Grandmother and Papa taught in the schoolhouse. It's almost a family tradition! Sometimes I think I can see them there, teaching still, Grandmother as a young woman, with red hair like Auntie Di's, encouraging her students to dream, and Papa, looking the same as he does now, quietly correcting papers. I see them—and then they're gone, and it's only Miss Craig again.

"I suppose that's what she would call nonsense. But I really do see them sometimes, Peter. Maybe it's because they've both told so many stories about teaching, or maybe I am odd, like May Sloane told me the other day. I'd been telling her one of my fancies about the Haunted Wood—you know, how I think that if I could get there some moonlit night I'd find the entrance to fairyland—and she looked at me as though I'd gone crazy.

" 'You are odd,' she said. 'Mother always said you Blythes were strange.'

"When I told Papa that, he laughed and said that May's mother was a Pye before her marriage, and not to worry about anything she says!

"I went down to Echo Lodge yesterday by myself and just walked around the garden, remembering our fun there this summer. It looked happy to see me. Oh Peter, I've just had such a lovely thought! When we all grow up, we should live in Echo Lodge—you and Matty and Polly and Bran and me. Wouldn't that be grand? It would never be lonely again. I called to the echoes before I left, and they sounded distinctly mournful—I think they were reproaching me for going away.

"Matty and Papa and Uncle Patrick have been busy with the harvest, and Auntie Di, Polly and I are planning our canning and preserving. The apples will be ready for picking in just a couple of weeks, and that will be such fun. We'll miss you and Bran, though! Polly and I are already exchanging recipes for apple tarts, pies, dumplings, and other goodies. I'm not sure which is more fun, picking the apples or cooking with them. Matty says eating them is the most fun!

"I've been writing far too long, and now it's time for bed, and I'll have to get up early tomorrow to work those sums Miss Craig gave me. Math seems like such an unimportant subject. I wish I could study history, like you are, and then we could talk about it. Matty likes math, though. Isn't that strange? I can't imagine ever being able to do more than tolerate it.

"I hope things smooth out between you and Blake. Write soon and tell me how you are doing. I miss you, very much.

"Your loving little chum,

"Meggie."

To Meggie's delight, Peter's reply came so promptly that he must have written back immediately upon receiving her letter.

"Dearest little cousin,

"Thank you a thousand times for your letter and photograph. I keep the snap in my wallet, along with one of Polly, and that dreadful one of Mum's I found this summer—you remember, the one of her when she was at Redmond? The sun was in her eyes, and so she looks like she's cross-eyed and annoyed. She wanted to tear it up when I showed it to her, but I rescued it and now I look at it whenever I need a smile. Sadly, that has been happening more and more often these days.

"I know it's wrong to complain, and in my letters to the others I keep a stiff upper lip, but I think I'll burst if I don't have at least one outlet. You don't mind being my release valve, do you? Some of the chaps here think it's odd that my dearest friend is my ten-year-old cousin, but that's because they don't know you and the good sense you have in that curly mahogany head of yours. You're like Uncle Shirley—there's so much more to you than anyone would imagine. Tell you the truth, I usually forget the eight-year difference between us; I think of you as a peer. I guess age doesn't really matter, what matters is what Grandmother calls 'kindred spirits.'

"Anyhow, now to vent. Last week, Blake started getting after me to join the Lambs. I told him I wasn't interested, but I think he feels it is his duty to pull me out of my world of books and studies and into his world of dates and fraternities and everything else. He's a Lamb himself, and he must have put my name in, for I received an invitation two days ago. I haven't even told Mum about this, so please keep it to yourself, fawn. I tore it up and dropped it in the trash. Blake was furious, but then yesterday he told me he'd met a 'swell girl' he wants me to meet. He has a 'steady' girlfriend now (which for him means they've been together longer than two weeks), and he wants to start going on 'double dates.'

"Meggie, you know how I feel about girls! I don't know how to talk to them; they look at me coyly, and giggle, and my tongue swells and my brain freezes and I can't say one intelligible word. I told Blake that I don't have time for girls, but I'm afraid that he's going to suddenly spring this one on me sometime, and then I'll be stuck.

"The odd thing is that I really don't dislike Blake. You'd think, with all this frustration, that I wouldn't be able to stand him, but there's something about him … I get mad in the moment, but about five minutes afterward, he's grinning and laughing, and I just can't stay angry. He reminds me a little of Bran in that way. I guess you'd say he has charm. If he could just get it through his head that I don't want to live his life, I think we could be good friends.

"Don't listen to a word that horrid Sloane girl says to you! She ought to at least learn the basics of personal hygiene before she goes about insulting other people. I never see any of that family without wanting to grab a bar of soap and clean behind their ears. May's brother Artie—he's around Polly's age, and took it into his head to fancy her last year—could have grown crops in the dirt he had on his neck. Polly was too sweet to discourage him, so Bran and I sent him packing.

"Besides, would you want to be ordinary? That would be worse than being odd. As for Miss Craig—well, you know that entire family is kind and good, but have absolutely no imagination. Rev. Craig is a very good preacher, but Mrs. Craig thinks of nothing but housekeeping and appearances, and her daughters take after her to a certain extent. Miss Craig probably wants no nonsense because it is beyond her comprehension. Just keep being your own sweet and loving self, and I'm sure she'll come 'round.

"And if you absolutely can't share your dreams with anyone else, you can always write to me with them. I always love to hear about your fancies—it'll distract me from my social problems here.

"Take care of yourself, fawn. Christmas seems like an age away! Maybe I'll try to sneak home during my fall break—but I doubt it. It's a bit of a trip for just a few days. Write soon,

"Yours,

"Peter.

"P.S. Per your request, I'm including a snapshot Bran took of me last year. It's awful, but it's the only one I have available at the moment."

Meggie had to laugh at the picture: Peter was standing with his arms crossed defiantly, scowling at the camera. She had no idea of the circumstances behind it, but somehow it seemed perfectly indicative of the boys' relationship—Bran doing something Peter didn't want, and Peter getting dragged in against his will.

She was sorry that he was having such troubles with Blake, but touched by his confidence in her. School was becoming steadily more time-consuming, and harvest and preparations for winter took up most of her free time, but she still made an especial point of sitting and writing to him the first spare moment she had.

"Dear Peter,

"Have things gotten easier with Blake? I feel for you. It must be so frustrating to not be able to make him understand how you really feel about things!

"Polly had a letter from Bran today; he's doing well at Queen's, though he was up before the dean a few days ago for a prank he pulled involving firecrackers underneath his English professor's desk, which went off at a crucial moment in a lecture. He wasn't very repentant—he told Polly he could barely keep from laughing even while he was being reprimanded. I know it's very wrong of him, but I can't help but laugh, either. Polly said she could just picture his face when the firecrackers went off—innocent and wondering, but with his eyes dancing with mischief. Apparently the professor asked Bran right away if he did it, and Bran confessed cheerfully. Auntie Di sighed and laughed and said at least he's honest!

"You said you wanted to hear some of my fancies, so here's something I thought of last night while washing dishes. You know how the kitchen window looks out toward the fields and woods? Well, as I watched out it, I was sure I saw several dryads creep out of their trees into the fields. The moon was silvery bright, and in its glow I saw them join hands in a ring and start to dance. Pretty soon the fauns came out to join them, half dancing, and half playing on their panpipes. Peter, I could hear the music, wild and weird and lovely, and I couldn't resist. I left the dishes half washed, and flew out to join them. You'd think I would have been scared, but I wasn't. They weren't frightening at all—just strange and beautiful. I joined hands with a beech dryad on one side and a little red-furred faun on the other, and I danced with them for hours. As the moon started to set, the dance turned soft and slow, and the music became very low and dreamy, and I could hardly keep my eyes open. I must have drifted off to sleep, because the next thing I knew I was waking up in my own bed with the sun pouring in through the window. I flew out first thing this morning to see if I could see little hoof-prints from the fauns, but there were none. I suppose they used their magic to erase them, so I would think it all a dream.

"Oh Peter, it is nice to be able to tell this to someone who doesn't think I'm crazy or a liar! You know that I made it all up, and I know that I made it all up, but we can both imagine it's real, and that's what makes it so fun."

Meggie paused for a moment as a sudden twinge of pain attacked her left leg. She looked down to see if anything was poking it, but nothing was there. She frowned, puzzled. With a sense of nebulous unease, she returned to her letter.

"I'm sorry this is so short, but I guess I'd better go. I hope things get better with Blake soon. Don't forget to write me whenever you need an outlet. What else are little cousins for?

"Love always,

"Meggie."

Meggie folded up the letter and stood to find an envelope. Her leg throbbed again, and her sense of unease increased. The letter fluttered from her hand to the floor without her even noticing. Hardly thinking at all of what she was doing, she grabbed her sweater and ran out the door, heading for the fields. Something was pulling her there; she didn't know what, but a nameless fear lent her feet wings, until she nearly flew. She couldn't imagine what it was, but something, she knew, was dreadfully wrong.

Author's Note: Ooh, I'm mean! Leaving you with a cliff-hanger like this. And I'm about to be even more mean--if you don't review, something very bad is going to happen to someone Meggie loves!