to distinguish the words, fill the night. I cannot hear what they are saying but I know the speakers. Emily’s mother and father, loud enough to wake Emily. The world around me begins to blur and I know that my own form is fading from the forest. My eyes will be the last to disappear, and they lock onto the gobsmacked goblin. Without words, I make him a promise: if he ever again crosses the Dark near the borders I defend, I will hunt him down. He nods and turns to sprint away, and the last thing I see are his arms pumping wildly as his legs fight to carry his diminutive frame away from me as fast as possible.
II.
Shadows danced across my vision and I felt myself lifted into the air, then pressure against my chest and back. Emily’s arm reached over my head to grasp the doorknob; I could hear her grunt softly with the effort of pulling the door open one armed. The hallway beyond was dark, but there was light coming from the living room, and I could hear the voices of her parents.
She hugged me close as she walked slowly down the hall. She was afraid. I could almost taste the fear rolling off her, and I did what I could with my magic, letting just a touch of it resonate out, to reassure her. Her arms tightened around me for an instant and then she was calmer; at a level below even her subconscious, she knew I was responsible.
The light grew brighter as we moved closer, and the voices became distinguishable. “Jason, talk to me. They’re getting worse.” The plea was evident in Emily’s mother’s voice.
The sound of a cap turning echoed in the quiet of the room, then the sound of liquid pouring out into a glass. Emily paused at the end of the hallway, the clever girl still trying to figure out what was going on. “And say what, sweetheart?” I could hear the weariness and pain in Emily’s father’s voice even if neither Emily nor her mother were able to. Jason was once my charge, as his father had been; just as on the day he laid me in Emily’s crib my responsibilities changed to focus on her.
In the heavy silence that followed, I felt Emily shift her weight. She was debating her options: go back to bed, or step forward. I could have influenced her, pushed her in either direction, but I wouldn’t have, even if I could have. She must learn to confront her fears and decide how she will face life. She took a step forward, and then another. If I could smile, I would have. I am proud of her. She rounded the corner into the living room. Her mother was standing in a black bathrobe with her back to Emily, her hair disheveled as if startled awake. Looking past her, I could see Emily’s father hunched forward on the couch. From where Emily stood I could make out the puckered white of scars on his nearest shoulder. He was hunched forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clutching a glass filled with something honey colored that gleamed like gold when the light hit it just right. The table in front of him was littered with assorted glass bottles, most of which were empty. He looked up and I wanted to recoil. In the instant it had taken for him to see his daughter and recognize that she was in the room, I caught a glimpse of a haunted, distant look in his eyes that was just as quickly buried and forced down beneath a father’s love for his child. “Emily, sweetheart, what are you doing out of bed?”
Emily clutched at her mother’s bathrobe and looked from her mother to her father. Her mother stooped down to pick her up, and as she lifted us, I was pressed against the terry cloth of the bathrobe and could see nothing. I felt Emily shift. “Why are you out of bed, Daddy?” she asked in a soft voice, turning her father’s question back on him.
“Daddy had a nightmare, sweet pea,” her mother answered, and the truth beneath the lie rang in my ears. What was she hiding from Emily? “Do you want to come lay down with Mommy, and Daddy will join us in a