The sun kissed the water, adding little flashes of golden light to the spots that were already dancing in front of the girl's eyes. She squinted in pain. Was it morning or evening? She had no idea.

She looked to the sun for guidance-and, after finding it, realised the fiery orb couldn't help her. She couldn't tell the time of day if she had no idea where she was. Which way was east? A cursory glance told her only that she was on a sandy shore, near tall grasses and a thick wood. Nothing seemed familiar. Her train of thought soon delivered her to a rather upsetting destination.

Not only did she not know where she was, but she also had no idea who she was.

She lay for a moment, trying to take stock of what she did know. She was a girl, that much was obvious. She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and pants, which she found to be thoroughly soaked. As such, they clung to her skin in a fashion that tempted her to take them off, they were so uncomfortable. Apparently she had recently been in the lake (or whatever it was that was lapping at the shore.) She didn't taste salt in her mouth, so she supposed she was somewhere freshwater. She did, however, have a mouthful of sand, which she promptly tried to remedy with a round of spitting. (Okay, so she wasn't a very ladylike girl.) She ached all over.

And something furry was nudging her leg.

The prescence of the furry thing, which turned out to be a rabbit, didn't surprise or frighten her; it's presence seemed perfectly natural. Nor did it seem at all unusual that what should have been a shy creature was so friendly, or that it's fur was a decidedly un-cottontail shade of black. She didn't know the creature's name, but it seemed familiar. The fact that its fur was damp suggested it had recently been in the water, just as she had. So in all likeliness, that meant the bunny was a pet of hers-or at the very least, an acquaintance.

She managed to sit up, and the critter took the opportunity to climb into her lap. She stroked its ears absently, while she tried to remember something, anything. Her shoe size, her favourite colour, her favourite song. But the trivial information wasn't any more forthcoming than her own name.

She looked around. None of the trees bore palm fronds, so she wasn't someplace tropical. And there, in the distance, above the trees … a pyramid? She couldn't remember what "home" looked like, but she had a notion that she didn't see pyramids everyday-particularly near a large body of water.

She supposed she ought to be worried-perhaps even panicking-and wondered why she wasn't. She just thought, rather offhandedly, that knowing who she was might be nice. Analyzing her own self as if she were a specimen under glass, she noted that, for not remembering anything about her identity, she seemed remarkably coherent. Her mind wasn't "fuzzy"-it just so happened that some pieces of her memory seemed to be missing. It was as if she were in some sort of video game reality, observing her situation with a cool detachment, eager to learn more while not overly concerned about what she didn't know. She felt confident that all would be revealed, despite the lack of evidence to back up her assumption.

She was easily distracted from her situation by muffled sounds, coming from the direction of the pyramid. Sitting as she was, she couldn't see the immediate vicinity over the tall grasses bordering the beach, just the tall trees and even taller Egyptian structure in the distance. As the sounds grew louder, and closer, she grew vaguely alarmed, but waited patiently for whatever it was to come into view. Feeling woozy, she lay back down on the sand, while the rabbit ran off a ways, probably made nervous by the sounds. The girl closed her eyes, and after a moment was oblivious to everything.

***

"Last one in is a land-bound selkie!"

Bryan regretted saying those words the moment they left his lips, as first Atsuka, then his elder brother Rahkly, passed him with ease. A moment later, it was his best friend Paint and Paint's older sister, Patch, that left him eating dust. Being short meant short legs, and having short legs meant working twice as hard to cover the same distance, especially in the tall grass that grew on the dunes of the beach. Sylvia would tell him he'd asked for it. Still, he was faster than the large and lumbering Brom, so at least he wouldn't be a "selkie". And he was staying neck and neck with the lanky Ziggy, too.

Until Ziggy tripped him. Bryan sighed, sending sand up in a puff. He wished he had his hover-board. In another moment, Brom was past him, too. Bryan smiled when the mountainous lad stopped and turned back to help him up. Brom was too good-hearted to want to beat anyone at a silly game. It was one of the traits that made everyone love him. Ziggy's trickery, on the other hand, irritated most people, even his friends like Bryan. Bryan was especially irritated at the moment.

A cry from Atsuka and Rahk chased thoughts of games and cheating-and retribution-from his mind. Brom grabbed Bryan and lifted him over his head, allowing the twelve-year-old to ride the shoulders of his ten-foot frame like he was just a toddler. From his view, Bryan could see his brother and their friend picking themselves up off the ground. But they went down in a pile again as first Paint, then Patch, then Ziggy ran into them. Bryan laughed. He felt Brom's shoulders relax beneath him.

"They're ok?" came Brom's booming voice from below. Bryan gave an affirmative, and told the gentle giant that they were almost there. He realised too late that he probably should have mentioned that Brom might want to slow down.

For the second time in less than a minute, Bryan found himself inhaling sand, this time after tumbling from the giant's shoulders as the young man collided with their friends. While Bryan's face connected with the beach, the rest of him landed on something decidedly softer.

"OW!" the ground beneath him cried.

He scrambled to his knees and found he'd been dumped on a strange girl, one that looked about the roughly the same age as his nineteen-year-old brother. She was soaked to the bone and covered in sand. She didn't look too happy as she scrambled to her feet and backed away from them, crouching like a wild animal with a snarl on her lips. She shivered-he couldn't tell if it was with cold, fear, or anger.

***

The girl eyed the strangers warily. There was that sense of familiarity again, but not as strong as it had been with the rabbit. She had the feeling that she hadn't seen them, whoever they were, in a very long time. But at least they felt like friends. She relaxed a bit.

"H-hello?" she said tentatively, standing straighter. Everyone was a bit blurry; she had to squint to see them.

Someone with plumb-brown hair (Was it hair? Was it a hat? To her, it was just a blob where the head should be) stepped closer and reached out to touch her arm. "Are you all right?" A young man. Now that he was closer, she could see him much better. Definitely hair, not a hat, though probably dyed. His bright blue eyes seemed concerned, and a bit embarrassed.

She wondered if she had ever seen anyone more beautiful.

"Miss?" he prompted.

She realised she was staring and looked quickly away. Her eyes focused-well, tried to-on a boy who stood nearly twice as tall as she. At least, she assumed it was a male, judging by the width of his shoulders compared to his waist. She wasn't afraid, though she was fair certain his height was unnatural. Something inside her had an insatiable hunger to observe, and curiosity won out over any fear she probably should have felt.

The crowd moved in closer, and, when she squinted, she could make them out better. There was a young ... boy? With a half-shaved head, the remaining hair a coppery-red shade that this time she didn't think was fake. Next to him there was another child, again she thought a boy, with mulatto skin and a white patch around his eye. Near that one was a taller figure, a girl that closely resembled the mulatto boy, down to a patch of white around the opposite eye. The girl was promptly pushed out of the way by a young man with wild, wiry hair and a goatee, wanting to get a closer look. She eyed them all with the cold curiosity of a wildlife biologist looking at a newly discovered animal. She felt no fear. She just wished she could see them better.

"She is not being well? We are taking her to Sylvia?" asked an Asian girl, small with long dark hair. Her accent was strange. She's Japanese, I'm sure of it, the lost girl thought. But how do I know that?

"Miss, do you want us to take you to a healer?" the plumb-haired boy asked her, echoing the other girl's question.

She looked him in the eye, and found herself speechless for another long moment. She couldn't seem to breathe. She could feel herself go weak-kneed just before she swooned and fell-right into his arms.

"Is … Is 'Miss' my name?" she managed to ask, before the world went black.

***

Snowstar suppressed a shudder as the late winter wind bit through her fur. This was the coldest winter in her memory-and her mental acuity was a far sight better than most of her kin, save her dam. She called to them now, lifting her muzzle to the heavens beyond her mountainous home. Only one voice replied, that of her sister, Darkfur. No food, she told her. The hunting party had failed again.

She left out a huff, which startled a bird in a nearby tree. She watched with envy as the creature took flight, wishing she could do the same. Wishing was yet another thought process that most of her kin could not understand, much less share. Casting such unwolfish thoughts from her mind, she turned to find her pack's den.

Snowstar crawled through the narrow tunnel until it opened into the room her mother had dug into the mountainside. The den had been an abandoned badger hole before they'd found it. Now it protected her new siblings from the lingering cold. Doepacer gave her eldest daughter a muzzle-lick in greeting. Snowstar, in turn, settled beside the young pups, giving each a thorough bath with her tongue.

It was not normal for anyone but the mother to be in the den with the pups, but Snowstar and her mother were the only wolves in the pack to even realise that. They were the only ones to ever think beyond the simple act of living, the only ones to question outside of curiosity. This was why they were seldom apart from each other, and seldom interacted with the other members of their pack. Snowstar's siblings were more understanding than most, but even they could not grasp the nuances of the world around them the way she and her mother could. And it was because of this strange ability that she found herself constantly wondering why she was so different. She knew part of it.

She knew that her mother had been Blessed by a dryad as a pup, that her mother had grown in the Tree's belly and been changed by it. She knew that all of her mother's descendants, herself included, carried that Blessing within themselves, as would their own pups, and their pups' pups. Yet, somehow, Snowstar was a bit brighter than the rest. She came to realise that, while the wolves of her pack were not unintelligent, it seemed she understood things that they did not, even those who were her siblings.

Maybe it was because she had been born without littermates. Her mother had borne other litters since, but she was the first, and the only one to be born alone. Perhaps the other litters had stretched the Blessing somehow, so that it was not as strong for them?

In any case, she was seen as an oddity, as a creature that wasn't quite right-as if she had the Sickness-by the rest of the pack. They did not consciously think of her as different; they simply feared her, their instincts warning them. Her step-father, the Alpha, would have driven her out if not for her mother and siblings, who always stood between them when he got it in his mind to try. For them to do that in and of itself was unnatural, but the rest of the pack did not press the issue. She was tolerated. Eventually, her strange ways even came to be accepted as "normal", as the wolves, in the way of their people, forgot what life before her was like. Still, she was the Omega, and was always at risk of being cast out when her mother was neither bearing nor caring for young. The Pack Mother's word was law, so long as she was being a mother. The rest of the year was a struggle between the Alpha and his mate at times, but Doepacer loved her mate. She would not give up the Alpha for the sake of her daughter, any more than she would forsake daughter for mate.

Not able to take the walls closing in on her anymore, Snowstar crawled back out of the den. She loped over to the small pool nearby that collected water from an icy mountain stream. She lapped up a few refreshing mouthfuls-at least her pack wouldn't die of thirst as well as hunger. A flicker of brightness caught her eye, and she found herself gazing at her reflection, at the white diamond on her brow, the patch of fur that had earned her the namesake Snowstar in the first place. Well, Snowstar to her mother and siblings; it was too abstract a concept for the rest of the pack. The others simply thought of her as the Omega, the low wolf. The lone one. Content to leave the pack as alone as they let her, Snowstar continued on her daily trials, yearning for a different life, but having no idea what it was that she actually wanted.

***

A faint sound woke the amnesiac girl, shaking her from her strange dream, which, as people often do upon waking, she promptly forgot. Groggily opening her eyes, she was pleased to find that she was now warm and dry. The rabbit was with her again, asleep beside her on what she would have thought was the softest bed in existence-except that she couldn't seem to remember what any other bed was like. A bit of a ways from the bed, a radio was playing, the volume low. She recognized the tune, even knew its name, the recording artist, and the words. But she still didn't seem to know who she was. And was feeling just as aloof about her predicament as when she had first discovered it.

She looked around the room. It looked like she had been brought into a strange sort of church, the walls made of massive rose bricks with large widows of stained glass. As she squinted at the images, she realised the scenes were ones she knew. There was Isis, the moon shining behind her. There was Freya, and there, Hecate. This was definitely no church. She felt comforted by the Goddess images. She began to chant, not really thinking about the words, and not sure if she was making them up as she went along or if she had known them before.

"Moon Mother, full and bright,
bless me on this esbat night
And by Your will, Your wax and wane,
grant the favor that I name

"Moon Goddess of the sea
show to me my destiny
By your will, the ebbing tide
guide me to the Other Side

"Moon Mother Bast, so bright,
guide me with your silvery light,
And by your love's soft sweet refrain,
unite me with my love again

"Moon Goddess in the sky,
watch o'er us with your silvery eye
And as you shine so high above
Protect us with your eternal love."

"That was a lovely bit of verse!" a voice told her.

She jumped, looking for the source of the voice-which turned out to be on the other side of her, right next to her bed, sitting in a chair. Why hadn't she noticed that someone was there before?

She didn't feel threatened, at least. The woman, was she a nurse of some sort? The young man had said something about a healer. ... The girl squinted. Yes, this woman had the look of a priestess about her, the long blue robe tied with a silver "witch's girdle", and an ornate pentacle about her neck. Seeing her, the girl felt things start to click in her mind.

Priestess ... pentacle ... Moon Goddess ... Isis ... witch's girdle .…

She might not know her own name, but she did finally know something of herself: she was a witch, a pagan!

This woman felt familiar, too.

"Welcome to the isle of New Avalon, child. Some of my youngsters found you on our beach yesterday, half-drowned. How are you feeling today?"

She shrugged. "Warm. Dry. Rested. Just about anything would have to be better than how I felt yesterday," she added, smiling ruefully.

The healer smiled back. "I can imagine. But that does not necessarily tell me that you are feeling perfect, either," she admonished, her words precise and cultured.

British, the girl decided. But ... faint? Maybe she's been away from home a long time.

"Is there anything wrong," the priestess continued, "anything at all? Is there anything I can get for you?"

She stopped squinting at the stained glass and looked at the blurry woman. "I think I need glasses."

"But you are all right, otherwise?"

She nodded.

"Good. Then let us start by finding out who you are, and how you came to be here."

For the first time since finding herself on the beach, she felt a twinge of worry. She pushed aside her momentary wonder at finally feeling something, to express that worry aloud. "You mean you don't know?"

This seemed to amuse the priestess. "I know that we have been expecting someone, but that is all. The spirits do not tell us more than they think we need to know."

The fact that the woman spoke of spirits didn't faze the girl; she remembered at least some of the things she believed in as a pagan, and communion with the disincarnate fell within those beliefs. No, it was the revelation that the priestess didn't recognise her that was unsettling her-something told her the woman should have known her. If she was a stranger here, why did everything seem so familiar? Why did she feel like she'd come home after a long journey? She asked the healer as much.

"New Avalon feels that way to many. It is an echo of lives past, of the original Avalon. Any soul called to the New Avalon lived once in the old. But believe me, those particular feet have never touched here before."

Her heart sank. "So … you don't know any more than I do."

The healer raised a brow and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You do not remember who you are? Well, I would venture to say that I want to know the answers to my questions as much as you do. We will find them out together, do not fret. I guess we will just have to look elsewhere than you for the answers."

She let that absorb for a minute. The panic that had started to grow in her belly eased, replaced by that odd detachment again. Then she thought of a question the priestess could answer.

"Well, who are you?"

The elderly woman laughed, and it made her think of "faery bells" for some reason. "I am Sylvia, High Lady of New Avalon. Now, what shall we call you, until we learn your name?"

The girl thought for a moment. "You said you'd been expecting me. What did the spirits say to expect?"

The priestess didn't answer right away. Then, "I cannot tell you that, but it does give me an idea of what to call you. We shall call you 'Selina'."

"Selina" was from the Greek "Celene", and meant "little moon". The girl figured she probably knew this from her pagan background, although she didn't actually remember having learned it. She wondered how Sylvia came to decide on that name, but didn't ask. It felt right, so what did it matter?

***

The sunlight poked its way through the holes in the warehouse ceiling, illuminating two figures within. The first figure, with her torn clothes, scraggly hair, and enough piercings to make a pincushion cringe, looked as if she'd been born in there-and had never left. The other wore a silken dress that had a neckline cut to somewhere significantly below her heart chakra, as well as a slit in one side of the skirt that went up past her waist. Completing her ensemble was a pair of fishnet stockings that, surprisingly, had no snags in them. She was much too clean, too pretty for the surroundings, and yet somehow one had the feeling she belonged there even more than the unkempt girl did. Both females had hair that stuck out everywhere, as if they had a bad case of static electricity. The way the second figure's long, silken tresses defied gravity made her head look like it was a spider at the center of a web.

Clotho the Maiden, the youngest "syster" of the Fates, knelt before Lachesis the Mother, who was the leader even though she was not the eldest. Clotho wondered absently where Atropos the Crone was hiding.

"You summoned me, Lachesis, dear syster?" The young punker did not look up at the harlot.

The silken one curled her lips, knowing full well that it was distaste, rather than respect or fear, that made the young rebel refuse to meet her eyes. She, in turn, did not hide her contempt for the ragamuffin as she addressed her.

"Tut-tut, five seconds and you're already getting mouthy, Clotho. Don't forget that you can be replaced, syster. ... My sources tell me that our enemies in New Avalon will be having a special celebration for the Sabbat of Ostara. I want you to go and ... disrupt things."

"What? You want me to crash a party?? I have things ta do, y'know, tasks you assigned me to!"

"This is more important. Someone has just arrived on the island, someone … dangerous to us. I want you to find the newcomer, and kill her. And you must do this before the Sabbat is over, or else they will become a whole lot harder to kill."

She gestured again, and from the shadows behind her emerged three more youths. One man in "punker" clothes had an intricate silvery tattoo in lieu of hair and a beard. Another looked like a beach bum, with a Hawaiian shirt, shorts-despite the fact that it was still only March and they were in Chicago-and sunglasses. The third, a girl, was somewhere between a goth and a punker, decked out in leather and spikes, and wearing her hair short and blue. The tattooed man and the girl rivaled Clotho in the piercings department.

Lachi addressed the newcomers along with Clotho. "Make it look like an accident. We don't want anyone to think we were involved." She smiled menacingly.

Clo scowled back, her brow crinkling around a piercing there: a small silver spider with eight tiny amethyst eyes was nestled over the punker's "third eye", its sharp little legs and mandible biting into her skin. Clearly, Clo was not pleased with being given what she deemed to be an unimportant task, one that would delay other more important projects, at least to her mind. She didn't object, though. That would have only egged Lachi on. Without another word, Clo turned on her heel and started to leave, her minions close behind.

Before Clotho reached the door, Lachi called out, "Oh, and don't for a minute think that this excuses you from your other duties!" Her laughter followed the Maiden out the door.

A soft chuckling crept out from the shadows to her right. Atropos, the eldest syster, came to stand at her side, decked out in her own trademark attire of a wool pleated miniskirt, wool sweater, and woolen knee-high boots. Her tight red curls had a far more difficult time standing on end than her syster's fine silver-white hair did, looking just frizzy instead of somewhat supernatural.

"Syster, why send her? Am I not far more capable?"

"Of course you are, my dear one." She meant it with true affection, Attie knew. "And no one could take your place. Therefore you are not expendable. I could easily replace Clotho with any one of her drug-addict followers!"

"Expendable? You really think this mission will be that dangerous?!"

Lachi shrugged. "Whether or not this newcomer will prove much of a threat remains to be seen. But if I really cared, I would worry about Clotho working with the souleater I sent with her. They're so unpredictable ..."

"Souleater?!?"

"Yes, our old friend Thurisaz has taken a shine to that tattooed circus freak, Adam. He's using the boy as a host, in hopes that our mutual enemy, the Brightwing, will be there. The spyders have heard Sylvia say that the Brightwing was returning for Ostara-and now this girl appears. She's supposedly completely human, not a spark of magic in her! During the Sabbat they're going to see if it's possible to make a human be magical."

Attie's brow furrowed prettily. "Sylvia fancies herself an elemental now? "

"Or Gaia, maybe!" Lachesis laughed. "Well, whatever. It won't matter, if Clo or Adam kills the girl before they can finish their experiment, while the she's still just a powerless human! And if she is the new host body for the Brightwing, once the shell is dead, Thurisaz can swoop in to finally devour that pesky spirit!"

"But you didn't tell Clotho about it?"

"No. I didn't." Lachi smiled evilly. "If Clo gets in our souleater friend's way, then we'll be rid of two nuisances. Or if he doesn't take care of her, maybe Sylvia and her clan will. After all, if our 'dear' syster fails and gets caught, she'll just be getting the punishment she deserves. All without us having to lift a finger!" she added with a contented grin.

"And if she succeeds? If she survives?"

Lachi sighed. "Then she'll have proven herself after all, and be worth keeping around-so long as she continues to be useful, that
is. …"

Atropos knelt down beside Lachi, placing a hand on her arm. "And if her usefulness comes to an end?" she asked in a whisper, licking her lips in anticipation.

Lachi smiled fondly, cupping her elder syster's cheek with her hand. "We'll see how she progresses. If her strand drifts too far, then it will be time for you to 'cut the thread'. …"