If my employer had a sense of humour, I would have suspected him of joking. But I know he doesn't believe in humour. I don't think he believes in unicorns either.

"You're from Val Boisé?" he asked. "Been a while since you visited? Why don't you take some time off, go down for a few days?"

My employer is Robert Robitaille. Don't worry if you don't know the name; he's Canada's most discreet billionaire. Officially, I don't work for him. My income tax returns say "Self-Employed"; my business cards claim that I'm a consultant. But that's a cover - all my contracts are with one or another of Robitaille's many corporations.

"So," I asked, "you've heard a rumour?"

Robitaille isn't a sentimental man. If he wanted me to go to Val Boisé, it had to be because he wanted me to track down some information. That's what I do: I check things out, listen to hearsay, trace rumours, determine what other companies are planning, so Robitaille can profit. I'm an industrial spy, and a good one.

"I hear Boréal Lumber is planning a major expansion up there, and they might be looking for an investor."

That was the end of our conversation; Robitaille wastes neither time nor words.

They say you can't go home again. I've always believed that, and I hadn't returned to Val Boisé in over twenty years, not since I finished high school and escaped to university. I thought I'd barely know the town, after all that time. I thought it would have changed beyond recognition, that it would be like those other small towns I've visited through my career. The Val Boisé I'd known belonged to another age, to earlier versions of myself who had become strangers to me. I'd come a long way from that fearful child, that hesitant adolescent, that uncertain young man.

But I of all people should know that life is full of surprises. As the plane flew into the small Val Boisé airport, as I drove the rental car from the airport into town, every sight tugged at a memory. I'd once had a silent crush on the girl who lived in that house by the highway. Here, half a mile further, was the sharp curve where three of my classmates had died in a car crash. Entering town, there was the store where, as a child, I'd been caught stealing a candy bar.

Towering over it all like a medieval fortress was the sawmill.

On impulse, I drove to 24 King Street, my old home. The house was empty. I never knew my father; he'd left town soon after getting my mother pregnant. My mother, who for years had worked as housekeeper at the presbytery, now lives with a defrocked priest near Trois-Rivières. But she still hasn't sold the house.

The key was where we'd always left it, under a jar of rusty nails in the garden shed. I took my bags inside.

The house was as I remembered it, yet different, neater, almost sterile - clearly a house where no one lived anymore. I flicked a switch and the room lit up. I picked up the phone and heard a dial tone. That was just like my mother, leaving everything ready in case someone should need it all of a sudden.

I phoned the hotel and cancelled my reservation.

My room was as I had left it, hardly bigger than a closet, one wall lined with shelves filled with my books and knickknacks: a model of an airplane and one of a racing car, both looking as if they'd suffered a minor crash; a shell from a long-ago trip to the Maritimes; a mica-flecked stone which I'd believed, as a child, to be magical. I scanned the book titles: mostly science fiction and fantasy, with the odd detective novel and a few books bought because of the scantily-clad women on the cover. I pulled out one of the books at random, something by Bradbury, and leafed through. He'd been one of my favourites, back then. Maybe I'd reread him while I was here.

I needed to buy some groceries and supplies, but I decided to take a look around town first. I changed into shorts and running shoes and stepped outside to stretch.

The neighbour across the street was standing in front of his house, looking at me suspiciously. Then his frown shifted into a smile and he called out to me:

"Hé, if it isn't le p'tit Jean-Baptiste! Been a while since we've seen you around!"

"Monsieur Simard," I said, "comment ça va?"

"Pretty good, pretty good. So what brings you to town?"

"Vacation. I thought I'd come up and see how things are going up here. Say, who's taking care of the house these days? It wasn't this clean when I lived here."

"Your aunt Francine comes by now and then to do a bit of cleaning. I do the lawn, and some gardening. Since I took the early retirement from the mill, I have plenty of time."

"You do a good job, the lawn looks great. So, how are things at the mill? Are they still laying people off, or have they started hiring again?"

Already, I was at work. For thirty minutes I eluded his questions about where I'd been, redirecting the conversation to suit my purpose: the town seemed to be doing well, wasn't it, was his son Émile working at the mill now, oh he's made foreman has he, he's doing well, maybe I should pay him a visit sometimes.

I didn't press for information, but took what was offered. The information would come, as I made my way around.

When he started to edge back towards his own house, ready to get back to his own activities, I excused myself and set off on my run.

There were many houses for sale, but two of the biggest houses in town had "Sold" signs out front; someone seemed optimistic. I jogged through the business district, centred around an oddly-shaped square where six streets came together, their erratic angles constraining the shapes of the buildings. Many of the businesses I remembered were gone: the old hardware store now housed three smaller shops; the clothing store next to the Post Office had mutated into a DollarMeister discount outlet. Several stores offered only "For Lease" signs. The diner where we'd hung out in high school was still there, but a window sign bragged "We have cappuccino!", and the old booths and stools had been replaced by tables and potted plants.

A block further on, I ran behind the Jackpine Inn, the hotel where I'd initially booked a room. The parking lot was half full, including two rental cars from the agency at the airport, a BMW sedan with a Toronto dealership sticker, and a Lincoln with US plates. I'd have to check who was staying here.

I quickly reached the edge of town. Here, a deserted road had long ago reverted to a path, frequented by children and the occasional hiker. I remembered that this led to waterfalls a few miles away and decided to extend my run.

The path was narrower than I remembered. Now and then I heard the high buzz of a mosquito or the maddening whine of a black fly, but this late in the summer they no longer swarmed all around, their combined sound like a high-speed drill reaching deep into one's mind. The old bridge one mile in had rotted away completely; someone had thrown a few planks over the creek instead. Next to those, the churned-up banks showed where some cyclists preferred to ford the stream on their mountain bikes. I ran across, then paused and turned right. A faint path led through an aspen grove to a pond, its still surface broken only by water lilies and the occasional tracks of a water spider.

As I came to the water's edge, something rustled in the trees at the other end of the pond. For a moment I was eight years old again, hearing a bear or a child-hunting pack of wolves in every sound of the forest. I stopped and looked over, saw nothing. Then the bushes rustled again, and I glimpsed a movement before silence returned: something larger than a deer, but silvery white. An albino moose? I shook my head. I'd never heard of such a thing, and I'd never seen a moose this close to town. It must be a child playing in the woods, or a trick of the light on the leaves.

I decided it was time to head back into town for dinner.

I had a quick, frigid shower - I'd forgotten to turn on the water heater when I arrived. I dressed casually, walked over to the Jackpine Inn's dining lounge.

The waitress's name tag said "Céline", but I would have recognised her without it. She'd been in the class ahead of me in high school, one of the school beauties. She still wore the same hairstyle, and what looked like the same mini-skirt, though it was a size or so too small for her now.

As I waited for my food, I scanned the room. The expected locals and tourists, mostly, but one table caught my eye. Three men deep in talk, their voices tending to rise then drop abruptly as they caught themselves. Two of them were Japanese, wearing impeccable three-piece suits; the other wore a shirt and tie but no jacket. I remembered him as a local, but couldn't place him immediately. I had no trouble recognising the other two, though. Fortunately, I didn't think they'd know me even if they did look my way.

They stopped talking when Céline came by to refill their coffee cups, resumed their conversation only when she was out of earshot.

I paid in cash, stopped to check the phone book on my way out. Émile Simard lived on Cedar Street, just a block out of my way. I walked by there, spotted his house, with kids' toys in the yard and grown-up toys in the driveway: a minivan, a four-wheel-drive pickup, a trailered fishing boat. No one was outside, but that didn't matter; I'd arrange to meet him before long.

His father was still working in his garden when I got home; I waved at him as I went in.

After reading for a while - it was a pleasant surprise to find I still enjoyed Bradbury - I went up to my room. As I prepared the bed, I bumped against my old telescope. I'd used this a lot when I was younger, to study the stars, of course, but also, often, to scan the windows of nearby houses, hoping in vain for a glimpse of a naked woman. I looked through it now.

It was pointed across our yard at a dark window. Just as I looked, the light went on and a woman came into the room, looking like one of the movie stars I'd fantasised about when I was young. Slowly she undressed till she was wearing only lacy panties, then she slipped on a night-gown and turned off the light.

My adolescent fantasies, I recalled, had gone no further; I didn't know enough then to imagine anything beyond this.

As the woman had done, I undressed and went to bed. I usually have trouble going to sleep on my first night in a new location, but that night I slipped straight into a sleep filled with troubled dreams I could barely recall in the morning.

"Hé, Baptiste!", Émile said when we met. "T'as pas changé one bit!"

I'd chosen the direct approach and phoned Émile at home, when I knew he'd be back from work. He immediately invited me to drop by for a beer.

The inside of the house was clean, but not obsessively so. Yesterday's and today's newspapers were scattered across the coffee table. Émile brushed three or four toys from the sofa so I could sit down.

I only vaguely remembered Émile; he was younger, and had studied at the English-language high school. He spoke to me mostly in French, slipping into English at the ends of sentences.

"Patricia's out with the kids, they have their gymnastics tonight, so we can have a bit of quiet talk. Those kids are regular little monsters. Wouldn't live without them though, I wouldn't, they sure liven up the place."

He handed me a frosted beer mug, drank his own beer straight from the bottle.

"So whatcha doing with yourself these days? You sure haven't been in touch. All your old classmates were here for the reunion last year, and no one knew where you were."

"I'm doing pretty well. I work as a consultant these days, market research you know, studying consumer trends to help companies plan their product lines. Lots of statistical analysis, of course, you know how much I liked math in school."

That was close enough to the truth not to trip me up, and just boring enough that people seldom asked for more detail.

"But what about you?" I asked. "Your dad says you've made foreman now?"

"Bien oui, Baptiste, imagine that. I like the work, though, and the guys seem to like working for me. Maybe next year I can move up to supervisor, if things go well at the mill. Tu sais, you should move back here. Don't tell anyone, but there's going to be some opportunities around here for a guy like you."

"You think they'll need a math-head at the mill?"

"Hey, you should see the place now, it's like something in a sci-fi movie. Computers all over the place, and robots to move stuff around. Why don't you come for a visit tomorrow, I can get you a pass and show you around."

The rear door slammed, and three children rushed into the room. They obviously came from the same mould: blond hair, high-energy, wearing similar shorts and t-shirts.

"Contrôlez-vous les p'tits," Émile told them, "you see we have a guest."

They looked over at me, returned my "hello", and disappeared. Seconds later I could hear them laughing and shouting in the basement.

"I told you, regular little monsters."

A woman came in, tall, slender, looking like a grown-up version of the kids. "Émile, that damn warning light is on in the van again. You take it in tomorrow, you know they don't take me seriously at the garage."

"OK, I'll do that. Hé Baptiste, I want you to meet my wife, Patricia, I don't know if you remember her. Pat, this is Jean-Baptiste, he used to live across from me on King."

She gave me a quick smile, a strong handshake.

"Glad to meet you," she said. "You're staying for supper, aren't you? I picked up some Kentucky Fried Chicken, we have plenty. Émile, I think he's ready for another beer while I get the table ready."

They took their eating seriously, with little talk other than "pass the coleslaw please", and "any more drumsticks?"

"Paul, it's your turn to clear the table," Patricia said when we were done. "Don't forget to wipe the table top this time. You two, go wash up."

Two of the kids disappeared, the other started to stack the plates into the dishwasher. I chose this time to excuse myself. Émile suggested I meet him at the mill the next day, at the end of the day shift, so he could show me around.

Émile's father was weeding his flower beds when I got home. I walked over to join him.

"A garden sure takes a lot of time," I said.

"Yes, but I like it. Do you have a garden at your place?"

"No. I wouldn't know how, and I travel too much."

"That's too bad, it's so nice to see things grow. You should try some impatiens, maybe, they look good and don't need too much care. Herbs are easy too, they'll grow inside or outside. And these days you can even buy those gadgets to water the plants when you're gone."

"Speaking of growing," I broke in, "I just had dinner at Émile's place. That's quite a family he's got there."

"He's doing well, that one. Doesn't visit too often, though, they're always off somewhere on the weekends, fishing or camping or whatever. But never mind, you don't want to hear an old man complaining."

I thought for a moment of my own mother - how long had it been since I'd visited her? Not since she'd moved to Trois-Rivières, anyway.

I tried to get the conversation back on track.

"Émile said I should move back here, that some jobs will be opening up."

"Oh yes, Val Boisé is going to have some good times now. The mill is doing well, they had record profits last year you know, and now I hear there's some people wanting to open up that potash deposit south of here. Someone with your brains can do well in Val Boisé these days."

I knew about the company's profits, of course; I'd read the company's financial reports before I came.

"Who's involved in the mine?"

"I don't know for sure, I hear there's different people involved in the negotiations. There'll be a lot of jobs if it happens though."

The front door opened. "Supper's ready, Armand."

I looked up. She was smaller than I remembered, her hair all white now.

"Madame Simard," I said, "you haven't changed a bit."

"Jean-Baptiste, you always were such a liar, I don't know why anyone would believe a word you say. You know very well I wasn't always such an old woman, you do. Did you eat yet? There's plenty if you're hungry, Armand can just eat a bit less for a change."

"I've already eaten, at Émile's place actually."

"So you met the kids? They haven't been over for a while, maybe I should do some baking. Nothing like cake and cookies to attract kids, you know that, don't you Jean-Baptiste. I swear, you always knew when I was baking before I'd even turn on the oven!"

"But you make such great cookies, how could I resist?"

They went in and I returned home. I read all of Bradbury's Dandelion Wine that night before going to bed.

I still hadn't bought groceries, so I headed to the Jackpine Inn for breakfast. The waitress was a teenaged girl, unsmiling and awkward, but she got my order right and refilled my coffee cup as soon as it was empty.

As I walked out through the hotel lobby, a voice rang out:

"Bonjour, Jean-Baptiste!"

I turned to see Céline standing behind the desk, walked over to join her. Today she was wearing a business-like jacket and skirt.

"They've got you working here today?"

"I work wherever I'm needed. The regular girl was sick the other day, that's why I was filling in. I'm the manager actually, if you can believe that."

"Really? I thought you got married to..." I tried to remember her boyfriend's name, then gave up, "got married right after high school and moved to Edmonton?"

"I did, but - well, it didn't work out."

Her voice was neutral as she finished the sentence. For a brief moment, there was no sign of a smile on her face.

"Anyway," she went on, "I came back here, got a job as a waitress in the bar. Ten years later, they had me running the whole place. I even live here now, I have an apartment on the top floor. You'll have to come by sometimes, in the evening when I have a bit of free time, so we can catch up. You can tell me if you're still writing, for example."

I hesitated. I think I even blushed.

"You remember those stories? I'd forgotten those, actually."

"You did? Why? Some of them were pretty good, I liked that one about the unicorn. Maybe that's why, when I got a tattoo when I was younger, it was a unicorn."

"You have a tattoo?" I took a quick look at her arms below her short-sleeved blouse but saw nothing.

"Yes, I do, but I can't show it to you here. We'd have to become really good friends for that!"

I changed the subject.

"I didn't think you recognised me the other day."

"Of course I did, Jean-Baptiste, but you didn't look like you wanted to talk and I was busy. I was surprised to see you though, after you'd cancelled your room."

She turned the registration book towards me, flipped the page and pointed to my crossed-out name. Quickly, I scanned the page.

"You get Japanese tourists here now?" I asked, pointing to an entry that listed "Residence" as "Fukuoka".

She looked down. "Him? I don't think he's here to see the sights, he was meeting Sterling from the mill the other day. Looking to buy some lumber, I guess, Boréal are selling all over the world now."

I nodded, but I knew Mitsuo Yaguchi wouldn't have come all this way to buy a million feet of lumber. Like me, he played a higher-stakes game altogether.

A customer rushed up to the desk, clutching his bill and complaining about some charge, so I waved good-bye to Céline and left. I spent the day wandering about town, talking to people, listening to rumours, even visiting the telephone office and, by giving the impression I was an accountant at the mill, getting a look at the mill's latest long-distance phone charges. But I kept thinking about that brief conversation. For so many years, when I was young, I'd fantasised about an unapproachable Céline. Now she'd invited me over to her place for a chat after telling me about her tattoo. Funny how things turn out.

I arrived early for my appointment with Émile, wandered through the mill offices until a secretary asked me what I was looking for.

"Émile Simard?" I asked.

"The mechanical foreman? His office is over in the mill. Just a moment, I'll page him for you, have a seat over there."

Émile arrived a few minutes later.

"There you are, I thought you'd call me from the front gate."

"They didn't stop me, and I thought you'd be in here. Sorry for the trouble."

He led me out of the offices, down the stairs, and into the mill itself.

"So," I said, "you're looking to move up there, are you?"

"One of these days, yes. Stimson's about to retire as supervisor, and they'll be looking for someone to take care of the day-to-day stuff while the bigwigs do their bigwig stuff. Here we are," he said, slipping through the narrow opening in a twenty-feet-high sliding door.

The mill I remembered had been cramped, dimly lit, full of the roar of engines and the stench of lubricants and burning fuels. Here, instead, were brightly-lit spaces, the scent of fresh wood, and the whine of the saws like millions of mosquitoes and black flies. Émile proudly showed me each machine, pointed out the control rooms which looked like Mission Control, spoke of so many million-feet of lumber per day, of waste recuperation, of energy efficiency. The tour ended at the back of the mill, where he he led me out a door and lit a cigarette.

"Can't smoke in there, of course, and Pat won't let me smoke in the house. In our days, a guy had a smoke whenever he felt like it, right?"

I looked around. Workers were dismantling a building two hundred yards away.

"Taking apart the old shops?" I asked.

"Yes, we've got a new facility on the east side now, and that building was just getting in the way."

"What will they build there instead?"

I must have sounded too eager. He looked at me, suspicious for a moment.

"Why'd you want to know?"

"Just curious. I was really impressed in there, I'd never have recognised the place. And you're in charge of all that machinery?"

He hesitated a moment longer.

"Yes, it's my crew that keeps it all running. Not like the old days, of course, with all the sensors and stuff they have now, but I tell you, it's a challenge to make sure we keep downtime as low as we can. Last year we managed to reduce downtime by six percent, that got me a nice bonus for Christmas!"

He threw away his cigarette stub, and we headed back through the mill.

"I see Sterling is company president now, isn't he the one who used to coach the hockey teams?"

"Yep, that's him."

"Does he still do that?"

"No, he's too busy now, and besides, there was that time... Never mind, that was just gossip anyway."

If I've learned one thing in my career, it's that men gossip as much as women. They just don't gossip about the same things. I didn't press the point.

I thanked Émile for the tour, refused his offer of a ride back when he realised I'd walked here, agreed we'd have to get together again, maybe after this weekend since they were heading off to Crescent Moon Lake for some fishing. He drove off in his truck, and I headed back on foot.

I've spent a lot of time visiting factories over the years, but I still feel confined in there. I decided I needed a good run to clear my head.

The path was fully shadowed at this time of day. A tiny butterfly, its yellow wings showing no markings, took off in front of me, flew ahead, landed again, repeated this every time I came close till at last it tired of the game and disappeared into the trees.

I crossed the creek, sprinted up the short hill on the other side. The road grew winding and rolling here; before each turn, I tried to remember what came next. I'd come this way so often as a child and yet, each time, I'd expected to find something different.

I heard the falls half a mile before I reached them. As a child, I'd imagined those falls rivalled Niagara; in my mind the cliffs on each side rose into unclimbable peaks which, eventually, I worked up the courage to climb. I'd realized since, of course, that the falls were barely twenty feet high, the rocks no more than thirty feet or so above that.

When I reached the falls, though, they seemed taller, the rock faces higher, than I'd expected.

It's dangerous to come back, I thought, to confront one's memories with reality. For years I'd depended on both the accuracy of my memory and my ability to predict reality.

I sprinted back, pushing myself as I ran out of breath, as my legs started to ache. I finally had to stop to catch my breath just before I reached the creek.

Once my breathing settled down, I thought I could hear laughter to my left. I followed the trail to the pond.

A woman swam in the pond, her hair streaming out over her back, clearly nude in the crystal-clear water.

Clear water? I'd fallen into this pond once. As lovely as it looked, I knew there was only three feet of water over two feet of mud here, and that any disturbance would cloud the water for hours. Had the pond changed so much since I'd left town?

I looked around the pond, then froze. At the other end, something moved through the trees, like a deer but larger and silvery white. It bent its head to drink, and through the evening shadows I thought I saw a single, spiralling, horn.

I turned, walked quietly back to the creek, walked all the way home. I wished I was in my home base, that I could go see my doctor for a checkup. I'd been working hard lately. Maybe it was time to take a real vacation, not just pretend to take one because it made a good cover story.

When I got home, I checked the time. It wasn't even eight yet, the stores would still be open. I drove to the beer store and bought a case, drove back and opened a bottle.

After the third beer, I went up to my room and found a box at the back of my closet. It contained the stories I'd written, back in high school, and also the drawings I'd made back then, the drawings I'd shown to no one else. Some portrayed adolescent lust more effectively than female anatomy, others showed heroic battle scenes mixing swords and starships. One drawing was surprisingly good.

There was a pond where a nude woman swam. At the far end, a unicorn bowed its head to drink.

I even knew the unicorn's name then. All children have imaginary friends. Mine had been a unicorn from another world, and its name had been Txen.

My beer was empty. I went to get another.

It must be Céline's fault. She'd reminded me of these long-ago fantasies.

I leafed through the rest of the papers in the box, and at the bottom found a strange device, a small wooden box with two tiny lights at one end, one green and one red, a cover over a battery compartment, and a switch. I pressed the switch, and nothing happened.

I remembered what this was. As a child, I'd wet my bed because I was afraid to get up at night. An uncle had built this for me, a monster detector, to tell me if there was anything lurking in the closet or under my bed. At the age of twelve, I took the detector apart, sorted through the complicated wiring inside, and discovered that only the green light was connected to the batteries. I'd felt betrayed, yet reassured. There were no monsters under the bed after all, only a child with a too-vivid imagination.

I opened the battery case. A single C-cell. I knew which drawer in the kitchen had spare batteries. I slipped a new one in, pressed the switch, saw the green light come on.

Every time I finished a beer, I pressed the switch, watched the green light come on, telling me it was OK to have another. Once I reached the point where I had trouble finding the switch, I went upstairs, the monster detector still in my hand, and dropped into bed without undressing.

My beer-filled bladder woke me in the middle of the night. I sat up on the bed, moved a leg towards the edge of the bed - and froze. There hadn't really been a noise under the bed, had there?

I groped around on the bed, found the detector, searched for the switch, found it at last.

The red light went on.

The red light that wasn't connected to the batteries.

I looked across to my bookshelf, to my magic stone reflecting the detector's light. It was just out of reach.

I wet my bed that night. Then I went back to sleep in that comfortable humid warmth, as I so often had years before.

I woke with the dawning light, the tightness behind my eyes reminding me I'd had too much to drink the night before. I changed the bed, went downstairs to stuff the sheets and my running clothes into the washing machine, even though I normally would never wash light and dark clothing together. I went back to the main floor, drank three glasses of water, made a pot of coffee but didn't drink any. I opened up the detector, checked the wiring again. I counted the empty beer bottles; there were fewer than I expected. Not enough to give me hallucinations, surely.

My boss, Robert Robitaille, started work early. I phoned him at 7:00. Yes, I told him, Boréal were planning a big expansion, at least doubling the size of the mill. Matsuda's boy Yaguchi had been in town negotiating with Sterling, the company president, but they hadn't reached an agreement. Someone at the mill had been making frequent calls to New York and to Sweden, so the field was still open. By the way, Sterling used to coach junior hockey teams here, he was known for liking to shower with the boys after games. Apparently there'd been some sort of scandal a few years ago, that could be a good pressure point. There was also talk around town about a mine opening in the area, but that rumour had been going around for at least twenty-five years and didn't have any substance. Still, anyone who did help create jobs would be a hero in town.

"Bob?" I said, when I was done giving him my report.

"Johnny?" He sounded wary.

"I think I need a vacation, do you mind if I stay a few days longer?"

"You'll let me know if you find out more?"

"No. I mean a real vacation."

"Oh. I had a job for you in Mexico - never mind, maybe you do need a break. Take all the time you want."

At any other time, those last words would have worried me. If I could take all the time I wanted, then I wasn't essential.

"Thanks, Bob. I do need it. Once I get rested up, I'll let you know."

"Okay."

There was a silence on the line.

"Johnny," he said, "take care of yourself. You're an okay guy, you know that?"

I was stunned. In a way, it sounded like an epitaph, those kind words one says of those who are gone. And yet, after all those years of working together, it was the first hint of personal contact between us.

He hung up before I could reply.

I'd think about it later. For now, I had things to do. I'd have to go to my bedroom, grab my magic stone from the bookshelf. I had a unicorn to meet, monsters to fight, butterflies to chase down abandoned roads.

I wondered if Céline also believed in unicorns.

This story was based on a pet idea of mine – what if our fantasies were more real than we believe? From this idea, I set out to write an action-driven fantasy story. But stories take their own path. As I wrote this one, I started to pay more attention to the voice of each character, and the end result was a character-driven magical realism story. Well, part of a story, anyway. I've always felt (and a couple of readers have pointed it out as well) that this is really just a shortened and incomplete version of a longer story. Jean-Baptiste's view of life has been shaken up – but what happens to him next, and how does he deal with this challenge?