circling and doubling back and turning and twisting and…Copper sank halfway to the ground, panting like crazy, and catching his breath he looked up to see Johnson disappearing around a corner far down the street. There was no doubt about it: Johnson was lost, but from experience Copper knew his owner would rather wander around aimlessly for hours on end until he found what he was looking for than give up. The wise choice would be not to follow, just go home and wait for this maniac to come home with whatever, or whoever, he was looking for.

Copper waited until his heart stopped pounding, and as he got up he heard something that seemed to come from far, far away. It was musical, but had words to it, like someone singing. The words and tune struck Copper as familiar, and as he listened he cautiously followed the voice through town, the voice getting louder as he drew nearer, and finally he stood in darkness at the bottom of a huge hill just outside of Nome. There was a moving shape on the hill, and it was singing a familiar song…the lullaby Jenna had sang to Copper and his siblings when they were pups, every night before they dozed off to sleep.

‘Deep in the night, the winds blow cold,

And in a heartbeat, the fear takes hold,

Deep in the storm, there’s a place that’s soft and still,

Where the road waits to be taken, if you only will,

The voices inside you can lead you so astray,

Believe in what you dream,

Don’t turn away, don’t you turn away…’

Kaila’s voice. Copper realized this, and pushed his paws into the deep snow as he tried to climb the hill after his sister. The air was stretched taut again, the calm before a storm, and snow unfurled in silver spirals around Copper’s body as he pulled himself up the frozen ridge. The wind blew in snowy gusts as the storm began to set in, and Copper looked up through the ever-thickening white to see the shape, obviously Kaila, disappear over the lip of the ridge. There were clinking sounds like glass against glass, and Copper remembered the ‘polar ice caps’. The wind carried Kaila’s words to Copper’s flapping ears.

“The sun…And…to the north…”

A burst of color shot over the hill’s crest. Copper almost fell down the hill as he shielded his eyes with one wet paw, nearly blinded. Streaks of pink, blue, green, and red spurted over the pure white snow in a brilliant flood of color. Copper squinted into the light and again rammed a paw into the snow above his head and tried to pull himself up. He needed to talk to Kaila. He had to find out what had happened with Kaila bursting out of Jenna’s house like that; he needed to tell Kaila that she wasn’t worthless, to counter what Hawk had told her on many earlier occasions, to counter the many times he had told her she WAS worthless. She should be proud of her wolf features. They made her more dignified, mysterious, and maybe better than all the rest of the dogs. He thought this was all true, and was about to yell up to Kaila to let her know he was coming after her, when the rock he had placed his paw on gave way.

The stone split in two and the half Copper was hanging on to skittered down the hill, leaving the wolf-dog hanging. He blew upwards in mock annoyance to make the tuft of red fur on top of his head flutter, and gripped firmly with his hind paws. He swung his suspended front leg up to grab onto another sticking-out piece, and his hind legs followed suite, upwards…But his groping paws found only ice to hang on to, and they slipped and searched and slid off. Copper groaned and set his jaw. ‘Oh, great.’

Copper tumbled down the hill in a miniature avalanche and rolled to a stop to lie in a heap at the bottom. As he groaned softly and rubbed his head, Kaila’s alto voice seemed to sing out from the dancing colors flashing like lightning before Copper’s squinting eyes.

‘Reach for the light,

You might touch the sky,

Stand on the mountaintop, and see yourself flying,

Reach for the light,

To capture a star,

Come out of the darkness, and find out who you are.’

Copper stood up, feeling like all his bones were going to snap in two, and fell right back down in the cold again. He winced as a burning pain sliced through his left front leg, and he looked down to see one of the deeper cuts from the fight that morning had re-opened and was dripping scarlet drops onto the white snow. The battering his leg had just taken from his wild ride down the hill hadn’t helped matters much.

Copper lay in a wounded daze for a few seconds, his red and white fur becoming whiter every second with new snow, but soon shook himself and stood up, grimacing as he put weight on his bleeding leg. As he hobbled through the snow back to town, he could hear voices up on the hill. He hoped fervently Kaila hadn’t finally cracked and started talking to herself, but it wasn’t like he could go up there and straighten her out now. Whatever he had to tell her would have to wait; for now he needed to get this open wound out of the cold. He could already feel small icy balls of drops of frozen blood hardening on his leg.

Out of nowhere Johnson swooped down and picked Copper up in his arms.

“Copper, I thought I’d lost you out here!” he shouted over the wind. He was about to exclaim some more, but noticed the nearly-frozen-over cut. “C’mon, we need to get you home, bandage that up. I don’t know how in the world you managed to split that open again, but…never mind. What’s important is I didn’t lose you, and that our money problems will be over, starting tomorrow night! Bill’s a genius, I tell you, a genius!...and so am I, since I thought to ask him. Hmph!”

Without another word, Johnson wrapped a part of his coat over his dog and hurried home, where he thawed Copper out and wrapped his leg in a bandage. Copper tried to stay up to see when Kaila came back into town, but five steps on the carpet and his legs collapsed; he was dead to the world. The last thing he vaguely remembered before falling asleep was a wolf howl slicing through the white night, strong and clear, followed by another long howl slightly higher in pitch. The Northern Lights flickered and faltered, and the soft colors quietly died to become broken colored bottles on a snowy hillside again.

“Kaila’s GONE?”

“Everybody’s talking about it, man, and that’s what makes it true. Besides, Kirby and a couple other guys saw Balto going after her this morning. It’s just like Aleu all over again. Hey, could I have your breakfast, man? Please? My owner forgot to feed me, and I’m starved. Please?” Torpedo made big puppy eyes at Copper. The wolf-dog wordlessly pushed the plastic dish full of food toward the black and white husky, and the gossip shoved his face into the dish and started to eat as if he hadn’t eaten in days…which was probably the case, with his owner’s memory.

Copper could hardly believe the news, though. Chase had always been the one talking about running away; now Kaila had gone and done it instead. And Balto had gone after her! Who else was going to go next? Jenna? Doc? Every dog in town? Copper blew out a frustrated breath. “How could she think running away could solve her problems?” he said, more to himself that to Torpedo.

“I don’t know, man,” Torpedo said indistinctly, gulping down food a little slower so he could talk, “But the news also is Kaila was LED away. By some other dog or wolf or something.”

“WHAT?!” Copper yelled. He couldn’t stop images of Kaila being beaten up, hurt, starved, scared, cut by the claws of a sick-minded predator of a dog hurtling through his mind. “Torpedo, why didn’t you tell me this first?!”

“Man,” Torpedo sighed forlornly as he licked the last remnants of food from Copper’s empty dish, “You never asked.”

Copper reached out and hooked his claws into Torpedo’s shoulder as hard as he could. “Look, I am about THIS close to biting your head off, so for once act like you care about something other than food and annoying the heck out of people!”

Torpedo winced and pulled away so he came free from Copper’s grasp. Copper didn’t notice. He spun around, breathing hard. “I’ve gotta go after her! No, wait. That’s stupid! How many dogs does she need looking for her?...But I’ve gotta do something! She’s my sister, for Pete’s sake! She’s…Kaila! What am I gonna do?”

Copper suddenly remembered his promise to Jenna: “Promise me you’ll let Kaila solve her own problems.” His own voice echoed back at him: “Alright, I promise!”

The red and white wolf-dog gritted his teeth, but in submission he stopped yelling and took several deep breaths. He couldn’t break his promise to Jenna. Even if it meant killing a part of himself, the part that wanted to protect his loved ones from any troubles or heartache possible, he would have to force himself to wait for Balto and Kaila to come home. IF they came home.

“I’ll tell you what you gotta do,” Torpedo muttered, not looking at Copper, “Nothing. Why do you care so much about everybody else? They’ve got their own issues, they can solve ‘em. End of story.”

“You wouldn’t understand, would you?” Copper said coldly. “All you ever care about is yourself and food.” The two dogs glared at each other, but then the kitchen door opened and Torpedo vanished out the front doggy door.

“Here’s Copper, Bill,” Johnson said in a tinny voice. He walked into the room with a scarecrow of a man who was