hiding from our ex-pack. I don’t want to be hiding out for the rest of my life. You don’t deserve it, the pups don’t deserve it…And we both agreed this place was temporary.”

Aleu chewed thoughtfully. “Okay. But what I’m most worried about is Remus. She’s been sleeping almost all the time, but she never perks up. And then she told me she’s been having these weird dreams-”

“Dreams?” Flint frowned. He looked over at the pups, who were squabbling playfully. “Remus, sweetie, could you come over here?”

After shoving Ruska off and shouting some threats that raised Aleu’s eyebrows, Remus padded over and sat primly before her parents. “Yes, Dad?”

“Could you tell me about these dreams you’ve been having? Tell me everything-and don’t rush.”

Remus squinted one eye and raised her other eyebrow while she looked at the sky. This was her pose for thinking hard. “I think when I dream, I run across this big, long strip of yellow dirt that’s next to…a lot of water. I don’t know what they’re both called.”

“A beach and the ocean,” Aleu said, exchanging a sideways glance with Flint.

“A beach and the ocean,” Remus repeated so she would remember, “Okay. Well, I’m running down the beach and I’m following something. It’s a black bird flying in the sky.”

“A raven,” Aleu whispered.

“I keep following it, but I have to stop because it flies out over the water. A big group of these weird, gray lumps pops out of the water, and then they all blow water out of holes in their heads. The bird circles them and starts calling my name, “Remus, Remus…” Then I’m up in the sky at night time and I’m just floating in the air, and a white wolf comes out of the stars and tells me something about Nome, and somebody called Balto, and Jenna, and all these other names. The only part I really remember is she said I was her great-granddaughter, and she wished me strength on my journey to Nome. Then I always wake up.”

Flint and Aleu stared at her, dumbfounded.

“How long have you been having this dream?” Flint managed to force out.

“It’s the only dream I ever remember having,” she said, scuffing her paw and looking longingly at the tug-o-war fight Shaila and Shade were having with a bone.

“You can go play now,” Flint told her, and she scampered off to steal the bone.

Aleu was speechless. The raven had come back to haunt her children’s dreams, too. And what was all this about a journey to Nome? Flint came up behind her and rubbed against her neck, but she pushed him away. “What does Aniu want now?” she cried.

“What do you think?” Flint said, “She wants us to leave here and go back to where you came from. I think she’s right. About the whole leaving thing, I mean. I don’t know why it has to be Nome.”

“May I offer a suggestion?” Quicksilver said quietly.

“Aniu means business if Re has been having that dream her whole life,” Linder interrupted, “So we better get to Nome, and get there fast.”

Aleu knew better than to doubt the raven, but to go on this journey would mean to leave so many things behind: her dead son, Blake’s spirit… “Flint,” she said softly, and he looked at her for a few seconds, before understanding.

“We can say goodbye before we leave,” he reassured her. To the others he announced, “We’ll leave first light tomorrow morning. Our destination’s the beach area around our first pack cave on this island, since that’s the only beach we know.”

“How’re we going to get to Nome from there?” Linder questioned.

“We’ll figure that out when we get there,” Flint affirmed, “Okay?”

“Good enough for now,” Linder said, shrugging. Quicksilver nodded, then was ambushed viciously from behind by Shaila, who was his favorite pup, and he charged off to play with her. Screams from Ruska and Shade called Linder to rescue one of them from the watery fingers of the stream’s current. Flint followed Linder, leaving Aleu alone with her thoughts. She sighed. Tomorrow she would have to say goodbye.

The next morning Aleu gazed down the rippling flow of the shallow stream. A few weeks ago she had set her dead baby among the waves by way of burial, and watched as the small body was washed downstream. Grief stuck its black fingers through her heart now, and an unbidden image of Blake’s pleading face came to her. To her, Blake and her unnamed son had become connected somehow. Blake had died trying to protect the pup, but the pup had died anyway. It was unfair the way things had spun out, but she just had to accept them and move on. Nothing could heal her spirit from the experiences, though.

She let everything go and silently said goodbye, part of her chiding herself for being melodramatic, but the other part was just a wordless, gray sadness that misted away like fog inside her. Out of nowhere something struck the right chord in her heart, and she started humming. ‘Deep in the night, the winds blow cold-’

“We’d better start moving,” Flint, who had been sitting beside her all this time, mumbled. He got up and padded towards Linder, Quicksilver, and four yawning youngsters.

Aleu started to get up, but hesitated. There was one thing she needed to do.

“Aleu?” Flint said uncertainly as he watched her climb to the top of a boulder. “What are you…doing?”

She reached the top without a word and sat purposefully. She raised her head and closed her eyes, and hurled into the quiet a silver, smooth, true howl that echoed over the northern part of the island to create a sheath of loneliness over everything. Aleu listened as the echoes were swept away across the sea. “I’ll miss you,” she whispered to her son, to Blake, to the island. Aleu sprang nimbly off the rock to land at Flint’s feet. “I’m ready to leave.” 

The sun rose three times and set twice on their journey, and around noon on the third day they reached the beach.

“Mom, what is this stuff?” Shade asked, lifting his paws way up in the air every time he stepped so he could examine his pads.

“It’s called sand,” Aleu told him. She sighted the old pack cave not far from the beach and was suddenly caught up in a whirlwind of memories.

Ruska stood grinning at the very edge of the waves, treading on their foamy edge and pouncing on the new waves that rolled in. A sudden ocean spray caught her by surprise, and a drop of seawater landed on her tongue. She made a face and spat it out. “Ptui! Ptui! Blech! Mom, this water tastes funny!”

“That’s because it’s saltwater,” Aleu explained, darting over to shield Ruska from a huge incoming wave. It crashed over Aleu, leaving her wet, dripping, and not very amused. Ruska giggled. “The water you drank from the stream was freshwater. But saltwater has salt in it, and it’s bad for you. You shouldn’t drink it.”

Meanwhile, Shaila had spotted an odd-looking ‘bug’ in the sand and was sniffing and pawing at it with interest. She jumped back in surprise when the ‘bug’ reached up and pinched her nose! She stood very still, milky tears welling in her eyes as the crab swayed from her black nose. “Mom, what kind of bug is this?”

“Shaila, that’s not a bug. It’s a crab, and I think you’ve learned that you should stay away from them,” Aleu said tiredly.

Shaila flung the crab away and rubbed her sore nose. “I hate crabs,” she declared, kicking sand over the clawed little creature.

Remus stood at the edge of the beach with her father, taking in the scene she beheld. “This is the beach from my dream,” she breathed.

Flint exhaled silently in relief. Good. They were heading in the right direction. “This is the place the Ravens Wing pack came ashore when they needed to follow the caribou to a new home,” he told his daughter.

Remus’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. “What’s the Ravens Wing pack?”

“It’s the pack your mother and I led for a very short time.”

“Why aren’t you leading it anymore?” she asked with innocent curiosity, “We’re not the Ravens Wing pack, are we?”

“We’re a broken-off part of it,” Flint said uncomfortably, regretting his earlier statement already, “…I don’t know if I should be telling you this. Maybe when you’re older-”

“No, tell me! I want to know!” Remus demanded.

Flint sighed. “Alright. But first I have to explain something. Your mother is a wolf-dog. Her mother is a husky, and her father is a wolf-dog, too, a half wolf. Mom is a quarter wolf and three quarters dog.”

“She’s not a wolf like you?” she asked, confused.

Flint shook his head. “No. And you’re a wolf-dog, too, Remus. You’ve got more wolf in you than dog, but you’re still a wolf-dog. Your mom wanted to lead a wolf pack, and that was the Ravens Wing pack…” He told her everything in a simplified version of the events that had occurred: the Golden River battle, the prejudice, Senna, the expectation of the pups, the plot to murder Aleu and her litter, the escape, and the dead pup.

Remus took it all in in