I closed my eyes, entering all the colors of the rainbow and drifted into thirteen. Thirteen… Thirteen… Thirteen… I am moving at great speed through a forest. The head of a daunting black horse bobs in front of me. My hands hold its leather straps…

One July day Karen and I took a walk in the woods. Summer friends since our days as kindergarteners a decade before, things had changed. Karen had changed. Sister of my best friend David, her tomboy ways with fishing poles and bait, canoes, axes and…