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as a weapon, a resistance to this evil. Let my very fancifulness work toward my goal. Let this light protect me from the darkness of man, the mendacity of needless hatred and the coming horror of further murder.
                  Arabel vowed to herself that she would not give in to the sorrow which threatened to overtake her and numb her abilities to observe, partake and share. You will not win, she threatened the grey swirling energy and she pushed back from the table, eager to help the townsfolk by joining in the search for the missing girl.
                  Magpie Moor was desolate, to Arabel’s mind. It was a vast tract of open, peaty wasteland. High in latitude, the drainage was poor and the few houses who had dared to adorn the bleak vista looked as miserable as the grey sky with its spitting rain. Arabel and Eli joined a search party of sixty people, further broken down into groups of ten. All were on horseback which would enable them to scout farther distances. Back at the Rosewood Inn, others were moving over the grounds on foot with bloodhounds to look for anything the riders might miss.
                  The sister of the missing girl wept openly as they rode and was in Arabel and Eli’s group of ten.
                  “She just went out to check on our horses,” she said through sobs and Arabel’s heart went out to her in sorrowful solidarity.
                  Another member of the group rode beside the woman and sought to comfort her but Arabel knew such comfort was a small and cold embrace and would do little to thaw the terror which consumed the woman. Arabel hoped that the nightmare she’d had earlier was not a vision of Klara’s sisters’ fate.
                  “Spread out and search in pairs,” the man in charge yelled to the group and Arabel and Eli moved off in the direction he gestured them to.
                  The moor was silent; it seemed bare of all creatures. The heath grew stoutly and seemed to be the only vegetation the landscape would allow. Whipsie’s broad back felt reassuring to Arabel and the roan seemed to be as determined as her rider to locate and rescue the missing girl.
                  “She can’t have gotten far,” Eli said, a worried frown displacing his normally pleasant countenance. “She was only missing for less than half an hour before they galvanized the search crew.”
                  “On horseback though…”Arabel trailed off. Eli nodded grimly.
                  “Do you think it was planned? Or a crime of opportunity? If indeed, a crime has been committed and the girl hasn’t just wandered off and gotten lost,” Eli speculated.
                  “I don’t think the girl got herself lost,” Arabel answered bleakly, wishing her intuition was not telling her something dreadful had already happened. It was at times like these that she cursed the fickleness of her abilities. Why couldn’t she see what she wanted to see, when she wanted to see it? It had always been like this; a flash of knowing here, a psychic vision there, but no way to tame or regulate what or when. It was frustrating to have so little control over her own abilities and perceptions.
                  Arabel glanced at Eli. He returned her gaze, a question in his soft brown eyes.
                  “Did we only meet yesterday?” Arabel asked and Eli smiled.
                  “I think we met a long time ago,” was his response, and Arabel found herself smiling back.
                  “Indeed,” she said.
                  Nature seemed to conspire against the search party as the rain came down in a violent temper and thunder clouds rolled in to add to the fury. The thunder roared close to Arabel and while she normally enjoyed a good thunderstorm, she was usually observing from behind a paned glass window and not