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She was bright, brighter than fire, and she gave me something. It was round like this ring but different. I could feel her smiling at me as she handed it over. A loving feeling came from it. It was like when she tucks us into bed. She placed it on my palm. It sat still for only a second before it began to spin on its own. It spun so fast that it turned into a little ball. Then the ball soaked into my skin and it was cold inside of me. I looked at my hand and it was almost invisible, then I looked over myself and all of me was almost invisible. Mother then whispered something into my ear and I didn't understand it. That's when I woke in a cold sweat. I was so cold I had to get within a foot of the fire to keep warm. That's when I knew she was dead and then you gave me the ring and ...but I already knew ...then ...it was strange but ...I saw Father."

    "Father came back?" Mural interrupted as his heart jumped.

    "He tried to," Nathaniel continued. "He and his friends ambushed the people who burned down our house. I swear I saw all this in the woods just beyond the fire last night. It was like the branches and trees spread apart like curtains and the firelight shone enough for me to see everything. Everyone was battling and, during the fight, a man sneaked up behind Father. The man reached down to his side for his sword, but it wasn't there."

    Mural looked down at the sword in his hands. He knew the sword he held was the one his brother was talking about. If it had been at that man's side, he would have killed their father.

    "It was supposed to be there - you changed that - but it didn't make any difference," Nathaniel continued, "Father thought someone was behind him and turned around and swung his sword, but the man ducked and father only knocked his cap off. He had blond hair and a big pointy nose like the man who burned down our house. It was the man who held the older man you shot Mural. The blond man came up with a knife after father missed and stabbed him in the chest. Their eyes met and father knew him. Father called him Ben before he fell to the ground. The fighting moved away from Father and I came up to him as his breathing stopped. I touched him and he was cold and then I was cold. I looked up and saw the blonde man looking right at me. He smiled and waved. Mural, I don't know what I was doing or what happened, but after all the fighting was done, the blonde man was the only one to survive. I think Father's dead, Mural, and the man is coming back for us."

    Nathaniel shuttered and tears welled up in his eyes. He gazed down at the dirt path beneath them and then fixed on the ring again.

    "Nathaniel, I think everyone is dead," Mural stated coldly, scolding himself for believing this dream his younger brother had for even a second. There's no more room for fantasy, no more time for the fancies of youth; survival is the only thing left.

    "I'm scared. I don't understand any of this. I know this is more than a dream. Why would mother appear to me? Why?"

    "I don't know. What I do know is that it was just a dream."

    "No, I think mother was trying to tell me something. I think she's trying to help somehow. I think she came down from heaven as an angel to warn us."

    "Goddamnit, Nathaniel, they're dead! They're all dead! Everyone we love is dead and we're the only ones left! You had a nightmare, plain and simple. We have to worry about what's real and what's in the now. About what's here."

    "That is what I'm doing. It's here."

    Mural stewed angrily as they walked and Nathaniel gazed at the ring in his palm, flipping it over itself hundreds of times as they strolled into Boston at nightfall.

    Chapter 6

    The brothers saw little of each other over the course of the war, but wrote often. Mural wrote of his promotions within the Continentals and his appetite for vengeance while Nathaniel complained of his continual dreams and headaches. On the occasion that their regiments would meet, the brothers spent their leave