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mustn’t enter at night. That much I am sure of. But there is something else, something about where to look or where not to look, but for the life of me, I can’t remember the particulars.”
    â€œAnd what happens if you break the rules?” asked Leif.
    The man shuddered involuntarily, but made no reply.
    â€œWell it would be great if you could remember,” said Leif hopefully. “I think sooner or later we will need to cross these woods.”
    â€œYes, indeed,” said the man, “Perhaps if I see that other fellow I will ask him and in the meantime I shall mull this over...” Then the man began to mumble to himself again.
    â€œWhat did you just say?” asked Leif.
    â€œOh what a day to behold, when the truth is finally told,” muttered the man.
    â€œYou just said something about the ‘other fellow,’” said Leif with exasperation. “What did you mean?”
    â€œI was talking about the other fellow that’s here on the beach with us,” snapped the man irritably. “The boy.”
    The mention of “the boy” briefly filled Leif was a soaring sense of hope. Leif pressed the man for almost an hour, begging and then demanding that the man tell him more. “What boy?” shouted Leif. “What did he look like? Where is he? Speak to me!” But the man he retreated inward and was again merely muttering and repeating the same cryptic piece of verse. Leif was filled with despair and finally, in frustration, he bellowed at the top of his lungs: “Alfonso! Alfonso! Alfonso! Are you here?”
    But there was no reply. Throughout that day, and through much of the following night, Leif did his best to engage the man with the green cloak – to get him to say anything at all about who the boy was. Once the man looked and said sharply, “I will tell you what I know, but first I must remember the third law, so please be quiet now so I can think.” The man said nothing else and Leif was left alone with his thoughts.
    Leif ached for his son. He had spent years stranded in a cottage in the middle
of a vast labyrinth, dreaming of his family, yearning for the day when he would be reunited with his only child. Then, miraculously, it had happened. Alfonso had shown up with his two friends – Bilblox and Marta – and their wolf, Kõrgu. Together they had all traveled down the darkened tunnel that led to Jasber only to discover that the city was in flames. After that, much of what happened was a blur. Leif and Alfonso were separated as the city descended into chaos. Buildings were on fire, children were screaming, smoke was everywhere. And there was a bridge. Yes, the bridge he remembered with vivid clarity! Leif, Bilblox, and Kõrgu had ended up on a bridge that had collapsed and fallen into the water.
    Leif remembered thinking that he was going to drown. He was too weak to swim; his head slipped under the water; and that’s when Kõrgu saved him for the first time. The wolf had used her teeth gently and taking hold of Leif’s shirt collar, she swam with him until they were rescued by a man in a small rowboat, the same man who was now shipwrecked on the beach with them.
    â€œGet in the boat before you drown!” the man had yelled. Leif and Kõrgu struggled into the boat and, moments later, the tiny vessel was whisked into a whirlpool that sucked them downward into a underground river and out into the Sea of Clouds.
    Since all of this had transpired, Leif had done little else but think of his son. Was he still in Jasber, or elsewhere? How would Leif find him? Was he even alive? As the days passed, Leif felt increasingly desperate. Then the man with the green cloak had mentioned that there was a boy on the beach with them. Leif had seen no traces of anyone else, but deep down, he felt that this boy had to be Alfonso – that he too had been sucked down the whirlpool and out into the Sea of Clouds – and