The day is sunny, and that familiar smell of crops hangs in the air. I love that smell, especially since it means we are at Grandma's house. I am standing behind the farmhouse, looking out at the fields, admiring the gentle waves that wash across them as the wind blows. I can't think of one thing in the entire world that is more relaxing. To add to it, the sounds of the birds fill the air as well. I have never felt more content.

  Then I hear a sound from the barn out in the fields, a terrible sound.

  Before I know it, I am running.

  Plants whip my feet as I run, grasshoppers flee my path, jumping and flying in all directions.

  I run harder. I have to reach the barn.

  Panting, out of breath, I round the corner and am there, the huge front door of the barn standing open. Quickly, I run inside.

  Hay, tools, a tractor, all of your typical farm-things are inside. Nothing unusual.

  Then, the sound again. A small child.

  I look up into the loft, and there he is. A boy, about three years old. How in the world he had gotten there, and how he had managed the rickety old ladder, I’ d never know.

  He is crying.

  Then, the smell of smoke.

  I look to my left. The entire barn is on fire. How had I not noticed that?

  Impossible.

  I climb the stairs, and grab the boy. He is scared silly, whimpering, his face ashen.

  I pick him up, and go back to the ladder. I peer over the edge.

  Below us, there is no longer a burning barn.

  It had all turned into a fiery pool of lava.

  I run down the side of the edge of the loft, looking frantically for a way out.

  I trip.

  Slamming down on the hard wood, which is hot from the sweltering heat coming from below, I drop the boy. I try desperately to grab him, but it is too late. He falls over the side. I lean over, sick with despair, frantically looking down.

  As he falls toward the lava below, I do the strangest thing.

  I ask him a question.

  “What is your name?” I yell to the falling boy.

  “Jimmy,” is his reply.

  I scream.

  I bolted up from sleep, looking around in a panic. I was panting and sweating like an overweight clown in a Fourth-of-July carnival. It was dark, and everyone was still asleep. A dream. Of course, a dream.

  I fell onto my back and looked up at the silhouette of the mountain against the stars. What a dream, what a horrible dream. It reminded me of one I'd had way back in Raspy's mansion. That seemed like years ago, now.

  I rolled over and tried to forget about it, but the image of it kept coming back again and again. Eventually it faded, but I never fell back asleep.

  Later, keeping her word, Miyoko rose to wake us.

  It was way before dawn.

  The first thing we noticed was that Hood was gone.

  In the chilled darkness of the misty night air, we scoured the area, looking everywhere, calling out, seeking any sign of him. There was nothing. A blanket lay where he had slept for the night, with a small pillow the only other sign he had ever been there. Hood didn't have many belongings other than the Bender Ring, which he never let out of his sight. The Ring was gone as well.

  Later, as the first trace of dawn began to illuminate the sky above the mountain, we gathered back together, giving up. Miyoko was the first to take charge.

  “Well, I can't imagine what he's doing, but we have wasted enough time already. We must move on.”

  “Wasted?” I asked. “Trying to find our friend is a waste of time to you?”

  “Jimmy, spare me the loyalty lesson, okay? What would you suggest we do? We have until tomorrow to find your precious book. Shall we continue looking for The Hooded One even though it is obvious he is gone?”

  I just shrugged my shoulders, realizing she was right. Hood could take care of himself with that Bender Ring anyway. He'd probably used it to get away and was nowhere near us.

  “So,” I said, “how do you know we only have until tomorrow? Are you telling me that if my family had waited another few days to come to Japan it would've all been for naught? The book would've been destroyed?”

  “Whoever said the book would be destroyed?” she replied. “All we said is that you have to enter the fire by tomorrow, or your chance will be lost.” She walked up to me, her face set in stone. “We don't even know what that means.”

  “What? You're my guide and you don't even know where you're leading me or why?”

  “Jimmy, we are an old alliance. My father and The Hooded One and others you don't even know about have spent their entire lives researching and discovering things that would help the Givers and eventually the Giftholder—you. A terrible day approaches, and we are here to fight the evil that comes. You need to trust us.

  “We know where the book is. We know you have to go there. We know that you must solve the riddle of ice and fire. We know it must be done by tomorrow. We know that members of the Alliance used their gifts to find you and bring you to us. It has all worked out so far. Now let's go.”

  “Why does everyone get on my case when I try to understand things?”

  “That's the problem,” she said. “There is still so much that we all fail to understand. We must work with what we have. That's why we must go, now.”

  She reached over to me and took my hand, and gave it a squeeze. I froze, feeling my face and ears go red. Then she walked away, intending for us to follow.

  Once I caught my breath and willed the goose bumps away, I set off in her direction, having to jog to catch up.

  The maniacal laugh of Tanaka filled the air.

  We spent the entire day hiking. It seemed impossible that the mountain could just keep going up and up. I kept thinking we would soon turn a bend or go over a big rise in the mountainside and there would be the peak of the mountain, with a sign that said, “Looky there, you made it to the top!”

  But no such luck. Every new sight just brought more mountain to climb.

  In some places, the going got pretty treacherous. At one point, we crossed a narrow span of rock that stretched across a deep, misty ravine. It seemed an unreal specter of fantasy, this massive dent in the mountain, hidden under the mist, with a natural dam of stone crossing its path. At times the crossing was only three or four feet wide, and I had to concentrate not to look to either side and just put one foot in front of the other. For some reason, heights meant nothing to me when I was climbing a tree, but this was giving me the heebie-jeebies.

  It was slow going to ensure no one fell to their death, but we eventually made it across. After a quick lunch, more steep climbs up the mountainside followed, and by the time darkness began to fall, I was ready to collapse and never walk again.

  “When will we stop?” I asked Tanaka at one point, like a child from the backseat on a cross-country drive.

  “Oh, Jimmy-san, poor little funny man. We almost there. You need it, just ask, and Uncle Tanaka will carry you, neh?”

  His laugh followed, way out of proportion to the humor level of his joke.

  “If we get to the point where you have to carry me,” I returned, “we might as well lay down and send a card to the Stompers, inviting them to come and destroy us. I bet you couldn't carry a package of cheese with those puny arms of yours.”

  “Oh, that so, American tough guy?”

  Before I knew it, Tanaka had jumped at me like a lion, whipped me up in his arms, and held me high over his head like a weight lifter. Then, he started to spin in circles, roaring his laughter, while I felt the puke machine rumble in my stomach.

  “Okay!” I cried out. “Let me down!”

  Tanaka gently set me down, folded his arms, and stared.

  The Shield must have known that I needed that.

  Despite our circumstances, I couldn't hold back. I started laughing uncontrollably. I hadn't laughed so hard since … since before I climbed that tree on that fateful day. I laughed and giggled and snorted until I had to sit down. Of course, anything makes Tanaka laugh, so he joined right in, sitting down right next to me. There the two of us sat, holding our stomachs, laughing like crazed clowns.

  Miyoko walked back to us when she noticed we had stopped moving, and stared at our display. And, in one of the biggest surprises of my life—which is obviously saying a lot—she joined right in, her gentle laugh a refreshing contrast to her nutty father's.

  It didn't last forever, but while it did, I felt alive again, and it was wonderful.

  When we finally calmed down, Miyoko announced in a composed, no-nonsense voice that we had arrived.

  “Arrived?” I asked.

  “Arrived. We are at the lake of the Pointing Finger.” She pointed ahead, toward a break in the surrounding trees.

  Excited, I scrambled to my feet and darted for the opening. As I neared it, I could see that beyond the trees there was nothing but the distant horizon. I slowed, realizing that I was about to run straight off a cliff. Coming to a halt on the lip of the cliff, between two pine trees, I stared below me in wonder.

  We were finally on top of the mountain, or at least the uppermost portion of this part of the mountain range. Stretching out below me was a huge crater filling the entire area of the mountain top, surrounded by lush, green plants and trees. Filling the crater was the darkest water I had ever seen, a deep, foreboding lake that showed no sign of life or movement. Covering the lake here and there were wispy areas of mist, slowly migrating toward me. The sun was well on its way to setting now, and the eerie glimmer of the twilight on the water made me want to shrink away and never come back. I was looking down on a lake that had to be haunted.

  A large area of mist in the middle of the lake drifted slightly, revealing something I couldn't believe I'd not noticed right away. In the very center of the black lake, jutting toward the sky as if ready to launch for the moon, was a huge pillar of rock, as black as ink. It had a shine to it as well, as if it were some kind of black diamond or crystal. In places, the setting sun cast a red hue to the rock, and it almost looked like blood. It was not a place of cheer.

  The rock was massive, but it was hard to tell exactly how big because there was nothing down there to compare it with. I looked down and realized that the cliff was not as steep a descent as I had first thought, and there was a trail heading from near my feet down to the water, maybe fifty feet below.

  I shifted my gaze back to the towering, black pillar.

  I didn't need to ask.

  The Pointing Finger.

  Tanaka came up behind me, and put his arm on my shoulder.

  “Jimmy-san, quite, ah, magnificent, neh?”

  I was sure he was going to make a lame joke about The Pointing Finger picking a huge nose or something, but luckily he refrained.

  “It's awesome,” I said, “but it's a little spooky. With that murky water, and that mist, and that black tower of rock. Kind of gives me the creeps.”

  “I have been here before, many times,” Miyoko said, stepping up to stand beside me, looking out at the lake. “But I have never been to the Pointing Finger. There was never a reason to, before. But my father, Tanaka, he has been in the Finger, has been in the depths of that place.”

  I glanced at Tanaka, surprised that he actually had been on, or in, that thing.

  “I was not alone, neh?” he said. “I had good friend along, one who looks just like you, Jimmy-san.” He gave me his big smile, exposing his less-than-delightful teeth. He was the first man I'd met that spewed forth bad breath just from smiling.

  “You brought my dad here, didn't you?” I asked.

  “No!” he said, a little too cheerfully.

  He saw my obvious confusion.

  “I just followed him, to see where he ended up. I was very sneaky, like a mousetrap!”

  Poor Tanaka had a long way to go with English.

  “There is a small clearing down this trail, by the lake,” said Miyoko. “We will sleep there tonight, and tomorrow we will visit the Finger. Come.”

  She started down the path. Tanaka and I followed.

  After eating some of the last remnants of our food and sharing some meaningless small talk, we all settled down to get some sleep. Despite the million things pumping through my head, sleep came easy.

  The day that would come with the dawn was one that I would never be able to forget.

  I woke up looking at a dark sky, but it was definitely morning. Gray, almost black clouds filled the sky above us, the threat of rain almost certain. By the time we were all up and about, the first drops had begun to fall. The cold air added to the miserable feeling. Wet, cold, hungry, and tired would be the order for the day, it seemed.

  Food was running short, but Miyoko figured out some things to eat, and we all groggily munched and built our strength, with a heavy sense of anticipation hanging in the air like wet cotton. I had no clue what lay ahead of us, but I knew it would be a big day, and fear and anxiety made it hard to maintain an appetite. Glancing over at the Pointing Finger, almost invisible in the drifting fog, I wondered what was up there, or in there, or down there. At the moment, it certainly didn't look inviting.

  After breakfast, Tanaka showed us where he had hidden a raft under some old branches, in a small bay near the place we had spent the night. Calling it a raft was generous, because it was the shabbiest excuse for a boating vessel I'd ever seen. It consisted of ten to fifteen logs, strapped together with rope. Tanaka pulled out of the bushes a long, wooden stick with a paddle tied to the end of it with the same rope used on the raft.

  “Not much budget in your little Alliance, is there?” I asked.

  They didn't laugh, so I figured they either didn't get it or thought I was being rude.

  “Jimmy-san,” Tanaka said, ignoring my comment, “I spent my childhood near many lakes and rivers. I am very skilled, you will see!” He beamed with pride. I wondered what Tanaka would have thought of my adventure on the boat with Hairy, right before I saw it disappear into the Blackness. My thoughts continued churning, wondering what Monster, Mayor Duck, and Hairy were doing in that frozen world they had escaped into when I blocked the Black Curtain. I hoped they were freezing their tails off.

  Miyoko snapped me out of my day-dreaming.

  “Shall we go? Jimmy, the book awaits you. The riddle of the ice and fire awaits you. The Second Gift awaits you. Shall we?”

  “Wait,” I said, “What do you mean, the Second Gift? What do you know about it? What about the other Gifts? How much do you guys know—are there things you're not telling me?” I really wanted some answers.

  “Jimmy,” she replied, “I have told you that I don't know much more than you. The book is in the Pointing Finger. Surely you know that the book is your path to obtaining the Second Gift. As for the other two, I know nothing. Now come on, let's go.”

  When Miyoko turned to leave, she stiffened, then screamed, the sound of it finally knocking every last bit of sleepiness out of our bones.

  Tanaka and I jerked our heads in the direction of her gaze, and saw what had startled her.

  It was a man that we all knew could travel with a hula hoop and paint with his finger.

  Hood was back.

  And he was not in good shape.

  Hood stumbled along the shore of the lake, sometimes falling and picking himself up. His robe was filthier than before, which was saying a lot, and there were signs of a scuffle, with small rips here and there. Not enough to reveal what Hood was like underneath the robe, but it looked as though he'd been attacked. His pale hand still hung from one of the robe's sleeves. But what stood out the most was what was missing. The Bender Ring. He didn't have it.

  We all ran to him. Tanaka and I grabbed him by the arms and helped him walk the rest of the way to where the raft rested against the shore. We sat him down on the ground, and the questions started pouring out, all of us anxious to find out what had happened to the poor guy, and where his Ring had gone to.

  He wouldn't answer. Hood kept waving his arm in such a way as to tell us that he didn't want to talk, or in his case, write. Miyoko had even brought over a piece of driftwood for him to write on with his magical finger. But he refused.

  “What in the world could've happened?” I wondered aloud. Shrugs were all I got back. Hood just sat there, his head drooping even more than usual. His posture spoke of utter exhaustion, ready to collapse and sleep for a week.

  We let him rest for a minute, and brought him food, which quickly disappeared under the hood of his robe, his pale hand a flash of white appearing and disappearing. After a few minutes, we tried again to get the story out of him, but he again refused, more forcefully than before. The man must have been through a nightmare.

  “Hooded One,” Miyoko said, “Our time is short, and we cannot wait here any longer. Are you well enough for the trip to the Pointing Finger? Do you want to join us or stay here and rest?”

  Hood quickly put his hand out and started nodding his head as he rose from the ground and pointed at the raft. He wanted to go.

  “Okay, then.” Miyoko helped him this time, gently guiding him onto the large, flat raft and setting him down. Hood folded up his legs and sat, crossed hands in his lap, staring out ahead toward the Finger. We exchanged glances. Hood was ready to go.

  “Ganbarrrrrrro!” Tanaka yelled, and jumped onto the raft, almost causing it to shoot out into the lake.

  “What does that mean?” I asked Miyoko, hearing its annoying ring burst again from the old man's mouth.

  “It's sort of a rally cry, a call of encouragement. My father rather likes the word.”

  “I noticed.”

  As the two of us followed Tanaka onto the raft in a more orderly fashion, my stomach turned inside out. We were actually headed for things that had not really seemed … real. I knew we were going for the book and everything, and that it was how I hoped to get the other Gifts, but now that it was upon us, I was sick to my stomach with nervousness. I felt like I was right back to being that boy in the tree, scared senseless, seeing a man attack a woman and then having her disappear right in front of me.