me. "Step back. analyze. You don't have to forgive, but you do have to understand." I sighed and nodded. All right, I thought. I'll try to do that__ But I might not be as strong as you. The Doctor. My father. My friend, Will you forgive me for that at least"' My thoughts were caught up in the wind that stirred with the descending sunlight. Shadows were emerging from the woods, marching toward the house. It was almost their time. Night waited anxiously to put the birds asleep and put our thoughts in bed with us. We all have little boxes in which we lock them all, our thoughts and memories, and keep them shut until someone like the Doctor, or maybe me someday, gives us the courage and the faith to open them again and let them go free. After all, who wants to be chained by his or her own memories? I turned back to the house. I will not let that happen to me, I thought. I will open my heart and release my pain. I will bury it with the past in a grave as deep and as dark as Alberta's grave. Only then will the Doctor and I find true peace. I did not know why this should be so. But soon. Soon I would. And then it would all begin.