I yawned groggily, for the umpteenth time. My eyes felt sore. I felt like curling up and sleeping. I felt miserable.
"Come on," said Jared, apparently unaffected by the lack of sleep. We had spent all night thinking of excuses to tell Elsa in case she found us out.
Our most successful one? That I forgot my sock at the park.
"I'm trying," I groaned back. I jogged after him while Fallie skipped at my side. She hadn't gotten much sleep either.
"Besides, how do you know that she'll be there?" I asked.
"She'll know," he replied. "She'll know."
And how was I supposed to understand that response? No idea. No idea at all. Nada. Nun. None. At. All.
I decided to ignore that weird "tell him he's crazy" feeling at the back of my head and went along with him.
He just might be right.

I shivered. We were sitting at the same concrete table as yesterday, freezing our butts off. It had been forty-three minutes, according to my digital watch. I had handfed Fallie the last bit of dried corn seven minutes ago. And I felt so darn cold.
"Looking for someone?" Helen! I whipped around.
"You mean you had us waiting here for all that--" Jared just looked astonished.
Helen sighed, annoyed.
"WE WERE WAITING HERE FOR FORTY-FOUR FREAKIN' MINUTES SO YOU COULD SHOW UP! AND THEN YOU JUST WALK UP AND--" Jared tried to calm me down.
"Sam--"
"YOU, IN THAT STUPID LITTLE COAT WHILE WE'RE FREEZING OUR BUTTS OFF--"
"SAM--"
"YEAH, SOONER OR LATER WE'LL--"
"SAM!" I jumped. "Calm down! I thought we were going to apologize and all--" I looked sheepish and reddened.
"Sorry, didn't realize I was shouting...." Helen looked more at ease.
"'S okay," she said. "I do that sometimes too." Later, I learned that would become an understatement.
Jared cleared his throat.
"Well, I just wanted to say--" he stopped. "WE just wanted to say--" he shot me a dark, playful look. "That...we're sorry about yesterday. We're all orphans. We're all on the same boat. So I guess it wasn't right, what I said--yesterday." Helen nodded, then smiled.
"That's great," she said, still grinning. She petted Fallie as she talked. "Now, I'VE got something to show you." She grinned, as if letting out her secret was something delicious she could taste in her mouth. In fact, she seemed to relish it.
"Come on!" I groaned and followed her, Jared and Fallie not far behind.
We ran past the playscapes, the dusty gravel, the slide, full of rainwater, and the decorative rocks.
Finally, she stopped in front of a tree--trees. It looked very odd, not only because of its extremely rough and calloused bark, nor its tiny, thick, dark green oval leaves, but the fact that it was actually two very tall trees, joined together at the top, to form some sort of archway.
Then it clicked.
The Gate.
This was the Gate! My heart beat faster and faster, and my adrenaline levels(despite my unhealthy sleeping routine) shot up.
"This--it's--I mean, it's here! The Gate! We're right in front of the gate! This is amazing! Oh, gee--" Jared looked shocked too.
"I just don't believe it," he whispered. "I just don't believe it." Despite our exclamations, Helen remained perfectly calm. In fact, if she wasn't so quiet and serene, I would have thought she was laughing because of the smile trying to lift up her face.
Jared stepped toward the gate.
"Do you think--do you think its safe?" he said, almost scared. She nodded, silent.
Jared exhaled deeply, then took another breath. He took another step toward the Gate, shut his eyes, walked straight through the Gate, and--appeared in the other side?
I blinked again. What? What? What?
Helen was on the ground, laughing. She rolled over and over, leaves and bits of bracken clinging to her clothes.
"You--" Giggle. "--should have seen--" She rolled again, still laughing. "--your faces!" She giggled uncontrollably, like a mixture of a broken record and a circus clown.
I glared.
"That," I said. "is definitely NOT funny!" Helen closed her eyes and tried to calm down but still smiled.
"Okay," she said. "Okay...." She opened her eyes, pulled a leather thong over her head, and clutched it in her palm. "Okay," she said. She fingered something at the end of the thong, some sort of medallion, like a tree.
Then she took it and pressed it against a rough know in the tree's bark.
I felt a strange power, like a wind, emanating out of the tree. I braced myself, and smelled something like autumn leaves and the crisp air, still steeled for something. Helen clutched the bark of the tree like it was her support, and Jared held on to its base.
The strange power kept coming, stronger and stronger. I leaped for the tree, holding on to Fallie with one hand and with the other gripping a jagged root. I closed my eyes as the force seemed to explode from the space between the split tree.
The air rippled, like the air above a crackling fire, then stopped. I opened my eyes, still cringing.
But we were not in the park anymore.
This place was gorgeous, and glowed in the sunshine. Trees, no longer spindly, seemed to have shot from the soft ground. Grass, dark and healthy, felt damp and springy. A shallow stream rushed from crevices in the rock, and boulders all around tempted me to climb.
Stretching past the horizen, pastures and fields of sweet-smelling grass seemed petty compared to majestic firs and pines that looked hazy in the distance. Behind them, a grand mountain stood with grandeur.
I raised my head to the clear blue sky, scattered with soft clouds and inhaled deeply.
It was all so beautiful.
I heard Jared shout and whipped my head around. No one stood there, except him, and Helen, and...Fallie!
She was turning pale. Very pale. Her coat had reached a near-sickly shade of white that did not match with her body.
Her legs thickened with jerks and spurts. I watched, horrified. They lengthened, shooting her thickening body up. She had a wider neck, her face grew longer, and her ears thinned. Hair, silky and long, grew from her spine and stopping at her shoulders. More of it sprouted at her poll, and her tail sprouted longer ones.
Her split hooves welded together, her nostrils enlargened, and her chest seemed to ripple with muscle. Her coat, more like a hide now, had grown shiny and thin. Fallie's usually straight neck now arched divinely and I realized what she had become.
A horse. A horse, whose muzzle came up to my nose, whose back matched the height of my head.
A gigantic horse. A larger horse.
But a magnificent horse at that. She whinned and pranced to me. I saw that her eyes had not changed one bit, still looking like they had the viscosity of molasses and the familiarity of an old memory.
She nuzzled my hair, blowing air. I wrapped my arms around her newer, larger self.
"Yes. I've heard of this," said Helen. "Guardians can change their shape at will--as well as many other things. In fact, they also--" Then I heard it--a strange voice, almost whispering, trying to reach me. It grew louder, still uncertain, straining to go past Helen's voice.
"Jared--do you--do you hear that?" Jared grew very confused.
"Hear what?" said Helen. "There's nothing." Jared nodded.
"I think you're going overboard--I mean, Fallie just gained two thousand pounds. You're imagining things." What? My head felt light, maybe from the air or the shock of Fallie, I don't know. The whispering, soft and smooth like a female's voice, reached my ears.
Phew--my color always gets too dark when I stay in one form too long. And why do I smell like corn?
"Fallie?" I said.
Jared looked at me questioningly. "Fallie's right here, Sam."
"No, don't you hear her? She's talking, isn't she?"
I'm right here, you dolt. Stop talking like I'm in a different room.
"Didn't you here that?" I exploded. "She just talked!"
Jared looked at my like I was psycho, but Helen's face split into a wide grin.
"Jared," she said. "I think we've found Sam's Guardian."
Fallie bucked, swinging her head up and down.
Bingo.