Harry awoke in panic in the middle of the night. The clock by the bed showed 3:49 a.m. He was gasping for air, and his tee shirt was soaked with sweat.
His mind was in a spin. He knew he’d been restless and dreaming actively, but details escaped him. He remembered only a snippet, a scene hardly more than a snapshot.
In the dream, in the moments before Harry was jolted out of it, the young boy who took his ring was seated opposite him at the kitchen table. Instead of looking fourteen, as Harry had described him, he now appeared to be no more than ten. He was sobbing. Tears were streaming down his face, the wetness etching tracks in the ghostly, chalky coating on his cheeks.
Harry asked him cautiously, as lightly as he’d greet any local on the street, “What’s your name?”
“My name is Mica
