QUOTE : What frightens you?<br />What makes the hair on your arms rise, your palms sweat, the breath catch in your chest like a wild thing caged?<br />Is it the dark? A fleeting memory of a bedtime story, ghosts and goblins and witches hiding in the shadows? Is it the way the wind picks up just before a storm, the hint of wet in the air that makes you want to scurry home to the safety of your fire?<br />Or is it something deeper, something much more frightening, a monster deep inside that you've glimpsed only in pieces, the vast unknown of your own soul where secrets gather with a terrible power, the dark inside?<br />If you will listen I will tell you a story-one whose ghost cannot be banished by the comfort of a roaring fire, I will tell you the story of how we found ourselves in a realm where dreams are formed, destiny is chosen, and magic is as real as your handprint in the snow. I will tell you how we unlocked the Pandora's box of ourselves, tasted freedom, stained our souls with blood and choice, and unleashed a horror on the world that destroyed its dearest Order. These pages are a confession of all that has led to this cold, gray dawn. What will be now, I cannot say.<br />Is your heart beating faster?<br />Do the clouds seem to be gathering on the horizons?<br />Does the skin on your neck feel stretched tight, waiting for a kiss you both fear and need?<br />Will you be scared?<br />Will you know the truth?<br />Mary Dowd, April 7, 1871