The days pass, as they always do.

I am so occupied helping my mother with the harvest that I scarcely have time to think of him.

One afternoon, I am lying in the field outside my house chewing on a stalk of grain and watching the lazy progress of clouds across the sky. I am thinking of him, wondering what he is doing. I only have five more months left before I have to return to the underworld. Time seems alternately to pass quickly and slowly. All I know is one thing—I do not want to leave.

All of a sudden someone is standing over me, blocking the sun with their shadow.

“Erasmus, what do you want,” I say petulantly, thinking it is the shepherd’s boy come to torment me again.

“I thought you knew my name. Did you forget it so quickly?”

I sit up and shield the sun with a hand to better see. Skin the color of burnt honey and a beautifully chiseled face.

“Dimitri…”

He grabs both of my hands and pulls me up till I am standing in front of him.

“You must be a witch, for I can think of nothing but you.”