Treasure Box

He tried very hard to doubt Sally Sa

But when he opened his eyes, she was still there, looking up at him.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Trying to make you disappear."

She thought about that for a moment. "It isn't going to work," she finally said.

"Good," he said. And then he kissed her. It wasn't a perfect kiss. They bumped noses. They laughed. "If you're a fake," he said, "don't ever tell me."

And so they would go on, apart or together as love and chance and time might decree, surrounded always by the silent, beloved dead, and answering their silence with the shout of life. That was the invisible treasure box that Quentin had been given long ago but only now found and opened. There was power in it; the kind of power that disappears when it is taken, yet grows as fast as children when it is shared.

Copyright © 1996 by Orson Scott Card

ISBN 0-06-109398-X

Cover illustration by David Nielsen