Chapter 18 INSTRUCTION (1/1)

To my husband, Pancho,

for your patience, love, friendship, humor,

and willingness to eat out

And also to my children, Gabe, Seth, and Eli,

for letting me experience the kind of love that people freely die for

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice

From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire

But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice

Robert Frost

PREFACE

ALL OUR ATTEMPTS AT SUBTERFUGE HAD BEEN IN VAIN

With ice in my heart, I watched him prepare to defend h he was outnumbered I knew that we could expect no help - at thisfor their lives just as surely as he was for ours

Would I ever learn the outcoht? Find out who the winners and the losers were? Would I live long enough for that?

The odds of that didn't look so great

Black eyes, ith their fierce craving for my death, watched for the moment when my protector's attention would be diverted The moment when I would surely die

Somewhere, far, far away in the cold forest, a wolf howled