“What do you mean?” Kitty asked, and then added as she realized Kate must have seen something in the darkness, “What is it?”<br/><br/>With a few more steps forward on the frosty meadow, Kitty was granted a view of a wide opening ahead, a circular area at a great distance where there was no grass. The closer they got, the clearer it became that there was nothing else there, either, but a dark, gaping hole in the ground, about the size of the large fountain monument back at the university yard. Around the circle, the green grass was being shook by the heavy wind, and judging by how smoothly it bent and fluttered, the air over there had to be warmer than here.<br/><br/>“There’s a… hole, in the ground,” Kitty described and wondered if that was what her sister had seen. However, Kate was looking somewhere else,<i>tears in her eyes</i>—a shiver crept up Kitty’s entire body as she saw them, and her own jade-green eyes tingled and watered in sympathy.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>