Intensity

enthusiasm than skill. Her name was printed in uneven block letters on a snowman gift tag. When she opened the box, a slip of blue paper lay within. On the paper were four words that appeared to have been set down with considerable effort, much hesitation, and lots of stops and starts: I want to live .
        Heart pounding, tongue thick, she took both of the girl's hands. For a while she didn't know what to say, and she couldn't have said it if she had known.
        Finally words came haltingly: "This… this is the best… the best gift I've ever had, honey. This is the best there could ever be. This is all I want… for you to try."
        She read the four words again, through tears.
         I want to live.
        Chyna said, "But you don't know how to get back, do you?"
        The girl was very still. Then she blinked. Both of her hands tightened on Chyna's hands.
        "There's a way," Chyna assured her.
        The girl's hands gripped Chyna's even tighter.
        "There's hope, baby. There's always hope. There's a way, and no one can ever find it alone, but we can find it together. We can find it together. You just have to believe."
        The girl could not make eye contact, but her hands continued to grip Chyna's.
        "I want to tell you a story about a redwood forest and something I saw there one night, and something I saw later, too, when I needed to see it. Maybe it won't mean as much to you, and maybe it wouldn't mean anything at all to other people, but it means the world to me, even if I don't fully understand it."
         I want to live.
        Over the next few years, the road back from the Wild Wood to the beauties and wonders of this world was not an easy one for Ariel. There were times of despair when she seemed to make no progress at all, or even slid backward.
        Eventually, however, a day came when they traveled with Ned and Jamie to that redwood grove.
        They walked through the ferns and the rhododendrons in the solemn shadows under the massive trees, and Ariel said, "Show me where."
        Chyna led her by the hand to the very place, and said, "Here."
        How scared Chyna had been that night, risking so much for a girl she had never seen. Scared less of Vess than of this new thing that she had found in herself. This reckless caring. And now she knows it is nothing that should have frightened her. It is the purpose for which we exist. This reckless caring.

A NOTE ON THE TYPE
        
        This book was set in Janson, a typeface long thought to have been made by the Dutchman Anton Janson, who was a practicing typefounder in Leipzig during the years 1668-1687. However, it has been conclusively demonstrated that these types are actually the work of Nicholas Kis (1650-1702), a Hungarian, who most probably learned his trade from the master Dutch typefounder Dirk Voskens. The type is an excellent example of the influential and sturdy Dutch types that prevailed in England up to the time William Caslon (1692-1766) developed his own incomparable designs from them.
        
        Composed by North Market Street Graphics,
        Lancaster, Pennsylvania
        Printed and bound by R. R. Donnelley & Sons,
        Harrisonburg, Virginia