Year of the Unicorn

How does one know coming good from coming ill? There are those times in life when one welcomes any change, believing that nothing can be such ashes in the mouth, such dryness of days as the never altering flood of time in a small community where the outside world lies ever beyond the gates locked and barred against all change. From the bell tower of Abbey Norstead – and how many years had sped since a bell had pealed from there? – one could see the unending rippling of the Dales, on and on to the blue-gray of Fast Ridge.