My sisters and I stand nervously at the edge of strip of woods, near sunset. We're afraid to enter because they have the reputation of being haunted. But Althea, the bravest of us three, heard a rumor it hides a golden treasure. So we hover at the edge, looking back with as much unease as forward. No one's watching, so we scurry in.

It's dark but navigable. Though... it's unmistakably deeper than the strip is by day. We walk on and on...

But deep inside the wood, where it's already near as dark as night, we run into other kids playing. Strange-looking kids with pointed ears. And yellow eyes. And feelers.

We have to scare them off before we can dig for the gold. Guiltily, we start pushing them around, and drive them a little way off...

Then their parents show up--with spears and wands and torches. The Elder Folk! They're furious we bullied their kids. We're lucky they don't curse us, but they decide, instead, simply to tell us the truth. They don't "haunt" this wood. They come here to mine diamonds--at night, when mortals won't pester them. Except us.

We lost the friendship of the Elves, lost the chance for diamonds, all for gold--gold worth far less.

This theme of worldly (gold) vs. spiritual (diamond) treasure recurred in my dreams for years. The elves surely personify my dreams themselves--disdaining human taboos, from sex to magic, but having their own code of honor. I was unsure why the dream was warning me I'd offended them, though--as I went on trying to sell dream-based art! Mining dreams for gold. Dreams whose diamond messages I was still too scared to live.

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