Okay, I must admit that I was really scared when I found out that I still had to write 5,000 words on the last day to make it. But to be honest, it was some of the best time writing I had had since the first of the month!

And I promised an excerpt so here you go (remember, these are freshly-borne and subject, in fact, expected to change):

"I see you!" Emma crowed, and leaped after Nick, who laughed again and ran. She was amazed at his speed, and by the way he effortlessly darted behind trees that hid him in such a way that she missed his twists and turns when he scampered off and angled in another direction. And at first, it was almost a splendid game of tag. But the she felt the trees closing in on her again, and she remembered the bird man and the melting horse and the almost- glimpsed fairy and she stopped in her tracks. And she did something she rarely did. She started to bawl.

She just stood there for a moment, totally enveloped by a feeling of madness. "I must be crazy. I must be running around in the woods like a moron. I'll bet no one else can see Nick but me."

The boy in question swung upside-down from a tree just then, his arms crossed over his chest and his cape hanging almost to the ground. He suspended himself next to Emma, and in a concerned tone asked, "Hey, what's the matter?"

She sniffed and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "Don't ask stupid questions." She said, hiccoughing a little and trying to compose herself.

"I'm sorry. Don't cry. Look," he uncrossed his hands and swung back and forth, monkey- like. "Emma, come on. Look!" She turned and looked at him as he made a goofy face.

My hallucinations are trying to cheer me up. She thought, then saw something shiny slip from one of Nick;s many pockets. "Whoops, " he said, and executed a perfect backwards somersault out of the tree, a move Emma completely missed as she bent to pick up the thing form the forest floor."

I just like the idea of her hallucinations trying to cheer her, and the fact that she totally missed Nick's acrobatics.