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"Well, what did you think?" she said, moving around her desk to have a seat. I sat in a chair by the door.

"Are students always like that." I thought for a second. "Am I like that? Jason's a philosophy major too, but he was saying the same thing." I'd become a philosophy major partly because of Dr. Callahan. I didn't feel like I was learning anything as a sports science major.

"I wouldn't have written you a letter if you were, would I?" Dr. Callahan leaned back in her chair. "So have you heard from any schools?"

"Three," I said. "The University of Oregon, Notre Dame, and the University of Florida." I suppose Note Dame was the best of the lot, but expensive.

"So what're you thinking?"

"I don't know?" I really didn't after what just happened. "Do you like teaching?" I set my bookbag on the ground. I still held my medicine bag. It'd been several years since I'd really looked at it.

"It has its moments," she said. "You've got to make a connection with your students to make it worth while." She sat forward then. "The question you have to ask yourself is whether you love philosophy. Because, if you don't, nothing else will matter. You can't make it through graduate school if you don't love what you're doing."

I looked at her wondering what to say. I didn't know if I loved philosophy. I liked it, but love?

"You have to do something else first anyway," she said, interrupting my thoughts.

Before she could go on, I raised my hand. "I know. I'll have my senior project in tomorrow before I leave." Which meant I had to leave right then, because I had a lot of work to do. I stood up and shouldered my pack.

"Rowan, just do what you enjoy doing. Don't worry about the rest of it."

I started walking home, as an afternoon breeze with the kiss of spring blew around campus. Other girls had also chosen to wear dresses today, but I still felt odd in mine. It would probably be cold when we got back from spring break, but for now, the weather held only the promise of warmth and sunshine. Somehow, I didn't really wonder at the chill that suddenly came over me when I hit Lexington St. Only when my vision blurred for a second did I realize I had company. It was a spirit – what my father's people call a nagi. I'd seen them before, so I didn't scream, but I didn't stop to talk to it either. I had no interest in dealing with spirits. They frightened me because they were more substantial than the rest of the world, like they were really real, Plato's form or something. No matter how much I ignored it, though, the nagi stuck with me. At last it spoke.

"Someone needs your help." It didn't have a raspy voice like you would think. It was just a voice with the power of Luther Vandross or Darth Vader.

I walked on, but it continued to follow.

"Please," it said.

I turned off Lexington and onto High St. and continued until there wasn't much traffic to see me. "What? I can't help you."

The nagi looked at me for a moment as if studying me. At last it said, "but you must.