A coward has it easy: they’re only really afraid of one thing … being afraid. Everyone else has many fears.

Meira was constantly teased by her classmates. She jumped at the smallest things: little bugs, harmless snakes, birds taking wing, and worst boys sneaking up behind her and saying ‘boo!’

But perhaps calling her a coward wasn’t completely fair. After all, would a coward try to go into the hills around Dublin on Midsummer’s Eve looking to confront Fear, itself? It was that decision that made something happen while exiting her parents’ home.

At the door, she heard something behind her.

There in the doorway, she saw a long strip of yellow. She picked it up curiously and turned it over and over. It felt cold and shivery but strangely comfortable, as if it had been a part of her for a long time.

She knew, however, that if she stayed with it, she would never be able to go out into the world, track down Fear and slay it. So she tossed the yellow stripe aside and ran into the night.

And never returned.