
The Land of Auras

Episode I

John G. Makaron 
Book Title Copyright © 2020 by John G. Makaron. All Rights Reserved.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover designed by manlywiseman  
Edited by Michele L. Mathews

John G. Makaron  
john.g.makaron@gmail.com

Published by John G. Makaron at Smashwords

February 2020

To my family

Table of Contents

Prologue

Hugie vs the Whale

Two Strong Men

A Woman with Snake Curls

The Marked Girl

Efdalin

Stir in the Village

Quiety Talkings

Jack

Mayor's Visit

Brothers

Welcome, Su

Blondie

In the Woods

Carnival

Misfelinda

Beastmaw

Volunteers

The Light with Earth-Mother

Into the Woods

Into the Darkness

# Prologue

Somewhere, Seventeenth Century.

When the evening fog wreathed the spectacular slopes of the mountain, all its animals, beasts, creepy crawlies, trees, thorn bushes, and dregs were in peace. Its mossy gravestones were, too.

Nobody knew why so many ancient gravestones were in a land where men had barely set foot and why the only man, who supposedly knew something about these tombstones, was secretive of them. "If some things are kept occult, it's better for the common good," the man would say if someone inquired of them.

Their surfaces had been abraded; if once they bore an epitaph, the prints had long gone. Some were too old, tarnished, and diminished like torn, stained, brownish-gray teeth, staying bent and doleful.

The tranquility dominating in the mountain was absent in the village, founded on its southern foothill. Though most of the folks were behind the doors already, their frets were in the air.

The firm and weighty entrance door of a cottage as old as others was opened hurriedly, and a woman with a worried face appeared before it. The expression in her eyes had matured her maiden-looking pretty face. Not a sea of woods was the cause of her apprehension. She jerked her head towards the crimson evening fall; the sun was gone. Her actual age was unveiled with her trepidation.

The woman trotted out of the garden door with the companionship of yelping local dogs. She looked around anxiously and yelled the names, Efdalin and Jack.

When she was calling her boys' names, the corks of a quarry beetle accompanied the barks of the dogs. It bawled loudly as the real ruler of the descending darkness.

Rosie carried on her holler, walking to the end of the path that entered the village from the north. The wind of the dark that began to gust and the ancient tombstones that came close to the village consumed the call eagerly. As the gusting wind stirred her jet-black hair, the woman looked into the darkness of the climbing path in fear, yet with unfading hope.

***

Rosie was far from breath sounds resounding in the woods, from two frantically pumping teenage hearts. A brunette and sturdy youth leaped over a big ruined tombstone that bore faint lettering marks of an unknown language. After a few more strides, he stopped to wait for the other one to catch up with him.

After a while, another boy, a shorter and skinnier version of the sturdy one, emerged among the trees, breathless.

When they were side by side, they turned and stared at the resin-smelling darkness of the woods. The one with bated breath might have mistakenly seemed fearful though his trouble was only physical: his heart. His eyes were peering about, singed with sole curiosity; the sturdy one was in the grasp of fear.

The looks of their eyes unveiled the unlikeness of these maternal twins, who resembled each other closely in semblance but not in character. As the two pairs of green eyes were looking for the thing they didn't want to see, the sturdy one asked, "Efdalin, are you all right?"

Efdalin was so breathless that he could not respond; he just stared at the clambering sea of woods. The beautiful colors of the blossoms were progressively getting darker and murkier, resenting the departure of the sun. In a few days, with spring rains, they would fully bloom and appear everywhere as the bearers of the most unlikely, yet beautiful combinations of the hues.

Jack raised his head towards the sky; the demilune had settled upon the throne of the heavens. "It's getting dark," he said. "Hurry!"

"Yeah," Efdalin said, still breathing fast. Then with unexpected energy, he leaped over a tombstone and got ahead of Jack.

"Hang on," Jack said. "We will find the path, brother."

***

When a silhouette emerged and approached on the lane, Rosie scampered to the shadow.

He was a man with a long grayish beard, wearing an elegant black caftan that stretched down to the ground, a fancy large dagger superimposed upon his cummerbund. With a countenance revealing no emotions and with glass green eyes that seemed too diverse, he was different than any man of the village. He was as though turned up from a tale as other folks' thoughts had been so all along.

His salute was a silent nod as expected.

Rosie gulped hastily. "Have you seen my naughty boys past the bridge, Mr. Leonard?"

The man turned his body to the thick darkness carrying humus smell, and looked as though he could see beyond his vision; then he turned back to her, shook his head, and walked towards the village in silence.

Rosie stared at the visible end of the road and waited.

***

"Can't, I...wait," Efdalin said yet again breathlessly before coming a long way. So, at the very time he was speeding up, Jack halted.

That was at the right time because Jack was too fast and careless in his trot. He knew that he must be extra cautious when running around the parts of the woods unknown to him. After a tree curtain could be an unexpected scarp. A fall onto the ground from several yards could cause a severe injury, even death.

A creek of the mighty Azmak could be after the scarp. No one would know the exact number of these creeks, but Mr. Leonard, and the counts of the rills that have grown out of the streams were impossible to detect for anybody.

In case the stream was too shallow, the result of the fall would be no different than hitting the ground. If enough water could prevent an injury, the problem with tumbling down into the water from ten or so yards was not a terrible impact. In a few seconds, his limbs would begin to numb, and in a few minutes, death would wait for him through a cold sleep. Even animals drink from this water intermittently because its coldness disturbs their tongues.

Jack looked at his brother, who was struggling to run between the trees, slaloming the low bushes that he leaped over easily. When Jack glanced over their surroundings, wishing to recognize their place, he cried, "Look, Efdalin!"

He was pointing out the unique path of the mountain that would lead them down to their village; it resided near, beyond a grove of young pine trees.

Efdalin looked over there, panting but keeping his usual serene demeanor. "I saw...at last," he said.

They were both relieved. Jack planned to sit there for a while and let his brother rest. But when they heard dry pine needles crushed somewhere behind them, Efdalin's fast-paced breath, not matching with his rapid heartbeats, made him gasp. The boys stood still without daring to look back and hoped that it was not the thing everybody feared.

"Cracks," Jack whispered, striving to summon up his courage.

Efdalin controlled his breathing, struggling to respire steadily again, and he would have turned to glance back, had Jack not yanked him away and said, "Run!"

They stumbled, yet fled with all their remaining power; they crossed a small pond sloshing water. As the boys reached the glittering broad path, the ripples in the pond faded, and right before a falling leaf hit and disrupted it, an indiscernible black vision loomed on the water, reminding them of a hunchback human, not much convincing though.

***

As the majority of flora and fauna slept in their own ways, Rosie left the road and plunged into the woods.

A few more windows were closed in the village; the shielding wooden shutters tightly covered them. Doors were bolted. Swords, daggers, scythes, heavy blades, and massive cudgels were put nearby, yet none cured the annoying hearts.

"My sons, where are you?" Rosie asked.

The sons sprinted on the path after they found it. Not long after, they arrived at the bridge and crossed it so quickly that the weary eyes of two men, whom their sole responsibility was to watch the centuries-old bridge, could not catch them.

They stopped breathlessly at the end of the lane, going into the village, and looked at the path behind that was extended into the heart of darkness.

Efdalin reposed to an old fir as though it would cuddle him; he soaked the tree with his sweat gushing skinny body.

"I said not to leave the path," Jack said, walking to his brother with happiness on his face. But the ominous cracks from the darkness of the trees came yet again. The fear would sear the brothers' blood and could have turned the lads into stones.

"You mischievous brats!" Rosie exclaimed and then emerged from the murkiness of the woods. "If you had been a few years younger, I would have..."

"Ah! Mom, how wonderful to see you," Jack said as Efdalin clammed up.

"Mom, ha!" Rosie said, hands on her hips. "You only remember your mom as your hearts tremble with fear. You incorrigible boys, how many times do I have to say the same thing to you?"

She walked in the direction of their home, shoving them before her.

***

An old woman in her yard waddling to the woodshed saw them. Rosie greeted her, "Good evening, Earth-Mother."

"Your lads hayv been around the wuds at niyghtfayl, Rossiee!" She was worried, too.

"They don't obey their mother," Rosie replied, continuing to sweep the boys before her. Her fear-born anger had not lessened yet.

Earth-Mother looked after them for a while before turning her head towards the woods. Her black strand-free hair winged in the wind. Her youngest looking part, the narrowed, bright eyes, contemplated the vicinity.

The dingy tombstones that were interspersed among the mass of dark trees and bushes with their murky names were becoming invisible in the descending darkness. The old woman smelled the smoky air of the village, exhaled with a deep frown, and then headed for home.

The boys kept walking in front of their mother with mouths shut, heads down, and minds stunned when a bestial vocal from the woody side of the canyon, setting apart the mountain from the village, was heard.

The vocal that had not played into the ears of human beings, which was so serene to give meaning and so spooky to like, quickened the pacing of Rosie and Jack.

Efdalin stood still and gazed in awe to the forest and beyond. He craved to go deep into the wild, to blend with the aura of the trees. But his soul had been stuck in an ill body. He frowned and squinted. He would have settled down there and would have been turned into a part of the forest, had his mother's hand not came and tugged him by the arm towards Jack, waiting not far from them.

They entered from their yard door quickly and from the house door after then. Rosie slammed the door and locked it, and Efdalin ran to the barred window.

To Jack, sitting on one end of the sofa, and to Efdalin, sticking to the window glass, their mother preached the words that the boys were accustomed to. "In this very hour, let alone being outside of the village, you wouldn't even be outside of the home. You don't see the full moon up there, do you? No full moon, no outside."

***

At her home, Earth-Mother intended to stoke few more logs into the fire. She was barely heaving her rheumatic legs, waddling and speaking in the meantime. "I knoww the damned is there. Mey its birreed ceased. Mey it droppt dead. I wissh I cuyld rip off its black bristles. Wulf!"

The fire logs crackled and lightened in the hearth. The old woman sat on a chair by a rough-and-tough seeming table and took a desperate glance at the musing old man, who was sitting in the other chair with his apathetic eyes stuck on the undulating fire.

"Yu hir me. Yu sit downn es yu were. Why dun't yu go and difeat Wulf?" She sighed deeply. "No, yu dun't du thet. Yu sitt and luk like an old goatie."

The man did not heed to her, so Earth-Mother flew into a rage. "Yu gazed yur pale eys to the fire as usual. If I hed said, 'go and get a buckett of watter,' yu wouldn't care. If yu hed, yu mite hayve come acruss with the hairy. We merely kneyw then if yu desservved yur neme. Yu lik bragging as 'My neme is Samson. My neme is Samson.'"

The daylight burned itself out; the night of the nameless fears, of the exuberant feelings, and of the eager evil had come.

"I shull go and luck the door. Evven if the hairy hed come, if it hed mauled yur wife right here, yu wouldn't snap a finger."

As she walked to the door, she grumbled, "Lifeless."

***

The darkness of the night was so tedious that the dogs had relinquished barking. The solitude was everywhere in the village. Everything but the hiss and hum of the trees dallying with the wind, jostling one another, was in the mood of inanimation.

The tombstones, which had infested everywhere impertinently, and the wind making them bellow were not in a relaxed mood either.

The echo of the rumbling water in the confines of the steep and high canyon walls was diffused everywhere, intending to suppress the roar of the two magnificent waterfalls by the west and east of the village.

No human was outside the dwellings except the two poor guys who had been watching the bridge since dusk.

In their home, Rosie was mollified; her affection, which was her natural mood, had prevailed over her temper.

Jack was helping his mother to unknit an outgrown sweater. Efdalin was still in the same place with the same gesture. He was attached to the window glass, listening to the melody of the stones drawn out by the wind.

When Rosie finished the rolling of the threads, Jack got to his feet and picked a book from the crowded bookshelf loaded with plenty of books. All those volumes were too thick, unfitting to the tastes of a teenager.

The book he picked up was a minor one, not in the same class as the rest.

"Mom, did you know I found a book Efdalin hasn't read yet?" Jack said, waving the book and glancing at his brother, who wasn't interested in them.

Efdalin kept his silence, not paying attention to his words.

Jack pulled the lowest drawer open in a chest of drawers and took out a notebook, leaving a coarse pencil inside.

He sat by Efdalin and opened his book at the page he had been reading; the page was flagged with a twig. He looked at the notes he had taken from the book proudly. "I'll read plenty of books and be a wise healer, better than Hippocrates, who has written the book my Oaken-Grandfather had shown me. My first action as a healer will be to cure Efdalin's heart condition."

Efdalin, without changing his gesture, could not stay apathetic anymore. "In the middle of nowhere, with no school, a prodigy by the name Jack rises, who could cure the incurable. With all his education and lore, even Father couldn't make me better. How on earth could you do that?"

"I'm going to be a better healer than Dad," Jack replied, frowning. "Soon, I am passing fifteen. No one near my age can read much like me but you. My dad would be proud of me."

"Like him, you would abandon us then," Efdalin said with resentment and with a barely noticeable sorrow.

Jack said, "He went to the city to find a cure for you. His absence doesn't mean he is gone. He will come back. Dad will come back. He has his reasons not to return from the city. He is the smartest person in this village. He will come back!"

Rosie's head sagged in sadness.

Efdalin looked back at the window and said, "The thing I need is not in the books, not in these at the least." He'd pointed to the bookshelf with his thumb.

The candle in their house went out last after the other cottages', so the entire village was plunged into darkness. An owl perched on their cottage roof. It hooted until a dog's unwanted barking sounded at far, and then the owl got bored with the tranquility in the village and flew to its forest.

A big, bad, black dog lying under the large porch of their house for a long time, raised its head, opened its eyes, and pricked its ears. None of these movements was discerned in the dark. The wind slackened. The sounds of the dog's sniffing spread into the air. The silhouette of its massive body became evident as it got to its feet. The animal was so imposing that it could utterly make wolves tack their tails between their legs and trounce them. It growled as it was stepping towards the woods. The reaction to its growling was the creaking of branches. The dog halted after a few more steps and looked at something for many seconds; then it whirled around itself and sat abruptly. Its tail wriggled irritably. It got to its feet, spun around the comer, drew close, and sniffed. It fled whining.

# Hugie vs. the Whale

On the spot that sees the bridge connecting the village to the mountain was only Jack. He was almost invisible inside a grove of trees above the broad pathway. Plane trees, lindens, oaks, olive trees, hornbeams, beach trees, and pines were everywhere without disturbing each other's spaces. The village was a few hundred yards back, away from the place he stood called the Watching-Station.

Before this spot was an enormous crevice, which kept the village as if dislodged from the mountain, as if some god had hacked a piedmont with a giant blade and created a canyon, which was never absent of water inside. It was ten yards in its narrowest point with an altitude no less than a hundred yards. The canyon surrounded the village on the east and west and then ended up as two waterfalls pouring down from a few hundred yards.

Two hours had passed since dawn. Jack would not be on his duty alone. Supposedly the companion person on this day shift would be Hugie, but there was no sign of him. One could discern when Hugie was approaching.

Their liability was to wait and watch the bridge, to signal to their folks if need be: a stranger, a mean creature, or a bunch of people they call the Quieties for which this watch was aiming.

The solitary bridge established over the canyon was at the northwest of the Watching-Station. The mosses on the stones of the bridge, aiming to beat time, were shining in all melancholic shades of yellow and green in this beautiful morning light.

Right after seeing straggler dwellings, the running water inside the canyon that headed east and then south with a sharp spin fell from several hundred yards: a stunning waterfall. On the west, before coming to the bridge, the canyon made a junction. So, the right arm was falling from west of the village, too, making another stunning waterfall.

After heavy rains, the waterfalls expanded and disturbed the silence eminently. Therefore, quick-eared people laden with mope could not sleep well some nights.

At last, Hugie's loud voice came from the village side; he was talking as usual.

When Jack saw him with some companions, this did not surprise him because Hugie's bragging, supernatural, incredulous yarns were worthy of hearing.

"Jack, my little boy, good morning to you. You've been on your duty in time, well done, my boy," Hugie said. He was twenty-nine, which meant he was older than the rest of the companions. His red hair and red beard had blended into each other; his sky blue eyes were sleepy. He stretched and eased his bulk body, reaching seven feet of height and three hundred pounds of weight. He was a giant.

"I surmised Zach would be in this watch, a surprise to see you, my little dear."

"Yes, it was him originally, but Mr. Mayor changed my shift. I think he thought I'm too young for the night shifts. I'll be on duty tomorrow morning as well."

"Yes, my boy, you are too young. On my side, the night watches are not my favorite either. Do you know why?"

Before Jack, Hugie's companions nodded fervently; they were seven in number and all younger than Jack.

Hugie placed his large backside to a suitable part of a tree and talked.

"Since I get bored at night times, I talk a lot. I don't want to keep all my companions and the creatures of the woods awake all night long. Besides, Wulf cannot resist my enchanting voice tone and comes to hear me. In that case, I might feel an urge to wring its neck, but you know I even cannot step on an ant intentionally, my little ones."

The leading one of the companions asked, "Brother Hugie, we've eaten our breakfast and are ready to hear from you more."

The rest of the companions nodded again, fervently.

"All right, my little kitties, let me tell you one of my dreams. You'll imagine then what might have been if our village had been founded in a seashore.

"One day, during nightfall, I was sitting on a chair at the beach, my feet in the water, cooling myself. Suddenly, I noticed there had been anew islet far between our twin islands. I suspected I was drunk on wine because the islet was changing its position. I asked my companions –half of the village, at the least– if I was right. They all said that I was right as I've always been.

"It was dinner time. Everybody was hungry. Yet, they were staying silent for me, anticipating to hear another glorious story. They were afraid when the new island changed its course towards us, but I said to them, 'Fear not.' But by the time I was saying this, more than half of them had already chickened out. When I stood up, only a few were with me, their legs shaking. The sound of howling dogs, braying donkeys, untimely crowing roosters, screaming women, and bawling kids were in the village though I had told them all, 'Fear not.' I saw the islet was jetting water up. So, I understood that it was a whale."

The youngling, the last companion, asked, "What is a whale, brother Hugie?"

Hugie interrupted his tale and said, "It is a fish almost twice the size of me." Then he added in a low voice, almost whispering. "It had come to eat my people."

"Does a whale eat people, Hugie, sir?" Jack asked.

"Yes, it does, my boy. This was a human-eater kind."

"I yelled to the cottages, 'A whale is coming, my dear little ones, but fear not! Hugie is here to deal with it.' I removed my clothes, leaving only my underpants, and threw myself into the water. My body temperature was so high with my intention that the sea around me began to vaporize as I've been in the water. I sized the distance between the whale and me up and then swam. Sha pa da shu pa da, Sha pa da shu pa da ..."

Hugie's long and large arms were swimming in the air as he talked.

"I'm swimming to the whale so mightily that if they'd tied me, I could pull a ship behind me. Of course, as soon as I got in the water, the whale saw me and thought another whale was coming towards it. I'm still swimming. Sha pa da shu pa da, Sha pa da shu pa da ...Water is still vaporizing with my heat. The whale is coming to me, and I'm going to the whale. Finally, we hit our heads together in the middle of the sea."

Hugie was demonstrating as he was talking; he hit his head to the boulder of a thick tree.

"I said to the whale, 'Go back. Don't stir trouble up.' The whale did not say anything but gave me an evil stare. It was surprising to see such a creature like me, frightened by me at the same time. A column of water sprang up from its hill with a great force. I understood the whale would not give up. So, I plucked my thumb right into its pipe where the water was jetting out. The animal tried to puff its water, but my thumb was there."

Hugie found a tree hole suitable for his thick thumb to show how he had performed it.

"The whole water stood in the animal. It couldn't recirculate in it because of my thumb. It puffed but choked up, puffed, and choked up. The whale's brain begun to swell. The creature became dizzy. Then I slapped it with my free hand. The whale became miserable. I unplugged my thumb, and the water jammed in it puffed with a great force, so high that it cut a cloud over us into two. Then I slapped the whale with my other hand this time. I didn't need another thud because the fish was knocked down already. I pulled the elastic band from my underpants and bound the whale from its tooth to me, and then swam to the shore with the whale. Sha pa da shu pa da, Sha pa da shu pa da ...

"In the meantime, lightning flashed, thunder roared, and rain poured. Sha pa da shu pa da, Sha pa da shu pa da ...I brought the fish to the shore, but my people were in their dwellings, frightened, and forgot their dinners. They were all hungry. But I, Hugie, first of his name, heard their tummies were grumbling. I grabbed the fish from its tail and dragged it up to the dry land. Then I took my dagger from my clothes, stabbed the fish on top, and planted my dagger on it like a flag. In a second, eleven flashes of lightning hit the dagger and cooked the fish good. After that, the clouds melted, and the stars appeared. Then I grabbed the tail and shook the fish. Shake, shake, shake....After each shake, its white, deliciously cooked meat parts separated from the body, rolling towards the dwellings. Then my folks came out of their cottages and took their meat. They fed the fish, and all were so full that they didn't eat anything for the next two days. And my little ones, I did not please myself with a single bite from the meat."

#

#  Two Strong Men

The sun was rising over the moistened soil. Roosters began crowing in their coops; cows', goats', and sheep's udders were full of milk.

The locks unlocked; the doors opened. The field tools handled, and the swollen udders milked.

A good-looking swarthy man in his late twenties was in his house's front yard, stretching and trying to smarten up. A good sleep had purged all the bad from his body and soul.

After yawning and stretching one more time, he walked through the garden, played with the flowers of a Melissa tree, and made them release their beautiful fragrance. A basin with no fountain, carved from granite stone, was waiting for him, with a copper bowl of water residing on its side.

When a high octave whistle resounded in the narrow path coming to the cottage, his rejoicing was at the top. As he stooped to wash his face, the giant man emerged in front of the garden gate.

Hugie finished his melodic whistle and thundered with a hulky voice worthy of his massive body.

"Look at that Samson, barely awake, washing his face. The ripened stuff can't wait for harvest anymore, my petite boy."

"Good morning to you, too, Hugie," Samson said, wiping the water on his face off. He straightened up and grinned.

"Hey, Samson, I thought of it again last night..." He leaned upon the old boards of the garden gate and gritted them good. "You're not as strong as your grandpa Samson Sr. When he was at your age, he could get down a massive bull by grabbing its legs. His blood mixed with ordinary people until it came to you, a generation past, after all. Hereupon, I reckon your capacity is less than his, my friend. Whereas look at me, to Hugie who is the first of his kind, the most glorious man ever lived, wrenching hearts of men with jealousy and of women with love..."

Samson's wife, Calina walked to them carrying a towel. "Good morning, Hugie, why don't you come in?" She passed the towel to Samson.

"Good morning, Calina. I better not, my dear. Otherwise, your lazy husband will mess around all day."

"Come on, Hugie, stop being as serious as the elders. Why don't you enjoy springtime?" she said, smiling.

"How on Earth could I Calina? It's my nature. I can't get relief yet to finish the work. Or else no whites are on me. Whenever I look, they grin as red as they were, my dear." His huge guffaw stifled their laughter.

Hugie ran an eye over the sky, and then gingered up his friend. "Come on, Samson, the sun has climbed up already. Before the rain comes again, we must reap the stuff."

Samson knew that Hugie's insistence would never stop. So, he finished his activities quickly, and then they hit the road.

The sun was extracting the fragrances of flowers, diffusing them into the atmosphere. Unimaginable hues were everywhere: impossible, yet beautiful, a harmony of red and blue; a variety of purple; dominant, vivacious greens; the brown, flirting with yellow and orange to forget its disliking of own color.

The men walked, smelling beauties and eying magnum opus, being grateful to the entity in unaccountable and unspeakable but intensely sensational joy.

Hugie gave his friend a glance. "Are you ready for getting down? This time you will feel my overwhelming power in your marrow, too, my short-legged boy!"

These words put a hint of a smile on Samson's face. "You'd said the same before the last carnival, yet I haven't felt your overwhelming power neither in my marrow nor in my bones," he said to the big boy, who would never get bored with contention.

"Do not agitate me, my boy! A kebab had made me the runs right on the day. Half of my power was absent, yet I'd endured quite some time. Admit it."

He had almost doubled Samson by weight and bulk. Besides, he had his power and strength worthy of his magnificent physique, yet he couldn't win the power contention with Samson, not even once.

Calina called after them when they were about to wander off. "Samson, wait!"

They halted and frowned at her as she ran to them carrying a handbag.

"My light-headed husband, what would you eat for lunch?"

Calina was a good runner of the village in the days of her youth and a beauty queen, but those days had passed, giving unnecessary meat to her. She delivered the pack to Samson. "You would go hungry without your beloved wife."

"Die from starvation probably," the good-looking, swarthy man said and kissed his wife on the cheek.

"Don't hang about the fountain. All the girls of the village must be there by now," Calina said.

"This isn't fair, my dear!" Hugie protested Calina's claim. "The girls will miss out seeing the most marvelous man who ever lived and who has been the most precious achievement of creation. Let their hearts fidget in this spectacular spring morning, their minds blow-up of seeing Hugie..."

The giant's discourse cut short when they heard Aria's cry. She was Samson and Calina's daughter. The little girl stood at the yard door for a moment and then scrambled towards them, drowned in tears as she saw her mother. "Mamaa, wait for meee!"

Calina was annoyed. "What will I do with this girl? She even tags along when I go to the privy." She walked back to her.

"Your Calina's jealousy has been legendary, my boy," Hugie said, speaking softly, being wary anyway.

Samson nodded agreeingly and did not put himself in danger of speaking.

They walked in the narrow avenue of the village, shouldering fruit trees effused from the gardens, which were as brides clad blossoms.

They were more awakened as they breathed plenty of oxygen and talked more as they became more awake. When Jack appeared on the road, running with sleepy eyes, the gigantic person's joy was flooding.

"Run, my boy! You're too late for the watch," Hugie teased him. Because Jack had recently begun his watching tasks, he had to do it for three consecutive days.

The boy was in a hurry, but he stopped and grinned when he noticed them. Jack came closer. "Brother Hugie!" he said with a mocking tone and a smile on his face. "Have you been working out in the woods secretly and getting stronger, sir? You've been throwing big rocks, bending trees, and eating plenty of sesame and grape syrup. They say so, sir."

Hugie sulked but saved face all the same. He clenched his fists tightly on the hips and scowled. But as everybody who knew Hugie, would think that becoming angry made him more sympathetic.

"Jack, you imp. Look at him, Samson. He is teasing with the one and only Hugie as if he had grown enough. Aren't you late for your watch anyway? Get on with it, my little weasel."

Jack stopped again after a few quick strides. "Oh, speaking of it, when is your watch, sir? I'll set mine with yours. I have been enjoying your yarns. Because I am not fond of night watches like you, we perform our day watch together in high spirits, sir!"

The big guy blushed; his red hair and beard became inconspicuous next to his skin. Though the giant man was furious now, he was far cuter as well. Samson turned his face away from Hugie to disguise his mocking grin.

"No funnies for you anymore, my naughty boy. If the mayor would come and beg, yet I would not narrate to you. When I tell funnies to kith and kin, I will put pinecones into your little ears, and not let you hear a single word, my wicked boy!

"Do you know what I'll do? I'll venture out into the woods by myself in the middle of a night, find the damned Wulf to sit face to face and to make it fall about laughing with my funny talk, and will come back with the critter on my shoulder as my humble service to this village, my impish boy!"

Jack beamed with pleasure. "Oh, no, please, sir, Hugie, sir! You're getting angry too swift, my dear sir!"

"You sirred enough, my rascal boy! Run to your watch," he said before turning a corner and disappear.

As Jack was looking and giggling after two men, his duty crossed his mind. He had already started to run, muttering "Watch, the watch..." that he collided with Jane.

"Woooavvv," Jack said.

"Ooowww," Jane said.

"Oh, damn, sorry, Jane. You all right?"

"I would be better if some dumb knucklehead hadn't toppled me. What's your hurry anyway?"

"Oh, I am late for the watch."

"The watch, huh? And I thought you were going to see your beloved at the fountain side."

Jack perplexed. "Beloved? What beloved? Look, I don't have time for your hints. I need to go to the quiety watch."

"You can't fool me, lover boy. Don't struggle in vain. I know who she is. Birds told me."

Jack's heart was now pounding like crazy, and his face got red like Hugie's hair. "I have no idea what you are implying. You are not awake. You better wash your face in Azmak's chilling water!"

He hurried quickly.

Jane squinted after him for a while, and under her breath, she said, "Oh, you can't lie for shit." Then she headed on her way, her nose in the air.

# A Woman with Snake Curls

Meanwhile, a woman who had snuggled down in the mouth of a cave woke and glanced around uncomprehendingly. Her dress was damp with dewdrops; her joints were congealed and brittle. She seemed languished. She frowned and then ran her hand through her long curly hair. She was clothed in a handmade, high-necked wool tunic of emerald green down to her knees, which was like its owner, extraordinary and beautiful.

Something touched her skin on her breast. She dipped her hand and pulled out a necklace made of leather, bearing a gold pendant, which massiveness was fascinating and eye-capturing, with a heart shape pardoning its bumpy artisanship.

Looking upon the chilling darkness of the cave, she shivered with cold and then got to her feet, stepping out of it quickly.

It was silent outside, too. Neither birds chirped, bugs rustled, nor the wind murmured, but the faint purring of a river at a distance. A few yards away were trees, younger and serried; the sun gleamed through their leaves. Droplets clinging to the branches lined as string beads waited for a cause to a dropdown.

She felt uneasy with the sense that someone watching her. Ambling through the trees, she found a walkable path among them. She stood in the middle of the path for a while; her gaze swung left, and then right. Her head rose up, and her ears cocked. The slow revival of the surrounding cheerful life rejoiced her. A warm smile curled her lips, destroying her mysterious look; she turned to a vivacious young woman. Her arms opened wide; her body whirled around. She was as happy as a bird with permissiveness. She gave an ear to their chirps and tweets in joy; she would have gone by them to join their songs if she could have.

The young woman gazed blankly at the dateless tombstones, which were on both sides of the path and beyond. She wavered on her way of walking for a while. On her left, the route slightly climbed up the mountain. When she turned to the other side, the roaring of a waterfall far away reached her ears; she was thirsty. She picked up a stick and snapped it into two parts, tossed the bigger one up into the air, looked at the rod as it fell on the ground, and smiled. The desire and the broken part of the stick pointed in the same direction. She ambled towards the right.

***

At that moment, a man named Zachariah scrambled around hastily. His head was down, looking for something, kicking and crushing the whole foliage with his slender and quick body.

"Damned thing," he said, dredging and grubbing up in anger. As Zachariah was scrabbling here and there, another young man a little distance away, who had leaned back against a large tree with his head and right shoulder, was snoring with his mouth open. A shabby musket against the tree on the other side, like the man sleeping, was far from being trustworthy.

The thundering water inside the canyon was powerful now; the snow on the crest of the mountain had melted, accreting the water running within.

One day, if the bridge collapsed, nobody would know what to do. They would not have passed over the canyon; to overfly the abyss surrounding the west and the south, they ought to have been as birds. They would have lived on sort of an island, implausible to get off.

The path, which emerged from the supreme forest, from a dim, district, and woody wilderness that people hardly knew of, was parted into two branches. One came through a small grove of fruit trees, passed the bridge, and continued down to Efdalin and Jack's seized-by-mother point. The other one went parallel to the canyon before the Watching-Station alongside another orchard. It saw a few houses of the village by the poor allowance of cheeky and jealous trees and then directed to the south, and as some fellows said, it grew to a real road and arrived at the town in the end. However, young folks had not been to the town ever.

Every creature, man, or beast, who intended to pass over the bridge, which was the only possible way of coming to the village —aside from flying— could be seen from the place where Zachariah was scrambling.

At least, the people of the village had believed so. Something taken as truth was worth more than the actual reality, after all.

Zachariah grumbled plaintively. "How on earth did I lose when I was utterly cherishing it? What have I done? Damn..." He stopped abruptly. "I even can't remember if I took it with me when I came to the watch." Then his frustration peaked, and the young man raised his voice insensibly. "He is the cause of this. Hugie and his never-ending funnies confused me at the outset of the night."

The guy sleeping under the tree was startled and woke up with Zachariah's loud wailing.

"Hey, Zach, I have been asleep. It is already morning." He rubbed his eyes. "Why haven't you poked me to get up?"

"You sleep, Kea. Sleep well," Zachariah said, repining. "If a bunch of Quieties had passed close by, you would have hardly noticed any of them. Was this your so-called watch?" His head was still down in pursuit.

Native inhabitants' attention focused on these two rackety creatures. Squirrels slid down a few paces from the treetops. Woodpeckers hitting trees stopped, and sleeping owls opened an eye.

Kea got to his feet and stretched. "Who would come to take over the watch?"

"Jack and Bade," Zachariah said.

"Mother's darling Jack might be in his bed by now. He is afraid of night watches. His twin, Efdalin, is the spunky one for sure, but he is sick. Mr. Madra does not assign him for daylight watches either."

He smirked with something striking his thought. "Imagine Mr. Madra should put Jack with Hugie for a night watch. Their jittery would be something to see. Two cravens would look horrified, as they hugged each other," Kea said and guggled noisily. Then he staggered by continuing to talk and stretching his legs towards another tree for a pee. "Hey, Zach, I think I have heard some wolf howling last night."

"You slept all night long. You might have surmised your snoring as howling. Don't worry. The Quieties will confuse your snoring to Wulf's growl, so it was pretty safe." Zachariah kept squinting without raising his head.

"Well, someone is a bit cranky."

In the meantime, the woman wearing the emerald green dress was about to pass through the bridge, but Zachariah was unable to move his eyes off the ground. So, he could not see her.

As the trees covered her up, Kea turned his head to Zachariah. At this moment, his position was very suitable to see the bridge; the woman would be in his sight very soon.

Finally, realizing Zachariah's pursuit, Kea asked, "What are you looking for?" A small pinecone dropped and hit his head; a squirrel fussed on the top of the tree, which Kea was pissing on. Kea's head turned up. The woman was visible from his position, but the eyes of the men were looking somewhere else.

Since the woman was at a distance and leveled below the men's sight, among the thick pine trees, she failed to see these two human beings, and because of the loud jingle of the foliage, she was unable to hear them either.

"I've lost it," Zachariah said, raising his head and glancing at the bridge right after the woman passed and was out of sight through the lane towards the village.

Kea glanced at Zachariah, releasing his eyes from the squirrel. "What?"

"Damn it," Zachariah said.

Kea finished peeing and was tidying up. He could not make sense of his fellow's anger. "What is this temper in the morning? What happened?"

"What do you think I am searching for frantically?"

Kea went near him. "Dropped gold?"

"Are you kidding? How on earth could I find some?"

Kea stretched again. "Some folks have been finding gold shards and selling them to Mr. Coinner. What else were you carrying anyway?" After a few seconds, he perceived the situation and gazed at Zachariah gapingly. "No, that's impossible, really. Damn."

Right at that moment, Jack came. He stopped and stooped, gasping for more air. "I came, big brothers."

He looked about and did not see the other watcher Bade. "I thought I was late, but apparently, I am not too late."

Kea pulled out something from his pocket attentively and extended it to Jack. "You are late enough, rookie. Keep this hooter carefully. Otherwise, you desperately seek as Zachy here."

"Has he lost a quiety hooter?"

Zachariah was listening to them. He stood and raised his head to the heavens, cursed heavily to all evil creatures, living or dead and to their existent and existed lineages, and then continued his seeking.

Jack took the quiety hooter as touching something extremely exquisite and then put it deep into his pocket cautiously.

There was only one person who could carve wood to make a proper quiety hooter; they were precious.

"He has been all up. Let's help his seeking," Kea whispered to the newbie.

# The Marked Girl

On an oleander tree dressed in pink flowers was a joyful sparrow blessing the morning light with its chirps.

The door of a house a few yards away opened frantically, and the bird flew into the air. A sweat-soaked maiden threw out herself, gasping. A black-plum-shape spot on the lower-jugular of her was as though waxing-waning with each inhalation-exhalation. She was frightened.

Her brunette, lank hair lengthening down to her waist had been tousled and wrapped half of her pretty face. She glimpsed at the woods with her eyes full of fear and staggered about for a while. Everything was like most of her peers were feeling: restful and dull.

She relieved a bit, her breathing eased, and her gesture loosened, and the same bird alighted on the same tree branch, continued its song where it left off.

Corinna looked at the bird.

An old, feeble man came out of the door clicking his cane as quick as he could. "Corinna, my dear, are you all right?" he said, sweeping most of his worries out of his face.

"I'm fine, Dad. Nothing to worry about." Corinna gripped an empty, tin-coated copper bucket lying by the wall. "I'm going for water, Dad," she said before disappearing swiftly.

The old man watched her awhile. "All right, my dear," he said, drawing a sigh.

***

Corinna put her bucket afloat into the elongated and mossy basin of the fountain and then glanced at her best friend Jane, who stood behind.

The fountain in the shape of a dome was ancestral and reminiscent of the ancient times, and was there long before the oldest house of the village. It had been built of volcanic rocks. Amethyst and jade stones were inlaid in the gaps of its dark green wall, and they sparkled when the sun shone. Its basin was always full of water, giving remedy to the animals of the village and to those of the woods at times. Nobody had seen the absence of water from its iron pipe, not having a spigot. Summer or winter, it has flown with the same afflux and delivered life to the village.

They were alone. The voices of the women coming for water with jingling copper buckets at their hands were at a distance.

"I had a weird dream last night," Corinna said with a little timidly but eagerly as well.

"Of course, you and your weird dreams. Can't you sleep well for a night?"

"Look, I see things, and I can't do anything about them. Besides, this one was no less bizarre."

"I haven't heard of a dream from you that was not bizarre."

"I won't tell you if you don't want to hear."

"Don't tell if you want."

"I am not going to."

"I am not going to listen to either."

"Fine."

"Fine."

After a few seconds of silence, Corinna yielded first. "An alien was coming to our village, a woman, someone with fierce snakes wriggling in her hair." Corinna remembered her dream; her eyes gazed gloomily. She had handled her two-way-braided long tresses unwittingly. Her bucket was almost filled, sinking into water deeper.

Jane's eyes opened wide. "Snakes in her hair?"

"No, hair was snakes." Corinna pulled her bucket out.

Jane giggled. "Don't the snakes bite the woman, girl? Oh, no! Obviously, they must be tamed."

Corinna stripped out from the realm that she was in and then sulked. "My bad," she said and walked resentfully towards her home with her bucket.

Jane scurried and seized her arm. "Wait a minute, girl!" She stopped Corinna. "You have been quite petulant recently. Calm down. Tell me, I'm listening." She dragged her friend back and laid her own bucket into the basin for filling.

Corinna calmed down a bit; she put her bucket on the ground, stood, and talked with hands on her hips. "If you giggle once more, I'll not tell you anything, anymore."

Both knew well that this would not happen.

"All right," Jane clung to her arm, "tell me, my best friend, who can't find relief from her colorful imagination, even in sleep."

Corinna sighed and then continued. "The woman walked to this fountain. She drank water. Her snakes did, too. Then they chirped like birds. Then from where she came, from the High-Wood, a roar rumbled like a thunderstruck. The mountain was shaking."

"It seems the snakes called the roaring thing with their chirpings, girl." Although Jane was biting her lips to stifle her grin, derisive twinkles in her eyes revealed her mood.

Fortunately, ruminating Corinna with her eyes stuck on the flowing water of the iron pipe had gone into a sort of a trance; so, she did not catch the wry expression on Jane's face. "I didn't know where she ran away because the roar awakened me. It was terrible."

Jane's bucket was full. She pulled it out and walked away from the fountain. Corinna followed her.

"I don't understand why you dream such weird stuff all the time. You have always been that way. When we were kids, your stories from your dreams frightened us to death, but now they are funny. A woman is coming here with snakes rather than hair! Should we tell this to my mayor dad for an alert anyway? What do you say?"

Corinna gave her a blank look but did not say anything all the same.

As they were walking to their homes, the woman wearing the green dress emerged at the end of the road. Her outfit provided concealment. She nestled behind a majestic beech tree coated with moss.

The residents of the village were too busy to notice her. They were pacing on their occupations, unruffled and relaxed, chatting on general matters, and pouring over themselves in daily avocations.

Living far from civilization meant no boredom for them. They were not looking for a life better than working in the fields in sweat and dust until exhausted every day or seeing the same people and talking about the recurring troubles; neither was a nuisance. They had been like stones and trees of this mountain that features plenty of natural wonders. They were born here and would die here; yet in every few generations, rebellious spirits have sprung, seized by the wind dismantling them away from this land and never came back.

Seeing the fountain, the alien woman felt how thirsty she was and licked her chapped lips.

Next to the fountain was a ruddy-faced woman talking with exuberant body language, surrounded by middle-aged wives like her, who enjoyed her talking.

"I said to Leonard, 'Teach my son Alexander. Otherwise, I won't let you get in my bed for a month."

One of the women asked impatiently, "What did he say then, Mrs. Elizabeth?"

"What did he say? Does he say a word? He just waved his arms nervously indeed." Elizabeth's lively guffaw outmatched others.

Damsels who gathered at a distance from the fountain chatted and giggled, waiting for their turns.

Men emerging among the cottages in one or two at a time, were going to the fields, and struggling to stay awake.

The woman watched those entire hubbubs for a while. She hesitated whether to go next to them or not; she gulped yet again, peering at the flowing water of the fountain. No saliva was in her mouth to moisten her throat.

As Corinna and Jane were walking to their homes, Jane smirked. "At home, I will braid my hair tangled to resemble snakes in the head. It will be beautiful when I attach my buckles from the tips."

Corinna stopped, put her bucket on the ground, crossed her arms on her chest, and then glared at Jane; her back was against the road.

"What? Doesn't that sound nice to you, my friend? I know what to do." Jane put her bucket on the ground, too. "Look, I closed my eyes." She turned to Corinna and raised her right arm, pointing her forefinger to the woods as well as distracting her voice facetiously. "You snake-haired female reveal yourself. We have no fear of you. We will kick your ass and send you back to where you came."

Because she was stifling her laughter, her facial muscles were prickling.

Corinna sulked, grabbed her bucket in silence, and wended her way, disappearing.

Waiting with eyes closed, Jane chuckled; her face was towards the road and the woods. At last, she opened her eyes; but then the eyes opened wider unintentionally.

The woman with the snake-like curls had emerged among the trees. She was walking down the road with quick strides, impatient as the wind blew and wriggled her hair in the air.

Throwing furtive glances at them, the woman arrived at the fountain. People noticing the woman aborted their activity to look at her. A girl grabbed her barely filled bucket hastily and stepped back a few yards away from the fountain.

After a last, timid glance, the alien woman quenched her thirst from the flowing water of the fountain, which its stones were sparkling at this very hour of the morning. Then she washed her face and laid her hair back before straightening her shoulders up.

The citizens of the village gathered together and encircled her. Standing in the front, Jane's mouth agape, without blinking an eye, drew close and gazed at her wet hair where the curly forelocks fell on her forehead.

Throwing her bucket, Jane fled.

Mumbling to each other, the crowd surrounded the woman and watched her as a creature from another world. She was the first person to come to the village in years. Who was more feral, was unclear, she or they?

Elizabeth broke through the crowd and stood before them. She had intended to say something until the voice of Earth-Mother came from out of the bunch. "Why have yu thronged at the funtain as thursty crows, women. What is happening here? Get out. Make way for yur mother."

When Earth-Mother bulled and opened a way for herself, only Elizabeth was between the woman and her. Eventually, Earth-Mother's heavy looks beat Elizabeth's dominancy; she ducked her head and stood aside.

The alien woman was a surprise for Earth-Mother, too. She put her bucket on the ground and stood arms akimbo. "Who are yu?"

The woman with the curly flocks winced as a wildcat rather than giving an answer.

Earth-Mother shooed the crowd away. "Oh, my good mother, she is efraid! Give her a break. Come on, go and milk yur goaties. Don't yu have the stuff to do?"

The old woman approached the fountain more and stared her in the eye for a while. When she decided that the soul she was looking at was decent, she grinned gladly.

Though the crowd dreading Earth-Mother had stepped back a few yards, they had not drawn away entirely.

"No one had come to our land since many yirs, my girl. Who are yu? From where did yu come? Yu sim very hayggard. Come on, say from where yu are coming."

The young woman still did not say a word.

Right after that, Earth-Mother put her bucket in the basin and turned to her. "Why don't yu speak, my girl? Has the cat got yur tungue?"

The woman scowled. Earth-Mother did not urge her anymore, yet the old woman felt uneasy about the situation. "Fine, suyt yourself. Speyk whenever yu wish."

Earth-Mother stared at the water, filling her bucket for a while without saying a word, and then cast an eye over the crowd and the stranger, who was still looking about tensely. Finally, she turned to the woman with the snake curls and said, "Yu must be hungry. Come, I've cuyked soup and a wonderful bannock in the morning. Come, let's nurish yu good."

Earth-Mother grabbed her bucket that was almost filled, beckoned her with a head gesture for her to follow, and then walked away.

The woman with the curly hair stood still. After a few steps, Earth-Mother repeated her beckoning with her hand and a warm smile.

Thereupon, the guest who has already felt uneasy enough followed her.

Elizabeth and the crowd behind her looked on them in silence.

***

In the meantime, somewhere inside the village, two middle-aged women having a friendly conversation had their hearts in their mouths when Jane arrived breathless.

Jane hung on the short one's arm. "Mom, if you knew what you have missed..."

"What happened, my dear?" the woman asked hastily. "Stop and catch your breath a minute."

"A woman came to the fountain this morning, Mom, with snake hair. Have you seen Corinna?"

Jane ran away as quick as she came as her mother was saying, "No, I haven't. What are you talking about? What is snake hair?"

The neighbor woman, standing next to Jane's mother, babbled, "A woman with snakes in her hair in the village? Oh, my goodness! Let's herald to Mr. Madra immediately."

***

At another house's veranda, a young man who was satisfied with his slumber had reached many men's desire, stretching in pleasure and yawning in content, when Jane came.

"Mr. Alexander, a woman came this morning. Her hair was snakes."

Mr. Leonard appeared in the door as Alexander was saying, "What? Wait! What are you saying, Jane?"

"Your mother, Mrs. Elizabeth was there as well. She saw her."

Jane could not stay anymore. "I shall inform my father," she said, quickening her feet.

"Wait! Mr. Mayor might not have wakened yet. I shall tell him later," Alexander said, scratching his balding head.

Jane stopped for an instant. "All right," she said and then asked, "Have you seen Corinna?"

Alexander would have said something, had she not flown promptly. He frowned and said, "Did she say the hair was snakes?" right before yawning again.

Mr. Leonard appeared at the door of the house.

"Good morning, Father."

The reticent man accepted the greeting by nodding only and not saying a word.

"Has my mother gone to the fountain?"

Mr. Leonard nodded.

"I'd better ask my mom what's going on. She knows better," Alexander muttered, looking after Mr. Leonard's way out.

Jane's voice was resonating at a distance. "A woman came to the village. A woman with snakes in the hair came to the village..."

***

When Earth-Mother opened the door of her house, no one was inside. On the wall ahead was a charcoal portrait of her husband, Mr. Samson Sr.

It was hard to estimate the age of the man in the picture, but the look of the bearded and bony face was somehow convincing of his notorious strength.

The old woman shambled in, and put her bucket next to the stove, which has gotten black with years of wood-burning inside; even so, it had not yielded yet.

On a table in the middle of the parlor of the two-room stone house was a big, warm bannock with its fragrant catching the nose right away. This cottage, like the others, was built with volcanic rocks and special clay.

Earth-Mother took a bowl that was made of red clay and filled it with savory mushroom pottage from a pot lying over the verge of the stove and then put it on the table together with a wooden spoon as she called the young woman still standing at the doorway. "Come, dear, don't heysitayt anymure. I had piycked up the mushrooms early in the morning. Yummy! Come in, siyt. Apparently, my guy waylked away as usual. Drat, liyfeless."

When Earth-Mother sliced the bread, the scene of the foods and the warmhearted property owner beat the young woman's timidity. She entered, sat in a chair by the table, and paid no mind her necklace leaped out. She devoured the food.

***

When a crowd gathered in front of Elizabeth's house, her dear son Alexander was with her.

Someone asked from the crowd, "People have said her hair is snakes, Mrs. Elizabeth. Is that true?"

"Don't feed me with that nonsense!" Elizabeth said with her dominating body language. You have come to believe such stuff more than ever lately. You hear fables and fairy tales too much." She frowned and continued. "Her head has plain hair."

"Did she say who she was, Mom?" Alexander inquired interestedly.

"This point is the real deal for sure," Elizabeth said with her exaggerative voice. "The woman did not say anything, not a single word."

A loud murmur of conversations poured from the crowd; it was frightening for them to face someone who didn't talk.

"Yes, the woman didn't open her mouth, but the precious mother of the village drove her to her own home. Or else I would have questioned her good, right over there back at the fountain. We would have found out then if she was a quiety."

The murmurs loudened more.

At that moment, Mr. Leonard, standing out of the way, watched them by himself.

"Does Mayor Madra know about the stranger?" a woman asked Alexander.

"The Village Council worked until late. None of the council members have woken up yet," Elizabeth's son explained.

"Let's get more information about her. If she is a quiety, Mrs. Elizabeth reveals the truth from her anyhow," another woman said.

The crowd surrounding Alexander stared at Elizabeth, and, of course, she enjoyed the situation and made the most of now before talking swaggeringly. "I don't go to your mother's home. I'm under my oath. If you bring her to me, I'll question her."

When Elizabeth made eyes at her son, he took in the scene at a glance. "Let's go bring her here," the son said with an ill-fitting leader gesture.

As the people shepherding with Alexander departed to Earth-Mother's house, a few yards away, Efdalin was watching them; he left there swiftly.

Until the crowd disappeared, Mrs. Elizabeth looked at them with the joy of victory on her face.

***

The young woman was halfway through her soup. The striking look of her necklace and the tawdry calligraphy carved on it had already drawn Earth-Mother's attention eminently. "Yu hayve been pretty starving, my dear. Tell me when yu ayt something?"

The stranger opened her mouth as though she would have said something, yet she gave up and hung her head down.

"Won't yu say something, my beautiful girl? Earth-Mother dosint do yu any harm. No one can dayr to touch yu. Come on, say something to relieve me."

Thereupon, the guest waved his arms and hands. She was saying, "I'm afraid," in this way, but the old woman did not know of these wavings.

Earth-Mother sulked and waddled back and forth in the room. She remained silent and finally came and sat on the chair beside her. "The foylks of this viylage don't like people who say theyir words in this way, dear. I don't understand what yu are saying with yur arms and hands eyther. Won't yu ever talk?"

The guest shook her head convulsively and then hung her head in silence.

As Earth-Mother stared at her and thought about the situation, an emerging smile on her wrinkled face grew slowly. "But yu understand me, don't yu dear?"

The guest nodded.

"Theyn yu are nut one uf the Quieties. Thiy can't undorstend what wi ara seying."

She hugged the young woman incontinently, crunched her bones with affection, and then turned her head to the entrance door that was opening as though someone entering. Thereupon, the guest turned her head to the door, too. However, the door was closed, and nobody was inside.

# Efdalin

Under the enormous, namesake tree that nobody would dare to rest other than him, sat Oaken-Grandfather. His particular armchair was made in the city for the old man as soft as to embrace his old bones tenderly and as hard as to help his muscles to sustain his emaciated body. This part of the unique public house of the village was reserved for him permanently.

He listened to the rustles of the oaken tree's leafage. His eyes stared somewhere in the distance; his mind contemplated the issues, disquieting him for a long time. He unbuttoned his leather waistcoat, which he does not remove in summer or winter, for the extreme age gives him chills all the time. Summer was close. He raised his head and looked over the mountain, towering grim, up to the clouds keenly. He had named High-Wood there, to the land where his most beautiful tales had taken place their origins.

When the transportation of the wood chairs commenced, Efdalin came running. "Grandfather, I need to tell you something."

"Well, bust my buttons! My dearie grand-grand-grandson came. Have you felt the thirst for a tale?"

"No, Grandpa, I am fifteen now. I am not a kid anymore," Efdalin said breathlessly with eyes wide open and an exaggerated timbre of voice, contradicting the meaning of the words he said.

He was at such an age that one would fall into being a child or an adult, and mostly to the wrong side at the wrong time.

"People say that an alien woman came to the village this morning. Her hair is full of snakes. Earth-Mother took the woman to her home. The people of the village went to see the woman."

Efdalin was still panting. He tried to gain his breath back for a while. "Mrs. Elizabeth said the woman might be one of the Quieties, Grandpa." After a few more deep breaths, he continued. "People seemed hyped up. Do they harm Earth-Mother?"

Oaken-Grandfather nodded his head forethoughtfully. "Someone came here at last. Do not worry, my son! This excitement of theirs is because of my stories. I enhanced our folks' imagination." He raised his eyebrows with a hint of a smile on his face. "I don't think the woman you mentioned has snake hair, and Earth-Mother could break stones by herself good. Did you really believe the woman you mentioned has snakes instead of hair, like Medusa of Aegean Mythology?"

The boy's thrill abandoned him. "No, of course not," he said.

"But you would prefer she had the snakes, wouldn't you?"

A reluctant half-smile appeared on Efdalin's face; his breathing had not turned regular yet.

"Was there anybody from the council among them?"

"No, there wasn't."

"All right then. I want you to run an errand for me. The word run is figurative here for sure. You shouldn't run at all." The old man looked at Efdalin in the eye to impose how serious he was on the meaning of not hurrying.

"You are going to find Mayor Madra and tell him about the situation. If you cannot find him, go to Mr. Yunt, or someone of the council members will do good."

"All right," the boy said. He would have run.

"Stop!" his grandfather said. The old man looked at him frowning. "You're a clever boy who does not need something to be said twice, I believe. Don't you mind me at all? I already said you shouldn't run."

Efdalin cracked a smile. "You said shouldn't, not musn't."

The old man shook his head. "Do not run, just walk casually. The word hurry suits neither this land nor its people. Secondly, I need to talk to you before the errand. Come, sit. This is necessary for your heart. I know a young person does not like to hear bits of advice, especially if it is given to him."

Oaken-Grandfather raised his bushy eyebrows. He would do this every time before saying something important. "Though it is the right time to get a great benefit from it, from the right one for sure."

The boy gave a slight nod and dragged one of the remaining wood chairs against his grandfather's armchair, looked at the old man in the eye, and waited for what he had to say.

"You misbehaved yesterday yet again. For that reason, you are grounded. No stories for you tonight. I have spoken to your mother. She will not let you and Jack come tonight."

Efdalin cast his eyes down. "The declaration of punishment was a part of the advice thing, Grandpa?"

"Yes, it was. This is indispensable for a parent, not to get a far more punishment with the loss of his offspring. You will plunge your mother into deep sadness at her young age. She does not deserve this."

"Jack was with me," Efdalin said with an attempt to mitigate his fault.

"Jack is going after you, not because he is curious about the High-Wood. He is compelled to go with you somehow."

"Why should he be compelled?"

"You are twins."

"So?"

"You are not like twins mentioned in the books and all. You have a link far stronger than all other twins." He heaved a sigh. "Almost all. Anyway, you are two different people, but somehow you are like one as well."

The old man turned his head as though he was looking at someone in the woods and took a deep breath when his reminiscences made him sad. "Hard to understand," he said and exhaled before he fell into a brown study.

Efdalin examined his grandfather during his unusually prolonged absent state. "Grandfather, you haven't become senile, have you?"

Oaken-Grandfather freed his eyes that have been stuck to an inexistent point and laughed loudly. "No, my dear grandson. Fortunately, I still have my sanity. I am not too old yet. Last year I passed 120. Actually, I think it passed 120 after my counting began, and I do not mind my counting. Anyway, I am not good with numbers. By the way, you are not fifteen. You are fourteen."

Oaken-Grandfather's long and white brows rose again, a hint of teasing, boyish, but a warm smile appeared on his face. They exchanged looks and laughed simultaneously.

Then the old man drew the way of their talking into the serious ground again. "What would an old man of age beyond 120 want from life? What is his armor against living in a bent body and tired soul? It is the hope of an instant, occasional happiness, and the constant, soothing feeling of the safety of the people he cares."

He stared at the boy. "When you put your neck on the line, you drag your brother's as well. Had you considered in that way?"

"Jack is not ill like me. He can fool around like others. He is not supposed to come after me, either."

The old man took another sigh. "Pretend you were him, and he was you for a moment. Would you leave him in the woods alone with a weak heart?"

"If our wisdom had been interchanged, certainly I would."

"Well, it is always good to see that you have confidence in your intelligence, yet, your prudence..." Oaken-Grandfather paused for a moment; presumably, he doubted with giving a voice to his thoughts. "Your intelligence and Jack's prudence, you two...How can I say...you two are matchy-matchy. You complete each other. Together you are beyond a human being."

A waiter refreshed Oaken-Grandfather's tea-with-honey, which never runs out on his table.

The old man took a break during his talk, to take a big sip as Efdalin was looking at the woods. "My concern is about your falling apart. I am afraid Jack's prudence is superior to your intelligence."

"You mean, I would cry out for danger all my life, but Jack would prevent it, right?"

"Yes, if you do not divert yourself," the old man said and took another sip of his tea devouringly before continuing. "Your intelligence is a dangerous gift because every gift is a curse as well. It brings responsibility. If you do not spend it properly, it'll poison you. It'll urge you to struggle in vain. To save yourself, you should...no! Not should. You must read a lot and think about the matters which are beneficial to people. It is a gift if you use it to help people, and it is a curse if you use it for only yourself. If you do not be careful, what waits you is despair and depression."

"Tell me, Grandpa, you haven't stepped out of this village all your life. You are supposed to have been unaware of what danger is. Where have you seen the imbalance of prudence and intelligence?"

"I know it well, and never mind from where I knew it. I might tell you if you were a few years older..." He sighed faintly. "Maybe." He sighed yet again. "Besides, a person does not know everything by seeing with his own eyes. Most we know comes from other people's experiences, and I think you know where to find them."

Efdalin's eyes turned to him. "In books."

Oaken-Grandfather nodded. "You've learned reading right after you began talking. What an aptitude for a person. You still are fond of reading. What an unending pride for me. Nothing suits you better."

"I agree, but that's not enough."

"Why?"

"I want to see them with my own eyes. No, I could not lay weight on it. I must see. I must hear. I must smell. I must touch. I must discern, feel. I must, I must be with them... Words are insufficient to explain what I am trying to say. My enthusiasm is subduing the proper words."

Efdalin needed another big breath. His heart was too incompetent with the boy's desires and excitements. "Traveling around the world meeting with all sorts of people, wandering on deserts and seas along unending times, watching the universe from the top of the highest pyramid, digging for giant reptile bones, spring of dolphins, lions with earth-shaking roars, clenching of my ship by an octopus as big as a house...This place...How to say it! This place does not satisfy my emotional expectations. There is plenty of beauty and lack...lack of action and feel. This land is deadpan."

Oaken-Grandfather interrupted. "Deadpan? You're victimizing this beautiful land."

"I must be cured."

Efdalin's last words stupefied the old man for a few seconds.

"Cure?"

Efdalin's eyes were looking into his, and nothing could be as serious as these green eyes bear.

"What if you cannot be cured?"

"There must be a way. Such a desire and such a sickness cannot be together in a body. This is unnatural."

"Unnatural?"

"Yes, it is. Look at the trees, how serene they are. Even one cannot discern their self-move, how suiting. However, think about a weasel, a fierce creature, how well integrated with its teeth and swift body. All their things are as supposed to be. But look at me. My spirit cannot fit into my frail body."

Despite himself, Oaken-Grandfather grumbled softly and cleared his throat. "Life is not always just, or as it should have been sometimes. What do you do then?"

Efdalin contemplated for a few seconds. "I haven't considered staying in this body all the while. I do not think I could bear it to the end."

"Do you intend to heal your heart wandering around the woods? I know all the boys are fond of the mountain, but no one goes as far as you go, only you and Jack go beyond the Lonely Fountain."

Efdalin did not say anything this time, yet he had much to say, noticeably.

"There is nothing but to admit your condition, my dear. Although life gives us many options to pick up, very few of them give us benefits. Choices drive us to suffer, even to death. The bad choices are plenty, effortless, and appealing."

Efdalin shook his head. "Believe me, Grandfather, going up to the High-Wood is not easy for me."

"Sure," the old man said. "Then why do you go up there?"

Efdalin raised his head and looked towards the misty mountain, where its trees climbed up to the clouds. "Dad used to say plants grew there, with possible cures in their extracts."

"You might find possible curses from those extracts rather than the cures. Sometimes people of Karatulla were found dead in their bed before their time though they were healthy a day before. Because of the vegetation of this mountain, I believe. For instance, there is a greenery weed called the widowmaker. If you eat it at the right time of the year, it gives you strength, or feel good. You feel the wellness in your veins, but if you miss the short time interval that it is beneficial, it kills you. Mushrooms or even wild berries can kill. They are either extraordinarily delicious or poisonous, nothing in between. Do you think all my kin migrated to the city?"

The old man sipped his tea. "Fireballs. They've changed the mountain thoroughly. This land is not like any others." He heaved a sigh so big that Efdalin thought his grandpa knew more than he told the people of the village. "If you endure your condition and maintain your life on this base, you can diminish some negative impacts of your disabilities."

"No," Efdalin said bluntly, "I am too young to be hopeless, and you are too old to be hopeful. That's why your life philosophy focuses on non-resistance. We cannot meet on a substantial agreement."

Oaken-Grandfather nodded his head faintly. "Hearing these words, you resemble someone eminently." The old man turned his eyes to the High-Wood. "Hoofing in the Land of Wulf is not going to cure you."

"Most especially, you do not know that."

"Do you?"

Efdalin gave his answer, standing quiet, which meant a lot.

"What was that? Have you been seeking something special there?"

This time, the teenager put on his glassy smile that suited well with his character.

His reaction was meant yes.

Oaken-Grandfather deplored. "You are much like your father, but you do not have his age and wisdom."

Efdalin's smile faded. "We had better if we do not talk about subjects that I don't like. Besides, he had always said, 'If you do not go off the path, you cannot find something exciting.'"

"Sit in your home, read a lot, and grow. What the hell will you do in the woods?"

"I do not think I have time to grow up. Do you not understand, Grandpa? I must be healed for all the stuff I want. Life is a burden inside this body rather than pleasure most of the time."

"You do not understand me either, my dear grandson. If there were a possibility of curing you, your father Gale would have accomplished it. He graduated from the most prestigious medical school in our nation, ranking first in the class, before he traveled around the world and practiced new remedies. After you, he reread all his books, new ones, too. He picked up herbs from the High-Wood, and with the tool, he called 'microscope' examined them for hours and days. Why do you think he did all this? His goal was to heal you." The old man paused a few seconds to gather his breath and frowned deeply. "He was thinking about you, more than anything else. If he believed it would work, he would have planned to have his heart taken to transplant into you."

"Is this why he abandoned us?"

This question shushed Oaken-Grandfather; he stared at Efdalin for a long time. "Tell me, you cannot be planning to cure your condition with herbs or merbs. Why have you been going to the High-Wood?"

Efdalin was silent, and his eyes looked distant.

"Is this a girl situation? Many irrelevant circumstances are for a woman most of the time."

Efdalin's stillness and the sudden passing of gleam through his eyes revealed what he could not have confessed to anyone.

Maybe to mask it, the boy replied in disquietude, "I am looking for the Wulf's Lair."

Oaken-Grandfather gazed at him with his deep frown. Efdalin's eyes cast down in regret; he hadn't intended to say this to anyone, especially to his grandfather. A significant amount of time passed in silence, for the old man could not comprehend what the boy said. He bobbed his head slowly in the end. "If he had believed, I bet your father would pursue Wulf, too."

Putting it into words, Efdalin was relieved and said defiantly, "I am not seeking Wulf. I am seeking its lair."

"What will you do in Wulf's Lair?"

"I may be cured there."

The old man gawked at him. "What is that supposed to mean? Your intelligence shocks me either way. Even a fool does not consider something like this."

"I did not consider it, Grandpa. I read it. Besides, a fool wouldn't say something like that to refrain from being considered as a fool."

"You read it. Goodness gracious me!"

He knew the boy had no intention of making empty words or brag about anything.

"Mr. Coinner brings old and cheap books. Some are pricelessly precious for me, and each one passes from my hands before being put in the library. Have I missed one?" Oaken-Grandfather said and looked at Efdalin in the eye, staring at the unique place where the truth would stay naked. In the end, he relaxed, took his eyes off Efdalin, heaved his eyebrows, and held his breath. "I want to see the book. Would you fetch it to me?"

"No."

The old man released his breath with a puff. "Why?"

"I cannot rip the huge tree and fetch you. I did not say I read it from a book."

He gazed at the boy as if he saw him for the first time. He could not find the proper words in the first place and did not say the ones that occurred next; he gathered his thoughts eventually. "What are you saying, my dear? Has someone written something on a tree? Show it to me then."

"No, the tree is afar."

"All right. What was written on it?"

Efdalin thought for a second or two if he should say it, but he had already said too much. "It says, 'If you find the Wulf's Den, there waits the cure then.'"

"Poetic crap!" the old man cried unexpectedly.

Efdalin was surprised by his grandfather's response.

Oaken-Grandfather sighed deeply yet again and tried to talk calmly. "You have idle thoughts like him. I don't mind your tree. You will stay away from Wulf's Lair. That's it."

The old man was afraid. He was as aged as a man who fears for the ones he loved than himself, much older he was.

"Since I do not know his den, how could I recognize if I stay away from there? Besides, who has idle thoughts aside from my dad and me?" Efdalin inquired with his aloof gesture.

Oaken-Grandfather squinted. "Take no notice of any person with idle thoughts. Somebody who writes on a tree aside from love words is insane, and the insanity disturbs peace and integrity. If you do not go beyond the Lonely Fountain, you stay away from there." He smiled thinly and ruffled Efdalin's hair.

"One more thing. There are maybe hundreds of caves on this mountain, and I know they are connected."

"The Beastmaws."

"Yes. The Beastmaws. Beware of them. If you go deep into one, you might not find the way out. Only beasts pass through them."

"How do you know, Grandpa? Have you explored some of them?" Efdalin got excited.

"Yes and no. This is complicated. They're dangerous. Now go, your mother might need your help. But before that, do the errand that I gave you. And do not run."

Until Efdalin got too far, he looked at him. Oaken-Grandfather turned to the woods with wistful glances.

When the boy began to walk in his sleep, neither one had cared much. Since birth, he had routinely woken from his sleep crying; and sometimes, they'd seen him looking through the window in the middle of the night. They were used to this. With puberty, the night walking habit had ceased, but other bizarre manners had started.

Oaken-Grandfather was acquainted with such odd manners; therefore, he'd been more apprehensive about the boy day by day.

_'He is very much like him. If what the boy said was true, the only person who could do that was him. Why was he back? Why did he write such words upon a tree? What is his purpose?'_ Oaken-Grandfather thought. This was a hell of a fretting situation for the old man.

He knew the boys' father Gale had met with him, and probably he was responsible for the disappearance of Gale. But the old man had seen not enough yet.

Of course, he had never shared his thoughts with his granddaughter Rosie. Poor Rosie, she was devastated with the abandonment of her husband, who she loved idolatrously, and it had taken a long time for her to recover.

# Stir in the Village

Earth-Mother stabbed charcoals with a longish iron stick before feeding the stove with some firewood; she heaved the kettle nearby and set on it.

The guest had finished her soup.

"I hupe yu injoyed it my deyar."

The young woman nodded.

As Earth-Mother took the empty bowl and spoon from the table, she could not ignore the guest's necklace anymore. She sat down on the other chair and asked, "Whet is this, my deyar? Dere are merkings on it."

The guest smiled, leaned forward, and extended it to Earth-Mother for a better look.

"My iyis se hardly from tis distance, but..."

But before Earth-Mother took a glance at it, someone knocked on the door, and the guest recoiled.

The old woman shambled towards the door and opened it angrily. Alexander and the crowd behind him were before the sill; new entrants on the way had increased their number.

"What a grit murning," Earth-Mother said, frowning with arms akimbo. "What du yu went? Yu cayme wiyfe and children."

One of the women from the crowd whispered to another. "Why our Mother's speech goes too bad at times?"

"Yes, why?" the other woman said, not minding much.

"She sometimes looks as if talking to someone nearby as she walks by herself." This woman was curious about Earth-Mother, yet the other woman did not care about the last words from her.

Alexander looked back at the crowd as if waiting for approval for his action; then he turned back to Earth-Mother and gulped. "Mrs. Mother, with all due respect, we are disturbing you, sorry, but apparently you have a visitor."

"Ye, I have a visitor, whet then?"

Alexander was upset but tried to save face all the same. "Certainly, she is welcome..." He glanced back at the crowd yet again and continued. "Some people have said she didn't say anything, Mrs. Mother. This made us curious and worried."

Thereupon, Earth-Mother sulked and wavered for a few seconds before saying, "Didn' spake. Whut if she didn't know to speak. She spakes if she wishes. You bagger off, all of yu. Or I grab my ferrule. I am saving it to brek Wulf's head, yet I rend it on yur heds with rilish."

The crowd was silent and apparently would keep their silence for a while.

Earth-Mother carried on. "Yu all havf been savages since no one hes cume to haymlet for yirs. Dun't make yur muther engry, dismiss, go and get on wit yur businiss."

Thereupon, Alexander turned to his people and gave a desperate shrug, and the crowd came apart from rearmost in one or two. The last man standing was Mr. Leonard. He and Earth-Mother looked at each other in the eye; there was still a connection between them, though it was faint. Mr. Leonard did not say anything; even his gestures were quiet. He walked away.

***

Elizabeth sat like a queen on her wooden couch on the porch of her house when Alexander arrived with no company, looking sheepish.

"What happened, son?" Elizabeth asked disappointedly. She saw him at a distance and found out by the looks of him that it had not gone well.

"Earth-Mother fought off the people, Mom. We couldn't even see the face of the woman."

"Shame on you, boy!" Elizabeth was furious. She sprang to her feet, and her rugged body language stimulated her rebuke. "I gave you the name of a great conqueror, yet you cannot cope with an old woman. You say you are the right hand of the Mayor shamelessly. Go and get another bucket of water."

***

After moving out of his grandfather's sight, Efdalin ran on the stone-pitched roads of the village. This was the boy defying his illness, and no doubt his heart would begin to drum before long.

The embedded stones of the road were all volcanic rocks of different shapes and sizes bearing sorrel and dirty green hues, which were picked up from around and had been dug in casually to make the main road of Karatulla rugged and intact.

He bumped into someone when he was about to turn a corner of a house. The man he hit swaggered around with an earthenware cup containing soup; it spilled on the man's snow-white shirt of a fancy collar.

"Damn, my shirt!" the man cried, getting upset; he had not minded searing of the soup a bit.

"Watch where you're going, boy!" he yelled.

Efdalin bounced back quickly. "Mr. Fancy... I was... looking for... you."

The man could not keep his eyes off of his stained clothes. "You ruined my new shirt. Oily soup stain cannot be removed at all. Mr. Coinner fetched it from the city recently."

"Mr., I... need you," Efdalin said, yet again.

Mr. Fancy Jr. finally took his eyes—bearing full of sorrow—off of his shirt to look at Efdalin. "Hell with your Mr., first, gather your breath, then say what you want."

"Mr. Fancy, I must see... one of them... the council members."

"Then go and find one of the others. My poor shirt! One cannot show face in public in this anymore. By the way, I am Fancy Jr."

Just then, a man in the house across the road sat on his couch on a porch.

Mr. Fancy Jr. pointed out the man. "Look, boy! You're blessed. There is someone you are looking for."

"I'd rather not talk to him," Efdalin said and scrammed swiftly.

"Good morning, Mr. Coinner," Fancy Jr. called out, waving his hand."

"Good morning Mr. Fancy Jr. Have you spilled something on your new shirt? I hope everything is all right."

"My bad luck! This thin piece of blaze destroyed my shirt." He looked around for Efdalin in vain. "Would you get me a new one from the city?"

"Don't give it a thought. Your wish is my command, Mr. Fancy Jr," Coinner said.

Meanwhile, Coinner's wife came from inside. She muttered, "Weirdo. Does anybody drink soup from a cup in the middle of the road, but this guy? Sit in your home and eat your soup from a bowl. That guy is weirder than his father."

Coinner muttered under his breath, trying to keep his lips still. "Shut up, woman. He is my best customer."

***

When Mr. Madra and Mr. Yunt were about to leave the Mayor's Office, Efdalin came running. "Mr. Mayor... Mr. Mayor."

Mr. Madra turned to him and smiled. "You should not call me so formally, Efdalin. It is for senior citizens. Why don't you call me Uncle Madra? That would make me happier."

Efdalin jabbered, "All right, Uncle Madra. My Oaken-Grandfather sent me to find you or Mr. Yu...Uncle Yunt to inform you about a visitor, and I found you both." He continued breathlessly. "A woman came to our village. She was in Earth-Mother's home. A crowd of village people flounced to Earth-Mother. My grandfather told me to inform you about being no harm to Earth-Mother."

There appeared a light smile on both men's faces when they thought of the old woman.

"Don't worry, Efdalin. No one could harm Earth-Mother," Mr. Madra said. "Thank you. You got trouble up here."

"Not at all, Mr. Mak...Uncle Madra." Efdalin left quickly.

They watched the kid's leave with faraway looks; a thought caught their minds. They walked towards the office, and Mr. Yunt implied the needless forcing of the night watches. The woman was oblivious to the watchers, after all.

Right after Mr. Yunt left, the door of the office opened, and Alexander appeared.

"Alexander."

"Yes, Mr. Mayor."

"Summon the watchers of yesterday night. I am waiting for them."

"Yes, Mr. Mayor."

# Quiety Talkings

They were immature and sassy, dense to give no respite, rough-and-tumble, locked, blocked up to backwaters of Azmak, short and thick alongside the canyon, and so jealous not to allow another kind of foliage in between. It was vain to struggle to diffuse onto spacious, grassy land of the opposite shore for all these spruces.

In a small area of the shore of the village side, Azmak descended, and the riverbed became flat. A sandy, acceptably large area had formed on the right side of the river. Neither the chaos of the trees of the mountainside nor the high canyon walls were there. The trees that were few in numbers had been pruned, and a large clearing had been made. The impudent grasses around had become sparse because of never-ending feet crossing over them; yet they had endured.

At the point where the lawn reached Azmak, the riverbed was embanked with stones to create a baby branch. This new vein was coming up to a washing-cleaning construction.

The construction was composed of four wood ponds, which were connected to four narrow watercourses of the artificial branch through canals constructed with meticulous handwork of clay and stones. These canals were linked to each other, too.

The canals met by wood capillary plates that ended at the wood ponds. At fore and aft of each pond were two gateways that could be opened or closed by these plates.

A pond would fill up quickly by keeping the plate of the fore gate up and the aft gate closed. After it was filled with enough water, the panel would be pushed down to close the gateway; and the water coming to the pond would flow through another canal.

After some laundry or dirty dishes were lathered and scrubbed, opening both gates for rinsing was effortless.

Mr. Leonard hauled and carried the stones, cut out the untamable river with them solely by himself, by seeking the forest for best oaken wood for this construction. He made the washing construction with a marvelous carpentry and stonemason work.

Since then, every day, he had been blessed gratefully by the female citizens of the village.

There was only one person in the pond area that morning. Most of the women were busy with some other stuff because tomorrow at noon, the carnival would begin.

Corinna sat by the ponds; her knees were to her chest, wrapped by her arms. She was immersed in her thoughts, staring at the gently flowing water. Some laundry inside a bucket was beside her, untouched.

"I have been looking for you for hours, girl. What are you doing here?" Jane said, striding towards her best friend with bells on.

"I am waiting for my sister. We have laundry," Corinna said stonily; she had not forgiven her yet.

"The woman is still at Earth-Mother's home."

"Which woman?" Corinna asked with her usual curiosity and naivete.

"I will be damned," Jane said, staring at her with suspicion, to find out if she was teasing her. Yet, she smiled with a thought that her friend had not such banal habits.

"Your snake hair came to the village, my friend."

"Don't mock me anymore." Corinna got to her feet quickly to go.

Jane cried, "I swear, I told the truth."

Corinna halted and stared at her; Jane's manner was not like she was teasing her. She stared at Jane. "Look, if I believe you right now and if you have actually lied to me, I am not going to talk to you ever again."

"How many times should I say it, girl? I told the truth and swore, too. Right after you left this morning, she came. A woman with snake curls. She was dressed unusually, too."

Corinna was surprised. "Did she have real snakes in her hair?"

"No! She just had curly hair."

"What did she do? Did you hear a roar from the mountain as well? I did not hear anything."

"No roar. The woman drank water and did not talk."

"Then what happened after she drank water?"

"I don't know."

"What? Were you not there?"

"I was afraid. I ran away."

"Coward!"

Their quarrel was cut when Calina came by carrying a bucket, full of laundry inside; Aria was next to her. "My beautiful Aria is going to help her mother, isn't it, sweetheart? You are so grown up."

"Momi, I got to pee."

"All right, my dear, let me put our laundry into that pond."

She lowered down the aft gate of the pond for the water to fill inside. After a few seconds, she closed the fore gate as well, put her laundry into the pool, and foamed them using an olive-oil-soap.

"A woman came to the village? It has been a long time since someone arrived here."

"She was weird, sister Calina. Even her eyes were staring feral." Jane opened her eyes wide as she said, "Hear me out. The woman seemed like a quiety to me."

"Come on, Jane, you are acting like you have seen one before. Even I saw them only once. They came when I was a little girl. A man of ours had died. Since then, none has been seen." Calina rubbed the socks and foamed them. "Oaken-Grandfather never gets bored telling stories of the Quieties. If you are fond of his tales, every visitor seems to be a quiety to you." As she was foaming Samson's shirt, a thought flashed through her mind. "Was she pretty?"

Jane could not comprehend readily. "What? No! I don't know. She was somewhat beautiful, I think, but frightening. Yes, she was beautiful and frightening but mostly frightening."

"Come on, Jane. She might be unfriendly at the most. You are scared to death," Calina said, laughing. "What was her name?"

"I don't know. She didn't talk."

"Did not talk? Then she really must be a quiety."

Corinna and Jane could not comprehend what Calina was saying; they did not know whether to fear or to be upset.

Seeing their straight faces, Calina laughed loudly this time. "If she was one of the Quieties, why on earth would she come here freely, you baby girls?"

Aria clasped her skirt.

"All right, my dear, don't tug me. Corinna, help your niece pee. My hands are soaked with soap."

"No, Mommy, you help me," Aria whined plaintively.

"Her addiction to me is frustrating sometimes," Calina complained and took her hand, bore away.

"Maybe this is a trick of the Quieties, a way of getting information through her!" Corinna said; her eyes were stuck in the water.

Jane tried to be derisive, but she had been irritated thoroughly. "For goodness sake, how could I believe you? Your sister is right. She is just a woman. You have been listening to Oaken-Grandfather too much lately. Even as he fabulates for kids, you are there. Like your strange dreams were not enough, a quiety scout now? Fables are not the truth, girl. Only a pushover like you believes those things."

"You are the real pushover," Corinna cried right before drenching Jane with water, and then she ran away.

Jane grabbed Calina's empty bucket, dipped it into the water to spoon some, and ran after Corinna.

"Apparently, our father's laundry is to me, too," Calina said when she saw them running hither and thither and throwing water at each other at a distance.

***

At noon, Zachariah and Kea were in the office, standing before Mayor Madra. The Mayor stared at them with his radiating blue eyes for quite a while without talking, and those few minutes were sufficient to dry up the marrows of these two young men. They had never been so anxious on their very first night watches.

For a youngster old enough, commencing a night watch was a superior challenge. When people lock themselves in their houses with the fear of Wulf, the watchers would wait on the Watching-Station alarmed with blades on their belts, musket in their hands, and the quiety hooters in their pockets.

As time goes by, they get experienced; neither Wulf nor a quiety shows its face; so, they sleep like a top as Kea does.

At last, beaten-with-eyes moments ended.

"Yes, young men, tell me how that woman did come to our village freely? Have you not been watching?" the Mayor inquired.

Kea, who was always feverish, said, "We have Mr. Mayor. I swear we have, but you know, we did not get alerted. It was very early in the morning."

"Would somebody without good intentions from this neck of the woods come here at times you expected, Kea?"

"I don't know, Mr. Mayor. I recall it being shadowy. I was a child. Someone came to our village, and then no one comes or goes except the healer, Mr. Gale, father of Jack and Efdalin."

Mr. Madra turned his head and looked at the road through the window as though he would see someone outside. "Quieties are very capable of doing things that we did not anticipate, Kea. Their lack of talking might not mean they are stupid. Have they come at night ever?"

"I don't know about their timings, Mr. Mayor," Kea said.

All the while, Zachariah was silent with his head down.

"Then why have you and others been watching at night for years?" Mr. Mayor asked.

"Because of the Wulf, Mr. Mayor." Kea gnashed his tooth. "If one day we see him hiding under the Devil's Skirt, it will not be good enough for him to dodge Zachariah's bullet. Will it, Zach?"

He prodded Zachariah with his elbow. "If the Wulf stands in Zachariah's shooting range, he never misses and puts him down at once."

Mr. Madra got to his feet and spoke with the voice of a wise man laboring on idle affairs. "I've been sick of this Wulf word utterly. The Moon Carnival is good for our people. It has been our tradition. Nevertheless, I've not seen anything so talked about and fearful but lacking proof of reality. Has anyone seen the Wulf, day or night, in the village or some other place ever?"

Kea was not willing to leave his legend alone. "I haven't seen but heard, Mr. Mayor. For all I know, many people had seen it in the woods. They have talked about it in the public house many times. Besides, Oaken-Grandfather tells about it in his tales."

A faintly sardonic, sizably incredulous smile appeared on Mr. Mayor's face. "They are fables, Kea. He talks about it recklessly because no one should believe it, just for kicks."

Then Mr. Madra got down to business and said with all the authoritativeness of his gestures and voice. "From now on, no one will come into the village with the obliviousness of the watchers. Is that right?"

"Yes, Mr. Mayor," both men said without casting their eyes from the ground.

"Go and get sleep now."

Zachariah and Kea exchanged looks, and then only Kea went outside.

Mr. Madra sat on his chair and was about to sink back into his thoughts until he noticed Zachariah was still standing in front of him.

"Do you have something to say, Zachariah?"

Zachariah cast his eyes down yet again and talked timidly. "I perpetrated an awful thing, Mr. Mayor."

Mr. Madra straightened up on his chair, staring at the young man with his radiating eyes. "Tell me what's so bad, young man?"

"I have lost the quiety-hooter."

Mr. Madra stared at Zachariah with eyes looking as cold and glassy as a fish for a few seconds. He breathed out uneasily before his words. "Though you haven't whistled a quiety-hooter yet, you knew how important it was, didn't you, Zachariah?"

Under the influence of Mr. Madra's charisma, Zachariah was like a small figure and barely nodded his head without speaking at all.

"You knew why our citizens have heard its whistle every first night of the full moon either, right, Zachariah?"

"Certainly, Mr. Mayor. Without those whistles, I could have been dead when I was a child."

"I know that. What about the other hooter?" Mr. Madra inquired and checked the paper that was rewritten many times, lying on the table.

"Kea gave his hooter to Jack."

Mr. Madra completed the sentence in his stead. "But the other watcher Bade has no hooter today."

The Mayor got to his feet, stood in front of the window, and folded his hands at the small of his back. After lingering for a few seconds —that was too long for Zachariah— in this pose, he turned to Zachariah. "For three months, morning and evening, you will deliver two buckets of water to Oaken-Grandfather's house."

Zachariah freshened up, rejoicing with a smile on his face. "Certainly, Mr. Mayor."

"Go and sleep now."

If Kea were in his place, he would embrace the Mayor with many thanks; but cool spirited Zachariah said faintly, "Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I won't lose it again." Then he walked away.

After Zachariah, Mr. Madra sank into his previous thoughts that included new worries now.

When Alexander came in from the door, the Mayor knew it was him before turning his face from the window.

"Alexander."

"Yes, Mr. Mayor."

"Summon the legislative council at once. We need a gathering."

"Yes, Mr. Mayor."

Alexander stepped back to the street door as Mr. Madra halted him. "Wait! Go to Earth-Mother first. Tell her the council wants to see the guest urgently."

Alexander froze for a long while as Mr. Madra turned his head to him.

"Yes, Mr. Mayor. I am already on my way," he said and left.

***

In the meantime, three juvenile boys pursued Zachariah admiringly. The young man was a legend in the village because of his musketry stunt.

"Did you know he was fifteen at his first night watch?" the youngest one said.

"If I could shoot like him, I would take up a position as a night watcher as well," the blonde one said.

"I wouldn't," the third one said. "You cannot see Wulf in the dark. It is pitch black. He prowls around silently. You wouldn't even discern him until he bites you in the throat."

"Better to be as big as Hugie. If Wulf comes, you grip and bash him into a tree and crack his back pretty good," the blonde boy said.

"People say Hugie goes out only at carnival nights. He is afraid of the dark and stays at home after sunset. Besides, I haven't seen him going or returning from a night watch," the youngest boy said.

"That's a lie. He is the best friend of Samson, and I have seen Samson returning from the night watches many times. Hugie was his companion for sure." The blonde one was an admirer of Hugie.

"I don't know about that, but I wait each carnival day eagerly. Their power contention is a must-see," the third boy said.

"Mr. Leonard is going to teach swordplay supposedly. Mr. Alexander says so," the first boy said.

"Really! That is wonderful. When we figured out how to swing a sword around, may the Quieties fear us." The blonde was the bravest among them.

"Have you heard about more new activities of the forthcoming carnival?" the youngest said.

# Jack

At nightfall, Jack's day watch ended, and he passed the quiety-hooter to a substituting watcher. When he arrived at the public house to find a friend to chat, he saw the old man. Oaken-Grandfather had sunk into musing so profound that he did not notice Jack until the boy planted himself on a chair in front of him.

"Oh, my boy has come! I didn't know you were coming," Oaken-Grandfather said.

"Are you getting old, Grandpa?"

The man and the boy eyed each other for a few seconds and then burst into laughs simultaneously.

"I've passed the category old, my dear. Getting old would be a compliment for me." Oaken-Grandfather gained himself swiftly and stared his eyes at Jack.

The twins shared the same template, but Jack was at least fifty pounds heavier and a five-inches taller form of Efdalin, all muscles and bone. They were identical in many things, such as hair, nose, ears, eyes, and physiognomy, yet things making them dissimilar were in their reflections.

Efdalin was somber and beetle-browed while Jack was a smiler, cheery boy. Efdalin was pessimistic, while Jack was optimistic. Efdalin was smart and bold; Jack was modest and wary. Efdalin's gait was stooped, head down; Jack was upright to see everything around. Jack seemed healthy while he was sick; Efdalin seemed wan while he was not sick.

But the most significant difference between them was the way their eyes looked. The same eyes on the same countenances looked dissimilarly, and even a person who did not know them would think those looks belonged to very different personalities.

Oaken-Grandfather wanted to mesmerize him and talked with his enchanting voice. "Did you know about the crazy idea of your brother wandering around the woods?"

"Yes," Jack said. "Firstly, I didn't care much, but nowadays, he has been talking about some words that are written on the trees, which would lead him to his cure."

"Has he told you where he thinks he would find this cure?"

Jack shook his head.

Oaken-Grandfather was relieved and leaned back in his chair. "Have you seen those written words somewhere?"

Jack shook his head yet again. "You know how otherworldly Efdalin is. His favorite hobby is to wander in the woods alone."

"Otherworldly? Yes, my boy. Apparently, this is another outpouring of his endless imagination. After your dad's gone, such manners of him grew steadily."

"He has been passing the Lonely Fountain without taking me along. Fortunately, I catch up with him not long after."

Oaken-Grandfather was surprised. "How can you find him in such an enormously big mountain?"

It was surprising for Jack. He shrugged. "If I didn't know where he was, I could go to him all the same. This ability is growing in me day by day."

He believed, all twins could do that. How could he explain a gift, which he could not sufficiently perceive by himself?

His grandfather nodded his head insightfully. "I didn't think you would be ordinary. You're growing and becoming a man. You are like flowers about to blossom. Who knows what colors you will have." Then he gazed upon the woods. After a few seconds, the old man gathered himself up and said his wish that he had intended to. "Tell me, what you want from me to keep your brother away from the High-Wood, and from the beastmaws."

Though Jack looked at his grandfather blankly first, eventually, he grinned. "This is a tough job offer, Grandpa. There are plenty of beastmaws about, and you know how maverick Efdalin is."

"Maverick! Your vocabulary is enhancing."

Jack simpered gladly.

"You are your mother's kind. Tell me, I believe you might have a wish from me."

"I want a whistle," Jack said offhandedly.

"A whistle?" Oaken-Grandfather was not expecting to hear such a demand. "Look at this wicked boy. What good is a whistle for you?"

That was something Jack craved for quite some time. Therefore, he could only give a slight shrug. He'd clutched a quiety-hooter so many times, like handling a relic, and put it deep in his pocket with caution, but none was his own.

Oaken-Grandfather thought about it for a while or pretended he was doing that, not to seem he accepted readily.

Finally, he said, "I am going to make your whistle, but my condition is that you'll keep Efdalin away from beastmaws and the High-Wood. If you fail this, you should be with him all the same. Beware, a beastmaw swallows a person. If you go deep into one, you might not find your way out. You'll also not whistle your whistle around untimely or unduly."

"That is the second time you're saying the same thing to me, Grandpa."

Oaken-Grandfather giggled and looked at the boy in the eye. "Yes. Now, do we have a deal?"

However, Jack wanted to push the situation a bit more and said with a hope in his countenance contradicting with his hopeless eyes. "It will be a quiety-hooter, won't it?"

Oaken-Grandfather frowned. "Look at this boy teasing me. Will you cause a stir around? Of course, it will not be a quiety-hooter."

Jack stayed silent to create tension but eventually smiled. "We have a deal anyway."

"Good boy. Now, go and keep Efdalin with you and away from there."

"Before I leave, would you tell me a short but thrilling story? Something you haven't told anyone before. I could tell girls to excite them."

"You are not a kid anymore. You are sixteen. Besides, telling a story was not in the deal. Go to your brother. He needs you. Besides, the best story for a girl is to make her feel the most beautiful girl in the world. You can't do that by telling her creepy stories."

"All right, Grandpa. Don't be mad. Besides, I'm fifteen, not sixteen." He set off quickly.

"I know," the old man said after him.

# Mayor's Visit

As Earth-Mother took some chocks from the woodshed, she did not see the whispering neighbor women a few yards away. She noticed them on the way back when the youngest one giggled; all three stared at her in silence.

"Why are yu mambling and chucgling with savage glances, yu women?" Earth-Mother asked.

"Nothing important Earth-Mother, just small talk," the eldest one said.

After one more glare to the women, Earth-Mother entered her cottage. The guest sat on a big and tough divan by the window, looking outside. Earth-Mother put the firewood beside the stove when someone knocked on the door. In her eyeballs, sparks of strife glimmered. "I'll say theyse women hayve guts."

She waddled to the door and opened it. The person standing on the doorway dampened her spirits; she had braced herself to scare off the women. "Yu again, son of gridy Elissabeth. Yur ma cannot come but send yu?"

Alexander had already dispirited confronting her for the second time; he lost face and assumed a pose. "Our Mayor, Mr. Madra, sent me to you, Earth-Mother. The council wants to see the woman."

Earth-Mother wagged her forefinger in front of Alexander's nose angrily. "Tell yur Mayyor this girl is not his bisiness."

"But Mother..."

She interrupted, "Dun't make me angry. Yu wun't like me when I'm angry. Get yu gune." She shut the door in his face.

Earth-Mother burst out in anger when she got back to the stove, but someone knocked on the door again.

She flounced to the door, grumbling. "This time, I'll wallop yu with my besom, yu juys of gridy Elissabeth."

The wrathy old woman opened the door to spill out her anger to Elizabeth through Alexander. "Aa, Samson, come in." Earth-Mother's anger turned to affection.

Samson hesitated to come in when he saw the guest. "Good Morning, Grandma. You have a guest?" He smiled at the guest, and she did not show any sign of fear. She reacted to the man with a smile instead.

"Ye, unexpected guest." The old woman turned to her. "My girl, this is my grandson Samson. He was named after his grandfather." Then it crossed her mind. "My girl, I do not know yur nime yet."

The woman held her necklace, leaned forward, and extended it to her.

Earth-Mother waddled towards her eagerly. She read the calligraphy and turned to Samson standing at the door. "Hey, Samson, the name of this pretty girl is Su."

Samson smiled sincerely once more and said, "Welcome, Su."

Su smiled back.

"Grandma, do you have work to do?"

"Ye, Samson. Chop sume wud for me, wuld yu?"

"I'll get right on it, Grandma." Samson turned and glanced at Su before moving off. "Who is this lady, Grandma?"

"I said an unexpicted guyst. Chup sume wud and go. Yur jeylus woman goes in search of yu otherwiys."

"She is very quiet," Samson said, smiling.

"She is nat. Come on, yu crush on every pritty woman. Move, yu chip of the oyld block." The old woman turned and glanced at the empty chair against the hearth; then she closed the door and went back beside her.

"This is Samyson Jr. He was an oryphin. He has grown up iyn my coyttage. He is son of my Saymson's son, my grayndson in law." She stared at Su's dirty clothes partly dampened by mud. "I shall heyt water for yu tunight. Tayk bath, get purrifiyd. We shayl sup yur clothes, we'll find yu..."

She was interrupted by knocking on the door yet again.

"Eynough of this! How cuyrious the critters of this viylage are?" She opened the door with a high temper.

Alexander and Mr. Madra stood at the door.

"Yu weyr the layst person who haysn't knocked on my door, Mayyor." She frowned. "Do yur say."

"Hello, Earth-Mother, may we come in?" Mr. Madra said this so gracefully that though she was reluctant, Earth-Mother opened the door wide and stepped aside to let them in.

In the meanwhile, Corinna and Jane watched the house behind a nearby bush. "Let's inform my sister about what's going on in her grandmother-in-law's house," Corinna said before starting to move quickly.

"Wait, I'm coming with you," Jane yelled and tagged along with her.

***

Mr. Madra was not talking, only staring at Su, since they were inside.

Earth-Mother could not take it anymore. "What is that, Mayyor? Yu like her much? Do yu intend to ask her to marry tu yur son? Is that why yu stayring?"

"I'm sorry, Earth-Mother," Mr. Madra said and acted like himself again. "My apologies, young lady. You seemed a bit unusual to me. That's why I'm staring. Yet I do not know if you understand my words?"

"She does. She does every siyngle word," Earth-Mother interrupted.

"Does she speak?"

"She spiks if she wants, Johyn. What do yu cayre? She is my guest, and nobody may bring her to account because she does not speyk. Did yu get it?"

"All right, Mother. Don't get excited. I do not intend to bring her trouble. I'm just trying to find out who she is and where she came from. Anybody is most welcome but a quiety."

"She is not one of theym, I know," Earth-Mother thundered once again.

"How do you know she is not a quiety, Mother?"

"I know. Su understands our laynguage. Besides, she doesn't look liyk a quiety. Du yu siy gold pieces dangling on her outfiyt?"

Despite herself, Su's hand went to her necklace concealed under her gown.

"Who is to say that the Quieties do not understand our language? We know nearly nothing about them. They communicate with some sort of hand-arm waving and never talk. Does she know such a waving?"

Earth-Mother was silent this time.

"Nothing to say, Mother?"

"She doesn't," Earth-Mother replied, waddling to the stove, definitely not persuasive.

"Alexander!"

"Yes, Mr. Mayor."

"Supposedly, your father had taught you this hand-arm language. Do say something in this way."

"I doubt if I can remember, Mr. Mayor. I was a child, barely a few words remain on my mind."

"Try, Alexander," Mr. Madra said in a bored voice.

"Yes, Mr. Mayor."

***

When Corinna and Jane entered from the street door, Calina was hanging laundry as Aria was getting in the way, driving her crazy.

She stretched her back to ease. "Welcome, girls."

"Hello, we have fascinating news for you, sister," Corinna said eagerly.

"What's up?"

"The woman who came this morning..."

"The woman with the snake hair?" Calina said, and Jane chuckled.

"Uff, sister," Corinna whined wearily and glared at Jane.

"I didn't say anything," Jane said and covered her own mouth with her hand.

When Corinna's gloominess did not change, she stood. "I said, I didn't say anything, girl!"

"You have already said enough," Corinna said.

"What happened to the woman?" Calina asked to ease the tension.

"She is still in your grandmother-in-law's house, and the Mayor went there, too."

Calina was disinterested. "He is the Mayor of the village. Sure, he goes there."

"Samson saw the woman as well."

This time Calina heeded them. She stopped hanging the laundry and tried to relax her muscles. "How do you know Samson saw the woman? He is not back from the plantation?"

"You think so? He has been chopping wood at Earth-Mother's house," Corinna said.

"Is he still there?"

"Yes."

"All right, the woman aroused my interest."

She straightened her back, cracking it this time. After the last piece of laundry was hung, she said, "I'm going to Earth-Mother's house."

"Let's go together," Corinna said.

"No, you'll stay here to keep an eye on Aria. You made me wash all the laundry in the morning, your payoff time."

"Come on, sister, your daughter never leaves you. She will bawl when you leave."

"Let her get used to; she has grown enough. Keep her in your sight, don't let her go missing after me." Calina turned to Aria. "My beautiful girl will stay with her aunty and play games. I'll be right back."

Aria puckered her lips and shook her shoulders.

Calina breathed out lugubriously and looked at Corinna and Jane. "All right, but you two will nurse her."

None of the girls objected to this.

***

In Earth-Mother's house, drops of sweat appeared on Alexander's temporal side. He got to his feet, stood close to Su, and did some more of the wavings of his hands and arms.

Su's eyes alternated between Alexander's moving hands and Earth-Mother's face. She did not respond to him.

Alexander's despair topped. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and glanced at Mr. Madra.

The Mayor's eyes were determined.

Alexander tried one more time after rolling up his sleeves; he was in a lather.

"Enough, yu juice of Elisabet. Don't struggle with yur arms and..." The entrance door opened abruptly. All the heads turned, but no one came in. When the wind blew inside, the heads got back to their previous positions.

Earth-Mother continued. "Du nut tiwiddle yur fingirs or urms anymore. She dasen't anderstund yu."

The wind blew again, and the door closed noisily. The heads swung once more, but the eyes were incapable as well as the ears.

Su peered around and pointed at something with her hand on the shelf over the fireplace. It was a piece of paper.

"I think she needs those," Mr. Madra said and pulled a sheet of paper with a coarse lead-pencil out of his pocket. He extended them to Su.

She held the pencil and the paper and wrote, "Misfelinda."

Mr. Madra was petrified when he read the markings written on it. He made a quick glance at Earth-Mother with shrinking eyes.

The old woman was already staring at Mr. Madra sharp-witted. "Whet did she writte, Mayyor?"

He turned his worried eyes away from her.

Alexander scrambled to his feet and looked at the paper John Madra was holding, and exclaimed excitingly, "She understood what I said. Her name is Misfelinda."

Mr. Madra looked at Alexander petulantly and then to Earth-Mother worriedly.

"Misfelinda?" the old woman murmured; she was at a loss for words, which was much unexpected of her. She seemed to remember something. As though she altered to become someone calm and fragile; that one word stunned her.

The change in her semblance made Mr. Madra more worried about her.

"Who is this Misfelinda?" Alexander said.

Mr. Madra came forward intending to prevent another possible mention of the word, Misfelinda.

"Oh, my Earth-Mother, how do you know her name is Su?" The Mayor's usual soft talking was harsh and sonorous now.

Su took out the necklace and extended it to the Mayor.

Mr. Madra was surprised. "Gold?" he said after a close glance at it and turned his questioning looks to Su, expecting to hear something from her vainly.

Yet again, Alexander asked artlessly, "Who is this, Misfelinda?"

Mr. Madra chimed in, "The council must see her, Mother."

Thereupon, Su and Earth-Mother exchanged looks. "Ander fone condission I ellow this."

"Tell me, Mother."

"She wen't bi alloni in front of thim withaut mi."

Su felt something between her and Earth-Mother, something queer, something like spine-chilling energy, but there was nothing visible or hearable.

"Wiy aygreed, Moyther," Mr. Madra said. He got irritated with his own improper speaking. His tongue hadn't done its job.

Alexander's attention turned from Su to his Mayor.

They had not realized the entrance door was open until it was closed hard as if its pegs dislocated after someone slammed the door angrily.

All the heads turned there yet again.

The window was opened; they heard the sound of the wind. Su was not sensing the spine-chilling feel now.

Mr. Madra got to his feet and nodded to the women. "So long, ladies." He was glad that his Earth-Mother-like-speaking was only temporary. Mimicking the old lady's talking was unavoidable, perhaps.

Alexander scrambled to feet as well. They walked towards the door. When they were about to leave, Alexander asked one more time, "Who is Misfelinda?"

Mr. Madra clutched his arm and dragged him away while prodding him on the sly not to talk anymore.

The Mayor turned to Earth-Mother. "I will assemble the council, Mother, and summon you. Is that alright?"

"Whatsoever, Mayor. Tell yur wife hello from me," she said calmly.

When Alexander opened the door, they came face to face with Calina and her three companions. They greeted each other.

As the men set out, none of the women heard Mr. Madra's response to Alexander's remark, which was, "Your speaking is distorted like Earth-Mother's, Mr. Mayor."

Earth-Mother scowled at the women until her face shone with a big grin. "Look at this moyst biytiful thing. How grown-up yu have become." She grabbed Aria's hand and beckoned her head as an invitation for others.

Su got to her feet; she nodded to each one. Then her eyes stuck to Aria, giggling with Earth-Mother's squeezing and squashing.

Su became very cold and couldn't remove her eyes from Aria; the young woman shuddered with the feeling the little girl gave her.

***

As Mr. Madra and Alexander walked through the village, a thought that the upcoming days might not become as they used to be captured the Mayor's mind. "Tell to Oaken-Grandfather we need two more quiety hooters."

"Yes, Mr. Mayor." Alexander halted when he was about to leave. "But why two, Mr. Mayor?"

"The second one is a substitute. It will stay in the office."

"I got it, Mr. Mayor."

"Secondly, inform the council members now. There is a gathering."

"Yes, Mr. Mayor."

# The Brothers

Jack and Efdalin basked on the riverbank, looking at the pulsing river flowing a yard away. At a distance was the waterfall's roar, coming to their ears as a murmur.

Here was their favorite place. There was a buttonwood tree, not as usual as the others that have pink or white buds. This one was blue and red. Looking from a hundred yards away, the color scheme of the buds was like a map, changing every year, depending on the places of the sprouts.

Hyacinths, daisies, corn poppies, and peonies were beside the water, covering all the land, becoming mattresses for the boys.

Bees, combinations of yellow, green, brown or red, blue, purple colors struggled to slake their implacable thirsts on the flowers of inconceivable hues.

All the colors of these living things were ordinary for the boys. Neither the pinkish hue of the honey they ate nor the greenish milk, yellowish bread, or orangeous yogurt was unusual to them. They had not seen a place other than the Land of Wulf.

The boys agreed on the other creatures' doing, getting a kick out of blossom.

"I can't believe my grandpa agreed to make a whistle for me," Jack said.

"What good is a whistle for you?"

"I hope I don't need it."

"Then why do you want it so much?"

"Because it might be necessary," Jack said. "Do you think about our father, sometimes?"

"Occasionally."

"I think about him every day. I have been trying to find out why he has abandoned us."

Efdalin's head was down with sorrow. "He abandoned us because of me. He couldn't endure to see me anymore, the son he could not cure and would not cure."

"That is possible. He loved you more." Jack's heart sank.

There was silence for a while, making it more genuine.

"He named you after his late brother Jacques. What was the name Efdalin after then? He did not know I was coming after you when we born. So, he named me with the first kooky word that struck his mind. I deem a full reconsideration of your claim, 'he loved you more', brother."

Efdalin straightened up and walked to the small lagoon, which was created with the sagging ground by the constant earthquakes of the mountain. There was a narrow canal coming from a creek of the Azmak that let only tiny fish pass through; so, plenty of baby fish of various blue and red color tones flopped in separated red or blue groups in the lagoon, safe from the predators of the river.

Jack approached and crouched by his brother. Their reflections from the surface of the still water revealed their differences as well as similarities. According to Efdalin, the side-by-side images from the water were only saying that Jack was a healthy, happy, rigorous form of him, and he was a spoilt replica of Jack.

"I think I have been growing an ability that nobody has in the village," Jack said.

Efdalin moved off away from the shore, throwing stones to the lagoon to avenge the water that its mirroring gave him sadness. He did not respond to his brother.

"You are growing, too. Maybe your body will heal your heart condition as it grows," Jack said.

Efdalin gave his brother a frowned glance. "Look who is talking, the wise boy who blames his brother living in daydreams."

Unintentionally, Jack reminded him of what he could not do yet again. Sometimes, taking up time with Jack, even seeing him, was a burden for Efdalin.

It was a sudden urge, a chilling experience that Efdalin felt at the back of his shoulders. He stepped a few yards away, and the chilling faded.

"You're going up to the High-Wood without me. I am afraid for you. One day you would be lost inside a beastm..." Jack halted abruptly.

Efdalin's head turned to Jack to search his brother's face. "What?"

Jack gazed at something behind Efdalin. His eyes peered at the emptiness behind his brother until they stuck on a tombstone. Efdalin tried to figure out the difference between this one and the other gravestones.

It did not bear any marks and was not as ancient as the others. That was odd because he had not seen one without marks on its stone. Aside from that, nothing was extraordinary about it. It had black soil. But this was also not a big deal, for there was black soil in many places. They were fireball residues.

Efdalin asked one more time, "What have you seen?"

"Nothing," Jack muttered, trying to stay reckless.

"The mountain has mysteries, I know," Efdalin said, walking towards him to figure out Jack's discomfort. He was sure something was going on oddly now.

"The Wulf," Jack said.

"Wulf is not a mystery. Everybody knows about it. There are things other than Wulf." Efdalin was searching his face; he would never miss a flinch of his, a clue about Jack's dread.

"Why does no one fear Wulf during the full moon?" Jack said.

"Oaken-Grandfather says Wulf does not walk about under full moon. In fact, I have never heard that it attacked at another time. The stories of Oaken-Grandfather mention about it but do not say anything about anybody who has been attacked."

"I know the stories," Jack said. "But why?"

Efdalin shrugged. "Nobody has seen it. I believe people who say they saw it are bullshitting. Yet, certainly, it is real. There is enough proof to say that."

"You are a person who is very hard to understand."

Efdalin shrugged again. "Yes, I am confusticate."

"Confusticate? Is this a new word?"

"Yes."

"Do you think people of the city talk the way we talk?"

"Mr. Coinner goes there on full moon days. How do you think he communicates with city people?"

"I don't know, but I believe the way of their talking is different."

Efdalin gave another shrug.

As Jack talked, his eyes grew rounder, and Efdalin's were on Jack. What was Jack looking at? What was he so afraid of?

"Do you think it was Wulf, last night?" Jack's voice trembled.

"No," Efdalin said. "If the Wulf was like half what was mentioned, it was not going to let us slip through his claws as we ran with my speed."

"No one was after us then?"

"Sure, something was after us."

"A quiety?"

"I don't think so."

"What then?"

"I believe there is something that you can see but not me. I can feel its presence but cannot see it."

"There aren't any such things."

"Things! I said, 'something.'"

Jack frowned. He was not a good liar nor a persuader. "How on earth could you know that I can see them?"

Efdalin grinned. "We are twins. I can feel what you feel. You are seeing one of them right now."

Jack's eyes looked unseeingly. He was mesmerized. Whatever was frightening him was near, very near.

Efdalin slowly revolved around the tombstone newer than the rest. At a point of his walk, he felt on his right arm the same chilling feel, which made his arm almost senseless for a moment. He halted and turned his face in that direction and made a movement with his arms as if he would hug something. But he grabbed only air.

Efdalin forced himself to comprehend what was there. His senses said they were not alone. There was some physical form beside them, yet it was unseen, to him, at least.

He clutched Jack's arm and drew him away slowly. They walked alongside the river. Jack was not in the mood for talking.

# Welcome, Su

Earth-Mother wakened along with the cockcrows saluting the sunrise. She silently fed the stove with a few chocks and took a glance at Su; the guest was sleeping like a baby.

She checked the peace and harmony of her home, put on her cardigan, and was about to leave when she noticed her silent guest was awake, sitting up and looking at her.

Earth-Mother hesitated what to do and then beckoned her with a minimal gesture of her hand.

Su got to her feet quietly and looked around if there was anyone besides them, but Earth-Mother's husband, Mr. Samson, was not at home. Actually, Su had not seen him since she came to the house, which seemed awkward to her.

Earth-Mother gave her a cardigan; it was chilly in the mornings. They left the cottage and rode like two specters under the dawn light. She did not ask where they were going but followed the old woman without hesitation.

Some of the village residents had gathered at the village square for a farewell ceremony of their deceased friend. Most people were still in their beds.

Mrs. Vilma had lived her whole life in her one-room house in quiescence. Her husband had left the village for the city when she was young and had not returned. She'd waited for him for some time and hoped for more time that he would be back someday.

She was not too old to die; actually, she was very lively yesterday. But it was the dark side of this beautiful land. It had happened to some other folks of the village in the past. It was unexpected, and a mystery as was her passing.

According to Oaken-Grandfather, this was due to the food she chose to eat in her last meal. Sometimes, even a misfortunate combination of foods could cause that. On the downside, no one would know which combination of the menus was the reason for that. Also, time could be an essential factor for such unexpected demises. If Mrs. Vilma had eaten them a few days before or after, maybe she would get no harm from them.

Her time had come; it was inevitable.

She did not want many friends in her life; no relatives of hers were around or alive either. Thereby, few people were at the funeral: the Mayor, the First Lady, Earth-Mother, Su, Elizabeth, and a few more.

The perforated iron coffin, which had been black after many years of work, was over a flat volcanic rock with plenty of dry branches and brushwood underneath.

It was custom that a relative of the deceased person would start the fire. However, Mrs. Vilma had no relatives, so the Mayor ignited the burning on the farewell stone.

Not long after, smoke rose from the hundred-and-eleven holes of the coffin. The decadent's body was anointed with mint oil. Supposedly, when it engulfed in flames, the odor of the burning flesh would be surpassed by the scent of the mint. The cause that nobody cooks meat by burning in the village, was perceivable.

Elizabeth stood stiffly and as silent as others on the other side of the farewell stone. When her eyes met with Su's, she said, "Good morning," through hand-arm language.

Su hesitated for a while, but the soulful atmosphere beat her misdoubt. She replied with the same language, which had neither a substantial base in grammar nor in words. "Good morning," and she said more, "Why bury her not?" with a minimal movement of her hands and arms.

"You bury?" Elizabeth asked with a smile of victory on her face.

Presumably, somewhere deep in Su was an answer to this question and more, which she could not have answered yet.

The others attending the ceremony were startled with these movements of hands and arms, which reminded them of the terror they have been through from the owners of this ancient, occult language.

Watching silently, Earth-Mother knew why she did not like Elizabeth yet again.

"Final journey be like this. We not bury our dead," Elizabeth said.

Thereupon, Su asked, "These tombstones, everywhere?"

"None under any from this village," Elizabeth said.

Customarily, until the smoke fades, a relative of the descendant would wait for the farewell stone. Clearly, it became a duty for the Mayor as well.

***

When Earth-Mother and Su left the house a few hours later, the village was in its usual routine.

"Don't be ayfraid my girl, I am with yu, no feyar," Earth-Mother said.

People who saw them stopped whatever they were doing and pursued them. Fortunately, Earth-Mother's reputation of rebuking kept them away.

"Do not mynd deir curiosity, my dear. They've been fyral since no one cayme here for a long time. They will geyt accustomed with yu in a few days."

Not minding the crowd behind, they walked and reached the Mayor's Office without an incident.

Right before they knocked on the door, Alexander opened it. He gawked at them and the crowd behind until he gathered himself up. "Welcome, Earth-Mother. Please come in. Welcome, Misfelinda."

Su lowered her head to stifle her little smile; Earth-Mother grumbled unspeakingly before entering.

Four men sitting behind an old and long table got on their feet. Fancy Jr. fixed his hair with his hand, although it was well-formed; Mr. Coinner and Mr. Yunt eyed the guest. Mr. Madra greeted them with a warm smile.

"Sit, all of yu men. Anyone seeing yu thinks mother of a sultan came in," Earth-Mother said.

Mr. Madra ushered them into the seats. "Welcome, here you are."

The guests sat down; everyone remained silent for seconds. The council members gazed at Su, and the state of speechlessness prolonged awkwardly.

Earth-Mother was displeased with it. She stood up. "Let's get going. Seeing that yu won't ask anything."

"No, Mother, wait." Mr. Madra rushed forward. "Forgive our discourtesy, young lady."

Earth-Mother interrupted, "Su, her name is Su, Mayyor."

"Yes, Su, welcome again. Our village is several days from the city. No one but Mr. Coinner goes to the town. Because of the tombs, I believe, nobody from the city or from anywhere else comes here. Who wants to go to an ancient graveyard-mountain somehow!"

Mr. Mayor continued addressing the council members. "Folks, our guest came here upon my request. I thank her on behalf of us. It is not in our routine that we invite our guests in front of the council. Nevertheless, the situation was a bit awkward for me."

He coughed and cleared his voice. "Our guest stayed silent since she came to our village, and apparently she knows the so-called hand-arm language of the community that we named the Quieties. Besides, her extraordinary turnout and looks resemble them. For our citizens' good, I've considered the village council will find the benefit of meeting our guest."

Earth-Mother muttered without lowering her muttering tone, "Well hell done."

Mayor halted abruptly but gathered up swiftly afterward. "Of course, without permission of Earth-Mother, one of the most beloved people of our village with the unique, Mother title with her name, we wouldn't dare such an invitation."

Earth-Mother feigned as if she missed these last words of the Mayor; she was looking outside through the window.

"As the rulers of the village, I leave the word to you," Mr. Madra said and sat down, bearing an encouraging smile; his feelings about Su had been positive since he saw her.

After a short lull, Mr. Yunt spoke first. "My apologies on behalf of us all, young miss, for any inconvenience we may have caused."

He shushed for a short while, straightened his back, cleared his throat, and said, "Did you understand what I said?"

Su nodded slightly.

Thereupon, Mr. Yunt leaned backward; he was relieved some. "That's good. We don't think the Quieties understand our language."

Mr. Fancy Jr. held the floor. "Is she literate?"

"Yes, she is," Mr. Madra said. "Besides, she can use their language. In our Mother's house, she answered Alexander's question with the way the Quieties talk."

"My question was in the Quiety language," Alexander added cockily. "I asked her name."

"How could she manage to answer you without speaking?" Mr. Fancy Jr. asked curiously.

"She wrote her name, Misfelinda, on a paper that Mr. Mayor had given her. Why Earth-Mother calls her Su? I do not understand."

"Is her name Misfelinda?" Mr. Fancy Jr. asked perplexedly.

It was the same gawky look on each council member's face. They exchanged meaningful glances and turned their attention to Earth-Mother.

"No, her name is Su," Mr. Madra said in an uneasy gesture.

"Then, where did that name come from?" Mr. Yunt was irritated by the word Misfelinda. He turned to Alexander. "Are you sure of what you asked her?"

Alexander resented this question. He straightened his back and put his chin forward. "Yes, Mr. Yunt, my father has taught me this language. I know it enough for sure."

Mr. Yunt nodded his head and muttered under his breath, "I think we might need Mrs. Elizabeth."

Apparently, John Madra had agreed with his best friend, George Yunt. "Alexander, call your mother right now and order us coffee, will you?" he said.

"Yes, Mr. Mayor," Alexander said with a heavy heart.

Looking at Su and Earth-Mother, Mr. Madra apologized. "Sorry about that, ladies. We'll keep you waiting some time."

"Yes, be sorry, Mayyor. Tell them to mayk our coffees eyxtra sweet."

"Yes, Mother!"

***

After a quarter of an hour, the door of the Mayor's Office opened; Mr. Leonard and Mrs. Elizabeth came in front of Alexander. No one anticipated this quiet man along with his wife; he was the most reserved person in their community to such social gatherings.

Mayor Madra put his coffee on the table and got to his feet to welcome them at the door. "Hello, Mrs. Elizabeth, Mr. Leonard, welcome to our office."

Mr. Leonard nodded his head. Mrs. Elizabeth gave a bragging look to Earth-Mother, and she said, "Thank you, Mr. Mayor."

Alexander grabbed two empty chairs and brought them by the council members' seats. "Here, Mom."

Mr. Leonard sat on his chair. But Elizabeth did not sit in her place. She took the chair and dragged it in a position facing Su on her right; the council members remained at the right side of Elizabeth. Su would have been obliged to turn towards her, and in the final position, Earth-Mother was behind Su, unable to see Elizabeth.

Elizabeth sat comfortably as Su turned towards her, and as the word, daymn came from Earth-Mother's mouth.

Mr. Madra spoke swiftly, "I presume you are aware of the situation, Mrs. Elizabeth. I wonder if you would communicate with this young lady in the way of the Quieties. She understands our words but cannot talk."

"Sure, I can talk to her, Mr. Madra," Elizabeth said and asked her with the hand-arm language.

"What your name?"

The young woman did not give a response, not even a gesture; she sat still.

Mr. Madra picked the paper lying on the table that Su had written the word Misfelinda on and extended it to Alexander.

Elizabeth repeated the same waving.

Su glanced at Earth-Mother, irritated.

Elizabeth glanced at the paper that Alexander brought to her attention. Then she handled the writing and reread it to be sure of it. A few seconds passed. Then Elizabeth used the hand-arm language and spoke at the same time with an unintelligible face. "Your name Misfelinda?" She showed the paper to Su.

Su looked at the paper as if she saw it for the first time. After a short while, she answered the question with her undecided hand-arm language.

Thereupon, Elizabeth stood aghast for a few seconds before turning her looks to the Mayor. She was baffled; she said what she understood, "Her name is not Misfelinda. That is her mother's name."

The air inside the room froze. All eyes but Su's and Alexander's turned to Earth-Mother, anticipating her reaction.

Mr. Madra gave Alexander a blank look.

Finally, Earth-Mother could not take it anymore and become fulminated. "Enough of this! Why are yu gawking as gaga gammers."

"Don't be angry, Mother," Mr. Madra barely said, trying to gather himself.

"Drat the Mother," Earth-Mother said, scowling.

Mr. Yunt piped up, "Where are you from, young lady?"

Su pondered for a while and then answered with the hand-arm language.

Elizabeth interpreted it, "From far."

"Have you come by purpose or coincidence?"

Elizabeth voiced her answer, "Coincidence."

"How long will you stay?" Mr. Coinner asked this time.

Earth-Mother succumbed to herself then. "What do yu cayre, monger? She stays as long as she wishes."

"All right, Mother. Don't be angry," Mr. Madra said yet again.

Mr. Yunt looked at Su. "Of course, she is welcome, and she may stay as long as she likes. Nevertheless, since our childhood, we hear distressful stories of some people that we call Quieties.

Mr. Leonard's eyes alternated between Su's hand-arm movements and her eyes.

"Besides, those were the mere people that we've encountered with sad confrontations in our village. Most of our young knew about them from the stories of our oldest. What we know is the Quieties do not talk but communicate using hands and arms as you do, and the name you mentioned as your mother's name..." Mr. Yunt was not sure whether he should continue.

Su told something with hand-arm language and stared at Mr. Leonard.

Elizabeth interpreted as pointing to her husband. "Know he speak that way."

The council members looked at each other and to Mrs. Elizabeth.

Mrs. Elizabeth defended herself, "I interpreted what she said."

"All right," Mr. Madra said. "I think this was a question. Mr. Leonard is a citizen of this village. He joined us at a young age." Mr. Madra glanced at Earth-Mother. "We're grateful to Earth-Mother for him."

Earth-Mother pretended as if she didn't hear the last lines.

As to Mr. Leonard, he did not talk, but a shadow of an old regret passed from his face swiftly.

"Could you tell us where you lived before?" Mr. Madra asked.

Elizabeth interpreted, "I not remember."

All became stunned yet again.

"You do not remember? You know who you are. You know where you came from, but you cannot remember anymore, right?" Mr. Madra said.

Su continued with her rudimentary language. "This morning, in wood, wake up in cave. I not remember more."

"But you remember your name, don't you?" Mr. Madra said.

"I read markings on necklace. I remember my name. My mother gave it me." She pointed at the paper. "My mother name write there."

Mr. Yunt straightened his shoulders and leaned back. "The situation is getting complicated."

"Why did she sleep in a cave?" Mr. Fancy Jr. asked.

"She doesn't remember. It is pointless to ask any more questions," Mr. Yunt replied to him.

The two men were ashamed. They had forgotten she could understand what they were saying, and all the while, they had talked of her as a third person.

After eying the council members one by one, Mr. Madra stared at Su and said, "We thank you, young lady, and apologize for troubling you. You may stay in our village for as long as you wish."

Earth-Mother was already on her feet.

"Mother, we troubled you, too. Sorry, and thank you for accompanying the young lady."

"It is alright Mayyor. We got to go now." Earth-Mother waddled towards the street door behind Su.

A few curious women chatting before the outside of the building, disappeared quickly when Earth-Mother emerged from the door.

Mr. Madra led the guests out and returned. Mr. Leonard got to his feet and walked to the door. Mrs. Elizabeth followed him unwillingly.

"Thank you very much for your help, Mrs. Elizabeth, Mr. Leonard," Mr. Madra said.

Mr. Leonard gave his silent nod.

"Whenever you need me, Mr. Mayor. I'll be happy to help our council," Mrs. Elizabeth said.

Alexander walked out with them, as well.

Mr. Madra closed the door, turned back to his place, and sat down. "Yes, my friends."

Mr. Fancy Jr. gave one more glance at his pocket mirror and said, "She seems like a docile person. However, it is bothersome to see her communicating as a quiety." Fancy Jr. had always gotten bored dealing with such stuff. His father had handed over the reins to his son as was family custom, but actually, it was because Fancy Jr. had been a hero of the village at a time unintentionally. It was needless to say that a hero should undoubtedly be on the village council.

"I suspect she has an agenda rather than coming here coincidently, and she is definitely a quiety," Mr. Coinner said.

"She was convincing enough when she said she did not remember much about her life," Mr. Yunt said and turned to the owner of the sole grocery store of the village. "Mr. Coinner, you go to the city often. Have you seen somebody talking in the way of the Quieties?"

"I haven't seen anyone, Mr. Yunt," Mr. Coinner said, shaking his head. "Doesn't this sound weird to you that she doesn't even remember her own name?"

"If you think of Earth-Mother, this is not so unusual," Mr. Madra said. "A great sadness could cause worse. I'm sure you all thought the way I thought when we heard Misfelinda was the mother of Su."

"As a matter of fact, when I first heard the name Misfelinda, my hackles erected," Mr. Fancy Jr. Said. In the meantime, he was trying to pull out a mustache hair that was barely half a pica longer than the rest.

"Fortunately, Earth-Mother still does not remember Misfelinda," Mr. Yunt said, leaning back, contemplating. "It is impossible not to think this Misfelinda is Earth-Mother's Misfelinda. That is, Earth-Mother is the real grandmother of Su."

Council members were silent and agreed with him.

After a while, Mr. Madra said, "Yes, it is quite probable. Let's accept the young woman is telling the truth. Nevertheless, we should be ready for all the circumstances, as well. I want to increase the number of watchers to three."

"That's fine with me," Mr. Coinner said. "What if this woman is a quiety scout?"

These words bewildered them more.

"You say she uses Misfelinda's name deliberately to create a warm welcome for herself?" Mr. Fancy Jr. said.

"Such attempts happen in books, not in real life," Mr. Yunt objected and continued. "Isn't that over forethoughtfulness, John. Is it good to keep our young tiresome of the patrolling, and the rest of our people in fret?"

"Am I keeping our citizens in fret?" Mr. Madra was bewildered. "You should blame Oaken-Grandfather George. He is the one who tells bizarre stories about the Quieties and the Wulf."

"John, you have always been keen on the Quieties, but Wulf," Mr. Yunt replied.

"Because I didn't forget what damage the Quieties have done to this village in the past, George. I did not forget Zachariah's family...and Misfelinda. They harmed our people.

"What about Wulf? How many people have encountered it? None! Is there credible evidence of the existence of it? No! A quiety that one sees is worse than Wulf that one fears. I believe that I say that," Mr. Madra said.

"I disagree with you, Mr. Mayor," Mr. Fancy Jr. said. "Some weird footmarks were seen in the woods as well as unusual howling sounds. A few even say they had discerned him at nightfall a few times roaming about on the canyon side. Besides, Oaken-Grandfather cannot dream up all these stories, can he?"

Mr. Coinner appended. "We should take into account the findings of maimed but uneaten animals in the woods."

Mr. Madra got to his feet. "Some dogs could be responsible with that or a rogue wolf. I could even believe a cougar roaming in our territory. However, a mean humanoid wolf gaiting on its hind legs that you named Wulf roaming about, yet unseen for many years is beyond my imagination. Wulf is merely a delusion, a fictional monster made up in the tales of Oaken-Grandfather. My mind is superior to my heart when the subject is our people. An old man's tales do not motive me. A man who lived all his life in this village could only tell fiction. There is no doubt with the entity of the Quieties. But our folks fear the Wulf, and they do not know of the real threat. Fortunately, the Quieties are also in Oaken-Grandfather's tales, or else, our braves would not stand to watch even in a single night."

"His tales never end, do they?" Mr. Fancy Jr. said. He defeated the improperly extended single hair of his mustache. He was relieved and leaned back. "I have heard his tales since childhood. Now my hair is growing grey, and I'm still listening to new tales of him. I believe no one knows his real age. He has witnessed his grand grandchildren. The twins Jack and Efdalin are about to be grown-up men in a few years."

Mr. Madra said impatiently, "Believe me, increasing the number of the watchers to three is not an unnecessary precaution."

Mr. Yunt yielded in the end; his quarrel with Mr. Madra had been going on for days. "Let it be as you say, John. But what will happen to the woman with the snake curls?"

When everybody seemed confused with this description, Mr. Yunt looked at Mr. Madra and explained, "Your daughter portrays her so?"

Mr. Madra shrugged. "I believe the person Misfelinda is Earth-Mother's Misfelinda. So we must welcome her and hope she or Earth-Mother will remember more of their pasts soon."

"What if she is a quiety spy and using the name Misfelinda deliberately?"

These recurring words of Mr. Coinner made the others brood on the subject for long seconds.

"Who dares say this to Earth-Mother?" Mr. Fancy Jr.'s words put unavoidable bitter smiles on the men's faces.

Mr. Madra leaned back in his chair. "My eyes will be on her, and we'll have three watchers from now on."

"Now, will you permit blade-training lessons for juveniles, as well?" Mr. Yunt initiated a new discussion.

# Blondie

A bunch of men finished their fieldwork and gathered at the public house. They were chatting about a topic quite popular and exciting in recent years. It was about making more money than selling cheese, products of their fields or trees, and their hand made stuff —mostly food.

Sin'a, who was famous for his town-crier abilities, was holding something between his thumb and forefinger. "What a hot color you have, my darling. From which stone's bosom have you been broken off and put in my hand? You will be a shirt for Sin'a, garments for his wife and daughters, a hoe for dirt, and an ax for wood. You will make us happy, my precious blondie."

Sin'a put it in the middle of the table, and the piece of gold stole the hearts of a dozen men surrounding it.

"Where did you find such an enormously big one?" an owner of one of the lustful looks asked.

"Near the stream," Sin'a replied. There were many streams from the mountain, after all.

Some men had encountered these blondies before. Since it was a prideful moment for the owner, when someone found one big enough to brag of, he would go to the public house in no time flat.

In all the looks gazing at Sin'a's gold, were admirations, but one, and all the men bewailed not to be lucky to find such a big piece, but one.

The one was a little guy who could clamber up to ridges that others could not, could fit into recesses that they could not and, most importantly, could find his courage to enter deep into the beastmaws that other men could not.

Aden was his name and reputation. As other eyes goggled at the gold piece, he withdrew without being noticed.

# In the Woods

In the woods, Jack hiked alone. He navigated intuitively, neither with eyes nor with nose or ears but with something indefinable.

Trees bunched more after his every step. The wind whined around the branches, whispering to the leaves.

He had just passed the Lonely Fountain, which dried out many years ago. As he went on in his direction, which he had not a single idea where to go, through some disinterested woods and many tombstones resembling each other, Jack noticed someone whom he did not expect to see. The rumors were true.

He fastened a thick rope to a young pine tree and pulled it with all his strength. The roots of his hair were dark red with sweat. His face was red with exertion, and his broad chest waxed and waned like a windbag.

He inhaled deeply and strained the rope. "Come on, my boy!" His exclamation echoed among the tombstones and made the trees shiver. He pulled the rope until the tree's leaves kissed the ground; he stood still for a short while and released it. The young plane-tree gained its position back immediately and quivered convulsively.

He straightened his back gladly, put his hands on his hips, and muttered, "Everybody will witness the strength of Hugie, my dear. After bending bellies of the trees, time will come to bend Samson's belly. In the universe, no one will claim to Hugie's strength, my dear!" Then he fastened the rope to another tree, which was thicker than the preceding one.

Though Jack tried to become slinky, he could not prevent cracks of dry needles all the same.

Hugie shuddered and released the rope abruptly; a fearful, wobbly exclamation came out of his mouth. "Who is it?"

When Hugie gripped a thick stick lying on the ground, Jack emerged behind a large pine tree.

Hugie exhaled his breath and heaved a big sigh to ease the pulsing of his heart. "You kid, you wanderer, you, you...What are you doing hereabouts, my boy?" He continued before Jack said a word. "You crept up on me, my little boy. I could have extinguished your life, taking for you an evil spirited creature. I could have wasted you, my dear!"

"Hugie sir, sorry I frightened you. I was seeking my twin."

The formidable guy put himself up. "I am far from getting frightened, my dear. I am just worried about killing some person with an involuntary jerk of my hand, surmising him this human-animal freak, Wulf. After the Lonely Fountain, you don't see people around in this vicinity, my dear."

"Have you ever seen Wulf around, Hugie, sir?" Jack asked inquisitively.

"Wulf wanders around only at nights, my dear. It is the reason why I do not participate in the night watches. I do not want to destroy it. Or else, I, Hugie, who has the most beautiful scent of all the living things, who is the first of his kind, attracts Wulf overwhelmingly. As a result, I might have gotten an urge to take the beast's life, but you know, I could not trample even on an ant intentionally, my dear."

He put the large stick down that he gripped since he encountered Jack. "Tell your twin not to wander around, my dear. Tell the people of the village that Hugie is beyond the Lonely Fountain. Tell them not to fret. Tell them Hugie has become an invincible shield to any nasty minded creature, my dear."

"Yes, I will, Hugie, sir. May it be easy for you. Don't get too tired yourself," Jack said and went away swiftly.

Everybody in the village knew that Hugie struggled to beat Samson in the roping competition, and the person who mentioned and feared Wulf the most was Hugie.

***

Jack halted at times and rerouted his way, but his walk eventually turned upwards after some time. A few yards away, one of the many meandering rills of Azmak trickled with a cheerful babble.

He kept it on his side; it was blue due to the moss of stones inside. The waterfront was full of red and white abelias with bent necks; the fog sets were apart from each other and roamed like little clouds about his feet. He walked not minding the time but noting the places to his memory by which he passed.

He stopped and bent his knees and tilted his head to left and then right very slowly. His belly protruded forward slightly; his abdomen, especially the belly-button, had this feeling as though hearing the existence of his brother. It was as if disturbing a muscle group that had not been used before, itchy, set on the edge. He was reluctant to use it unless the need be. He had called it the brother-finder.

After he performed the brother-finder, his walk rerouted more towards the east.

Though Jack had seen many gripping existences along his way, he had forgotten his habit all the same. Neither of the overgrown and muscled trees that seemed each one had a personality, named by him nor the black, glimmering boulders that implausibly hung to the edges of the cliffs, infant rivulets flowing fuddled and hidden under the shadows of their nursing trees.

The ill boy who did not want to be found had gone through very inappropriate paths to reach this wilderness.

Jack stopped to examine a fascinating plant that was not native to their land. It had many branches like swords bearing needles on them and pointed in all possible directions. Each of its limbs was a different tone of purple: The inner ones were deep purple while the outer ones more like violet. The dirt it had grown from was blackish with purple twinkles on some parts.

He glanced at its purple needles. _It must be poisonous as the other purple things of the mountain,_ he thought. Staying away from the purple ones was sensible even with the berries around.

Jack took his way swiftly. He knew where his brother could have been; his mind and intuition both pointed in the same direction. He crossed a few more narrow rills and many thick-skinned trees, which their barks seemed like dark-brownish stones. If he hadn't been careful, he would fall from a yard, which was entirely hidden by the greenery. The mountain would not condone mistakes.

At last, Jack sensed his brother's presence after a grove of magenta alder trees before seeing him.

Efdalin surrendered haggardly to protruded, hugging-roots of an alder tree bearing red, yellow, and green leaves all together at the exact place where Jack had regarded he was there before discerning him.

Jack prowled towards him with light steps.

"You are late. I thought you would find me sooner," Efdalin said with a never-ending hunger for breath. His back was against Jack, face uphill.

"You've noticed me too early. Can you sense my whereabouts, too?" Jack asked.

"More I can..."

"More!" Jack bewailed. "I thought I had an ability that you did not."

"You're abler than me on many other things, Jack."

"I'm flattered."

"I can sense whereabouts of anywhere or anyplace that I wish to be."

"Wow!" Jack stopped and pondered for a short while. "Does that mean your wanting was me right now? Oh, I can't believe that. I'm overly flattered now. My brother wanted to see me, yet he leaves me behind to go to the High-Wood at every opportunity."

Efdalin did not respond.

Jack gave an uneasy glance around. "You have gone too far this time. It took time to catch up with you. If Mom had not kept me busy, I could have found you long ago anyway. I have been forced to lie to her yet again. She doesn't know we are deep in the woods."

"Mom doesn't need to know everything about us. We're almost grown-up."

"Tell that to her," Jack replied and slipped off the waterskin from his shoulder, uncorked it, and drank some water.

"Every part of this mountain is teeming with rivers, yet you are carrying a waterskin."

"I like the taste of my water only from the fountain of the village," Jack said and corked it. He had noticed a beastmaw a hundred yards up when his head rose up for drinking. _Was Efdalin aiming to be there,_ he thought doubtingly.

"Look on the bright side, I favor you to ensure the progression of your immature sense," Efdalin said. His speaking was always soft, but now it was faint as well, a voice tone of a beaten manner.

Jack turned back and glanced around. He had so ascended, and his route was so complicated that he had no idea where they were now, and as Efdalin once said with jealousy that he who has a heart of a stallion had been haggard.

Jack gave a handful of wild strawberries to his brother. He had come across them in his errand and saved some for Efdalin, knowing their sweet juice would help him to retrieve his breath more swiftly.

Efdalin threw a few of the berries into his mouth quickly and felt better immediately after. "The purple ones are the best. Why haven't you picked them up?"

"They might be poisonous as many things of this color. Don't you know Grandfather warns about them?"

"Berries? I don't think so."

Jack looked around and saw another broken tombstone. "Yet another grave," he said, puffing, and then spoke below his breath, "Though we are in the High-Wood."

"Not High-Wood, not yet." Efdalin denoted the unseen parts of the mountain.

It was as if the trees had bent their bellies over the brothers and were looking on them, and it was as if Efdalin did not want them to hear what he said.

Jack straightened his back for a good snap of his spine. "Why did you go so far away?" He noticed the tool in the right hand of his brother. He gave Efdalin a black look.

It was the magnifying glass that they'd borrowed from Mr. Coinner's shop. Jack did not comprehend what to use it for when Efdalin snatched it, but apparently, his brother had intended to look at a tree, allegedly bearing markings on it.

Supposedly, some trees had words carved on their trunks or branches. Efdalin had said so. What an impossibility! "Is that the stuff you have stolen from Mr. Coinner's Shop?" Jack asked.

"Shush, I have been trying to forget about it." The strawberries had balanced his blood sugar; Efdalin gathered himself up more.

"Does it really magnify whatever you look at?" Jack was eager.

Efdalin held the magnifying glass before his right eye and turned to his brother; the eye was huge behind it.

"Not your eye; does it magnify the stuff you look?" Jack asked this time.

"You are looking at my eye through it, brother." Efdalin extended the device to Jack and, with the thumb of his other hand, pointed somewhere on the tree where he had leaned.

Jack was curious about it. "Are there any words on this tree, like those you've mentioned to Oaken-Grandfather?"

"He's sent you after me, hasn't he? To prevent me from doing my will?"

"Your will is dangerous."

"I am always in danger with my sick heart. It might stop beating anytime."

Jack shook his head. "You're helping it to happen sooner." He got to his feet with the magnifier on his hand to seek the tree overshadowing his brother. It was old and bodied as others surrounding them. He circled it looking for any resembling markings.

After his second time around, he saw absolutely nothing, which could be described as words, but there was some oddity with it anyway. On a high branch of no importance was a small area striking the eye, if it was lusting to see something keenly. The bark of the tree had been scraped and flattened, but he was not sure if something was there.

Jack nodded and climbed on the tree swiftly. He used the magnifier over the scraped area. After a few seconds, he glanced at his brother in astonishment because there were marks on the branch. "Who could write so small? If this is a script, it is implausible to read with the naked eye." Jack touched on the scraped part with the tip of his forefinger. The letters of the calligraphy were not written with book letters; the font was of geometric shapes of which Jack was unaware.

"He is testing my will. He knows my talent," Efdalin said.

Jack approached the branch more and tried to comprehend what was over there.

"Try the device," Efdalin said.

Jack held the magnifying glass an inch away from his eye and peered meticulously. "It is implausible to read some from here, but these are like words all the same."Jack looked at his brother. "How did you find this? Have you looked at all the trees one by one? Or you've chosen this one because of its weirdness? How can a tree bear leaves with three irrelevant colors simultaneously?

"Are you seeking me behind every unusual tree? What about the tree by the river in the village with blue and redbuds?" Efdalin said.

Jack did not reply to Efdalin and used the magnifier again. "They should have been inscribed imprecisely. Yet I'm not sure if it is a meaningful script."

"Imprecisely? Definitely not! This time they have been written in a peculiar font. Do you think anybody who could write something like that is an ordinary person? He is testing my enthusiasm."

"Who? Wait a minute. You are enthusiastic about what?"

"He is the guy who has written all those scripts on the trees. I do not know who he is, but I will certainly find out."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"Why do you have to find out who did these markings? He might be a crazy person."

"He is a wonderful crazy person, not boring like our people. He has been doing it for me. I believe he knew what I am seeking and that I could ferret out whatever I wanted to."

"That is ridiculous. Why doesn't this person come and talk to you rather than doing it in such a weird way?"

Efdalin scoffed. "He is testing my ability. Besides, this way must be amusing for him. He is my kind of guy."

"How do you know this favorite person of yours is a he?"

Efdalin chuckled. "This is not a woman's behavior." Then his manner of speaking and the tone altered. "You are good with girls. You should have figured it out."

Jack did not respond to him; instead, he said, "Your business is tough. There are thousands and thousands of trees on this mountain with many weird ones."

But another thought invaded Efdalin's mind. "How could this guy be aware of my ability when the only person who knows about it is Jack?"

"Yes! Besides, I've only known it for a few minutes, not before. So you cannot blame me for mentioning it to someone."

"This is worth think about, brother."

These were beyond Jack's perception; he shook his head slightly.

Efdalin got excited; a rare moment of happiness was on his face beneath a smile. "Now, give me the magnifier."

Jack gave up his struggle of reading the script and climbed down the tree, glancing around.

The sun was on the other side of the mountain now. A fading afternoon, which alters the colors of everything into darker tones, had come.

"This time, we are too far away from home. Even the Lonely-Fountain remains far," Jack said.

"The magnifier is necessary. Give it back," Efdalin said yet again.

"If we set off on our return journey right away, we might catch the carnival."

"I am not interested in the carnival. Give the magnifier back."

Jack played his last card to convince him to return to the village. He knew how his brother desired to do it. "Today is the first day of sword training. If you're so willing to meet with the person who likes to write on the trees, you might get the benefit of practicing with the blades."

That was logical, which was the most genuine and the only way of persuading the sick boy.

Efdalin stood silent and still for a while but frowned and took a firm stand. "How could Mr. Leonard train without talking anyway? It is not viable. Besides, the words you couldn't read tell me to visit a beastmaw."

Jack glanced at the one he saw as he was drinking water and said, "If you come back with me now, I can accompany you on your journey."

It was so surprising for Efdalin that he got to his feet swiftly and stared at his brother uncomprehendingly.

"Later, at a proper time," Jack added. "Besides, the markings you read must be in another language. How did you know the meaning?"

Efdalin wore his signature half-smile and kept his silence.

It was where the words fail; there was no other way for Jack. He put the magnifier into his pocket. "Your great gift does not require such simple devices, I believe." He walked down the mountain.

Efdalin gave his brother an angry look. He hated to do anything he did not want to do. Yet, he followed his brother with his mouth shut. If there was something regular for these boys, it was stubbornness. Efdalin knew Jack would not give it to him until they were in the village. But more importantly, Jack would be a great companion on his quest.

Jack walked, whistling and talking casually. "I wonder why we do not see a tombstone."

"If you really want to know, your direction is definitely wrong," Efdalin said from right behind his brother.

"Maybe I will go to a land without tombstones when I am grown up."

Efdalin scoffed. "Grown-up? That word hardly suits me. I won't be grown up unless I scout up the Wu...the beastmaws."

Jack stopped and stared at him. "Would you say, Wulf?"

Efdalin stood silent and continued his walking.

"Are the words you read on the trees about Wulf?" Jack asked.

Efdalin did not respond.

"If you don't give me an answer, then you won't get it from me when you fancy it."

"What is that supposed to mean? Are you threatening me?"

"You are smarter than me, but you readily believe in something that is nonsense. How could this be?"

"Do you think someone capable of carving such small scripts upon trees, writes ridiculously meaningless words? Someone who knew that I would find the carvings? My hope to heal from my condition is so small that only bizarre pledges can keep it fresh. If my hope vanishes, then what is left?"

"Me, Mother, Grandfather," Jack said.

"What?" Efdalin did not understand.

"People who love you, who care for you. Are we not in your sympathy? Are we the sole people near you when you walk in the paths of life? Are we the mere people who could be replaced by other people easily?" Jack said.

Efdalin halted. "What is that supposed to be?"

"That means your life is not just yours. There is a great deal of sharing with people who love you."

"This is bull. If you die, should I as well?"

"Of course not! I doubt if you would have been sad, though. I have always thought that you loved only our father."

"That is bull, too."

Jack stopped and waited for his brother to approach. "Are you seeking Wulf?" He searched his brother's face. His mimes were more important than what he would say.

A hint of a smile appeared on Efdalin's face. "Everybody requires entertainment, and you know mine is waiting there."

"Where? In the beastmaws?"

"No. In the village."

"Girls?"

"No, blades. Girls are your province, brother."

Jack sighed as if he did not understand the reprehension Efdalin's words bore. The boys walked down the mountain for a while without talking. When they reached a meandering branch of Azmak, Jack said, "If you find the place you are looking for, you will die there. You will not find the right way out if Wulf does not find and kill you first."

"What are the chances of meeting with Wulf in such a large land? Don't forget. You promised me you'll accompany next time."

Jack raised his head to the blue sky. The moon was there, faded white and round.

"Yes, I know. By the way, what was written on the tree back there?"

"It said I must go into the beastmaws."

"We might not find the exit if we go in these caves. If we die someday, I will blame you for it."

"A blame does not exist without perpetration. If we cannot find the way home, I will certainly blame you because, as the wary one of us, you should have heeded the route that you followed on your errand."

"Errand?"

"Did you forget that Oaken-Grandfather sent you after me?"

Jack shook his head without responding to his brother.

Neither of the boys saw Aden looking at them from the entrance of the beastmaw Jack spotted before finding Efdalin.

# The Carnival

On the very first day of every full moon, enjoying various competitions and games and gorging plenty of superb foods were a merrymaking tradition for the Karatulla People. It was from the past that any community dweller, except Oaken-Grandfather, hardly remembered the time it had been settled up first.

After sleeping one eye open in the creeping nights and embracing a knife in place of the spouse, the coming of the full moon nights was soothing.

Indeed, the first night of the full moon was the most fabulous of all, for it was the time Oaken-Grandfather told his stories. The old man told them gripping stories that seem lacking in reality but solid in believability. The folks of the village liked listening to him and loved believing in him.

The carnival took place in the large clearing near the cliffside of Karatulla. The wooden chairs of the unique public house were carried there. The preparations of food commenced in the morning, and at noon, the carnival started and kept going until sunset.

After that, the folks who filled their bellies with scrumptious food and were in high spirits with the merrymaking and games, carried the chairs back to the public house before going home for cleaning and dressing in their ostentatious clothes for the night of fascinating tales, the time of Oaken-Grandfather.

And it was the day.

The folks had been coming and filling the chairs. The main topic of their chats was the alien woman for sure.

The women who volunteered for the day's work had prepared the food —dried eggplants, sweet bell peppers stuffed with rice-spice mix, stuffed and boiled vine leaves surprisingly still green; meatballs, rice with meat, barbecued sausages, shrimps and fish from the Azmak, sweet corn, mince pies, blueberry pies, apple pies, buttermilk biscuits, and more desserts made with fresh and dried local fruits and honey— all in inexpressible flavors, hues, and tastes.

As soon as Jack and Efdalin arrived, the energy of the crowd freaked Efdalin out, and while the boy sought a quiet place, Jack already saw his friends. As they were leaving each other, "Not without me," Jack said.

Efdalin made a mere, silent, reluctant nod and went his way.

***

The games started with a short distance running race as usual. Anyone could take part in the competition: male or female, young or old.

As Corinna was limbering up, Jane showed up along with Jack in the carnival area.

"Are you sure you're not going to compete today, Jane? Maybe this is your revenge on Corinna after the recent beating," Jack said, cracking a smile at Corinna.

"No!" Jane shook her head. "After the snake hair, I've run so long that my feet still hurt. Besides, this insane girl has been quite speedy as she flees from her demons in her nightmares. No one can outrun her now."

"I can outrun her, as well as her demons," Jack said and went beside Corinna.

Jane muttered after him, "My poor boy, you are in love with her, but my friend is living in a world of dreams."

In the meantime, Samson showed up with his daughter Aria in arms. The appearance of this man having a vast masculine charm made Jane an unavoidable exclamation. "Hi, Samson!"

She didn't notice Calina approaching from the opposite direction. By her looks, it was apparent that she was aware of the point of this exclamation.

Jane scatted as soon as she noticed her.

A group of boys fooling around saw Samson and encircled him at once, imploring him to take up the gauntlet for which Hugie would definitely challenge him. They would have dogged him, had Mr. Leonard not emerged shouldering a sack, full of fake swords made of pike.

They all whooped and scrambled towards him.

The stately man in his black caftan had girt with his infamous inlaid blade, and he was walking bolt upright until he saw the crowd of the boys running keenly towards him. He put his sack down, gesticulated "Stop" with the hands frenetically; his usual cold expression eased off with a hint of a smile.

***

The clamor of the voices rose as more chairs have been occupied. Many creatures of the woods —mammalians, insects, reptilians— approached; even the flora around seemed to bear a will to draw near for watching this merrymaking.

Councilmember Mr. Fancy Jr., together with his father, Mr. Fancy, showed up in their most garish clothes. The women preparing food started gossiping and giggling about who was fancier. The father and son sat on the chairs reserved for them; Mr. Fancy was an ex-council member after all.

Oaken-Grandfather made the scene with his steps older than a century; he approached and sat ponderously on his particular seat that was put in the middle of the chairs located on the front line. The affection and respect for him were so intense that it was discernible, as though palpable.

Jack sidled up to Corinna, trying to mask his dread; the girl was still limbering up. "Hello, Corinna, you seem quite ready for the run."

"I am."

"I am running, too. I will outrun you."

Corinna looked at him for the first time with her tepid eyes. Her ponytail went beyond her waist and suited her slender body very well.

"Do you want to bet?" Jack asked.

"What bet?"

Jack jogged his legs speedily, pretending he was running, he smiled. "If I outrun you, you'll come tomorrow noon to the red beach tree of the streamlet. What do you say?"

"What are we going to do there?" Corinna dubiously asked, how she was away from humanly things.

"Picnic," Jack said, smiling bigger. "You'll prepare and bring food."

"What if you cannot beat me?"

"For a week, I'll carry all the water you need from the fountain for you," Jack said, keeping his smile fresh.

"Deal," Corinna said, shrugging and not pondering much.

Jack exhaled a triumphant breath. Seeing her a few times a day for a week, or a picnic together; in any case, he would get some benefit.

But, neither he nor she did not realize Efdalin, looking at them from a distance, full of desperation and jealousy in his eyes.

***

Mr. Madra and Mr. Yunt came with their wives. After greeting Oaken-Grandfather respectfully, they sat down on the chairs that were abreast of his seat.

None of them noticed Mrs. Elizabeth, sitting and dreaming on one of the rear seats with envious looks in her eyes. One day, her husband, Mr. Leonard, would be a council member for sure; so she would sit on the front chairs, which she had deserved long since.

Oaken-Grandfather delivered two quiety-hooters to Mr. Madra. Though some others struggled with the making of these hooters many times, the old man was the unique person who could give them their characteristic: the shrill whistle.

"Thanks, Grandfather," Mr. Madra said gratefully.

"A strange woman had come to the village, John. Tell me about her."

***

Calina came with a sulked face and sat on a chair beside Samson and Aria.

"We're joining the event, aren't we, Calina?" Samson was very enthusiastic about it.

"I've changed my mind. You may join with the chicks. There are plenty of them about anyway." She sulked deeper.

"What?" Samson was perplexed.

"There are many girls around, dying for the love of you. Go and grab one. Join your contest."

"I don't believe it, Calina. You have found a reason to become jealous again. We agreed on it yesterday."

"No, I don't want to do it now."

***

Mr. Leonard drew the boys to the edge of the clearing next to the woods. He messed around for a while until they chilled out. He lined them up a few yards away from himself and opened his rack and took ten fake blunt swords that were made out of pike.

Efdalin was at the end of the line of all those boys, who were anticipating the sword training. Because Jack was busy with some other things, he was not there.

Although neither Efdalin's gestures nor mouth betrayed no emotion at all, his eyes were crying his feelings, eminently; they were as though burning candles using emotions as fuel.

When Mr. Leonard asked through the hand-arm language that who was willing for the training, the boys did not understand first, but their wish of pretending to swing swords was so intense that after a few seconds, all but Efdalin burst in upon exclaiming, "Me, me, me..."

Mr. Leonard used his fingers to tell them only ten boys could attend sword practice. Then he began to single out them. The quiet man discarded very young ones swiftly. When he came to Efdalin, he stopped and looked him in the eye. Efdalin hung his head with the thought that he would not be picked for the training. When Mr. Leonard thrust him into the line of the boys who had already been picked, the boy who was not accustomed to being delighted could not react. Efdalin's desire for sword training manifested with the objection of a younger boy who was not picked.

"He is sick. This is not fair," the boy said.

The look in Efdalin's eyes, which were directed at the boy, was superior to any conceivable words of retort.

Mr. Leonard demonstrated his talent to his trainees and some curious village citizens. He drew his dagger, which was longer and broader than a typical one, but too petite for calling it a sword all the same. Onto its sheath, stones of red, green, and blue colors were inlaid of which nobody had seen or known.

He was using his weapon deftly and neatly. It was as though two lovers embraced each other, dancing and fusing; the blade and the man rounded across the clearing, like jealous lovers that would cut anyone who came close to them.

As his demo finished, he put Efdalin and the other chosen boys on a new line, placed them, leaving two yards of space between each of them. This time he demonstrated a simple movement for training mimicry.

Each of the boys would repeat the movement uncountably many times until they could perform gracefully, which would hardly happen on the very first day of their performances.

They all together tried to mimic and repeat the movement clumsily; the most enthusiastic and able one among them was Efdalin.

***

Almost all the seats were occupied now. Sin'a, who is the master of revels, blew his whistle. "All runners get on the line."

Corinna, Jack, two juvenile boys, Culcan, one of the watchers, three teenage girls, a man over thirty, and several boys and girls who were too young to compete came before the white line drawn with liquid lime.

"Hello, citizens. Our first entertainment will begin now. First, our runners need huge applause to run like the wind," Sin'a said.

These words received a rapturous ovation from the audience.

"Thank you. But this is not enough folks. Where are your whistlings? Where are your shoutings? Where is your enthusiasm?"

This time everything Sin'a wanted came from them in abundance; the folks were ready to be entertained. Some with gentle auditory sense cupped their ears with their hands in discomfort.

Sin'a turned to the competitors. "Runners, get ready on the line," he said in the high octave.

The runners stamped with one of their foot over the white line and stooped bending their knees.

"Ready!" Sin'a exclaimed and raised his arm, holding a wood knob. He stood still for a few seconds to gather more attention from the audience and then hit an upturned cauldron actually used for cooking food. The clanking sound of the bang caused a bevy of birds to flit as well as the runners.

The first one dashing off was Corinna; Jack was only one step behind her. When three-hundred fathoms remained to the finish rope, which was tightened five-hundred fathoms away, Jack overtook Corinna and got one step ahead of her; yet it did not last long. Corinna sprinted. She was so fast that no one, but the wind could catch her now. When she met the finish line, Jack was twenty yards behind her.

Corinna stooped, panting; she looked at Jack. "You will keep your promise, won't you?"

"Sure I will," Jack said, cracking a smile. "I don't think there is some other person as fast and beautiful as you."

Corinna looked at Jack, puzzled.

Right after gaining their breaths, all the runners lined horizontally towards the audience and bowed for applause.

There was no medal for the winner. Their community was too small in numbers to forget the winners.

Jane cheered madly, "Corinna, Corinna, Corinna,..."

***

As time went by, most of the boys were bored repeating the same simple movement of the pike-blades. They wanted to learn how to do Mr. Leonard's marvelous spins to impress people. Most of them began to whine, but Mr. Leonard urged them to continue with their doing.

Efdalin did not get bored with it. He was doing the movement very willingly right after his every repetition as though he was doing it for the first time. But his body did not convey Efdalin's enthusiasm. His face color had already faded; his arms trembled as well as his legs. The next stage would be his glazing over.

Efdalin's condition did not slip from the Quiet Master's notice. He went to the breathless boy whose face turned a faded blue and put his palms on his shoulders. Efdalin knew what that meant; he put his fake sword down, turned back, and moved off.

***

Rosie had been busy with the carnival preparations since dawn. Because her boys were in the festival area, she was at ease. Her looks were on Efdalin; Jack would always find something to entertain himself anyway.

She had cared for Efdalin when Mr. Leonard chose him as one of the trainees, but she knew well that her interference would infuriate his son.

A few seconds before the boy stopped his training, she had already gotten to her feet and headed to warn Mr. Leonard on Efdalin's condition. Mother and son met at the rim of the area. Rosie hugged her son intensely; Efdalin did not hug back.

Jack was looking at them from afar. He did not hear what their mother was saying to Efdalin, but Jack knew the meaning of the sentences she spoke: "You're not like other boys. You're ill."

But who would know and feel better than Efdalin that he was ill! Those words were only reminding him of what he cannot do, which Efdalin hated the most.

Efdalin walked out of the area, feeling iller than he had been.

***

A small-sized person, wearing a mask made of wolf-head emerged out of the woods and run, attacking here and there, pestered the audience, fooled around, and chased children.

When the wolf-masked man drove two of the kids into a corner, a giant hand came and grabbed the intruder from the neck, shook him up, and shoved him away from them. The wolf-head stumbled, measured his length, and yelped like a dog when Hugie stamped on him. The giant man raised his arms as a sign of victory, and all the children cheered and applauded for them joyfully. Wolf-head got to his feet and took off the mask; he was Zachariah. Hugie and Zachariah bowed for the audience.

This act had been performed by this twosome each carnival day for years in various sorts.

***

All the looks turned them when Su and Earth-Mother came in the carnival area. Women began mumbling, and men threw senseless glances upon them.

Mr. Madra got to his feet to welcome them. "Hello, Su, welcome to our carnival day. Our dearie Earth-Mother, welcome."

Su smiled, but Earth-Mother did not change her cool appearance.

"We shall host our guest on the front line. Here you are," Mr. Madra said and led the way. As soon as he said this, Alexander, sitting on a chair behind Mr. Madra's seat, scrambled to his feet and put his own chair at the end of the first row for Earth-Mother; Samson brought his chair for Su.

Calina watched her husband's politeness in discontent.

***

Sin'a showed up again. "Now is the time of dodge-rash. Let the couples come."

Jack gulped as he was trying to summon up his courage. "Corinna."

She turned to him. "Yes, what?"

Jack gasped and then gulped again. Despite Corinna's intimidating looks, he said with a cracked voice, "Shall we join together, Corinna?"

Jane was with them and had a kittenish smile on her face.

Corinna looked at Jack, baffled. "To what? To the coupling event?"

Jack nodded, simpering.

"Only the lovers are allowed, boy. We plainly can't."

After saying so, she said she was thirsty and left from there for the fountain. Jane tagged along with her, and before she moved off, she patted Jack on the shoulder.

***

Efdalin was watching Corinna and Jack from far, behind two bushes with orange and redbuds outside of the carnival area. The whole festival hurly-burly was within his sight, and he was in nobody's view, a well-fitting place for Efdalin's introvert character. His cold eyes stuck on his brother and the girl. No one could know what was passing through his mind.

His illness was the one and great complex of his; he had not considered a girl would like to take up time with him, with the concomitants of the disease: a skinny body that might puff him out before the end of a dance or something else.

Whereas Jack, the healthy, rigorous, adorable form of Efdalin, chatted and giggled, enjoying his time with the girls, most importantly with Corinna.

***

Corinna withdrew; Jack was alone. As his habit, the boy looked for Efdalin, but most expectedly, he was not at the carnival.

"What will he do now?" Efdalin muttered, looking at his brother. If Jack really has the ability he mentioned, he should find him soon. That would prove that not with blind luck, he had found him in the woods a few hours ago. If so, Jack must be growing an ability reminiscent of his own.

Jack was near to the other part of the rim of the round area, far from Efdalin; there was no way to make out the whereabouts of him.

After a while, Jack stopped looking around; instead, he bent his head down as well as his knees. He gestured a comical position, recalling a warrior's defensive pose, which Efdalin had seen in some books and as part of Mr. Leonard's demonstration.

Then suddenly, Jack's head turned back, and he looked at directly where Efdalin had been sitting.

***

"Come on, Calina, you're too stubborn, my love," Samson said.

"Yes, I am."

"But the word beautiful suits you better."

Upon this, Calina's high horse was down. Though she tried to keep her wayward look, she couldn't prevent the appearance of a faint smile on her face.

And Samson did his finisher maneuver. "Not just people of this village, all beasts, trees, bushes, and even that Wulf will know this."

Calina smiled big. "Seeing you want it so much, all right then."

***

"Look who is coming. My handsome brother got bored with enchanting girls and missed his brother," Efdalin said.

"You bet."

"You've missed a fine training session. Because you were busy, I tried to be a substitute for you. You know, I was just as capable as I have been with the girls."

"Come on, Efdalin, don't behave yourself so bad."

"Why? Every person I know pities me and tries to save me from the bad. Nobody thinks I desired a punishment. If I were a cup of some animal in the woods, I would be eaten before living in suffering, divine retribution. People like to stop me from striving to heal, with good intentions, of course. Without thinking, they keep me in some sort of a jail."

"Jail?"

"In large communities, people who did something terrible to others are put in confinement. It is called jail."

"You did not do terrible things to anyone."

"So, you see. I am in jail though I am innocent."

"You are exaggerating as usual. Is there a word to define someone who likes to torment himself? Why can't you accept what you are?"

"Exactly! But you should accept what I am, too, and what my will is."

Jack was upset with him. "Why don't you go now?"

Efdalin thought a second, and then he said, "Yes, why!"

He got to his feet and walked away. Jack would go after him, had Efdalin not turned back and said, "Would you not come after me, please? Just once. I'm just going to drink water, and believe me, not seeing my guardian, the one who recalls me how I could have been, the one I always wished to seem like, would relieve my nerves for a while."

Jack could not figure out what to say and sat back.

***

Someone came in just before Mr. Coinner and his wife closed the grocery shop.

If the comer who was as small as a child knew what he meant for the merchant, he would enter from the door in higher spirits.

The man's vehement saying, "I brought a new..." was interrupted by Coinner's wife.

"Come later, Aden. We're going to the carnival."

In Coinner's eyes, the fountain of covetousness would have frisked sparking glints, but his wife pulled his arm. Then the words poured out of the merchant's mouth reluctantly. "We're already late, my dear Aden. You know I am a council member. I must go."

The couple locked the door and took a few steps that the merchant's ears caught the little man's muttering. "It was the biggest I ever had."

Thereupon, the merchant halted, not minding his wife's hollering. After he shooed her, he went to Aden, hung his arm, unlocked the shop's door, and went in. The merchant took his usual place behind the stall quickly. "Let's see it then, Aden."

The little man lowered his shoulder bag and drew something out, which was in the size of its owner's fist. It was not as gnarled as others; though a piece in the rough, it was smooth and shapely as to burn hearts in greed and ardor.

Aden put it on the shelf, and the gleaming color of the gold conquered the hidden fortress of the merchant at once. Though Coinner tried to remain serene, he gulped in thrill unintentionally. He hoped Aden had not noticed this involuntary gesture of his. The merchant held and indifferently rubbed the piece, upraised, and analyzed it with his many years of experience. "Where did you find this, Aden?"

Aden did not like the question. He shrugged slightly and said, "Somewhere nearby the stream."

Coinner looked him in the eye. "Which one?"

"The one, Mr. Coinner."

"All right, I got it." The merchant turned his looks to the gold. "To be honest, none of the village residents have brought such a big and good looking one." After toying with it more, he said, "I can give this two hundred."

Then Aden's gloomy face shone with a big smile. "All right," he said quickly. That amount of money would save him and his wife for a long time.

Coinner kneeled behind the stall and took some money from a hidden box; then, he counted over the shelf before delivering it to the little man. "May you benefit from it, Aden."

Aden grinned as he was putting the coins into his pocket. "They will go back to you, Mr. Coinner. Where else could I spend them anyway?"

"True. My establishment is the one and only after all. Am I not bringing anything you wished from the city?"

"Sure, you do, Mr. Coinner. May you get the benefit of it, too." Aden hesitated for a short while, but that amount of money had made him gutsy. "If you don't mind, can I ask you a question, Mr. Coinner?"

"Sure, you can," the merchant said, keeping the gold in his palm tightly.

"What's the good of this piece in the city?"

Coinner stared at him. It was his turn to dislike a question. He sneered first for a second and then said, "If I am lucky, I can sell it for just a little more than the amount that I had paid you. Gold isn't worth as much as it used to be." He sneered deeper as he shook his head. "I wish I could sell such a big one. I doubt it. I am just doing this for your good, you know. I don't get much money from our exchange."

Aden was despondent hearing this. "Won't you buy, if I bring another piece like this one or one bigger?"

The merchant looked at the little man with curiosity and a barely noticeable eagerness. His heart actually was throbbing as a boy who fell in love for the first time. "You bring them all the same. We will manage somehow," he said and took his chances yet again. "Some folks have brought me small stuff, but I have seen nothing so big. It is natural to be curious about its whereabouts?"

"Never mind, Mr. Coinner. I found it somewhere."

He turned and walked to the door. Coinner said to him as he was about to leave, "Don't fret, Aden. I'm a merchant, not a seeker."

Aden smiled to himself as he murmured, "Neither am I."

***

The contestants of the Dodge-Rash event gathered in the clearing. Sin'a's assistant had brought twenty-two masks for the twenty-two couples. The masks were elaborately sewed of very thin, dried reeds with a narrow slit on the eye level to enable the woman to see around, wrapping the entire head of whoever wore it.

Each woman of each couple took one that fitted her head and wore it. The men of the couples sat down cross-legged, framing a circular layout with faces toward outside.

Sin'a's assistant gave each man a piece of black fabric long enough to blindfold his eye.

Women in masks took a bundle of stinging nettles that had become big and more acidic with spring rains.

"Ladies and gentlemen, soon we'll look on how itchy it is to not recognize the most beautiful music to a man's ears: his woman's voice. Now, ladies..." Sin'a waited for two seconds and then yelled, "let the song begin."

The women began to sing their famous song, "The Crimson Dark," and revolved the circle in front of the men. When the first two tours passed, none of the men had stretched out an arm. The women came to the end of their song, repeated the sing of the song, and continued walking.

Towards the end of the third tour, a young, newlywed, confident man extended the arm with the thought that the woman passing right before him was his sweetheart. He considered that the mask could not muffle the voice of his dear darling, but he shuddered with the searing pain of the nettles that hit his open palm fiercely. Searing and itching of the hand, as well as its redness, would prolong for hours.

After a few more tours and bites of the nettles, the hands of a man and a woman knowing and loving each other for long years, met. The hands grasping each other that were rough and stiff by working hard had not forgotten affection all the same.

The man got to his feet, untied the black band covering his eyes, and left his place. The women started to sing their song from scratch. The purpose of the contest was not to find the winners but to find the loser couple. It would be the one with its man sitting at the end.

The losers of today would harvest a field on the east by themselves.

Samson and Calina were not the loser couple, yet Samson was beaten several times with the stinging nettles.

***

Teenager boys who were about to become men anticipated the musket drill and the musketry contestant quite enthusiastically.

The musketry contest had been only happening in the carnival days since the beginning of this merrymaking tradition. However, the first musket training lesson was a must before it, and all the teenagers, whether knew about musketry or not, should attend this recurring lesson and the demonstration following it.

All the boys —almost all actually— gathered in the small clearing next to the carnival area. Efdalin was not there, for his fragile appetite to seek joys of life had faded after his recent experiences, nor Jack, who suffered from love.

A hundred yards ahead, a huge, purple, wild berry at the very end of a string as thin as a hair strand dangled from a branch of a tree.

Though some naive juvenile boys would believe that from such a distance, not this cherry, but even a big apple could not be shot; they knew anyway that the slightly swaying cherry with the breeze would get the hit of a marble ball right into its chest.

A few steps ahead, Zachariah was cleaning and greasing his famous musket to prevent rust.

The boys who had not witnessed Zachariah's deftness, were looking at him under the influence of the stories, which told about his legendary marksmanship.

"First, let me tell you what gunpowder is," Zachariah said and turned to the audience, leaning his musket on his lap as it was his child. He put a container made by a carved pumpkin before him and lifted its cover; on the inside was a brown flurry of something.

He pinched some and crumbled between his thumb and forefinger. "This is gunpowder." He delivered the pumpkin to the nearest boy to hand it around. "We need niter to make gunpowder. You can find it on schist of the caves: whitey, barky seeming parts. In our land, what is more than wild berries are those caves, you know. There is plenty of niter around. However, gunpowder is not just made of niter. We need sulfur as well. Once upon a time, this mountain was a volcano. It was erupting, flowing and spraying lava, scattering fire and ash everywhere, and burning whatever it's confronted with. Afterward, pardoning by giving life to the soil. The ashes fed the Earth and allowed better things to grow for the ones that were damaged.

That's why meat-stuff, milk-stuff, green-stuff, and tree-stuff of our land are so delicious, say the ancients. Anyway, let's do our thing. There are many limestone caves around as well, and inside limestone lie sulfur in plenty. Finally, we need wood coal, and its wood must be from alders. Alders are plenty in the woods there, you know. Mr. Coinner said that the gunpowder is very expensive and hard to find in the city, but we have all to make it. One cup of sulfur, one cup of powdered alder-wood coal, and six cups of niter will make you very good gunpowder."

The pumpkin passed from hand to hand many times. Some just looked at it. Some sniffed and grimaced, and some pinched from it. All the boys dealt with this blackish, sandy stuff.

The pumpkin returned to Zachariah. As he was setting up his musket, he talked as though he was praising his fellow. "When the gunpowder fired inside, this old fellow delivers the stone into its unfortunate target so speedily that your eyes cannot catch it."

Zachariah held a muscatel stone between the thumb and forefinger. "I believe there is no one who hasn't made one of these. The best ones are of marble stones. Well, since these are also free, there is no harm of musketry shooting in plenty."

Keeping his musket near to him, he stared at the boys watching him with gleaming eyes. "Now, time to speak upon the most important part. To mention the invention that has turned this musket to a bad-ass machine."

The boys giggled.

Then he showed them something, sort of purple-pink stone, which all the boys knew.

Grown-ups would carry that purple-pink stone called flint, and a piece of iron all the time, but they would keep them in different pockets. Even in the houses, flint and iron should not be kept near to each other. The one having that couple becomes a master of fire.

When Zachariah rubbed the flint by iron, sparks appeared immediately. He continued. "A musket used to get fired by burning a rope attached to its serpentine. Some had given it the name, matchlock. But under rain or during heavy moisture, it was hard to fire the musket. Your Zachariah Brother made all four of the muskets of the village better killers." He steepened his musket and went on. "Builders of this musket made it as a matchlock, but I turned it into a flintlock. That folded iron part is called serpentine. When it was a matchlock, it worked as attaching a rope called slow-match to the serpentine, and after burning the slow match, you would pull the trigger. Then the slow-match that was adhered to the serpentine would deliver the fire to the gunpowder inside the pan. It would explode and then throw the stone through the barrel. But after my modification, do you see what the serpentine is bearing now?"

Zachariah adjusted the musket for everybody to see the reddish flint that the serpentine bore. "With some torture, the serpentine has been changed so that when the trigger is pulled, the flint it bears hit the iron striker that lies in a prick that I had designed and described to Mr. Coinner. He ordered it to a talented blacksmith to attach it into the pan of the musket. But the serpentine ought to hit hard. That's why in my design there is a string attached to it. When the serpentine is thrust backward, it is caught by a jut, so the string is strained. When I pull the trigger, the jut releases the serpentine, and the string gets loose. The serpentine's flint hits the iron, and the produced sparks ignite the gunpowder on the pan." He showed the redesigned pan-hole and serpentine, and smiled big. "No need to burn the rope."

He rolled the marble stone down into the muzzle and pointed the musket upon the audience abruptly. Some of the boys, who knew what a musket stone does, fled instinctively, and others nonplused.

As he pulled the trigger, a spark glistened, but nothing happened more. The gun had not fired.

Zachariah laughed loudly. "Don't be scared, boys. I haven't loaded it with gunpowder yet."

He bent the gun, took the stone out of the muzzle, poured some gunpowder from a hornlike gunpowder container into the pan-hole, rolled the stone back, and took a long stick out of another hole adjacent to the barrel. "This is called a ramrod." He thrust it into the muzzle and dipped. "We compress the stone and the gunpowder good to make our shot."

Before he took the ramrod out, from depths of the Earth, a murmur came, and then it shook the ground slightly. An invisible force wobbled the trees. The murmur increased but then decreased before becoming worse.

All the chatting cut abruptly. All inhabitants of the mountain anticipated the ending of it timidly. Who knows, if the creatures with eyes superior to humans had tongues to tell, then perhaps they would shout that a vague smoke had been released from the chimney mouth of the mountaintop.

When the earthquake came to its end, Zachariah took the ramrod out and put it into its place back; he slowly poured a wisp of black flurry into the pan. His back was still towards the berry that its sway had increased with the earthquake.

Before the boys realized what happened, he turned swiftly, and the musket fired. He had not taken a proper aim at the berry. A wisp of smoke released, and the smell of burned gunpowder diffused into the air.

The berry had vanished.

***

When Efdalin came to the fountain, nobody was there. He quenched his thirst with water, washed his face, and watched his image reflecting in the water.

"I wonder if other twins resemble in looks, like you and Jack. You're so similar to each other."

Efdalin shuddered with the girl's voice. When he looked around, he saw Corinna sitting under a tree behind the fountain. The boy was so into himself that he had not noticed her.

"We're not so similar," he said.

"Yes, you are."

Efdalin looked at her. "Am I wrong because I only see myself in the reflections of water or glass?"

Corinna smiled at the smart words, but her mind stuck with the word reflection. "You'll see yourself but not through reflections." She said this as though the sentence had sprung earlier than it should have. She was like not talking to him but informing the universe of this. Her voice was metallic and artificial, not bearing an emotion but pure fact. "You'll not feel sick any more. You'll be so powerful that even your bare touch would kill a person."

"How do you know this?" Efdalin could not believe what he heard; he involuntarily approached the girl who seemed more herself now.

"I just know. I cannot explain."

He stared at her for a short while. "I see. You don't have to."

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Any other premonitions about me?"

"No, not yet."

"All right. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Efdalin was about to leave.

Corinna said, "Now, I will see the similarities of yours better when you are side by side."

The boy could not comprehend what she was saying at first; he turned his head for a glance backward. Jack and Jane were coming to the fountain.

At some other time, Efdalin could sense they were approaching, but Corinna, especially what she said, amazed him.

Jane was in the mood. "Well, the one and only twin brothers of the village together. What do you say, Corinna? Which one is more handsome?"

The environment was unfitting for Efdalin; he needed to withdraw. "I've work to do."

"Come on, Efdalin. We hardly see you around. Stay and let's enjoy the carnival together," Jane said.

"I think I ruin your amusement. I'm neither interesting nor have the energy for pacing with you. I cannot dance or run."

"But you can talk, and smile at Jane's bad jokes, can't you?" Corinna said.

Jane made a grimace at Corinna in return.

A gesture, a rare flinch of sheer gladness, emerged on the boy's face. He was already under the influence of forces to which males could succumb.

So, they all four walked to the carnival.

When they entered the festival area, Sin'a was saying something loud, and the audience was bursting into laughs. The master of revels knew what to say and when to say it.

Corinna and Efdalin were coming a few yards back. They were talking about something which Jack could not hear, but both faces were glad. Whatever Efdalin was saying, his words were entertaining Corinna and putting a smile on her pretty lips at times.

Jack turned back to look at them in the guise of a boy who enjoyed seeing the revels of the carnival, but his face was getting sulkier after every glance.

Though the other girls of the village had been looking forward to chatting with him and laughing at his jokes, Jack was not even once able to make Corinna smile. _Efdalin's oddness must be well suited with her; she was odd, too, after all._ Jack thought.

However, there was no girl with such beautiful long hair, priceless smile, and enchanting violet eyes, which Jack would never get bored staring at; no girl in the village melted his heart, like Corinna, and would have been someone like her, in any other place in the world.

And now, his crazy twin made her smile many times after spending a few minutes barely with her.

When Corinna laughed loudly at something Efdalin said, Jack was depressed enough. He turned to them. "Shall we participate in the sack race? What do you say?"

"I know I'm some sort of a bag-of-bones brother, but I don't want to be a jumping-bag-of-bones anyway," Efdalin said.

Corinna cackled and said, "You've more brains than flesh, Efdalin."

"Yes, we shared out the stuff in our mother's womb. Flesh to Jack, brain to me. Bones and hair are common," Efdalin said. Alas, he should not have said those words.

All but Jack laughed. He was looking around and trying to hide his raging anger and desperation, reflecting from his countenance. "Unfortunately, the share was too keen on the healthiness and illness part either, brother," Jack said.

That cut short the convivial atmosphere immediately. Jane burst in to ease it. "Did you know Corinna knows about the future? She is like her mother."

"Not exactly. I sometimes have premonitions, which are about to happen, though not always or like the way I've seen," Corinna said.

"Yes, consider the snake hair woman." Jane nodded her head to point out Su, who was enjoying the carnival activities with a happy, smiling face. "She should have been a caller of disturbance."

This had not happened to the boys before; this was the first time they had been alienated from each other. Both of their lines were harsh, unfitting to their decent personalities. They were turning into men; being together with the girls, raged their male hormones, and diminished their grace.

Besides, what Jack was missing was the meaning of Efdalin's words was figurative while his own were genuine.

On top of that, with the intention of amends, Jack made it worse by saying, "Efdalin can go and find whatever he wants. If in the deeps of a beastmaw of the mountain lies something he wants, he could go and find it without knowing its way. Yet I'm not sure if he could find the way out."

"Yes, brother, I can go and find whatever I want to. Apparently, in the matter of abilities, there is no fair share either. Yet there is some fairness. If you had been borne with my sickness, your weak heart lacking audacity could cease to beat before its time when you were in the darkness of a beastmaw. You are sixteen, but still, you bear no courage to participate in the night watches."

These words found their unfortunate response.

"I have my own poor ability, which serves only to find my sick, needy-indigent brother, or otherwise, one day, my audacious, conqueror brother might be lost in the deeps of the High-Wood. Then who would come to rescue him other than his strong and healthy twin? Unfortunately, he is afraid of the dark. He could help you only in daylight."

"Yes, with what you have of yours, the only not dull option in your life would be this. Now I'm going to seek out my cure, and please find another dull activity for you, exempting me, brother." Then Efdalin turned to Corinna and Jane. "Girls, it was a real pleasure for me, but I've serious work to do. So long." He strode away and disappeared among the crowd.

***

Time passed, and the sun began to descend. Hugie went to Sin'a and whispered in his ear. The master of revels smiled and nodded. "Hey, folks, the wonderful citizens of Karatulla, a man is standing next to me."

From the crowd poured, "Hugie, Hugie, Hugie..."

Sin'a asked this time louder. "Folks, I think you have forgotten who the biggest man in our village is." Then Sin'a turned towards the crowd, cupping his hand over the ear.

The crowd replied louder this time, "Hugie, Hugie, Hugie..."

"Folks, the man who stands next to me says that he is the strongest man who is alive. He says not any man, even any creature could not challenge him. He says he outfaces the bears of this mountain and the wolves that have dared to stand on their hind legs. Folks, who did you say? I can't hear you!"

Then a big, loud "Hugieee" poured from the folks.

"Is there anyone to compete with this red stallion?" Sin'a said.

The audience burst into loud laughter, and Hugie received a thundering ovation.

The giant looked at Samson and called out with his thundering voice. "Is there a powerful man to challenge me in this village? To the man who would get water from a flint, who would break out a storm by blowing, who would smash to smithereens? The most precious, the most marvelous, the most adorable man of existence, me, my folks!" He raised his long and well-built arms.

Neither the village residents nor Hugie could get tired of this show.

Smiling, Samson got to his feet. Then, thundering applause sounded in the clearing. "Samson, Samson, Samson..."

Samson went to them.

"Folks, Hugie found his nemesis. Our next entertainment is coming from the black-haired, the black-eyed man having a strength that has not been found out in which he has been hiding," Sin'a said.

Laughs from the crowd poured. They applauded by shouting, "Samsoonnnn....Samson..."

Sin'a held Samson by his arm and went to nearby Hugie. "And famous with his name, with his hulk, with his red hair, with his keen stomach and keener talkativenessssss...Hugieeee..." Sin'a said.

(More laughs and applause)

Sin'a held the two men from their wrists and raised their arms; the men saluted the audiences. Then they stood face to face with eyes clenched on each other.

Hugie was ten inches taller and at least a hundred pounds heavier than Samson. He straightened his back and threw his chest forward. "This time, I am going to make you sweep the ground, my boy, get ready for it."

"A first-time hearer would think you had used to achieve that," Samson said calmly, even dryly, which made Hugie more ambitious on winning.

Hugie bobbed his head in the meaning of you-will-pay-for-it. He had exercised many days in the woods, and was so strong that he could rip off formidable trees from the ground.

Sin'a's assistant showed up again, bringing Samson and Hugie to the clearing along with a pair of thick and twenty yards of long ropes. On one side of each rope was an iron holder, and after five yards from the holders were eight large knots, each spaced two yards with the next one.

As Sin'a exclaimed, "Volunteers shall come," many keen young boys of the village circled them quickly. Each one held a knot, and the ones who were remained empty-handed whined. Sin'a came and winnowed kiddy ones out and put bulky ones instead.

So, eight strong were holding the rope, each grabbed a knot, and the other eight were on the other rope's eight knots.

Sin'a turned to Samson and Hugie, "Here you are, valiant men," he said and invited them to the ropes.

Hugie grabbed the iron holder with his left hand as though, had he squeezed, water would drain from it. Then the eight young of the eight knots of Hugie's rope strained their pull.

Sin'a's assistant came and bound the holder to Hugie's left arm using another rope.

Then Samson came as though he would do routine work carelessly. He stooped and grabbed the other rope's iron holder; he used his left hand for this, too. The other eight volunteers had grabbed their knots already. Sin'a's assistant bound Samson's left arm to the holder.

After seeing everything ready but one thing, Sin'a sent his assistant to fetch the last apparatus. The assistant returned with a two-yard long rope with the same iron holders on each side. Hugie and Samson grabbed the holders with their right hands, stepped back, and strained the new rope.

So, amid the clearing, an acquainting figure formed once again. Two men were holding the short rope with their right hands and were holding the long ropes with their left hands; both men's left arms were bound to the ropes that sixteen volunteers were holding from the other ends.

Sin'a flaunted his talent, making the audience burst into loud laughter again, and exclaimed, "Let it roll!"

Sixteen boys hauled the ropes with all their powers, and time began to flow slower.

As the wind joggled the trees, the audience released their bated breaths, and on a nearby tree, a magpie tweeted several times that the first drop of sweat seeped through Hugie's forehead.

The two men hauled from both sides mercilessly. Their muscles strained, and juices inside their bones effervesced.

On all the other power contestants of Hugie and Samson, the one who always yielded was Hugie.

In appearance, Samson's physique was almost half the size of Hugie's, but Samson had steel muscles and stone bones.

The sixteen boys never slackened their hauls; they were determined to detach these two men from each other.

Hugie blushed. Drops of sweat that appeared on his face turned to rain in minutes; the drops dripped down through the edge of his red beard. However, the real cause that made Hugie mad was the calmness of his friend attached to the other hand of the rope. Though he has been hauling with a force of several horses, Samson's face had not changed a bit. He was like a part of the rope.

Eventually, the inevitable end came yet again. Hugie gave in to the strength of Samson and released his hold. Immediately afterward, his colossal body crashed to the ground and was dragged for a few yards away by the haul of the eight-strong boys, for his left hand was bound to the iron with which the boys pulled.

This time Hugie endured quite a bit anyway.

Samson went to him and extended his arm to his best friend for setting him on his feet again. Hugie smiled, grabbed the extended arm, got to his feet, and tidied himself up. He left the clearing after he cried loudly, "At the next carnival, everybody will witness the mind-boggling power of Hugie, My dears!"

The carnival continued with other games and all.

# Misfelinda

The games ended when the sun went down. The people of the village went home. As the full moon sat on the seat of the sun, they came in one or two at a time, gathered at the public house for the story night. The wooden chairs had been conveyed and appropriately lined before a low platform that Oaken-Grandfather's armchair would stay.

When Earth-Mother and Su took their seats on the first line, it was apparent by the look of the old woman that she was not in the mood; a headache who smote her at times tormented her yet again.

The reputable wind from the High-Wood was gusting. Oaken-Grandfather came and climbed up the three stairs of the platform with the help of two younglings; he plodded along and sat on his comfortable seat. His head turned to the heavens, his cheek to the wind for a gentle caress of his long beard. "It is early for the northeast wind, the bringer of the rain," he murmured to himself, glancing at the folks with unseeing eyes, before lingering in his daydreams.

Earth-Mother barely opened her eyes because of the pain. She whispered to Su, and they got to their feet simultaneously. When Mr. Madra asked about their early leave, Earth-Mother explained the situation with a very domineering and most thundering way.

Elizabeth, seated right behind them, chimed in, verbalizing and expressing in the hand-arm gestures simultaneously, saying, "I could accompany her for tonight."

Mr. Madra said, "Don't worry, Mother. We host our guest."

Yet the old woman said with an ebbed vitality, "I will ayllow this oynly if yu proymiysse to bring her hoyme ays soonyn ays the stoyry night is over." Her voice faltered; the pain consumed her energy.

Because Su assented with a nod and a smile, Earth-Mother withdrew from the public house. Before she disappeared, Elizabeth had a seat next to Su with great willingness. After his wife, Mr. Leonard got to his feet and left.

When Mr. Madra glanced at the back seats, he thought that there had been quite a crowd at the event. As the custom required, the Mayor got on the stage and did the action of every first night of every carnival, for an imprint to ears of the village people. He plunged his hand into his pocket, took a quiety-hooter out, and then whistled it vigorously.

The quiety-hooter's shrill and melancholic sound, hardly resembling any other whistle, spread out in waves; after diffusing into all ears of hearers and non-hearers, it faltered and then faded. The sound cut the conversations but not the moaning of the wind.

"Once upon a time," Oaken-Grandfather's narration commenced. "It was forty years before. We were celebrating another carnival day, and all had begun as joyful as it used to be. Mr. Samson Sr. was performing the most exciting part of the carnival. He was in his sixties then. He held one end of a thick rope that, at its other end, were six young men, each heavier than him. Mr. Samson held another rope that was bound to a big tree. Maybe he had been older and weaker, or he had been mature enough to know that extending the time of excitement and amusement was lively, he frowned and strained his facial muscles, quirking as though he was suffering from the pull and as though he would give up and release the rope at any moment. Therefore, the audience drew into the excitement with higher heartbeats.

"The braves on the other side of the rope desired the glory of getting down this unbeatable, unbreakable man so eagerly that, though their shirts were wet with sweat, the number of breaths into their lungs had triplet, calluses on their hands had cracked, and though the victory would be shared by six, they pulled the rope without yielding.

"In the end, our great Mr. Samson might have considered that this joyful ebullition lasted quite for a while, and so much excitement could be too much for some of the audience, he took a deep breath and exclaimed, 'Holly blessed,' and then hauled the rope so powerfully that, all six of the strong folks kissed the ground one by one. The village people shouldered Samson Sr. cheerfully.

Hoary women giggled as they glanced at Mr. Samson and embarrassed the young woman who was his wife by talking in the way that men had not considered of which women speak. The name of that young woman was Earth. I would like to tell you the story of Misfelinda in the absence of Earth-Mother."

Oaken-Grandfather glanced at Su as he said that as though he intended to hint something about it and then continued his story.

"Earth slipped through the hands of the hoary women with a flushed face. She called out for her daughter, Misfelinda. She was not around as usual. Earth, strolling through the carnival area, met with Zeynat, who was the mother of Zeyn. Zeynat had said to Earth that she would have only one child. Zeynat had abilities no one had. Zeynat knew Earth cherished her daughter. She knew Misfelinda was the loose cannon driving her mother crazy. She knew the girl had plunged her mother into worries quite often. Misfelinda was far more wicker than a wicked boy.

"Though Earth was complaining about the mischievousness of her daughter, she liked her follies all the same, for she had always wanted to give birth to a boy. Actually, if Earth had given birth to a boy, the name for him had already been chosen. She was inspired by a very talented human being who had lived long before. Leonard was the name. She had hoped her next child would be named so."

The audience who were already mesmerized by the remarkable, tempting, and friendly voice of Oaken-Grandfather, looked for the owner of the name in vain, but he was not with them as usual.

A gleaming smile hit Elizabeth's face sitting beside Su.

"Five quieties who wanted to make the carnival day different than the other days laid low beyond the people's vision. They were watching our merrymaking. We did not have the watchers in those days. A woman came close to them as she was calling out for someone. She stomped towards a girl standing face away, for the girl had not answered back. The girl turned her face. She was not Misfelinda. She was Zeyn, daughter of Zeynat. Both girls had clad the same dresses that day.

"The quieties crouched down more because the woman was near. They receded into the woods before disappearing as stealth as cougars. Another girl emerged behind a fern quietly. She had not noticed the quieties, nor them her. She walked towards her mother. Earth livened up when she saw Misfelinda but gave no hint of relief. She stared her daughter scowling and immediately realized a welt on her jugular in the shape and color of black plum. Who knows where the naughty girl had hit and bruised herself. She took Misfelinda by the hand, drawing her towards Zeyn. Earth preached Misfelinda, 'You should play with Zeyn, for she is a very well-behaved girl, and don't leave from her side.'

"At the moment, somewhere not too far away, a quiety was staying more into the woods than others. He was repairing a bow. A boy in Misfelinda's age came. The quiety looked at the boy with a displeased face and snapped at him, 'I say you stay in woods,' with their basic hand-arm language. The boy talked in the same way, 'I scare, monster, there.' The quiety got upset, got to his feet, looked at him in the eye with beating looks, and gestured with his hands and arms angrily, 'No thing like monster. Go wait there.' The boy seemed to heed his father. He walked as though he was going into the woods but changed his course right after the trees ensured his disappearance from the eyes of his father. He walked towards the playful girls.

"After the boy, the quiety went to someone who was their apparent chief and asked him quickly but quietly, 'How we find girl among many girls? Sorcerer woman say only. The girl has mark.' The massive quiety leader said only one word with a hand gesture, 'Patience.' At that moment, our girls plunged into their games, but Misfelinda had already gotten bored with this girl game. She showed her bruise to Zeyn. Zeyn quit the game, too, and showed Misfelinda her own spot, which was nearly at the same place as hers. One's spot was inborn, the other's from life. Now they had the same dresses and very similar marks. The boy saw them all.

"In those days, I was the mayor. My new and young assistant came beside me. He had surveyed the old records of the office. There he had read that some people had come to the village, bringing turmoil to our people. They were not talking but using hand-arm signs. I knew the records were not written elaborately, but my assistant believed the disturbance was an actual incursion. He very keenly suggested that we should take a precaution against those people. I said to him, 'Relax.' The office's records might not have been too reliable. For all the years I lived, I had not witnessed or heard about the people, as mentioned in the documents. So, a precaution was not necessary. I also said to young John Madra, 'Have fun with the carnival.'"

Faint squirms and quiet chuckles happened among the audience and faded quickly.

"Zeyn and Misfelinda were sitting together, watching the carnival competitions. Misfelinda was pattering, Zeyn listening. Finally, at a moment that Misfelinda stopped talking, Zeyn said, 'I am going to have two daughters, and I will give them the names: Calina and Corinna.'

"Misfelinda was astonished. She asked her how she knew that. 'I know.' Zeyn shrugged and said, 'She doesn't know how she does.' Zeyn also said that she knew at what age and how death would come for her. Therefore, Misfelinda did not ask anymore.

"Meanwhile, the quiety boy got bored watching the girls. He turned back into the woods, took many reluctant steps, and looked back. He was not too far from the quiety gang yet. As he had invented a game for himself with brushwood, he heard some cracking sounds at a distance. He cowered immediately and cocked his ears for another crackling. When he slightly raised his head, his eyes caught someone switching between two trees. By the looks of him, he was definitely not a quiety. He could not be the monster either, for it had black fur, according to the sayings of the witnesses. The boy cowered more.

"The evening came, and I began to talk about the Wulf. By the way, in those days, its name was not Wulf. I had named it as the Moon-Foe. Two girls were sitting in the rearmost seat. Misfelinda prodded Zeyn, who deeply plunged into the daydreams of her own. Zeyn was back to herself. She said, 'Tonight is different. I'll walk in my sleep again.' Misfelinda did not believe her. She said she would sleep beside her to witness her sleepwalking and would not even blink her eyes. The night fell. As the quiety band was having their dinner, 'Bring him to camp,' the quiety chief ordered to the boy's father. 'Boy must be hungry,' he said. The quiety was gnawing a piece of dried meat. He got to his feet and performed in their language that he was not his boy and walked towards the woods unwillingly. Misfelinda and Zeyn had worn the same nighties to mark the day and lay on the same bed, side by side. They were talking. Actually, only Misfelinda was talking. Zeyn was listening as usual. Misfelinda said she would watch Zeyn until the first lights of the dawn, and she spoke more on idle affairs for a while, before falling fast asleep when Zeyn was quite awake.

"The very hour came: the hour that all human beings slept except the quiety, who was supposedly looking out at their camp. The village was quiet. There was no sound but the barking of the dogs in their nightmares. Zeyn's eyes opened abruptly. She straightened up slowly, went to the door, gently opened it, and went out. In the quiety camp, the boy rose up. Zeyn walked towards the woods.

"In the meantime, the morning chill woke Misfelinda; Zeyn had left the blanket down. She saw her friend was absent and the door was ajar. So, she slipped out of bed quickly, without disturbing others' sleep. The quiety boy woke his father when he noticed Zeyn was near. He pointed the girl first and then his own jugular as he said in their poor hand-arm language, 'Stain.'

"Zeyn disappeared. The boy's father was sober thoroughly now. He went and kicked the sleeping quiety, who was supposed to be watching, and then woke the others.

"As Zeyn was towards the bridge, Misfelinda had recognized the white nightdress of her. She caught her not long after. Zeyn was standing still before the bridge; her eyes were closed, as though she had fallen into a trance. Misfelinda clutched her from the arms and shook to awake. Zeyn opened her eyes, changed her course, raised her hand towards the sky, and then pointed out something in the air with her forefinger.

"For a few seconds, there was nothing at the place the finger pointed, but then a faint sound came from the air. Its loudness increased. At its peak, it was as though a thousand men were whistling together. All the creatures of the mountain had wakened. The heads of the quieties turned up. A fireball was coming, a hell of a fireball as if shouting in pain, for it was burning furiously. It turned the night into the daytime and crashed somewhere in the northeast of the village. The ground shook and moaned with the crash. I remember the night well. With the murmurs of the mountain, the earth quaked quite often, but I had not heard such a noise and had not felt a quake so strong before.

"Indeed, all hell had broken loose in the village. The awaken ones grabbed the sleeping ones and got out altogether. Misfelinda and Zeyn looked towards the direction where the fireball hit, but Zeyn was not seeing what she was looking at. Misfelinda realized her condition. Grabbing her from the shoulders this time, she shook her mightily. Zeyn looked at Misfelinda. Her eyes began to look normal, and then the girl swooned. Her body found a place that fit among the branches, and she slept.

"As soon as the quieties eluded themselves from the fascination of the fireball, they looked at where the marked girl had stood. She was still there with her white dress. But actually, the girl they sought out was replaced with Misfelinda, who would not serve their purpose. The girl began to run towards the village. They followed her quickly, not to lose her from the sight.

"When Misfelinda reached the fountain area, people were running here and there in a panic. A group of men had gathered to go and see the fireball, and I was the leading one among the ones who were very enthusiastic to see it. Nevertheless, even in those years, I was quite old. I stayed in the village. Mr. Samson Sr. led the men. Misfelinda found hers and Zeyn's mother together as they were sharing the panic. She told everything in one breath and directed them to the place where Zeyn had swooned. Misfelinda also said she wanted to go with the men to see the fireball, but, of course, her mother, Earth did not let her. Instead, she drove her mischievous daughter to a quiet place, and they watched the rush of the people from there.

"When Zeyn's parents found her, she was sleeping like a baby. Her father cradled his daughter in his arms, and they walked toward home. Earth saw their torch was about to fade, so she ran to them to give her spare torch. Alas, when she turned back, Misfelinda was not there.

"Meanwhile, Misfelinda was already in the pursuit of the men. Their glimmering torches were guiding her among the woods. As she was passing the bridge by herself, she was not aware of the quiety eyes following her. The gestures of the boy's father were enough for the quieties. Nobody had cared about when the boy said,' She was not the girl that they were looking for.' Right after they caught Misfelinda, and made her unconscious with a light fist and saw the spot on her jugular, another fist was delivered to the boy by his father.

Earth had been chasing Misfelinda. Indeed, she'd figured out what the naughty girl had done. Not long after, she caught up with them. As soon as Earth discerned some men had kidnapped her daughter, she pounced on them like a ferocious female cougar. She would have mauled them all for sure if they had not thudded her in the head with a big stick. Earth swooned.

"With the pride of success, neglecting what they had come for, some members of the quiety band wished to go and see the fireball, rather than go back to their land at once. Their chief was in that mood as well, so they made a decision. Those who wanted to see the fireball would go and see it, and others would commence their clambering up. After a while, they would meet on the way. Their burden would make the first group slow, so the fireball-enthusiastic group could catch them on the journey home.

"The village men were gazing at the enormous pit the fireball created before the quieties reached there. The meteor had shattered into tiny black flurries and wrapped the entire hole as a black blanket. Thousands of particles lightning in lavender color glimmered inside the crater. Its heat was still searing, and breathing turned into suffering.

"Nevertheless, it was so unique, so marvelous that no one could allow himself to leave the scene. It seemed like a fountain of life, unearthly, mesmerizing, alluring. The words human beings knew to spell would be too abstract and inefficacious to describe the scene. At last, Samson Sr. thought it was enough for him and strode back to the village.

"In the meantime, the boy's father shouldered Misfelinda. Two quieties and the boy were his company. They were striding on their way through the High-Wood. The other three quieties were by the pit. They were so close to the villagers that, if the village men's eyes and ears had not been enchanted with what happening in the pit, the quieties certainly would have been noticed.

"When Mr. Samson was walking on his route towards home drowsily, he startled abruptly with a scream resounded at a near distance. He quickly changed his course towards the shouting, and after a while, he saw a body lying on the ground in a small dell. He recognized his wife at the moment and ran to her. Earth regained consciousness as the man held and woke her. 'They got...They got my girl,' Earth cried, and before she finished her words, another scream resonated in the woods.

"After Misfelinda's first scream, a big hand wrapped her mouth tightly. She stayed calm for a while until the grip slackened with a sharp bite of her to his hand. Then Misfelinda released her second and the louder scream. It was this second scream that made run Mr. Samson towards them.

"The quieties at the pit heard that second scream as well. The men, without even a murmur on their lips, went away from the pit as though vanishing. The men of the village had no ears as keen as of the quieties. They were still gazing at the pit, hypnotized with the lavender-colored lightning sparks that were turning into deeper purple.

"Misfelinda was struggling, biting and scratching the quiety that was carrying her. Her dress was torn apart with the squirming. She had wounded her first carrier; the boy's father. His hand was bleeding badly because of her terrible bite. Therefore, the father and the boy had been fallen behind as the father was trying to bandage his hand.

"Though the full moon watched them from its throne, fat as it could be, and illuminated them much as it could manage, neither the wounded quiety nor the boy noticed Mr. Samson passing a few yards away. Mr. Samson had seen them, but his little girl was not with them.

"Only a few leagues away, it was quite hard to carry Misfelinda, for she was continually squirming, hitting and kicking. To avoid injury to the precious girl, they were holding themselves to deliver another fist to her, or else they could make her swoon in no time. In the end, they had to do it all the same, or else the girl would tear them up on the way home.

"Nevertheless, life would be more miserable for these two quieties. An older man emerged from the darkness. He thudded the one not carrying the girl with his open right palm. The hit was so destructive that, the quiety went to the door of the world of souls, and then returned and plunged into the world of dreams.

"At the moment, the other one put Misfelinda on the ground and intended to draw his dagger, but the old man's hand did not allow him to do it. The blade could not be pulled from its sheath. Mr. Samson grabbed the man by the neck with his other hand and thrust him to the nearest tree. 'Who are you? Why are you kidnapping my daughter?' Mr. Samson inquired in vain. When our old man realized that no answer would come from the strange man, he helped the quiety accompany his fellow into the world of dreams.

"Mr. Samson cradled Misfelinda from the ground. Though she was not of Mr. Samson's own blood, he loved and exalted her deeply as her own daughter. Alas, before long, he met with the three quieties who were fireball enthusiastic. Mr. Samson gently lay Misfelinda on the ground and walked towards the quieties that had already drawn their daggers.

"As he got closer to them, he cracked a branch of a tree, which was quite thick, and scraped its bushy branches as if tearing leaves of a tree. Though the quieties were counting upon their daggers, an apprehension conquered them, I believe.

Not too far from there, Earth got to her feet. She took a few steps but stumbled and had to kneel again. She was extremely dizzy.

"Meanwhile, Mr. Samson was picking the daggers of the quieties that he had already defeated. Two palm-thuds were needed to help the massive chief of the quieties to help him to go to the world of dreams. When a thicker stick than his own thudded Mr. Samson's head from the back, he fell on his left knee. As he looked back in pain, the second hit was on the way.

"For all that, yet our old man had not gotten down entirely. He turned his head and looked at the boy's father, who was about to disbelieve the might of his stick. A third hit brake the stick as well as Mr. Samson. The father bound Misfelinda's hands and mouth very tightly this time. He shouldered the girl, swept the boy before himself, and walked.

"Of the remaining two quieties, the one in better condition gave to his fellow a hand, and they tried to follow the father. They gave a last glance to the beaten up friends who were still unconscious before disappearing behind a willow tree. Nevertheless, no one —quiety or one of our own— had become aware of the man who was watching the whole tragedy right from the beginning.

"At last, the night ended. Earth gathered herself up. She got to her feet despite dizziness and remembered the night, and run to the High-Wood, shouting and screaming."

Oaken-Grandfather sipped from his tea with honey and continued his tale.

"After hours, as the sun was about to set, the quieties who were carrying the girl were glad, for they had found the girl that they had come for. They talked quietly that their deliverance was near. Alas, happiness did not endure long enough most of the time. The Moon-Foe, namely Wulf, assaulted them. It hadn't howled or roared like other predators would have done. They were expecting neither such a ferocious creature nor such an assault, quiet but brutal. The keen eyes and ears of the quieties were unaware of his arrival.

"The Wulf bit the boy's father near his neck first and attacked the other two. How foul was his snarl! Yes, 'Foul,' I said, the most descriptive word. It was as if an otherworldly cry, a timbre not to be in this world, a demonized shape of malice, which was not to exist.

"The boy ripped up a large part from Misfelinda's dress and compressed on the wound of his father that already blood was gushing out. He desperately looked on how the Moon-Foe perished his people in a few seconds. He looked at the wound he was pressing on and raised his head. The monster was a step ahead of him, snarling. Before the boy could find his courage to glance at the creature, he was hit with a pawn to the back of his head and lay down unconscious.

"Misfelinda was awake and lying on the ground, playing dead. She opened her right eye halfway. The infamous monster was still around with his horripilating, ghastful and foul growl. In the end, Wulf pawed the boy's squirming father in the head and disappeared. For a long time, by her standards, Misfelinda lay down. She heard footsteps causing faint cracklings and stood still. Someone was there, and definitely, he was not the monster. She could not find her courage to raise her head for a quick glance. Footsteps faltered and then faded. Misfelinda lay there a few more minutes.

"Finally, she raised her head slowly and looked around quickly. There were four bodies on the ground, and three of them were drenched in blood. She straightened up and made sure that the monster was no longer around, before beginning to run down the mountain. But as I'd said, 'Happiness is hardly long enough.' The three quieties were coming in her running route.

"As it was getting dark, the quieties and Misfelinda on their shoulders, reached the massacre area. They did not check the bodies if some are alive because Wulf's howling was intense and near in the woods. They disappeared quickly. Should they had been caught, the High-Wood would conceal their quiet screams.

"Earth reached there at dawn, clutching a dirty remnant of her daughter's dress that was soaked in blood. She cried with screams tearing her throat for hours. Her sorrow was so intense that the High-Wood subsided into silence."

Oaken-Grandfather was telling the story sincerely; it was as though he had witnessed the anguish of her at the time with his own eyes.

"She stayed there for hours and hours. Her eyes cried out. If the Moon-Foe had come for her, it would have met with someone more ferocious than itself. It was lucky not to come. Towards evening, a whimper took her attention when Earth was about to leave. The boy barely raised his head and turned his face to the other side. Earth approached him, and the boy opened his glassy-green eyes. And from that day, Earth is called Earth-Mother."

Oaken-Grandfather stopped talking, sipped from his tea with honey.

Though most of them knew about Misfelinda, they had not listened to the story from this perspective; Oaken-Grandfather was doing amends each time he told a story.

The audience sat with tore at heartstrings.

"What happened to Mr. Samson Sr.?"

All the heads turned to Corinna, who asked this question.

"Since then, no one has seen him..." The old man hushed for a short while before saying connotatively, "dead or alive."

Murmurs poured from the audience. Corinna had not been satisfied with this answer, yet as other citizens, she could not dare to ask or talk on Misfelinda or Mr. Samson anymore. Corinna and Jane exchanged looks; Corinna's hand was on her spot on her jugular, the same of her mother's.

The quietness was disturbed by a woman's voice sounding behind the audience. "My boys..." Rosie scrambled over the stage. "My Boys are not in the village...My boys are not in the village."

# Into the Beastmaw

Three Hours Before.

He hasn't enjoyed being around so deep in the woods, struggling through the narrows of boulders, slipping off from mauling branches of thickets, and wading through cold waters of infant streams on the verge of the High-Wood.

Or was he?

The inner urge of his: 'I must be with my brother, he needs me,' had always been so predominant that he had not honestly judged his own feelings about being in the wilderness.

If Efdalin had not been chasing his desires, would he be here now?

Besides, aside from being thrilled in the wild, he had seen many exciting creations or participated in events with Efdalin, inconceivable actions for him without his brother's urging.

Jumping over from cascades of Azmak higher than twenty yards, asking for trouble from an angry turkey roaming around with her chicks, disturbing a bird-eater spider in its nest with thin sticks—Such spiders were ferocious enough as to dare chasing them for a while—Or being scared to death with rigged up horror stories of Efdalin.

If they were not all good, then not all were bad either. 'Essences of life' were they, in Efdalin's words, 'Things were done to forget the boring routine of life.'

What would he say to him when they met again; he didn't feel like Efdalin deserved an excuse.

I am responsible for the incident this time, partly at the least. Yes, I should have held my tongue. I still cannot believe how I said all those words. It was not fair to slam Efdalin's handicap into his face, especially near the girls. It was the time Efdalin was the most fragile, and stupid me have broken him.

Definitely, Corinna was affecting Efdalin.

Jack scoffed to himself; this was sort of a love triangle like he had read in a book!

Was the reason he was walking on the route of possible whereabouts of Efdalin, remorse, or the promise he gave to his grandfather or the love of his brother?

All of them, perhaps.

He called on his wicked sense a few times up to this place, and each time he has been sure that his spontaneous route was towards him as in used to be. It was inevitable.

Actually, his venture had begun as moping around for easing his nerves after the quarrel, ambling by himself only, not intending to go after Efdalin.

He glanced at the surroundings with a feeling that his existence was disturbingly alien for the forest. He has never been here, or maybe the flora was changing continuously on purpose, to make it impossible to recognize as if everything was part of a living organism.

He was almost sure, where his brother could have been now; he knew the weird tree with its weird colors soon would emerge among the other trees, and definitely, Efdalin would be exhausted to death. Even this time, with resentment and anger burning inside of him, he must have forced himself beyond his limits.

"I hope he is all right," Jack said with a crackling voice. A few flappings came from the trees; his voice was hostile to some.

His own voice had come unfamiliar to Jack, too. _A human being does not belong here, a talking one at the least_ , he thought.

Efdalin had mentioned about things called ghosts, and told him that they appear around tombs. A few weeks after, one morning, he saw the first one of the things, which he had not dared to give a name yet. However, he knew definitely that they did not suit the definition of a ghost.

Jack recalled that he had not approached a tomb back then for many days. There was only one of those things in the village, but he had seen a few more in the mountain later, not many, thank goodness.

Though these things were alike, each one was different, especially in their glimmering colors. The common thing about them was the purple tones in their lights, some strong and some weak. That was another reason Jack thought they were dangerous. He also knew soon that Efdalin could not see them. Actually, Jack was quite sure that he was the only person in the village who could notice them; maybe there were people in the city who could see them as well. Thankfully, the number of tombstones lessened hereabouts; those nameless things could be relevant to the tombs.

He was walking alongside a brook hidden between the trees of its sides. The trees stooped forward, embraced each other with their branches, and leaves constituted a tunnel over it. The water seemed so clean that he stopped and refilled his water-skin from it.

It took half an hour to get across the brook of the tree tunnel. He met with Azmak again and continued his walking alongside. The time was right to consult his brother-finder.

The notorious sense rerouted him away from the water. That was good; Efdalin had not dared to pass it. He glanced at the river flowing dangerously robust and extremely cold, for it was swelled with melted ice water. He was sure now that his brother was going to where Jack presumed. He reckoned to catch him soon.

Almost two hours had passed since Jack left the village when he reached the old, weird alder tree with yellow, green, and red leaves, bearing Efdalin's notorious markings that he liked to find; Jack had caught him under the tree in the morning.

Even if he reached him right now, they would not be able to return home before sunset; another quarrel with their mother was already waiting for them yet again.

He looked around to discern Efdalin without resorting to his sense, but there was no trace of him. Obviously, Efdalin was in the beastmaw three hundred yards up, which his brother's manners had signified in the morning that he would eventually go in there. He stared at the beastmaw for a while before walking to it.

It took another quarter of an hour to reach the mouth of it. Jack could not imagine how Efdalin had waded through this difficult path to arrive there, and it was interesting because no footprint was on the soil of its entrance.

Could his brother clean his footmarks to prevent Jack from going after him into this beastmaw?

"I am becoming paranoid," he said and was amazed at the word paranoid. He couldn't remember which book he learned this unexpected word.

There was no choice but to use the brother-finder yet again. Therefore, he bent his knees and head to perform it. He was so sure where Efdalin could have been during the last fifteen minutes that it was a terrible surprise for him when his intuition said his brother was not in this beastmaw; Efdalin was more to the east. The first thing Jack thought has been that his brother had gone east through this beastmaw. He approached it more and peered inside timidly. The entrance of the cave was too narrow; it was almost impossible to enter, not a sane person would try it.

Jack sighed; his brother was not sane.

Optimistic Jack thought this was the best of a bad lot. He concluded that Efdalin had not gone into the cave, but he should not have been glad so early when it came to his brother.

After a last timid glance to the mouth of the narrow cave, he carefully clambered down the way he used to come there. It was harder to go down than up; with a wrong, risky movement, a horrible fall was inevitable. Some nasty thorns to give pain and many hours of itching were waiting for him where he would have fallen.

He regretted not to use his ability before going up to the beastmaw; he had lost half an hour.

When Jack turned back to the alder tree of red, green, and yellow needles, he raised his head and stepped backward for a more clear view. On the left of the beastmaw was a vast, impassable chasm of a hundred yards broad, longing endlessly along the mountain's walls. Finding a way around this gap arching towards the east would take up several hours at the least. The right side of the beastmaw was the way to the east, yet an impossible climbing up on the bare, slippery rock was waiting for him there. So, it was not an option.

Actually, one more option, which was no option for Jack, was through the beastmaw. It would not be a surprise for Jack if Efdalin went east through it.

The boy gave a last glance at the beastmaw, which was giving him a sideways look. His route was apparent and was not easy to go.

What was waiting him in the chasm was narrow but deep ravines, too risky to jump over, discounting the fact that the very existence of dead trees with tangled dead boughs and matted twigs to trip him up, bushes of the most freakiest kind with poisonous thorns, filthy crawlers, blistering eight-legged freaks, and unknown, inconceivably terrible creatures, babbling boughs, and scalding water springing unexpectedly from the cracks.

Yet, the chasm was the smartest way to go, and go he would do.

***

After an arduous clambering down that left memory scars on Jack, he was in there. He felt it almost immediately as walking through what the chasm has —supposedly lifeless things were as if whispering each other, unwelcoming the boy by passing opinions about him in an unintelligible language.

Jack tried to pick a route among them, carefully avoiding writhing, interlacing flora and fauna. Two times he jumped over the ravines and was bruised by the rosewoods welcoming the boy with their impossible hues and hungry thorns. No sound was in there, yet it was loud and sultry. It never ceased that he was watched in the chasm with disapproval, dislike, and perhaps enmity.

When he reached the other wall of it, he took a deep breath and turned to look back; it would have been impossible for Efdalin to go through this way. So, his brother must be in the mountain now. "Yes, he definitely went through the dark," Jack said with a hoarse voice. He was afraid; his quest would end up in a beastmaw. The most unbearable things were the thoughts now; he should discard them.

Jack visualized Corinna's pretty face as she was smiling and locked his mind to this soothing imagination, as he was climbing up.

With new scratches and bruises, the chasm was finally over. He performed the brother-finder faintheartedly. He was glad he was on the right way, and no beastmaw was in his sight.

The ground was steeper. The trees were thick and somber; they had changed: twisted, undulated, divaricated, and wrapped up with sticky ivies. Most of them were clouded with moss, which seemed grayish in the dim light; a thin fog coat had concealed their roots. As if they had taken fierce, but lifeless looks. Their leaves were standing still but merely looking like thousands of eyes.

When the boy shuddered with the loneliness, he was sure of only one thing: This place should belong to the High-Wood.

# The Volunteers

Mr. Madra asked, "Are you sure they are not in the village?"

"Something bad has happened to them. My boys are always home before sunset. I knew. I knew this would happen one day." Rosie melted into tears.

Oaken-Grandfather heaved a big sigh, sat up from his seat, and went towards Rosie.

"They have gone as their father, Grandpa." Rosie was crying in despair; she hugged him. The old man did not say anything but hugged his granddaughter back.

Su had dumbfounded with this ruckus; her head was a balloon full of memories, swimming inside freely and elusively, waiting the time to burst out. She stooped her head to bring out some.

The first thing she remembered was an image of a woman, quiet but running among people desperately. She was looking for someone. Then the woman turned her head; it was her.

Mr. Madra spoke to the audience. "Brothers and sisters, hear me out for a moment."

Some of the folks were unaware of the situation. The commotion lessened swiftly; they paid attention to the Mayor.

"Has anyone seen or known where Rosie's boys are?" the Mayor asked.

Anxious conversations poured in response. Mr. Madra shot a glance at the audience, but apparently, no one knew of the boys.

Rosie cried aloud, "Has anybody not seen my boys around?"

No one knew what to do; it was a situation with which no one encountered before.

Rosie's desperate eyes were seeking hope on people's faces; none except one set of eyes bore a spark of hope inside when they met with hers.

Samson got to his feet. "I volunteer for the seeking of the boys."

Despite Calina's objections, he went to the stage; he turned to the audience. "I only need one more soul with me to search each and every part of this mountain."

Many heads turned to Hugie immediately. Would he leave his best friend alone in the woods at night? Had he really been scared of the dark of which some people had spoken? Was his heart worthy of his size?

Hugie, with his conspicuous large body among the audience, did not make a sound; he even acted as if he has not seen or heard Samson for a while.

The looks that had been cast towards him began to turn back in one or two at a time, and a wry grin appeared on most of the lips that Hugie got to his feet speaking with his rumbling voice. "I am volunteering as well, my dear!"

The chumps, who thought that Hugie was afraid of the dark, turned their heads to this immensely built, but tenderhearted hulky man once again in surprise.

Mr. Madra said, "We need a few more volunteers."

The humming picked up where the crowd left off, and in the end, some of the young men stood up.

Mr. Madra, Rosie, and Oaken-Grandfather walked off of the stage and headed to an explicit part of the public house; the volunteers followed them.

***

"You are enough in number. Let's make three groups of you," Mr. Madra said.

"I am going with them." Rosie embarked upon them willingly, but this was not a good idea for the Mayor.

"No, you'll confuse them. They cannot keep an eye on you. You are going nowhere but home," the Mayor said. His determined gaze, together with the authoritarian voice and Oaken-Grandfather's nod, had been enough to deter Rosie from her will. Mr. Madra glanced at the volunteers. "Gird on your daggers and come to my office immediately."

# The Light with Earth-Mother

Corinna and Jane trotted towards Earth-Mother's home, for Mr. Madra wanted his daughter Jane to inform the old woman about the situation, and to ask her if she had seen the boys. Naturally, Jane's best friend was along with her.

"Oaken-Grandfather had told before Wulf would not walk around during full moon nights, but now he says, the monster had assaulted at the second full moon night. I am confused. Besides, it came into my mind when he talked tonight about how this feeble old man could know everything for many years? He can barely walk to the public house from his home," Jane said.

"Some people just know," Corinna said, "like my mother." She felt too warm and whipped her cardigan off. The big black plum-shaped spot struck the eye on her fair skin.

"They came for your mother because of her mark, girl! She had the same as yours," Jane said in amazement and fuss.

Corinna wrapped her bosom and quickened her pace without saying anything.

When they arrived at Earth-Mother's house, they saw a queer light emanating from the dwelling, which was so distinctive that the girls halted as soon as they saw it.

The light was not like coming from a candle or oil lamp nor like sunlight. It was not white, somewhat hoary, as though composed of by millions of flurries of tiny light particles of alternating luminous colors.

They approached and knocked on the door in awe. A significant amount of time passed until it was opened. As the flurries of the light disappeared, Earth-Mother emerged behind the ajar door with a thick candle on her hand. She had rolled a piece of fabric around her forehead tightly with a poor hope of ebbing her headache.

"Is thet yu, mey girl! I wiss witing yu. Cume in." When Earth-Mother raised the candle, she noticed there were two people at the door, and none was Su. She frowned. Before she began to bawl out at them, Corinna told the whole story quickly and the reason for which they had come to her house.

The old woman's face saddened. "I shull siy whets guin on," she said, grabbing her cardigan that was hooked behind the door and waddling towards the public house with her usual destructive energy.

In the meantime, the girls had a chance of glancing inside, but there was nothing unusual there. They followed Earth-Mother pensively with no courage to ask her about the queer light.

***

"Don't get it wrong. This village calm. Tonight unusual. I sure boys return. They walk away in woods," Elizabeth said via hand-arm language to Su sitting by her.

There were people around or on the seats, talking about the situation and building theories mostly about the Quieties.

Mr. Madra came back to his seat and fell into deep thought; his fingers laced together, supporting his chin. Oaken-Grandfather and Rosie came, too. Plenty of women rounded her swiftly. The old man slumped down in his chair. He had sort of dwindled.

"This place beautiful, too," Elizabeth continued. "Our only entertainment tales of him." She made a head gesture pointing at Oaken-Grandfather.

"We heard quieties from him, first. Then they raid us. We know they exist. Also, this...Wulf...thing." She could not find a proper gesture of hand or arms about Wulf, only spoke it. "Your old woman say, Wulf; this why our folks say so. No evidence it. Our people like fear from it. They believe Wulf attack someday; and so...

Elizabeth could not know how to explain her saying in the future tense in that language, so she said, "We will know it exists then. Think, and fear of it make us thrill. Our live..." Elizabeth could not find the right word, and then she said, "Our life gets exciting with it. Nobody gets out at night except the story night, the first night of the full moon."

The language was too rudimentary; she was turning to her own one at times.

"Even the privies have been rebuilt as next-door setups to enable direct entrance from the dwellings." She paused in her conversation with a question from Su. Then Elizabeth replied to her as much as she could. "Maybe it is weird, but neither I nor any other person has known about them. Some older folks think that Oaken-Grandfather knew why the tombs were there. But he never talks about them."

The voice of Earth-Mother was dominant among others'. She captured and questioned some poor women until she reached Rosie, and she pecked at some more with her cruel words. Apparently, her headache had abated.

As Earth-Mother spoke to Su, Elizabeth cast furtive glances at Earth-Mother. "I think you have already realized that the mother and I do not get on well. The woman is crazy. She believes her late husband is alive."

Su asked perplexedly, "Her husband not alive?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "No one has seen him after the night Misfelinda was kidnapped as Oaken-Grandfather told."

Curious heads of eavesdroppers were extended for hearing more words from Elizabeth, who was speaking with tongue and arms simultaneously. Corinna was right behind Su's line of chairs; she had missed neither a gesture nor a mimic of her since they came and sat behind Su and Elizabeth with Jane next to her.

"So, you haven't been in the city ever..." Elizabeth smiled bitterly. "I have been there...I could not ask Leonard. Even this village is crowded for him. If he went to the city, he would go out of his mind for sure. He had grown up with the Quieties, somewhere in the woods until he was ten years old, after all. Obviously, you've realized that the boy your old woman rescued in the woods was my husband, Leonard. He was a quiety boy."

When Earth-Mother approached, Elizabeth halted her mono dialog. The old woman was very sad about what she heard. Her hands gestured fists on either side of her belly; her looks were far beyond the houses and the people. After a while, Earth-Mother finished her contemplation. She came up to Su waddling. "Yu wait here, my girl. I will be right back," she said and moved off quickly.

Jane was listening to Elizabeth with all ears; she broke the silence after Earth-Mother. "Where has Mr. Leonard grown-up, Aunty Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth turned back, frowning. "You should call me Mrs. Elizabeth, you, Mayor's daughter. I am nobody's aunty." She took bragger glances at the women who were listening to her. "My husband hardly mentions his younger days," she said.

Elizabeth returned to her monolog to Su. "We could say, only the trader, Mr. Coinner, go the city. He brings stuff from the city to sell us and sell our stuff that we sell him here. Our village is off the road. No one comes or goes, and people who left here do not come back. Mostly."

Elizabeth scoffed herself. "Man by the name Gale went to the city recently, father of the lost boys..."

Elizabeth and the other people in the public house were surprised by the voice of Oaken-Grandfather.

"Once upon a time," he said.

The people shushed abruptly, and all the mouths of age five through one hundred became ready to heed the words that would pour out of the old man's mouth.

"I will tell you one more sad story tonight. I know it is easy to talk about the sad ones, but I think it is my right to go easy tonight," Oaken-Grandfather said.

Mr. Yunt broke in, "Nobody awaits to hear from you any more tonight, Grandfather."

"This one is not entirely for you. It is more to give hope to my old heart. I am going to tell you about my brother, my twin brother."

***

Earth-Mother stood still for a while on her home doorsill. In the light of the full moon, she seemed sculptural.

She went in, waddled to the table, and sat on a chair. She spoke as her eyes stared at the fire in the hearth, not glancing at Mr. Samson Sr., who was sitting on the other side of the table.

"Boyos of Russie girl are sytill iyn the woyds. The hairy nosed out thim I know, huynting down theym already. Mayyor seynt voluntiyrs ayfter theym but piyty theym. The hairy fiynds the boyos first, I know."

She turned her head to Mr. Samson. "Come oyn, my Saymson, go and fiynd theym. Kiyl the hairy for good of owur piople."

Mr. Samson looked at his wife with his glimmering pale blue eyes. Then the glimmer swelled and overflew out of his eyes, and wrapped the head, and then the whole body swiftly. Now the old man glimmered as a source of weird light, just like the same that Corinna and Jane had seen when they came to knock Earth-Mother's door an hour before.

# Into the Woods

When the search groups came to the office building with daggers on their belts, Alexander and Mr. Madra were already checking the grease of the muskets.

All three muskets were readied; six torches were prepared from rags dipped in pine resin and water. Three pockets of musket stones, together with three gunpowder horns, were lying on the table.

"Yagiz and Kuzzy, you'll search the east of the bridge, the area of the fields," Mr. Madra said and gave them a musket, a stone pack with gunpowder horn, two torches, and a quiety hooter.

"Kea and Mes-ud, you'll search the west of the Lonely Fountain. Sometimes children like to play there." He delivered them the same stuff.

Finally, Mr. Madra turned to Samson and Hugie. "You are the eldest ones. I want you to search for the most difficult and dangerous part." He gazed at them in frustration. "I want you to go towards the High-Wood."

In response, there was silence. Oaken-Grandfather's stories had kept the people of the village away from there. Neither Hugie nor Samson had set foot on the so-called High-Wood, not even to closer soils.

Both men were thrilled. Hugie's fear was discernible. He did not utter his feelings with words though his face changed color.

The men just nodded.

Mr. Madra gave them a musket and the other stuff. "Alexander went to get the hooter of the watch..."

Before Mr. Madra finished his words, Alexander came in breathless and extended the hooter to him.

The Mayor stared at these six brave men. "If you find the boys, blow the hooter, so the other two groups turn back to the village quickly. This forest, day or night, is uncanny. Do you understand me? As long as you hear from the hooter, come back here immediately."

The six men gave their agreeing nods.

The Mayor gazed them admiringly. "The village will be proud of you. You have the highest virtue of humanity. May your eyes be sharp, your hearts be calm, and your fears be numb. May you have a safe hunt. Good luck."

***

The members of the search groups were bid farewell by almost every person of the village until they reached the road. Children hugged them on the belly, and men and women patted on their shoulders. A bevy of people waited for them when they attained the beginning of the road reaching the bridge.

The groups of Mes-ud-Kea and Yagiz-Kuzzy left the village with Godspeed!

Samson thought, _Only Zachariah can chase the boys, should they find a footmark or something belonged to them. He is the best tracker in the village._ "We need Zachariah," he said.

Hugie agreed and volunteered to convince their friend, and not before long, he came with Zachariah alongside. It has not been difficult to persuade him for the errand; the little man Zachariah was a real fearless fellow.

As for Hugie, the big guy was chewing his lips and scratching his red hair and beard; he was in an apparent fidgetiness.

Samson came with his wife, Calina, and daughter Aria. Calina hugged her husband, vehemently. "I miss you already. Come back to me alive and not too spoiled," she said.

Samson chuckled and said, "I try." He squatted before Aria. "Who is my most beautiful girl?"

"Me, daddy."

"Now, give a huge hug to daddy."

He cuddled and kissed his daughter. Then he got to his feet, turned to Rosie, and put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, Rosie. We will find the boys."

Indeed, Calina did not like that friendly gesture.

Hugie came by their side. "Yes, Rosie, no worries, my dear! Hugie is going to ease the frightening atmosphere of the woods with his presence. Hey, Wulf! Beware of Hugie. I know you don't walk around at full moon nights. But if you want to change your mind, think twice. Hugie will be in the woods."

Then he shoved Zachariah from the shoulder comradely. They walked on the road, and their images faded swiftly.

After a mirthless smile to his beloveds, Samson plunged into the road and became invisible like others.

With the left of the last volunteer, the crowd began to leave one or two at a time, for home or seats at the public house. This night was very unusual for them. Many men talked about staying at the public-house to wait for a hearing of a quiety hooter. Alexander informed the citizens about the sound of hooter, which would mean the boys had been found.

After a while, only Mr. Madra, Rosie, Oaken-Grandfather, and Mr. Leonard were at the onset of the road. Mr. Leonard had girded his big, fancy dagger. This could mean only one thing.

The silent man nodded at them before leaving.

The Mayor called him. "Wait a minute, Mr. Leonard." Mr. Madra went by his side, drew the final quiety hooter from his pocket out, and handed it to Mr. Leonard. "We shall know if you find the boys, Leonard. You know the woods better than us. Farewell, and thank you."

Rosie came to their side and grabbed Mr. Leonard's hand. "Thank you!" Her dewy eyes glimmered with gratitude.

The quiet man nodded again and disappeared.

The near future would be worth remembering.

# Into the Darkness

Jack walked through a hidden small dell circumferenced with rocky slopes of the mountain. His way was a smooth, upwards steep turning east. The fauna around was incredulous, so tenacious as to crack open fissures in the heart of the whole solid rock and to spring and have a touch with the sunlight.

When the turn was over, he stood still in awe, for a stone bridge had connected two small monticules of the mountain. He clambered up the final yards with exclusive help of his hands. Now he was at one end of the bridge, reminiscent of theirs. It had the same shape, and the volcanic stones were used in its construction. Maybe it was made by the people who had made their bridge.

The other side of the bridge reached the other monticule, starting a wide ravine, climbing up through, and possibly getting to the top of the chasm, which Jack hardly passed.

Jack did not go this way because Efdalin's signals were from the opposite side. Yet this could be a better way for their journey home.

The dell below the bridge seemed to be a riverbed once upon a time. It was almost dried out. A weak water stream flowed, which was no good for the few stunted trees down there.

He walked in the way he felt right and went up unceasingly. "You cannot go this way," he said, who knows how many times.

Suddenly his pacing halted. Jack froze with the sound of howling, echoed far away. Yet, surprisingly, it did not scare him as he anticipated. _Could it be Wulf?_ he thought, but the moon was round. It would not be around. He was hungry and tired to care about Wulf.

He was an optimistic person; even not going into a beastmaw was enough to feel all right now. He admitted in the end that being in the wild in a place no one knows about was thrilling and enjoyable; everything he discerned would stick in his memory, not routine, not dull but exciting.

_I'm thinking like Efdalin_ , he thought.

Alas, two steps later, he faced a beastmaw, placed at the end of the lane he had been walking since the bridge.

It had a broad mouth with shrubberies of purple buds. This was the most prominent cave he had ever seen. He rubbed his face in desperation and resorted to the sense.

Efdalin was definitely in this cave.

He waded through the hedges to reach the beastmaw.

He sneaked inside slowly and sniffed if there was an unusual smell, a foul odor perhaps. Though predators like to keep away from humans, if they are disturbed in their den, they might change their minds.

Right at that moment, he saw the words written on its wall with something white. He had not believed that Efdalin had been chasing the markings on the trees, but now, what he saw was enough evidence that actually his brother was right all along. The calligraphy was written easy to read this time; plainly, they were the signature marks of whereabouts of his brother. But all the same, in no way, Efdalin could come here as Jack did. Could he read these words, too?

Jack stood there for a while, reading the written words in anticipation of hearing a sound from the inside, and smelling its musty air.

After seeing the calligraphy, Jack had no doubt Efdalin had the ability he claimed to have; yet in no way, Jack had perceived his brother's wish would be in a beastmaw. A fountain of healing, perhaps? Ridiculous. Efdalin sometimes made Jack think that the notions, stupidity, and intelligence were sprinkled over a circle, meeting at the extremums.

After a minute, Jack decided to call him, and did it quietly, "Efdalin."

Then he scoffed; he had called him so quietly that only it could be heard by him. He was angry at himself. Disliking the beastmaws was normal; to beware from the dark was, too. He was not a coward. No one who has a good head on his shoulders would like to enter a beastmaw. Maybe he should wait here at the entrance until Efdalin got out.

"No! No! No!" He muttered loudly. "If you are really not a coward, you must go in there and seek your brother."

He repeated the call louder.

There was nothing to muffle his voice; the call enhanced and echoed uncannily. Jack held his breath and listened when his intestines growled rebelliously. Seconds were as if minutes.

Nothing, no sound came from the inside. For a second, he wanted to believe Efdalin was not in this dark, ugly mouth of the underground, but his brother-finder had never failed him before. His headstrong brother was definitely in there.

He read off the calligraphy this time.

"If it must be done, then it will be done," he muttered. After a few steps, the dark mouth of the beastmaw swallowed him.

The howling echoed in the woods. Closer.

Coming Soon!

Episode II, The High-Wood.

From Episode II

..... Samson clambered up out of the pit, strode to the nearest sapling bearing new twigs, rived one that was a yard long, coiled it tightly around his wounded arm an inch below his biceps, and sat to wait for his blood to clot.

It was as though the whole creatures of the forest had clammed up and held their breaths to sniff the delicious fragrance of the blood. None smelled a human's blood so intense before.

Finally, the blood stopped flowing. Zachariah's breathing eased, and Hugie bragged that something assaulted Samson.

Samson noticed a black entity swooping down on him at the last second. He scrambled to his feet with incredible swiftness and grabbed its armpits with a viselike grip in the air.

For a time, less than a second, the man and the once-man looked at each other in the eye. One was a good human, while the other was a terrible demon. If that brief scene of life could have been frozen, Samson and Wulf would have been one of the most bizarre images of all times.

The fragrance of Samson's Blood infuriated the freak, bearing terrible malice within; it had made it insurmountable. An evil nascence had found a body in it, a body in which nothing but bad could merely be inflicted.

Wulf clawed Samson with his sharp, long, evil claws; he tried to bite him with its great, piercing, diseased teeth bearing a stench of a carrion flower sprung up in an extraordinary bog.

He would have bitten him, had Samson not thrown himself back, pulling the creature alongside. They tumbled down from a scarp and was lost.

Zachariah gathered himself up; he shouted at Hugie, who drew his dagger but stood frozen.

"Run, help Samson!" Zach screamed, running to the musket. He filled it with gunpowder, dipped it with the ramrod, put the extremely sharp musket stone in it, which he had been saving for Wulf, and dipped it again, all in just a few seconds.

He had shouted at Hugie the entire time. "Go, help Samson, cut Wulf with your dagger. It will maul our friend. Run, ruuunnn....."
