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To her surprise and slight discomfort, the Evergreen Man did not walk in silence.

Their pace picked up significantly once she could catch up, and she was amazed at how easily he scaled the forest - roots, branches, anthills, piles of nettles - it was as if nothing slowed him down. He would only do so when she would fall behind. And the whole time, he asked her questions.

“And what is it that you did in your village?” He would ask slowly as if each word had taken a lung full.

“I took care of my mother and grandmother. I was very young, so I helped with chores and caring for the animals.” She answered. She tried to avoid topics that extended beyond the village or those that preceded the farm.

“Your mother and grandmother. Oh.” He would repeat and fall back into deep thought. This did not last long, and he would return with more questions. “And what chores did you help with, I wonder?”

And it would go on like that until that blank look would come over his face. His bulging eyes would wander in different directions, although he went forward as if he saw every detail without a fault. When this happened, he would sigh and groan but only keep to very short thoughts.

“Where?” He would ask. She did not know what that meant.

“Where was my village?”

“Yes.”

“I… don’t know.” She admitted. She knew it was a day’s walk from a city, one that they called THE city. At that time, she never knew what was around, what region it was in, or who was king. She knew that all around it were forests. Kind, light, familiar forests. And then beyond them, the Deep Wood.

“Ah.” He would reply. “And?”

“And I do not know how to get back; I don’t think I ever can.” She thought out loud. “I cannot go the way I came; I do not know in what direction I left. My… I am not sure if my family is still there.”

“Oh. Where?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re gone. Maybe not. I am not sure how much time I’ve been away.”

His pace slowed. Val found herself catching her breath a bit. For someone so old and rickety, he had turned out to be in much, much better physical shape than she.

“She stole from you, then.” He said, returning to lucidity.

“Who?” It was her turn, she supposed.

These nonsense conversations, it was as if every other word was something she would have to decipher - it could go in any direction.

“The Crone. The Mother.” He picked up his pace again, leaving her wide-eyed and falling behind. Did he mean the Hag??

“Wait! Grandfather, please, are you talking about the Deep Wood?” She ran after him quicker. Was he mad? Or did he truly know of her?

“I do not know this Deep Wood.”

“Please…” she was torn between saying too much and too little. “Yes, yes, she stole from me. Could you please tell me more?”

“No.” and just like that, it was gone again.

Val felt despair. The second she was getting somewhere, he would become absent. He wanted to know so much but would give her so little. She felt he knew something worth knowing and was keeping it to himself.

As they made their way through the forest, she began seeing a different sort of trees. They were spaced apart more, and young grass replaced the thick, sharp fescue bunches.

They had been on their feet all day.

“I have to rest,” she pleaded with him, “please, Grandfather, are you not tired?”

He looked at her, or so she thought; it was hard to tell.

And then, he stopped.

“The Mother, she stole time from you.” He said. It had been over two hours since they last spoke of it.

“Yes!” She was so excited to hear him return to the subject that she pushed aside how tired and hungry she was. “Do you know about her? Where is she?”

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“She is Nothing,” he told her, letting out a large, long breath. “Valeria Val. She chooses where she is, yet she does not move.”

“That is her!!” Val exclaimed.

“She stole from you, yet you stole from her, too.”

“I did not; I left with nothing - not even the clothes on my back,” she told him. They were still, and she sat down so hard she nearly fell.

“Did you, now?”

“I promise!” She insisted.

He nodded slowly.

“Perhaps, perhaps not.” he sat down as well, stretching his legs out full length and allowing the weight of his body to collapse onto itself.

Val brought out her food again. She did not regret the food she had given him before, but he took a little extra this time.

“Do you know where Marat is?” She asked when all the food was gone except an apple and the end piece of a loaf.

“Who?”

“My friend.”

“Oh.”

It seemed that this was the end of their conversation. She looked around. You could not see the forest’s edge, but it was near. You could tell by the air and by the breeze in the treetops.

The Evergreen Man slumped more, and she realized that he was asleep. Sitting up against nothing but the weight of his own body, his head collapsed onto his chest. He snored.

In the morning, they began walking again.

“Grandfather, how do you know about the Hag?”

“Who?”

She sighed, feeling her eyes roll back into her head in frustration.

“The Crone.” she clarified.

“Oh. The Mother Crone.”

“Yes.”

“Aaand?” he drew out his words as long as he could, as if he thought this was a fun game they played.

“How do you know about the Mother Crone!” She was on her last nerve.

It did not take Val long to figure out that this was not a lost old man, but this big world contained a lot of very strange things that she apparently was not privy to. When in doubt, she chose kindness.

But, elderly or not, she was to the point of wanting to beat him with a stick if he did not answer her.

“Oh.” His neck and knees cracked at those words, but he did not lose pace. “Her hunger is not for the sustenance of the earth, but for those who sustain it,” he paused for a long time, “I do not have the time nor will to consider the Mother.”

She groaned.

They’d left the woods behind and traveled across thin streams, grasses, and occasional patches of wilderness.

“Grandfather?”

“Yes, Valeria Val?”

“Please, could you tell me who you are?” He’d been harmless, but this was still a stranger. A very disheveled, dirty, completely nuts stranger. And, he knew of the Nothing. But Marat told her that many people in the East knew of the Nothing, being so close to the Deep Wood.

“Evergreen-”

“Evergreen! Yes, I know!” she could scream.

“Then why ask?”

Dusk approached, and they had not eaten since the night before. By now, Val craved nothing but rest. But he did not stop yet.

“It’s getting dark any minute. Could we please stop?” She begged.

“Valeria Val says she seeks her friend, five-six days ahead. Yet brooding-man moves twice as fast. Still, she wants to stop well before dark.” He rocked back and forth on his feet, the joints in his knees grinding.

Val plopped on the ground - grateful that he stopped. She remembered the last bit of bread and the apple in her pack. Her stomach growled and twisted. But still, she offered it to the old man first.

“Grandfather, this is the last of what I have; please, have it.” She extended it to him. It seemed he was looking at it, at least with one of the eyes, but did not move. She waited until he snatched it out of her hands and ate both in a single gulp - no crumb or bit of an apple even hit his tongue.

“We keep going.”

“What??” She whined, rubbing her eyes and nose and looking up at him in frustration, her face red. “I cannot; I am spent - I must rest!”

“Oh.”

And then he did not say anything more. Nor did he turn his crossed eyes away or move. So, after a few minutes with nothing more, she was forced to stand again. It was coming to a point where she would say the devils with the Evergreen Man and the devils with Marat.

She did her best to keep up. They’d come up on a forested ravine. It looked as if one could bypass it entirely if they just kept going to the right of it, but the old man insistently hobbled forward.

Darkness had already come, and the moon's light had been extinguished in the trees.

They walked slower, Val dragging her feet, having to keep a close eye on them so she did not drag them right into a rock or root and send herself flying into the dirt. She was scratched and scraped enough from the previous few days.

Val was so focused that she did not notice when the old man stopped - and took a few steps too far, running headfirst into something soft and yielding. Wet, it stuck to her as she tried to soften her fall with her outstretched arms.

The smell hit her first. it was putrid and rotten. Something hard separated from something slick, and the sickening sound of wet suction sent a piece of bone falling to her feet, grazing her skirts and leaving wetness staining them.

The moon revealed before her the vivisected remains of something black and dripping. A tall wooden cross towered above her, a chort fastened across it, its arms stretched open with rope.

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