As the girls walked along the mountain trails, looking for spiral-shaped moss, Lucy told Dreadlilocks the story of Pitch Black. As much of it as she knew, anyway.

She recalled that Pitch’s mother (actually her step-mother) never seemed to like her, and rumor had it that she was the one who sent the assassin to kill her on that fateful day. Regardless of the reason, Pitch left the assassin bleeding out on the forest floor and disappeared, never to be seen again.

Since then, new rumors had begun to spread, telling of a beautiful maiden who lived in the mountains, with skin as velvety-dark as the night sky, and braids like silver chains, glittering in the moonlight…

A dangerous maiden, guarded by stone giants. A maiden who had little patience for trespassers, especially those who sought her out only because they had heard of her beauty.

It was that last part that convinced Lucy that the ‘maiden’ and Pitch were one and the same. “In the letter, she s-said her step-mother had always been jealous of how pretty she was,” she explained. “She didn’t understand it at all, and before she knew it she was f-fearing for her life…she’s very bitter about that. She said ‘beauty is meaningless’ and she’ll never trust anyone who thinks it’s important, let alone important enough to k-kill for, and that’s why she ran away.”

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“…To be honest, though, I’ve also always thought she was really pretty,” she continued. “But I won’t t-tell her so if she doesn’t want to hear it. You shouldn’t s-say it either.”

Dreadli nodded her agreement, and the two continued their search.

The first spiral-shaped moss they found was on a small rock in the middle of a stream. They almost walked right over it…but once they noticed it, they began seeing more like it all along the path. Moss winding around trees, curling over logs, scrawling across boulders like some hidden message in an ancient, unknown language…

They eventually came to a large cave, with two piles of stone in front of the entrance. As they approached, the stones shifted and rearranged themselves into vaguely humanoid shapes, several meters tall and surprisingly menacing, despite the fact that they lacked faces of any kind.

“What should we do…?” asked Dreadli.

“M-m-maybe if she recognizes my voice, she’ll tell them not to hurt us,” said Lucy. “M…M-margaret?!” she called out.

“Don’t use my real name in front of a stranger,” answered the voice of a young lady. “And don’t shout at me; I’m right here. I knew you were coming.”

Pitch Black stepped out from the cave, dressed in a long green gown. Its frayed skirt and sleeves rippled in the breeze, giving her the air of a specter: at once delicate and intimidating. In her right hand she held a cutlass, and on her left hand was a gauntlet made of stone, with a small spiral of moss in its center.

She gestured to the sparrow on her right shoulder. “A little bird told me,” she said.