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Passing the time |  |
About a half hour later, I've packed my gear up and dowsed the fire, and the two of us are walking through the woods. We're walking side by side, but I'm letting Josephine take the lead whenever she feels like it, since this is her home ground. A question has been gnawing at me for a while, and I figure she might have the answer, so I ask it while we walk, if only to pass the time.
“My friend—the man I'm following—fell out of the sky, from a ship. He fell more than a thousand feet, and he seems to have walked away from it. How is that possible?”
She glances at me, then returns her gaze to the trackless land ahead of us. “Lots o' things possible, 'specially in the middle of a place like this.”
“A place like this? You mean the Crying Forest?” She's being cryptic, and I'm probably playing right into her game, but I don't really care at this point.
“Some bit,” she says. “This place, the Forest, it be a focus point. They be all over this land, but you and you kin no can see them. You think these trees done growed up on this spot, overnight, 'cause o' nothin'?”
“I figured the Folk did it, when they saw that the Empire was going to force them north. Don't all you people have magic powers?”
“What power we got, 'cause Sister Moon shine her light down on this land, more than others. An' some places shine brighter than others. Sure, we kicked it off. We was mad. But why you think we picked this place? This be a focus point, and that make all manner o' crazy things possible. Hm. But that ain't what saved you friend, the one you chasin'.”
I stare at her for a moment, wondering why she led me in a circle only to come back to this point in our conversation. “Then what did?”
“That be a story. You willin' to hear a story?”
