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I go back three weeks later. Not for supplies - I have supplies enough to last a season. I go because I tell myself I want to see the girl who spent five years being raised by wolves because no human came looking for her. I am not, generally, in the habit of lying to myself, so I don't examine that reasoning too closely. She's exactly what Dax described, and not at all what I expected from a girl five years out of the woods. Careful with her hands. Quiet, in the particular way of someone still translating everything twice before she says it. She doesn't know my name means anything, doesn't know to flinch when I crouch down to her level and ask what she's growing in the little garden bed by the door. She shows me, patient with my ignorance, and tells me the names of three plants I already know better than she does, and I let her teach me anyway. I bring her a small brass bird the next time, the kind that's meant to whistle when you fill it with water and blow. She's delighted with it in a way that has nothing to do with what it's worth and everything to do with the fact that someone thought to bring her something at all. I don't tell her who I am. I don't tell her what I owe her, or why I keep finding reasons to pass through this particular stretch of road more often than the work requires. I tell her about a market in Sanhae, about the way the fog moves on the river in Nagnang, about anything at all except the truth. My guilt is my problem, and the truth won't help her. All it will do is destroy what peace she's found. :: The woman glances up from her writing, giving herself a :: :: little shake as she scans the room before returning to :: :: her work. Stepping carefully out of the light of the :: :: window, you continue on your way. :: | |