How long had she been here in this forest? She couldn‘t remember, some years, forever it sometimes seemed.
The past elusive, but tantalizing, like a knock on a door at midnight, but never anyone there when she looked to see.
She sometimes couldn‘t believe the fancies that visited her in hours where sleep would not come. All the same, once she had
lived differently. Once there must have been a family, friends, obligations and joys.
Once there must have been so many hopes and dreams. Once she had truly loved. That much she knew.
She had not forgotten him, it was just that there was no point in remembering right now. All was as it was.
She was here and this was home. The attractions of the little town nearby, though a powerful lure in the winter, could
not compare to the peace that she felt here. The birds were half way through their morning recital, and today she
would make the journey into Sorrel town and sell the herbs that she had gathered.
It was a fine day for the travelling.
She made the hour long journey every few weeks, it was usually a pleasant walk, and it would be good to chat with the
storekeeper and hear about the goings on of the townspeople. The sun was almost risen by the time she had finished her
tea. Inexplicably, she felt tears running down her cheeks.
"Am I lonely?" she thought, almost surprised by the rising sobbing that followed.
Why this now? Her mood had been cheerful upon waking.
She packed the herbs into a bag and stared out into the clearing, the tears still falling.
The mist had faded now, and it was a clear, sunny morning.
She at last dried her eyes on a piece of cloth that she used to dry her cup and plate.
Yes, she was lonely. She was lonely and lost and isolated, but there was nowhere else to go.
Nowhere that would not engage her in answering a lot of questions that she lacked the will to find the lies with
which to answer.
Michael, the storekeeper in town, had given her a small mirror a few years ago, it was hanging on the wall on a strand
of leather. It had been a slow week for him, and he had been unable to pay in full for her wares. She remembered the
apologetic look on his face as he offered it to her as part payment. She had smiled, grateful that he had paid something,
and the little girl in her delighted in the pretty trinket.
She looked into it now, at her own grey eyes, and the skin around them, red from crying, wrinkled with the years.
By the time she reached Sorrel, she would look her normal self. Vanity did not sit easy with her, but she felt a wave
of it pass through her all the same. She opened the rickety door and smiled to herself. It was a beautiful day,
and she had felt something different.
It might mean something was changing in the world, in her world.
She was about half way to Sorrel when she noticed the tracks of a cart on the road ahead. Not usual on this route at this
time of year, the path often being muddy, and sometimes by the brook it disappeared entirely. A stranger then perhaps,
someone not knowing the land well enough to avoid this path. She hoped that they had been lucky and had passed
without mishap. It was not too bad, and she was not having to avoid sliding around the path too much this morning.
A little further on and the woodland gave way to pasture, and the town of Sorrel was visible, maybe a half a mile or so
ahead. She had made good time. She was a little curious about who the traveller might be. She hoped very much it was not
another seller of herbs and woodland remedies.
She had little enough income from that as it was without competition. Still, life is as it is, and challenges to be risen
to, someone had once told her.
But who or when….she didn’t know.
The town always announced itself to her as something of a surprise. One moment the quiet of the journey and the next the
chatter of children and the clattering of carts and the laughter and bustle. Today was no different.
"It always takes me by surprise" she grinned to herself.
Michael was outside his grocer‘s store when she approached.
"Good Morning to you" he said cheerily, "I hope you didn‘t have to much trouble with the mud.
Now then, if you‘d have travelled yesterday, we‘d be pulling you out of the brook.
The rain was coming in buckets. Buckets!"
"No, I‘m fine thanks" she reassured him. They both went inside, and he bought everything she had with her. He always did.
"There´s been a fad on burning sage" he said, rolling his eyes to heaven,
"some Peddler passed through and told Ma Bates that it warded off fever, and she told...well you know how these things
get passed on.
Anyway I can certainly use any more you have too, that‘s if they don‘t all get bored with it of course. Fads are
unpredictable. One week they‘re all over something, the next…" He rolled his eyes again.
"I‘ll see what I can find" She nodded supportively, "Maybe I‘ll come a few days earlier next time".
He thanked her, and paid her for the goods from a pouch that never left his belt. She had never seen him without it,
and it marked him as "Michael the Storekeeper" to her, a sort of uniform almost.
She told him about the cart tracks she had seen earlier.
"I haven‘t seen anyone new" he pondered, "but then if they came last night to the Feathers in all that rain...
Yes, I suppose I might have missed them".
She nodded, and at the same time doubted very much whether Michael had ever missed anything that happened in Sorrel.
Waving goodbye, she wandered off to The Feathers. It was curiosity in part, but also on her trips into town she always
had a meal at the Inn. The fare was plain, but good, and she always enjoyed it.
As she walked through the entrance she could see Ted, the Innkeeper chatting at the bar.
As she got closer he pointed at her and said to the customer,
"Now here‘s our fair haired forest dweller, she can tell you more about those parts than I can, how are you my dear?
We‘ve got some prime ham for your breakfast if you‘re wanting some."
"Thanks Ted, I‘d enjoy that" she could almost taste it already from the aroma sneaking in from the kitchen.
She addressed Ted‘s customer, wondering if this was the owner of the cart she‘d seen the tracks of earlier.
"What’s that I can tell you more about then?" she asked.
The man turned to face her. He was a little taller than her, and maybe a few years older, with longish graying dark
hair tied back in a pony tail. He had very blue eyes and a nice smile. She liked him straight away.
"Oh I was asking about any points of interest around here, ruins, legends, that sort of thing. The name‘s Morris"
He held out his hand and she shook it warmly.
"Ally" she replied.
She knew the place he was looking for very well, and that she didn‘t want to go there and also that of course,
she would take him. They both joined her waiting breakfast at one of the big wooden tables. She started on the ham
and dipped a chunk of it into runny yellow egg.
"Was it you that came through the woodland path with a cart earlier?"
"Yes , how did you know?"
"You left tracks. Very big ones. You‘re lucky the aren‘t sending Michael out with the Oxcart to pull you out of the brook.
Its not a good path for carts."
"I‘ve always been a lucky man" He smiled a smile that said "sometimes" was probably more accurate..
"What are you hoping to find up there" she asked, already knowing the answer.
"Look", his tone became confidential, almost a whisper,
"I‘ll be grateful for anything you can tell me about any ruins around here, but..."
"But you don‘t want to explain to me that you lost someone a long time ago, and that you think they might be trapped
in a sort of magical mystical way in an old ruin that people direct you to but when you try and find it,
its never there".
She popped another piece of ham into her mouth and started to mop up the egg with a thick piece of home made brown
bread, courtesy of Ma Bates no doubt, all the time looking directly into his eyes, watching for his reaction.
She hadn‘t expected the laughter. It was genuine, and born of relief probably.
Then he looked just as searchingly at her, "You can either spin a good story Ally, or you know more about this place than just where I can find it."
" I know something about it, from a friend...of a friend...of a friend…and I spin a good story."
"You‘re lying!" He exclaimed, with good natured surprise.
"Yes" she said, "Its breakfast time. The Inn‘s filling up. Time and a place. This is neither."
She finished off the bread and sat back in the chair, " Ted‘s coffee is good. I want some, and then, if you like,
we can go walk around and swap stories."
He nodded, and they drank coffee for a half hour. He talked about his travels and she was genuinely interested.
He had visited many places in the Land. Each place he described seemed to have its own flavour, its own special
characteristic that made it different from the last place. Morris was a fine story spinner too, and she liked
hearing about his discoveries. She had never felt that she wanted to travel and explore the Land,
but then what she was looking for was already here, the Spire.
She knew that her answer of solitude was not everyone‘s choice. After it happened, he probably went wandering.
"but its still solitude" she thought, "just solitude with other people around."
The chance of this happening, someone else turning up lost and confused looking for answers was actually quite high.
She had stayed in the vicinity partly because of that. Maybe the only company she wanted was that of those who already
“knew“. It saved her having to try and make anyone understand. How could they? She was glad that she had waited.
Still, it had been a long time. Morris was the first to find Sorrel to her knowledge, not counting the poor old man
who had lost his mind and died in Michael‘s shop last year. She hadn‘t seen him, but from what everyone said,
he was talking in riddles about ...well she knew from what they said he babbled on about that he was like her.
This was going to hurt her, she knew, but she had been there many times, and been hurt many times.
Nothing said she had to take him. She didn‘t feel sorry for Morris, it was more a feeling of duty .
He would look for it, he would find it, it would hurt him. She could companion him, but she couldn‘t stop it hurting.
He of course had no idea what he was walking into. She knew only too well that the compulsion was irresistible,
there was no point at all in warning him off, he wouldn‘t be able to rest until he had been there.
She had expected more to have ventured to Sorrel with scribbled maps and Peddler‘s gossip in their heads, drawn
irresistibly to the vicinity of the Spire. Until the old man turned up she had wondered sometimes if she was maybe the
only one it had not driven mad. She had been a little frightened when she thought she might be the only one.
Still, she had accepted that if she was, there was nothing that she could do about it.
She tipped up the second coffee cup, drank the last few drops and placed the cup down with a sense of purpose,
a new start for her today, and a friend made, and a job to do.
They left the Feathers Inn chattering about local folklore and who was who in the town, and headed towards the Smithy,
where Morris had left his horse and cart.
It would make a pleasant change to ride to the Spire, she usually had a very long walk there.
She wasn‘t sure what to tell Morris, whether to prepare him for what he might experience there, or whether to just let
him have his experience. She decided upon the latter. She had no comparison, no way of knowing that what happened to her
in there wasn’t just for her, perhaps other people didn‘t have the same things happen to them.
It was best , she thought, to be a supportive friend, and not try to be a guide in something she only knew one facet
of. Somewhere, she recalled, she had seen a lot of people do exactly that, and that some of the things that she could
not remember, from a life left behind, were about that.
She reasoned that now, without those memories, she could choose not to stand in the way of the discoveries of another person,
and so she did choose not to do that.