Daughters,

The mistress requires little of us, and yet we failed to meet her demands. I've sewn my eyes open so that I may not sleep and miss her arrival; I've slowed my organs and widened my ears so as to better hear what might approach. Wasn't it my fault then, that I misunderstood her intentions? It shall not be through fault of mine again that her desires and commands go unmet.

I miss the familiarity of your mouths, the shapes of your tongues. I miss the liquid of your insides and the soft leather of your flesh. Much I miss, and yet more so do I miss her presence. Ever, ever much more so. When will she return? For how long have I lost her favor?

If you were with me, daughters, I should not feel so alone in my wait.

~ the woman in the woods

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The structure was small, nothing particularly imposing, just a stone hut with a thatched roof thick with moss. It had no windows, but there was an opening that served as a door. The thing was so rustic, so old as to impress upon Minn its similarity to some Iron Age rock dwelling (about which she happened to teach her art history students when discussing early architecture and forms of spiritual expression). She would've thought, even, that she and Peter had stumbled across some ancient site except for the fact that when they did approach and enter the hut, they found it'd been quite recently visited.

Within the small space—which hardly fit the two of them and forced Peter to squat and shorten himself nearly a foot—was a dark alcove in which seven or eight fat white beeswax candles sat dormant on a shelf across the way. Their wicks were blackened and curling, and yet the candles appeared to have been burning recently, trailing waterfalls of soft wax over their sides, used matches scattered around them. What was more odd than the candles, though, were the things hanging from the ceiling. At least thirty or so bits of twine hung at varying lengths from the thatch, and on the end of each was a piece of what appeared to be hardened clay. Some of the pieces were large—as big as Minn's face— while others were as small as a quarter. When Minn reached to touch one, to examine it, she found it had indentations and impressions, as if these bits had been part of a larger statue or artwork. One piece in particular seemed to resemble the contours of an eye.

When Minn noticed that, her breath caught, and she immediately backed up into Peter, who straightened and bumped his head on the ceiling, bringing bits of grass fluttering down and startling the hanging bits of clay so they danced.

"What is it? What?"

Minn swallowed. "I think it's—I don't know!" She stepped outside of the suddenly stifling hut, happy to return to the wet mist she'd moments earlier wanted to leave. Why did everything feel so strange, today? Where were they? What was all this? Peter's "weird!" from within gratified her, and when he joined Minn again, his face was twisted in confusion.

"What the fuck is that?"

"Peter—"

"Sorry. I took a picture of all of it." He waved his phone.

"Strange, right?" she agreed. "Those bits and pieces, like a windchime, sort of, but without the wind. Some of them looked like parts of a statue."

They stood in silence for a moment, suddenly sensing a certain gravity. Then Minn looked up, and Peter locked eyes with her. "You think a person put that stuff there?"

"Yes, obviously! It wasn't like a bear walked up and decorated a hut, lit some candles."

"Do you think someone lives out here, Minn? Maybe like, a hippie witch person?"

"Hippie witch person?"

Peter opened his mouth to perhaps add something but let it hover for a moment before putting up his hands in defeat. "Yeah, I have no idea. I don't know if that's a thing."

Minn sighed. "You know what, whatever it is, it means someone is or was out here at some point, so that's positive, right? Even if we can't see much, we have to be somewhere close to people. This is a good sign. Let's be hopeful."

The boy said nothing in return. One corner of his mouth crept up into a half-smile. He was used to her tendency to reassure herself with false positivity.

"Are you laughing at me?"

"No! No, I'm not laughing. I'm sorry." He wiped the smile off his face, grew serious again, fumbled with his phone more to distract himself than for any other reason, but then he grew excited. "Hey! My phone has reception! It's working, again!"

Minn stepped toward him. "Are you serious?"

They spent several moments attempting to make calls, but no one would answer, not emergency services, not Minn's brother, not the lodge where they'd been staying. Their mounting frustration kept them so occupied that neither realized the fog begin to lift, the daylight to filter through the trees once more. The trunks spun like the bodies of long caterpillars from the earth to the sky, their thin branches spiraling as legs around them, nubs here and there where limbs hadn't properly grown or had been stunted before they could take off. The massive clusters of fern and undergrowth mottled the forest floor, bordered natural paths carpeted with yellowish lichen and moss, browning needles and earth and stones where they occasionally rose from the ground. The mist drifted upward until it lingered only at a distance, just barely sealing off the forest from the sky and from any attempt at depth perception.

Minn and Peter were so wrapped up in their attempts at communication that neither noticed the blues and greens deepening around them, the color returning to the previously gray arena, and it was only when they reached the limits of their patience that the woman paid enough attention to their surroundings to realize what the lifting atmosphere had revealed.

"Peter—" Her eyes widened at something in the distance. About ten yards away, a post the width and length of a broomstick stuck up out of the earth, and from its top extended a clump of something. Hair, Minn realized as she approached—braids and tangles of what was surely human hair in every natural shade—and twined within these were more shards of the clay they'd seen in the hut. Inadvertently, Minn found herself reaching up a hand to touch her own short hair, cut up around her ears and across her forehead in a pixie. Wolf had told her to grow it out, that it was too short, but she loved the ease of the style. She wondered to whom all that hair had belonged.

"It's like some kind of charm, right? Kind of . . ." Peter wasn't sure what exactly he was trying to say. He stood beside Minn and stared perplexedly at the thing, which came up to about his waist.

"A fetish," the woman filled in. She lifted her eyes from it and looked further into the forest. "And there's a second, up ahead. I bet they mark a trail."

The boy sighed in resignation. He knew her thinking. "You want to follow it?"

"I think we have to. We have no other options."

Before either of them could express reservation, Minn started off toward the next marker, which was nearly identical to the first. She'd been right—they did seem to indicate a trail, set one after another in such a way that only the two nearest in either direction could be seen from any one post. Neither Minn nor Peter spoke as they climbed over roots and rocks and through fronds and vines; the woman was far too lost in her growing concerns about where they were headed, who'd made such strange items, what the talismans meant (if anything) to whoever had put them there. Why exactly Minn sensed a growing disquiet, though, was unclear to her. All things considered, hair and broken ceramics weren't particularly scary; they were just weird. And the signs of other people after nearly twenty-four hours of being lost should have been a cause for celebration. The surrounding environment didn't help create an aura of reliability, though. The quiet gloom of the forest, the prickling sensation of being watched by whatever critters nestled amongst the branches and bracken, the encroaching sense of foreboding—Minn thanked God that Peter was with her.

Out of instinct, the woman reached behind her. "Take my hand," she quietly implored, and she was reassured to feel his warm fingers wrap around hers.

There must've been fifteen to twenty markers leading them through the still, shadowy foliage, each with its own cluster of hair and pottery shards, before at last the forest began to thin, to let in more gray light. Then, more suddenly than was expected, Minn and Peter left the trees altogether and stumbled into a wide, circular clearing. The change brought such a contrast that Minn literally stopped in her tracks, causing Peter to stumble into her in an almost comical fashion. The woman wriggled her fingers out of his and pointed vaguely at the buildings in the distance, but she didn't say anything, not quite yet. She didn't exactly know what to say. Something told her she should've been happy to see such obvious signs of civilization—many buildings built of timber and thatched roofs (modest in size though still larger than the first one they'd seen), chimneys twisting out smoke, a crowing rooster indicative of chickens. A crude fence was set up around the perimeter of what could only be called a village. The fence consisted of trimmed logs turned horizontal, tipped toward the ground on one end and propped up on a tripod at the other, interlocking with one another yet easy enough to crawl under or over.

"Not a very solid wall, is it?" Peter broke the silence. "Wouldn't keep much out."

Minn glanced at the boy, who'd understood her thoughts, as usual, and then she looked back at the village. "Maybe they're really friendly."

"Some kind of commune? Off-the-grid?"

She shrugged rather absently. "I guess. That means they won't have Wi-Fi. We'll still be out of luck." The two of them stood and stared for a minute or so, curiously uncertain as to what to do. "Well, I guess we should probably go meet them; maybe they can at least tell us how to get out of here."

Determined, the two entered the clearing, able to fully glimpse the bright white overcast sky for the first time in a day or so. The earth grew more grass, here, and it was softer, not having tree roots to hold it all in its grasp. Their boots squelched into the earth with each step. Minn wondered briefly whether they should walk along the fence to see if they could find an actual opening, but a quick glance left to right told her they'd be walking a while, as there was no no gap in sight. So she instead bent her body through the triangle one beam made with the earth and its vertical post while Peter easily climbed over one of its lower points.

Whether it was due to the clearing itself or the relief of feeling less lost, Minn found the air clearer and cooler in her lungs. She could breathe easier the moment they crossed into the circle. But the immediate sense of consolation dwindled when Peter wondered aloud where the people were.

They gave each other looks, tacitly agreed to walk, and set off toward the nearest dwellings, which were about twenty yards from the fence. As the pair meandered slowly between the rows of houses—wood and straw and mud with windows and doors and fenced plots containing chickens pecking about—both woman and boy wandered as much through their own thoughts. The cottages appeared to be arranged to radiate from the center of the circle of land, so that the spaces between them were at first wide enough for what appeared to be communal gardens sprouting all manner of edible greenery. As Minn and Peter continued past them, though, nearing the middle of the village, the buildings drew closer and closer to one another, until the alleys between forced them to walk single-file rather than side by side. Nowhere did there seem to be any people; Peter had even dared to peek through a few windows, but the ones that weren't curtained revealed only shadowy interiors, many with flickering fires but none with people. Then, however, hovering on the air toward them, voices became clear, singing voices, or chanting voices—many people in a choir, it seemed, and as the wanderers pressed through the final ring of cottages, the pair at last ascertained that the place was indeed populated.

The center space swirled out into an expanse of grass greener and softer than what'd been at the periphery, and in the middle of that space was a massive log tower, its timber interlocking in a pattern that rounded it into a cylinder, which stuck up off the ground like a squat can of soup. Its roof wasn't thatched but shingled and painted bright red, much care obviously having been put into it as well as into the variety of images painted across the logs. A stone chimney rose up right out of the center of the building, and a thin trickle of smoke wound out of it.

The voices came from within that building, and they had, at present, lulled into an almost-silence.

Minn put out a hand to stop Peter, and she could suddenly hear her own breathing. "What do we do?"

Peter examined the paint on the exterior of the building: bright images in a limited palette revealed what resembled strange red branches dotted with clusters of white circles, and within those circles were black spots. Around these strange markings were what appeared to be pale green worms in various array amongst patterns of curling fern. "Do you think they're friendly?"

About to respond, Minn was cut short by a deep, curt voice from behind:

"Certain we're friendly, if we think you be friends."