Tanya ran. She didn't know why - she didn't even know where she was going. For that matter, she didn't know where she had started. She ran to run. To see how far she could go before she collapsed in the tall ferns. She ran to see the tall foreign trees hurtle past her. She ran because she could go fast. She wasn't trying to get anywhere, she wasn't trying to get anything, she wasn't trying to get away from anything. She ran until her sides were searing and her breath came shallow. She ran until finally, she wasn't running anymore, but prostrate among the green damp fronds, rubber legs, light head, heavy stomach, leaden feet. There was no sound except her harsh, rasping breath, muffled in the moist earth, and the rustle of leaves, but her ears screamed stridently. Her hair, so black the shadows of the swaying ferns were imperceptible on it, lay around her, billowed from her sudden fall like a great coal-colored parachute. No insect, no bird, no animal stirred. In that world of impossibly tall trees, in this place, enormous to the point of hopelessness, the grate of Tanya's breath and the rush of blood in her temples occupied her thoughts and made hope unneeded.  

Tanya's caramel face slowly emerged from her pond of raven hair. She did not look around, mainly because there was no need. The trees were always great leaved needles piercing the sky, towering over Tanya almost opressively. They were always dense enough to shut out the sky, always distributed enough to let through the light. The toothed ferns were nearly waist high, and now, as Tanya laid, gazing through them blankly, they bowed over her to create a leafy, verdant tent. Beneath the ferns lay the rich, black loam on which Tanya rested - no sticks, twigs, rocks, leaves littered the forest floor. The ferns never grew. No sign of age, as though this place had always been new. No grass grew between the ferns, or shrubs or flowers. Light, leaves, trees, ferns, soil. Always, Tanya thought. Always.

She had not been here always. She knew that, although it seemed that way most of the time. There was somewhere else, too, another Place, far, far away. The fresh, ongoing green was a easy canvas on which to paint the pictures she had in her mind - of the other things, the things that weren't trees and ferns. But she didn't. Tanya didn't bother about them much. The pictures were now as rotely familiar as the trees, from frequent remembering at the first.

One spot in the sea of ferns parted, and perhaps the only living thing in that Place stood and ran her fingers through her hair. Tanya looked ahead, and began to run.

 

                        **********************************************

 

Tanya awoke, but did not open her eyes. Light shone through her eyelids and projected a fleshy pink color on their insides. Tanya was damp from lying on the spongy earth, and droplets of dew beaded her nut-brown face and moistened her clothes. The early morning Silence prevailed, like the midday Silence did in the afternoon and the evening Silence did at the twilight.  

Tanya flipped through her old memories routinely. I slept inside, she thought, without calling up a picture of an 'inside'. There were other people. I slept in a bed, she continued offhandedly. She could easily remember the other people, the inside, the bed, but didn't bother. It wasn't even much different, she mused. Her 'inside' had been made of wood, like the trees that cut her off from the sky. Her bed had been equally as soft as the dark ground. And she had always been a solitary person, even in the other place.

Tanya's eyelids opened finally. The soft light did not irritate her morning eyes, and so she began looking lazily around. The jagged fronds were beginning to unfurl above her. Tanya reached out and bent one over. She raised her head and sucked the dew off of it - there were no streams, no ponds, never even a dip in the monotonous ground in which a puddle could form, and it never rained, so this was Tanya's water. She had gotten used to being thirsty. Thirsty was simply a fact here, like the trees were facts and the soil was a fact. She plucked the fern she held out of the ground, and began to chew on the fibrous whitish stalk that hid beneath the dirt. This was Tanya's breakfast. Someone in the other place had taught her to eat roots when she was hungry, and lost.

Tanya was hungry, perhaps, but she was not lost. She knew where she was. She was here. Everywhere in the forest was here, and she needed not travel anywhere but right where she sat to see all of it, because it was all the same. Besides, lost was bad, was unhappy. Lost was wondering whether you were going to die, was wondering if you would ever get home again. Tanya was not going to die here, and she was not unhappy. The forest was a pleasant place, good for the heart and refreshing to the eye, but Tanya had been there too long to recognize its beauty anymore. She simply knew it was safe, and beyond that she had grown rather apathetic. The forest seemed to pervade her with the silence, enchant her, almost, so that she didn’t care anymore.

    How long she had been there, she didn't know. Maybe it was months. Maybe it was a year. Her waist length hair never grew, just like the trees and the plants never grew. But then, her fingernails never grew, either. Maybe it had been many years. She did not try counting days. She had a feeling that it wouldn't tell her much, anyway. The forest days were much longer than the days of the other place. The nights, in turn, were very short - or so she gathered, since she always fell asleep just at dusk and never woke until morning.

She fiddled distractedly with the tender fern leaf. She had tried eating those once, but they tasted too grassy. She had also remembered, once, something about eating the inside of tree bark, and had tried that, but the bark was stuck quite securely to the trees. So Tanya breakfasted on fern roots and dew, then got up and began to walk.

Ever since the day that she woke up in the Forest Place, Tanya had been walking one way. She slept with her head pointing that way, and woke with her invisible path ahead of her. Once she had thought that she was trying to get out. Now she didn't know why she did it. Habit, maybe, or the things that had been ingrained in her in the other place. The other people walked a lot. Tanya couldn't recall a reason - they just did. So she did too.

The ferns were uncurled now, and the light was brighter. Tanya waded through the ferns, her soft cloth slippers sinking into the springy earth, still rather wet from the morning dew. At the first, whenever that had been, she had watched closely for movement, but now she hardly looked where she was going. She continued in a straight line, going around massive tree trunks sometimes, thinking heavily about positively nothing. The morning Silence still hung in the air, but was being shooed away in some places by the daylight Silence. Tanya's light steps did not disturb the quiet always-ness, since her shoes were soft and there was no forest litter to crunch or animals to disturb. She padded beneath the trees, beginning, without ceremony, her daily routine of existing.

Ferns rustled as she brushed them, and the trees watched her pass, without taking all that much notice. She passed them too, without looking up, like bustling strangers on a street. But the trees, and the ferns, and the soil, were not strangers. She would have liked them to be, but they weren't - they knew her better than she knew herself, possibly. They at least knew how long she had been there. They told her it had been Always, but she knew better. The trees had been there Always, but not her. Always, always, always. Silence, silence silence. Silence, always. The trees, the ferns seemed like they should be the greatest characteristics of the Place, but they weren't. The Always, the Silence, were what made up the forest. The other things were only there to solidify it, to give it form. They were only there because they fit there. Wind did not fit; so there was never wind. Animals, insects did not fit; there were none. Tanya had not fit, but she had complemented it. Now, after so much always, she had begun to fit. Now she was as quiet as the Silence, as ongoing as the Always. How long had she been here? For always, she imagined the forest answer.

 

                  ********************************************

 

Tanya plodded tiredly, but not stopping - once she started, she never stopped until she laid down among the ferns and slept. That was the way she did it, and she had done it for too long - oh, far too long - to remember how to do it another way. As she walked, sometimes she tried to decide how long she had been Here. Other times she did not care. This was one of those times, but she tried anyway, simply because she had nothing else to think about.

A month? No, Tanya remembered a month, she argued against herself, and she had been here much longer than a month. So, so much longer. A year? Certainly, her hair would have grown, or her fingernails, or her dress would have faded. But the forest never grew, she countered. Why should she, simply because she was not a fern, grow in the Place? And besides a year was still... a year. A year came to an end, and she remembered how long a year was. More than a year, surely.

But not always. Of this she was convinced. But she had forgotten how many years old she was - she thought, maybe, fourteen. Then it could not have been more than that, Tanya decided, for the thousandth time. But she had not been a tiny baby, or she could not have wandered into the forest that hot night so long ago. She had been - well, she had been, maybe fourteen, she admitted for the thousandth time. So she may well have been here fourteen years, too, because she never grew. How long have I been here? she silently asked the forest, as night began to show itself. The forest knew, but would not tell, and watched her knowingly.

Dark fell as it had risen - slowly, quietly. Once more, nothing had changed - the same leaves, trees, ferns, soil. Dusk spread over everything like a wash of dark blue watercolor. The evening Silence dropped on the Place quickly, and the ferns, as though responding to the new Silence, curled up, receding to Tanya's knee. Tanya yawned and rubbed her hazel eyes. She sat down and smoothed out her richly embroidered skirt compulsively. Tanya laid among the ferns and, like the broad leaves, curled up and went, quite suddenly, to sleep.

 

              *******************************************

 

Whump, whump, whump, whump, whump, whump.

 The cycle began again. Tanya ran. A green blur rushed around her in a swirling current of motion. There was a clearer path of ferns in front of her, with less trees, so Tanya closed her eyes, shutting out the dizzying forest.

Whump whump whump whump whump whump.

Her pace quickened. Straight black streamers of hair waved behind her, and her long dress flared.  

Whumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhump.

  Tanya became the wind that never entered the forest. The broad jagged leaves about her bent submissively to the ground as she passed, as though bowing to a queen. She sailed through them, her feet pounding the ground and trampling the Silence rudely. She opened her eyes and looked far ahead to more green, more silvery tree trunks. She was running, running, running, and then there was a thump and she was flying over the ferns, then she was skidding through them on her face, plowing up ferns, plowing up dirt, her hands in front of her, ramming through the black soil, then she was laying still, her ankles burning with a throbbing pain, her cheek raw, her, covered in dirt.

A gasping sob of pain escaped Tanya as she sat up instinctively and grabbed her ankle. She did not look for what had tripped her - she was dealing with pain, something she had never really had to do since she came Here, so, so long ago. When Tanya had fallen before, it had been from weakness, from running so far and so fast. She would simply collapse, with the dark loam cushioning her. Now she looked at her leg. It was red, with a large white gash running up it, and a bit of blood beading up. A larger drop of blood appeared suddenly, and Tanya tasted something. She reached up and felt her lip. It was split, and dripping. Her purple skirt was patterned with green stains now, and her hair was caked in dirt. She looked up a little. A wide scar of mud stretched from her a ways. Tanya took no notice of this unsightful incongruity, though. She saw something else peeking above the tattered fronds. Eagerly, she dragged herself through the dirt runway she had created, ignoring her throbbing ankle. She parted the ferns in front of her, and there it was: a largish, grey stone, a bit smooth, and flat on top, lay in front of Tanya. Tanya laughed gaily, although the reason may not have been apparent where she had come from. It would have been nothing exciting in the other place, but here, in the middle of light, leaves, trees, ferns, soil, this rock was a jolt awake from a never ending dream. Tanya had, for so, so, long, found not even small pebbles in the forest. She crawled happily on top of it, like a tiny child, oblivious now to her swelling leg. Tanya inspected the rock like a new plaything. On the grey surface, she could see a lighter place where her shoe must have scraped it. It was rather round, and broad enough to sit on, while only just high enough to raise her above the ferns. A trickle of blood ran from both her lip and leg, and a couple drops fell on the rock. Tanya thought a moment, then ripped the hem off around the bottom of her long, gathered dress. She wrapped the lavender fabric around her ankle, then used a bit torn off to dab her mouth.

Tanya stroked the rock absentmindedly, and thought about the Other Place. This time she called up images - the pictures seemed fresher, somehow, colored by the hopeful magic of finding the rock. She thought about a fire, a fire in the dark, with other people around it. She thought about food - food other than roots, and drink other than dew. She thought about roast meat over a fire. She thought about laughing, talking. She never talked anymore, simply because there was no one to listen. This had made sense to her before, but she began to miss speech, to miss smiles of other people.

She thought more about people. Small children. Babies. Grown-ups. Men with moustaches, women with curly hair. She thought about others her age. She thought about playing - playing tag. She had always been good at tag. She thought about beds - clean beds with cool sheets on warm nights. She thought about rain. And coming in out of the rain, coming inside. How long had she been here?

Fire. People. Food. Beds. Rain. And the rock. Her rock. Without thinking, Tanya huddled up on it protectively, like a hen on an egg. The rock was like a tiny grey ship sailing in the fern sea, sailing back to the Tanya of a month, a year, an Always ago, back when she first came to the Place. She thought about people again. People that knew her... Tanya looked up with astonishment, and thought suddenly, Do they remember me? Have they forgotten? She hugged her knees to her. How long had she been here? Always, answered the forest. Tanya shook her head violently. No. No, she had not always been here. There were other people. People that missed her, she convinced herself. People that wanted her home. Like her mother.

Yes, like her mother. Tanya smiled and closed her eyes so as to call up the memory more vividly. Her mother. Tanya's smile faded, and she turned panicky, scrabbling around in the inside of her mind desperately. Her mother. Her mother! What did her mother look like? Where was her face?

 

How long had she been here? 

 

Tanya shivered and pulled her knees closer. She would go home someday. Someday soon. She had lived There once and she would live There again. She noticed with surprise that dusk had fallen. The invisible hand had watercolored the forest dark again, and the ferns had curled up already. The soft ground would have been more comfortable, but Tanya stayed on the rock. She laid down, but her eyes stayed open. Sleep blanketed the ground, under the fronds, but it could not reach her up on the rock. She shivered again as the light disappeared and the twilight Silence gave way to rushing darkness Silence. The dark pressed around her, and Tanya was frightened. She had never, in the long, long time she had lived Here, been awake during the forest night. Tanya hugged herself and began to cry quietly. She laid there, crying, for quite a while. Just before she fell asleep, exhausted from the tears and the lost memories, the forest's Silence was ushered away by a whispering song; a song that Tanya may have only overheard from her nearby dreams.

 

                        *******************************************

 

Tanya woke with the light bright in her eyes. She sat up and looked around. The ferns were unfurled and the dew was gone - Tanya would go thirsty today. She sat up and rubbed her swollen eyes with both hands. She had had dreams last night - Tanya had never had dreams since she came to the forest. The dreams were about her family, and the forest, and... and something else, something that was singing. She had seen her mother, too. She had seen her mother's face, clear and smiling, but now, as Tanya grasped for the face, it fell through her hands like so much loose sand.

There was the fire, with people, and something delicious and juicy roasting. Then the fire was in the forest, and her family too, and Tanya was with them. Then it was only Tanya, with the small campfire and the meat dripping juices into the flame, the trees watching her intently. Then the fire was gone, and it was Tanya, and the trees, and the singing, which she only just realized had been going the whole time. It wasn't the kind of song that the people were singing around the fire, but it was like it, somehow. They had harmonized, and the ghostly tune had sounded in her head even when the dream was gone. Now though, like the face, Tanya was left grasping at a few loose threads, a stray note or two, and then it was gone completely.

The long, deep rift in the fronds where the soft dirt had been turned up pointed Tanya's way forward, but she did not want to leave her rock. Besides, she thought, she would not get far with her damaged ankle. She might as well stay here until it got better. Inside, Tanya was afraid that the stone might disappear if she got too far from it, and she would not be able to find it again.  

Tanya unwrapped her ankle and inspected it. It had stopped bleeding, but now it had turned puffy and darker colored. With a closer look, Tanya could see that the gash was not all that afflicted her ankle - a somewhat shallow abrasion had occured just above her anklebone, and it was twisted rather strangely. She tied the rag around he foot, and pulled it up, bending her foot back to normal position. Tanya winced visibly, but bound the cloth to keep her foot there. She wasn't sure that this was the right way to treat it, but she didn't want her ankle healing in the odd position. She wished vainly for a body of cool water to dip her foot in.

Tanya sighed and pulled up a fern growing next to the stone. She chewed the bland root and closed her eyes, remembering more about the other place. The magic of the rock had not worn off - her memories were still happily vivid and involving. Tanya, in her current state of immobility, thought about walking. The other people - her people - walked often, for no more reason than Tanya had. They brought everything they had - the cool beds, and the 'inside' too, the houses - and walked. The wheeled houses would go creak, creak, creak and Tanya would walk alongside them and drag a stick in the dirt, or would lead the horses, sometimes. The dogs would run among the creaking wheels and the plodding hooves and the plodding feet, and her people would sing a little song and they would walk, walk, walk.

Sometimes Tanya would run ahead of the caravans, run as fast as she could, and the song and the creaking and the dogs and the people and the houses would all be left far behind, and Tanya would stop with the parade lost over a hill and she would be all alone, screwing up her eyes to look down the dirt road under the bright sun, with a dark pine forest on one side. Then at night there would be the fire, and her people would dance and Tanya would hit a jangly tambourine and they would sing old, old songs. If the night were very hot, Tanya would sleep in a cool, breezy tent with the flaps open with her family. On cold nights, she would sleep with one of her mother's shawls around her, under a blanket, in her family's caravan, with a few hot coals burning in the little stove. Tanya opened her eyes and took a breath. She had not remembered so much since the first she came to the forest. It was so wonderful, so real, that when a tear fell onto Tanya's lap, for a while, she could not imagine where it had come from.

 

            ****************************************

 

Tanya stayed on the rock all day, thinking and remembering and eating roots. And she was happy; happier than she had been in a long, long time. When the light started to go, Tanya laid down on the stone, determined not to miss the dew this time - after so much time and so many dry, ropy ferns, her mouth was dry and pasty. But she could not go to sleep. She waited, and thought, and remembered, but sleep would not come. The ferns furled their  leaves, the darkness washed over the forest, but Tanya was still awake. And once again, she was afraid. The forest was safe; but when darkness covers a place, it becomes that place no longer, and of this dark Place, she was scared.

A hazy light now seeped through the leaves of the tall, tall trees - moonlight, thought Tanya curiously. Certainly it would be assumed that if the forest had a sun, it would have a moon too, but everything else in the Place was so unlke the Other Place that Tanya had always hesitated to call the daylight 'sun'. A full moon, too, apparently, or simply a very bright part-moon, for the forest, despite the obscuring branches, was lit up ghostily. The moonlight made the forest a different place, too, but for some reason, Tanya was less frightened. If the moon was out, she mused, then this must be even later than last night, or else last night was quite cloudy. Clouds, she pondered. Does this place have 'clouds'? There was no way to tell, of course, but Tanya could see no reason why it shouldn't. Except that, with clouds would have to come rain... Then Tanya heard something. The darkness Silence was gone, she finally noticed. It was gone, and in its place was something else. Tanya wasn't sure what it was, wasn't even sure if it was a sound or not, it was so soft, but it was there. A sound, definitely, she now could tell - a sound as silvery as the moonlight that streamed through the high branches. It was still soft, barely perceptible, actually, wavering in and out of Tanya's hearing like a shy, uncertain child. Tanya was no longer frightened. Something about the sound would not let her be. It was a bit like a celebration song, a bit like a lullaby, and it wrapped its thin self around her like a shawl spun of spiderwebs.

Tanya sat quietly, enchanted by the music. Music - yes, that was what the sound was. A song. Tanya abruptly opened her half closed eyes. A song... the song... from her dream? Was Tanya dreaming? No, her ankle still hurt awfully. Tanya reached up and touched her lip: it still was split, and scabby. She wasn't dreaming. But yes, it was definitely the song from her dream, twining through the Silence and Always to reach Tanya. Tanya listened closely, pulling the spiderweb shawl around her tight.  

And then, without warning, Tanya began to sing. Not the ghosty, silver song, but the old, old song that Tanya had forgotten so long ago, the song that her people would sing around the fire. She sang it softer, and slower than they had, though, in time with the other song, and it fit so seamlessly in harmony with the silver song that Tanya sat up, surprised. She continued to sing, though - the first time she had used her voice since the First. It was as though the songs had been made together. The other song was a little louder, now, and Tanya sang her song softly, with tiny undulations of the voice in place of words. The silver song became louder, but still was quiet, and the louder it got, the softer Tanya sang. It seemed to be getting closer to Tanya, and just before she fell asleep, her head bowed over her knees, it seemed to be very close, and she was aware of a funny light that spread from behind her and painted the trees.

 

            ********************************************

 

Tanya dreamed again that night. She dreamed she was in the Other Place, but where, she wasn't sure - sometimes she thought she was with her people, singing around the fire, and sometimes she thought that she was huddled in her bunk in her family's caravan, with her mother's woolen shawl about her. Two things were constant - the forest-song whispering in the background, and the light, which spread from either the fire, when she was singing, or the coal stove, in the caravan. The light was pearly pink and danced in happy patterns wherever it fell, like light reflecting off rippled water. Then, like before, the Other Place faded, but this time, the forest did not replace it. Instead, Tanya was simply sitting, surrounded in the pretty patterns, with the shawl around her.

Then the singing, the music and the light,  pervaded the shawl and the heavy wool yarn turned into silvery, gossamer thread. And Tanya wrapped the song around her and watched the patterns and listened to the music. And then it was morning, and Tanya woke up.  

    The light tickled Tanya's eyes through her eyelids, and something else tickled her cheek. She reached up, without opening her eyes, to brush away the hair. But the strands she caught up in her fingers was not her dirt-caked hair. They were light, silky, almost not there. She opened her eyes and sat up, perplexed. Tanya held up the soft threads, and saw... a tassel. An impossibly thin, gossamer tassel. Tanya raised her arm and gasped silently. A silver net, more silver than the smooth bark that clothed the trees, clothed her arm. A corner of some sort of magical lace draped her. Tanya bent closer and examined the delicate patterns of leaves and flowers. They looked very similar to the patterns in one of her mother's...

Shawl, Tanya mouthed. Not really at all like her mother's wool, though - it more resembled the fancy lace shawls she had seen on the rich ladies. This was not overly ornate, like those, though - it had the grace and simplicity of her people's clothes, a little - of the forest, she found herself thinking. And the strands were thinner than the finest silk thread. She stroked the silky work, and thought she heard a few fleeting notes of the beautiful song float up around her, from... somewhere. The gossamer lace fell beautifully over her shoulders, somehow clouding out her dirty mane and stained, raveled dress. Where, thought Tanya, finally able to ask herself the question, where had it come from?

She looked around quickly, as though whatever had given the wonderful thing to her would be still there. Where had it come from? Had it materialized out of her dream? Had the light and music solidified onto her, somehow? Was it magic? Was it real? Was Tanya still dreaming? Where had it come from?

Tanya looked down at the forest floor. The ground was still wet. Good, she thought. The dew had not yet gone. She plucked a fern and sipped its offering. Where had the beautiful shawl come from? Was it magic? Tanya looked around the forest, as though seeing it in new light. She remembered old ladies in the Other Place that would certainly have thought so. Some of her people believed in that sort of thing. But this was not the Other Place. This was not among her people. Was this magic? But... why wouldn't it be? What else would it be? She had not seen another living thing since she came - not so much as an ant. Had the forest given it to her? Or something else? And what about the music?

Tanya sighed and held her head, as though it hurt. She closed her eyes, settled on the stone, and began to remember.

 

                    ***************************************

 

Dusk fell once more, and Tanya waited. She wanted to hear the singing, and to see the light. She was certain that when she found out what made the song and cast the pearly shine, she would find out where her shawl had come from. The dark wash spread over the forest, and on cue, the ferns began to curl. She sat with her back to the long, dirty scar, remembering how the music had come from behind her. The tall, tall trees stood vigil with Tanya, waiting, watching, listening. She would not fall asleep tonight. Tonight, she would find out. Everything. The rock, the song, the light, the shawl - even, maybe, the hopeless, never ending forest that Tanya had wandered for so much Always.

And again the curled fronds dropped sleep over the soil, and the forest turned in for the night, all except Tanya and the trees. Blackness settled like a flock of noiseless crows, and the nighttime silence hung itself from the boughs high above. Tanya waited. She tried to remember the old, old song, as if to summon the singer of the other, but could not. The quiet birds of the dark seemed to watch Tanya with their invisible eyes, and Tanya began to wonder if the song would come tonight.

The blackness and Silence had only just made themselves at home, when the whisper-notes entered the forest softly. The Silence slipped off, and the blackness flapped its Always-wings and fled, scared by the visitor. The song came more bravely, with them gone, and piped its mystic, happy notes in Tanya's ear, as though telling her a beautiful secret. The secret buried itself in Tanya's heart, and out came the old, old song from her mouth. The phantom singer and Tanya sang together, and the other song, hearing her, came curiously closer. Tanya sang invitingly.

 The glow became evident again. First it was only a far away shimmer; then it seemed to give off flitting, luminescent sparks that fluttered behind and around the tree trunks. The singing was soft and familiar, as though the singer had recognized Tanya and was singing to an old, old friend. Then Tanya realized, in the back of her mind, that it seemed to be many singers, as the shimmer parted into a hundred flittering, shining sparks. The forest was lit by the pearly sea of soft colors, that floated towards her in a cloud of soft, bright stars.

The cloud, as though realizing that Tanya was watching it, dispersed suddenly, and the spots of light fluttered into trees and under the canopy of ferns, while still edging closer. Closer, closer. Tanya forgot to sing, she was watching so closely, but the lights did not. Their song, though, became more of a simple tune, like a thousand tiny voices humming the same song together. Then the lights emerged from their hiding places, and were all around Tanya. She turned from side to side, looking, listening, watching in wide-eyed childlike wonder. They had stop moving, had stopped singing, were watching her back, and the light, after sitting and waiting so long in the darkness, was very bright to Tanya. The rippled water patterns played on the stone and on Tanya's face.

Then one moved. It sailed toward Tanya through the new Silence, the Magic Silence. The orb of light fluttered up, and then perched on Tanya's ankle. To her dazzled eyes, anything beneath the orb was invisible, and Tanya sat, blinking, watching it watch her. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, and the light was comfortable again, and she looked. Tanya's lips parted in astonished, breathless awe.  

 

A girl.

 

A lady, actually, but with a face so tender and youthful she was almost one. In a long, mint green, whisper-thin gown, standing, though Tanya felt no weight, on Tanya's soiled purple bandage that bound her foot. She looked up at Tanya from her large, silver eyes. Coils of long, silky hair, so blonde it was almost white, fell around her face. A pair of large, delicate butterfly wings, sunrise pink, came from her back. The silence was total. Tanya did not breathe, did not move. Neither did the lady. For a long, long time they watched each other.

The tiny, winged woman kneeled down and touched Tanya's dirty rag empathetically. Tanya swallowed. The woman looked up at Tanya. She searched Tanya's face, as though trying to understand something that Tanya was saying. The lady looked back down and gently untied the fabric - or more, she touched it, and the strip seemed to fall magically.

More of them came, without being beckoned - perhaps they were directed by another - and clustered around her foot. A male, with dragonfly-like wings, a tunic made of the same green fabric as the woman's, and tousled silvery-blond hair; a younger girl, amber-tressed, with a shorter pink dress; a small one, with wide brown eyes and powder blue wings a bit too big for her; and more, that Tayna did not have time to see. The little people worked very quickly.

They busied themselves with her injured ankle, and then were gone. What Tanya saw, by the light of the shining little people, amazed her, even after all she had seen: Her scraped, gashed, swollen ankle had transformed under the fluttering wings, back to normal, and back to its healthy angle.

Tanya looked at the little lady in green. Without thinking, she reached around her and pulled the delicate song-shawl closer. The lady smiled, broadly, but somehow with her same delicacy, at the gesture. Tanya was puzzled for a minute, then grasped one of the gossamer tassels, and looked questioningly at the woman. The woman nodded gently, smiling.  

So that was it. The wonderful, impossibly thin threads were fairy silk. Fairies. The rock, the music, the light, the shawl - that was the magic of the place. Fairies. Of course, then - a never ending forest - a place for fairies to live unmolested. The old ladies in the Other Place could have told her that easily. She never had to be afraid of the blackness - these little people were guarding her. Tanya stroked the shawl.

"Thank you," Tanya whispered. A noise - a murmur, of sorts - spread through the fairies floating around her at a distance. Tanya looked up at the crowd. All were smiling, pleased that she liked their gift. Tanya's felt a tear start to gather. "Thank you," she mouthed. Tanya felt a barely perceptible movement in her hair. She turned around gently. A dark-eyed girl was hovering behind Tanya's head, smiling at her. She moved forward and ran her minuscule hands through Tanya's hair again. Crumbs of dirt fell to the stone. Another came up, and another, and more and more. Dry mud fell like rain for a few moments, and then after a minute, they moved back away, though not as far as they had been before. The blonde fairy flew quietly up, and touched Tanya's toffee cheek, and her broken lip. Pain fell from both, and then the whole fairy crowd cascaded towards her. They gathered in a tight cluster, around her on every side, and then the light-haired lady smiled, and kissed Tanya's eyes, and Tanya fell fast asleep.

 

                    ******************************************

 

Tanya was sailing, sailing through the air, over the never-ending treetops, over the leaves, trees, ferns, soil. The fairy song floated through the air, looking for something. She was flying, and a soft light glowed around her. Flying, fast, fast, fast. Then the old, old song answered the fairy song, but Tanya was not singing it. Another light, red, glowed, down, below Tanya. And then she was sinking, slowly, and the soft light got softer, and the red light got redder, and then there was cool, comforting dark. And Tanya slept.