Chapter 8: Into the Woods

The closeness of the trees fell over Violet like a shroud. Suddenly it was much quieter, though at first she wasn’t quite sure how. It was only slowly that she realized the ambient noise from the village was all gone. Little things she hadn’t even noticed before; the hum of electricity traveling through wires, the distant sounds of other people going about their business or simply walking through the streets.

It was all silent now. Or….

No. There were still noises. Violet could hear the low hush of wind caressing the trees, the shift of branches and the rustle of leaves, and…

“I can hear birds.” She said, quietly surprised yet still hardly able to raise her voice above a whisper.

The cat looped casually around the base of a tree a few meters in front of her, amusement glittering in its silver eyes.

“Of course you can.” It said, and chuckled to itself.

Slowly, Violet came to a halt and turned a small circle in place, her movements slow and cautious. She could not see the birds that trilled and chirped in the branches overhead, but they were still there, a strange splash of normalcy that made her feel odd and unsettled.

It had never occurred to her that the same birds she sometimes saw in the village, sparrows and bluebirds and ravens (though not so often ravens, for they were supposed to be wicked and were hunted on sight) lived beyond the village as well. To place something as harmless as a sparrow in the center of the deepest wood felt…wrong, somehow. It was like seeing a chunk of ice resting comfortably in the center of a fire.

“I hope you’re not getting cold feet.” The cat said, turning another circuit around the same tree. It rubbed one cheek against the rough bark there, a muted shiver rolling along the length of its inky tail.

Violet shook her head.

“No,” she said, a little too quickly. “Just….” She trailed off, supposing the cat would find her thoughts about the birds silly and inconsequential. Besides, the birds had wings. They could fly away from demons or anything else that wished them harm.

She herself was less well equipped.

Violet looked around herself once more, then cautiously touched the nearest tree. Its trunk was rimed with delicate streaks and whorls of orangey green moss. To Violet it felt like damp velvet, and when she drew her fingers back there were brightly colored crumbs of the stuff speckled across her fingertips.

“You can use moss to navigate.” The cat said.

“How?”

“It always grows thickest on the part of the trunk facing due north. See for yourself.”

Violet did, circling the tree much as the cat had, and sure enough the whorls and scraggly tendrils began to bleed into one another. The moss didn’t quite form one contiguous blotch across the bark, but it was noticeably more present than anywhere else.

She cocked her head.

“Why does it do that?” She asked.

“The way the light falls. Be careful though, you can’t use this trick everywhere. It only works in places with half light.” The cat turned a half circle, encompassing the forest around itself to demonstrate.

Violet nodded determinedly and felt a shaky thrill of excitement jitter through her. Once again she was reminded of how it had felt to draw the sigils, both in private and all across the length of her village.

This wasn’t forbidden knowledge, she didn’t think, but learning it still made her feel strange and unique, like she was an overburdened electrical wire about to throw an arc.

The cat kept moving and Violet followed along, careful to stay close as they walked deeper into the woods. It smelled different now, damp and earthy. Gone was the ashy dryness of the village, now Violet could scent flowers and grass and everywhere the faintest hint of decay. It was heady and unusual and only added to the overall feeling of surreality that surrounded her.

But though she half expected some great terror to burst from the underbrush or drop down upon her from the treetops, teeth flashing and claws bared, the stillness remained absolute. The noise of the birds continued in the background, cheerful and unconcerned.

Violet listened past them, to the other noises that layered the forest, sigil emblazoned notebook kept clutched to her chest. There were animals shifting through the brush and the branches, small and unseen, and though a part of her cringed away from each new rustle or creak or snap, she forced herself to remain still and gauge the reactions of the cat.

The cat looked to be quite calm and collected, unruffled by the vastness of the unknown that surrounded it.

After a moment Violet spoke, her nerves getting the better of her.

“How do you live out here? It’s so….” She tried to find the words but all that came was an intimidating blankness. She could feel the worry and dread and fear, but collecting it all into something she could express suddenly seemed impossible.

“So…?” The cat pressed lightly.

“Uncertain.” Violet decided at last. It wasn’t the right word, but still it came closer to the heart of her unease than anything else she could think of.

The cat began to roll its eyes, gathering some flippant non-answer to shoot back at her, then paused and let out a quiet breath, newly contemplative.

“Why must you require complete security before you do anything?” It asked.

The question was strange enough that Violet stopped walking and took up a quasi confused study of the cat instead. It seemed needless, the question it had asked, like a person disputing the necessity of oxygen or sunlight. Still, the cat seemed to be expecting an answer.

She shrugged helplessly.

“I don’t know what you’re asking me.” Violet said at last.

“…Suppose you wouldn’t know anything else,” the cat allowed. “But it is worth thinking about. How much of your life are you willing to lock away because you’re afraid?”

Violet furrowed her brow, not much liking what the cat seemed to be insinuating.

“There are demons and monsters all around,” she protested, “and even past those there are lots of reasons to be afraid.”

“Of course there are, I’m not disputing the fear…only what that fear drives you to do.”

Violet said nothing. For a time they walked silently through the forest. The further they went from the village the taller the trees seemed to become. Violet stared up into the canopy of interlacing branches and leaves above her, watching as they swayed gently in the breeze. Their motion was subtle, but she could see little patches of sky erased and then redrawn, a vividly clear blue winking down at her from above. Shafts of light fell like streamers of silk, dappling the forest floor.

It was beautiful, Violet thought. Beautiful and strangely serene. Yet she could not forget her uneasiness, nested within her like a dozing ember.

The forest was beautiful, yes, but beautiful in the same way that a sleeping tiger was.

“I would be angry if I were you.” The cat remarked, breaking the silence.

“Why?” Violet asked.

“You were kept from all of this and bottled up in that awful village for…however many years you’ve been around. Perhaps it wasn’t purposeful, I doubt anyone knows it’s fairly harmless out here, but your life was constricted nonetheless.”

An urge rose within Violet, almost instinctively, to discount what the cat had said. It felt better to turn her thoughts back home, to her bedroom and her mother, the ash-pit and dusty confines of the garden shed….

Violet blinked those cozy memories away and forced herself to stay in the moment. The cat was at least partially right, she had to admit that much. So far the forest had not proven to be even half as dangerous as she’d expected. There were no lurking demons, no bears or wolves stalking her through the trees…it was all surprisingly empty instead.

But was she angry?

Violet didn’t think so. Her mother had been looking out for her when she’d told her never to venture into the woods or go out at night. There hadn’t been any malice in those commands. None directed towards her at least.

“When are you gonna teach me how to build a fire?” She asked, not particularly wanting to pursue her conversation with the cat any further.

Ahead of her, the cat stopped and made a cursory glance at the surrounding trees before turning to face Violet.

“Can you tell me which way is south?” It asked, then slipped behind a shadow and was gone before Violet could so much as open her mouth.

For a moment she stood very still, waiting for the cat to reappear, but it did nothing of the sort. Violet turned a full circle, gripping her notebook tight, and stared uncertainly into the woods.

“…Cat?” She asked, and heard a tremor roll through the length of that one plaintive word.

Silence.

Violet didn’t want to be afraid, but already there was a great yawning sense of dread bubbling up within her, impossible to ignore.

It took a long moment for her to remember what the cat had even asked. Her mind felt full of splinters, jagged bits of thought ricocheting here and there, no rhyme or reason behind their movements.

South. It had wanted her to point out which way was south.

Violet looked behind her. When they had first started off they’d been walking in a straight line away from her bedroom window, heading due north. Had it been nighttime then they’d have been advancing right into the Glow.

But even as that thought came, Violet knew it couldn’t be that simple. They’d made turns while walking, the cat leading her in strange and sometimes contradictory directions.

At first she tried to catalogue each individual twist and turn in their journey, so she could puzzle them apart and deduce where home was…but the effort crumbled.

The realization that she was lost didn’t sink in immediately. All Violet felt at first was a strange, glossy unreality, silky smooth in its oddness. The sharper edges of every emotion had been carefully sanded away. This couldn’t be happening, it seemed to insist, but splintered even as it did.

Beneath it, inky and dark beyond all comprehension, lay the first icy tendrils of panic.

Violet took a hesitant step forward, then stuttered to a halt and began to tremble. She was all alone for perhaps the first time in her life. She’d tucked herself into isolated spots before, whether they were on the outskirts of the village or in the depths of the ash-pit, but there had always been people close. This was different. She could scream now and nobody would hear her.

Her eyes flashed down to the sigil on the cover of her notebook. The ovals had been blurred in places where she’d hugged her arms over them and that tiny expression of fragility only made Violet feel even worse.

She thought about calling for the cat again but knew it wouldn’t answer. It was probably somewhere close, she insisted upon that with a fervor that fell only slightly short of desperation…but it wouldn’t come back until she figured out her directions.

But how could she….

Violet blinked, her gaze falling to the nearest tree. It was a skinny chestnut, bark scaly and gray, mottled with fiery splotches of orange moss. Suddenly Violet felt foolish and relieved and overjoyed all at once.

Of course.

What was it the cat had said, moss grew thickest on the northernmost side of a tree trunk?

Taking a deep breath, Violet squared her shoulders and circled the chestnut. It took her only a few moments to determined where the moss grew together most cohesively, and with that discovery came a cool, shivery surge of relief.

So this was north. Okay.

Stepping away from the trunk, Violet pointed the opposite direction, glancing around her.

“South is that way.” She said, forcing a calmness she really didn’t feel into her voice.

“Very good.” A voice came from directly overhead and Violet jumped, unable to stifle a frightened squeak as she stared up.

The first thing she saw were two big silver eyes, slightly squinted with open amusement. The cat looked very comfortable, nestled into the branches a few meters up.

“You could have just asked.” Violet said, crossing her arms and trying to look stern and unhappy. She suspected the effect wasn’t very convincing, for the cat only yawned, then stood and walked out of view.

“That wouldn’t be very exciting,” it said, reappearing from around the other side of the chestnut tree, suddenly at ground level once more. “Besides, it only took you a few moments to figure this out. You remembered what I told you when we were first setting off and you made effective use of it. Lesser girls might have sat and blubbered until they were eaten by wolves.”

“We don’t have wolves on the island.” Violet said, trying not to sound uncertain.

“So far as you know.” The cat teased, then slipped past her, batting one of Violet’s calves with the tip of its tail. “Now come on, we have more yet to do.”

They walked for a bit longer, past nettle patches and through wispy stands of willows. Sluggish clouds of late season mayflies swirled into the air as they did so. Leaping up, the cat caught one between its front paws and let it wriggle for a moment before letting the bedraggled thing flutter off.

It flashed her a triumphant look, then pointed to the edge of the willows with the tip of its nose.

“You can boil willow bark and drink it as a tea,” the cat said. “It has calming qualities.”

Violet dug for a pencil and made a note to pack a kettle or even a little pot.

Every so often the cat paused to point out edible plants and other items of interest. There was mint, capped with tiny purple blooms, and dandelions as well. Young nettles could apparently be boiled and then eaten, though Violet decided right away that she wouldn’t do that, for fear of stinging her tongue.

Each time the cat pointed out a plant that required no preparation or simple boiling (boiling was by far the most common thing a person could do with plants, it seemed) it had Violet pluck a leaf or a blossom and taste it.

The mint tasted more cold than anything and sent prickles all along the back of Violet’s throat and up behind her eyes. She’d chewed mint leaves before, for there were plants growing throughout the emptier parts of the village, but this was a great deal sharper than any mint she’d had before. It made her shiver and squint her eyes.

The dandelions, capped with round tufts of silvery fluff, proved intolerably bitter and Violet spat out the leaf she’d nibbled into, sticking out her tongue in pronounced distaste.

“They’re better when they’re young and fresh,” the cat allowed. “But the roots are always good no matter what time of year it is. You can even….”

“Boil them for tea.” Violet finished. “…Can you make tea out of anything?”

The cat shrugged.

“Most things probably wouldn’t hurt you if you made tea from them, but stick to what I say, just in case.”

Violet nodded. Though some of the plants the cat pointed out were less than tasty, she could still imagine herself dining on them if need be. It would be smart to augment her own food stores while traveling, her rucksack only had so much space in it.

From that point on the pages of Violet’s notebook grew increasingly crowded with rough sketches of plants as well as their names.

“How come you know so much about this stuff?” Violet asked after a moment. “I thought cats only ate meat.”

“We do.” The cat confirmed, but though Violet patiently waited, it said nothing more.

She sighed and rolled her eyes, supposing it wasn’t important enough to pursue.

Ahead of her, pushing at the edges of her hearing, came the rush of the river.

Like many other things in her life, Violet knew about the river but rarely thought of it as more than an abstract and distant concept. The village was set well into the center of the island, surrounded by trees on all sides. The only interruption was a concrete pathway that led to the dock…but only the Trade Master and those he escorted were allowed to walk it.

Violet thought back to the one time she’d seen the river before. She’d been very young then and what remained of the memories were shadowy and vague.

As best she recalled she’d been in her mother’s arms. The Trade Master had been before them, knee deep in the river and saying something, though she could not remember what. The words curled like wisps of candle smoke, too faint and ephemeral to be caught.

“Hmm.” The cat vocalized, then came to an abrupt stop in the center of a small clearing. Violet had to stumble off to one side in order to avoid trampling her guide, nearly running into the moldering carcass of a fallen oak.

The clearing was snug and sun dappled, with willows all around. As Violet watched, the cat looked around itself, took a moment to contemplate, then nodded decisively.

“Yes,” it said, confirming something to itself. “…Go collect some stones.”

It took Violet a moment to realize that the cat was speaking to her now. She looked around herself, then back to the cat.

“Why?” She asked.

“To make a fire ring, of course.”

Violet perked up.

“We’re building a fire?” She asked, cautiously delighted.

One of the cat’s ears twitched, dislodging a stray mayfly.

“Containing a fire is important,” it continued, paying no heed to Violet’s question. “If you don’t then the whole island could very well go up. Now, if you want to incinerate the island….” The cat gave her a faintly hopeful look.

Violet shook her head as firmly as she could manage.

“No.” She said, scandalized.

The cat shrugged and sniffed.

“Then collect some stones.” It said, and sat back to watch.

Violet did as the cat asked. There were stones here and there throughout the clearing, mossy and smooth, and it didn’t take her long to gather perhaps a dozen. Some she had to lever out of the ground, and by the time she was done her fingertips were muddy and stinging. Still, she felt in good enough spirits and took some time to arrange the stones into as careful a circle as she possibly could.

If she were to add a bouquet of pointed ovals, she thought, then the fire ring would rather closely resemble her sigil, the bladed circle.

Violet looked up.

“Can you draw sigils with fire?” She asked.

“Fire?”

“If you built a fire in the shape of a sigil, or drew one out with coal oil and then set it alight…would that work?”

The cat smiled to itself, clearly amused.

“I doubt the sigil would be necessary. Something as bright as a fire might scare a demon off by itself.”

Violet thought back to her encounter with the drainpipe demon. It had cringed away from the glow of the streetlamp at the head of the alleyway even as it came after her. She could remember the edges of its form wicking away into the air where they met the brightness.

“Does it hurt them?” She asked.

“Hmm?” The cat glanced up from where it had begun to groom one front paw.

“How come demons don’t like light?”

“How come you don’t like the dark?”

Violet blinked. That hardly seemed comparable, yet….

“The dark doesn’t hurt you, not by itself at least,” the cat continued. “But it’s often accompanied by things that could. For a demon, which is little more than a jumble of impulses and fear, a sigil or a very bright light is the opposite of everything it finds natural and coherent. To be caught in its glare is to be diminished and alone and utterly helpless.”

Violet was silent for a contemplative moment, chewing the inside of one cheek. Her brow had furrowed.

“What happens if they stop being afraid?” She asked.

“Of light?”

“…And sigils.” Violet added, a little more quietly. She didn’t especially want to ask something like this, but once it occurred it was impossible to dispel.

The cat considered the movement of a spider through the grass in front of it, raised a paw to trap the creature, then reconsidered.

“That would be a conundrum.” It said at last, then glanced to her completed fire ring. “…Anyway, if you are to build a fire then your tinder must be equal parts dry and delicate. Avoid green wood and twigs, they’re full of moisture and smoke.”

It was something of a relief to jump back into fire making and Violet nodded decisively at the cat’s words before stuttering to a halt, suddenly unsure of how to proceed.

The clearing itself was lush and sparkled with the last of the morning’s dew, framed with overhanging willow branches that cut dark lines across the sky. Violet looked from side to side but saw nothing obvious she could use to start a fire. The willows were slender and very, very green, she could even see a few places where their bark had split and yellowy sap wept out.

At home she would have simply stacked kindling in the bottom of the stove and lit it with a match, but in the woods it was not nearly so convenient.

Then her eyes fetched against the fallen oak, large and dark with rot, its sides ribbed with huge pale mushrooms. The topmost layers of wood were probably damp, but perhaps underneath….

Violet fetched her hatchet from where she’d strapped it to the back of her rucksack and advanced upon the oak, the cat perking up as she did.

It took her some time to chop through the damp rot, for her hatchet was dull and the oak wood was spongy and filled with squirming pillbugs and writhing centipedes, but she eventually managed to carve a section of dry wood away. It was powdery and reminded her of sawdust more than anything, crumbling in her hands even as she dumped it into her fire ring.

From there she collected a few twigs and other small branches. They were mostly damp, everything in the woods was, but she figured they wouldn’t be enough to extinguish the fire once there were actual flames going.

With that done, Violet replaced the hatchet and broke out the spark lighter, crouching down next to the fire ring. Holding her lighter in both hands, she showered the tinder with sparks once and then again.

On the second try there came a sparkling fizzle from amidst the shreds of rotten wood and then a thin line of white smoke.

Violet jumped in place, excited beyond words, and then hurriedly knelt down and gently blew upon the ember she’d created. For a moment the smoke faltered, then, thankfully, it all curled into a single tongue of pale flame.

For the next few minutes Violet stayed where she was, on her stomach, and nursed the small flame into greater relevance, delicately stacking the drier twigs atop it and watching them catch light.

The fire was still hesitant and trembled alarmingly under even the gentlest breezes, but that hardly seemed to matter, for it was hers.

“Good,” the cat said, inspecting the tiny blaze from the other side of the fire ring. “Now put it out.”

Violet paused, a stick held over the fire.

“Why?” She asked, crestfallen.

The cat’s eyes traced the wispy pillar of white smoke rising from the flames.

“If this gets much bigger then your neighbors might see the smoke. I doubt you want them to be even more paranoid about demonic infiltrators, right?”

Violet hunched her shoulders and grumbled, but though she badly wanted to ignore the cat and go on stoking her fire, she knew it was right. Sighing, she stood and extinguished the flames with a few unhappy stomps. Tiny flurries of silvery ash swirled around her.

The cat ignored Violet’s sullen gaze and turned towards the willows instead.

“Now, let’s see about finding you some way across the river.”

This was another thing Violet had known she would have to do but had carefully avoided actually thinking about.

She shivered, then paused.

“Are we…?” She began to ask.

“We’re going to the dock.” The cat confirmed, seeming to find some enjoyment in the frightened uncertainty that flickered across her face.

They had to have wandered a fair distance if they were close to the dock.

“What if the Trade Master’s there?” Violet asked.

“We’re reconnoitering.”

“What?”

“Observing,” the cat clarified. “We’re only observing for now.”

“Oh.” Violet said quietly, feeling slightly relieved. Still, an icy ball of anxiety remained.

It didn’t take them much longer to reach the edge of the dock. As they approached, the trees thinned to saplings and Violet found herself edging through thorn bushes, red hot lines drawn across her arms and legs wherever she was snagged.

Ahead of her, growing clearer as they approached, Violet could see the rusting remains of an old bridge. It had once gone clear across the river but had long since crumbled. A portion of its span still jutted over the water, the river dark as ink where its shadow fell. The end was raggedy and twisted, chunks of concrete and steel rods bent like a handful of ribbon. Down below, Violet could see riffles interrupting the flow of the river, places where great sections of the old bridge had tumbled apart.

The dock itself was an oblong pad of concrete, crumbly and ancient, riven with deep cracks.

This was where the outsiders left their cargo whenever they stopped by, but no such activity was occurring now. The dock lay empty and still. Violet didn’t even see the Trade Master, though she knew he was supposed to stop by and do his rounds every so often, just to make sure that everything was in order.

Perhaps he was already done. It wasn’t like there was much to keep track of. Violet could see a pair of flat bottomed aluminum rowboats tied to the dock, one on each side. A third rowboat lay beached on the shore, its oars stacked neatly next to it.

They were fishing vessels, though only used occasionally. Fishing was risky business, and could only be done under the direct supervision of the Trade Master.

“Do you know how to row?” The cat asked.

Silently, Violet shook her head. It felt strange to be observing a place from cover, like she was a wolf or some other terrible predator.

“Don’t worry, it’s easy enough.” The cat said, then stepped out into the open.

Violet squirmed, suddenly certain that they were about to be discovered, but of course nothing happened. The cat strolled casually forward, body language perfectly relaxed, and after a moment made a gesture for Violet to follow.

She moved more hesitantly, glancing nervously around as she reached the edge of the dock. It all felt weirdly familiar and once again Violet found herself thinking back to the half remembered time her mother had brought her to this place.

Why had that been? Had the Trade Master been making a blessing?

He’d been facing due north, she remembered that much, like he was waiting for the Glow to make a daytime appearance. That drew her eyes to the opposite bank of the river.

The land there was far enough away as to be indistinct, yet the menace that rose from it was clear and sharp as a splinter of glass sliding through fog. There were bad things over there, unknowable and interminably wicked.

She stopped, heart flopping uncomfortably in her chest. Ahead of her, the cat had paused near the first mooring post and and stroked its claws lightly along the faded blue of the nylon rope holding the first rowboat secure. Yet the cat hardly seemed focused on the rope, instead its silver eyes dropped down to the boat itself.

“Huh.” It vocalized.

“What?” Violet asked, unable to keep from checking behind herself once more.

“Come take a look at this.” The cat said, beckoning her with a sharp nod of its head.

Violet went, doing her best not to look at either the river or the forest on the opposite bank. All of her earlier confidence seemed to have fled, once again she felt small and weak and intensely vulnerable next to the vast unknown that yawned open before her.

As she drew closer, stepping onto gritty concrete, Violet realized what it was the cat had seen. Attached to the very back of the boat was a thin steel chain, secured by a rusty silver padlock. The chain’s slack, what looked to be at least fifty meters of it, was coiled into the bottom of the rowboat, but Violet could see the other end snaking up to the mooring post, where it was fastened to a second, identical lock.

Immediately she realized what it meant. The fishing boats could only go a certain distance before using up the slack in the chain. There was no way it would be long enough to get her to the other side of the river.

“I don’t suppose you know how to pick locks.” The cat said, but already seemed to know the likely answer.

Violet shook her head. Together, her and the cat looked to the third boat, where it lay beached upon the shore.

“I think that one’s a spare.” Violet said.

“You’ll have to drag it into the water. Can you do that?” The cat asked.

Violet eyed the boat uneasily. It wasn’t very large, only a few meters from end to end, and aluminum was fairly light…but the complication to what was supposed to be a simple reconnoiter (whatever that meant) had started knots in her stomach.

At last she nodded, trying to look more confident than she felt.

“Show me.” The cat said.

Violet thought about protesting. She didn’t want to shift the boat or do anything besides get away from the river, but she couldn’t. The cat had good reason for asking. If she couldn’t move the boat then she wouldn’t get across the river, it was as simple as that.

Setting her rucksack aside, Violet positioned herself at the front of the rowboat and gripped the gunwales. The aluminum was warm under her fingers and flexed ever so slightly. Taking a deep breath, she dug her heels into the ground and pulled.

For a moment there was a shuddery, slowly yielding resistance, then the rowboat jittered forward a few inches, rattling and squealing over stones and splintered concrete. The noise was loud enough to silence birds in the surrounding trees and Violet jumped back, heart leaping into her throat.

But nobody came running, the Trade Master did not appear and after a few silent moments the birds resumed their songs.

The cat stepped forward and leapt onto the prow of the boat, like a living figurehead.

“Good,” it said, tail swishing excitedly behind it. “Now…since you’ve moved it this far, we might as well steal it now. We can stash it along the shore a few hundred meters downstream, ready for when we make the real journey, how does that sound?”

Violet ducked her head and stepped away, not wanting to even consider what the cat was saying. She felt scared and tired and more than a little ill. The events of the whole day, from her initial frightening plunge into the woods, to the few moments the cat had apparently abandoned her, to this…it was all too much to take in at once.

“I don’t want to.” She said.

The cat rolled its eyes.

“And here I thought you were done being disappointing,” it sniffed. “Are you going to swim across the river when the time comes?”

“I can’t.” Violet said.

“Can’t what?”

“Swim.” Her voice was small.

“It wouldn’t matter,” the cat said after a moment. “The weight of your rucksack would drag you down anyway. At least….” It trailed off, eyes finding Violet’s face and the tears shining in her eyes. Suddenly the cat looked nearly ashamed of itself.

Violet sniffled.

“I want to go home.” She mumbled, then blinked hard, trying her best to stem the stinging heat that had gathered at the corners of her eyes.

The cat started to say something, then hesitated and reconsidered, adopting a gentler tone.

“Perhaps we can call it a day. Go home, repack your things, um…please don’t cry….” It sounded plaintive, clearly unsure how to handle the situation.

Violet gathered her rucksack, but even as she did the cat stopped in front of her, not quite able to make eye contact.

“Can I show you something? Before you go home?” It asked.

Violet hesitated, then offered a faint nod. The cat was clearly trying to make amends, and despite herself she felt a little bit curious.

For a time they simply walked, but this time the cat moved in a perfectly straight line. The urge to cry faded, but Violet still felt empty and drained, like she would fold in on herself if anything else even remotely distressing happened.

When the cat stopped it was at the edge of another clearing, this one a bit larger and brighter than the one she’d built her fire in. For a moment Violet wasn’t sure what the cat wanted her to be looking at, then a fluffy yellow bumblebee buzzed past the tip of her nose and she saw it.

The center of the clearing was given over to an old hollow tree stump, its sides lumpy and….

Oh.

The whole stump had, over time, been completely filled in by an enormous beehive that hummed and pulsed with continuous activity. Listening carefully, Violet could pick up the contented hum of innumerable busy insects.

The hive itself was shaped nearly like a bell, panels of honeycomb overflowing the sides of the stump. They were all streaked with vivid colors, red and blue and green interwoven along the wax. The whole hive looked like a stained glass window in a cathedral.

“There’s a woman in town who keeps bees, but….” Violet couldn’t finish. This was too far beyond the simple wooden boxes her neighbor’s domesticated bees lived in to be even remotely comparable.

“Would you like a piece of honeycomb?” The cat asked.

Violet began to nod, still entranced by the sight before her, then suddenly remembered why a person couldn’t simply walk up to a beehive and do whatever they pleased.

“Won’t you get stung if….”

The cat was already moving. But though Violet expected it to approach stealthily or maybe just rush the hive before the bees could react, the cat’s pace remained casual. It trotted between buzzing veils of honeybees, unconcerned by how thick they were in the surrounding air. Then, curiously, it selected a spot in the grass just short of the hive and sat down, tail swishing slowly from side to side. The bees continued in their normal patterns, unconcerned.

Then the cat cleared its throat and began to speak.

Violet couldn’t make out exact words, they were veiled by the rising hum issuing from the hive, but the tone beneath them remained genial. A moment passed, then another, then the cat leaned forward and, with surgical precision, used its teeth to snip free a portion of the hive, close to the stump’s bottom.

Honey, thick and amber, drooled from the gash, yet though Violet tensed, certain that the bees were about to become very angry, nothing changed.

The cat returned unmolested, a wedge of reddish yellow honeycomb held in its jaws. Dark beads of honey rolled along its whiskers and down the corners of its mouth.

Violet stared.

“How did you…? I thought for sure they were gonna sting you to pieces.” She breathed, eyes wide.

The cat smirked as best it could, eyes bright with amusement, then pressed the honeycomb into her hands so it could speak. The fur on its face stuck out in strange, spiky clumps, glistening and sticky.

“I asked.” It said simply, then began to clean itself off.

Honey, syrupy and surprisingly warm, dripped between Violet’s fingers. It smelled faintly floral, though not in a way that she readily recognized.

“But….”

“Bees will take almost any excuse to rebuild sections of the hive they’re unhappy with. The part you’re holding was leaky.” The cat said, and with that it leaned forward and took a great big bite of honeycomb.

Violet was still licking her fingers clean when they reached the edge of the forest. Once again the village was right there, its comfortable familiarity falling over her like a warm blanket. She nearly broke into a run at the sight of her house, then hesitated and stopped at the fence bordering her garden.

The cat was still at the edge of the trees when she turned around. As she watched it sat down, nearly vanished amidst the afternoon shadows. Above them, the sun had begun its descent into evening.

“You did well today,” the cat said. “Really. I’m…I might have pushed a little too hard. Perhaps next time we’ll simply take a walk.”

Violet nodded.

“Will I see you—” The cat had already disappeared by the time the words were even halfway out of her mouth. “…Tomorrow?”

She blew out a breath, then supposed that the cat would find her when the time was right and ducked back into her garden.

Once she’d stowed her rucksack and notebook, Violet found herself standing in place, feeling oddly restless. An enormous thing had just happened, she had ventured into the woods and emerged not only alive but unharmed.

It had been strange and frightening and terrible, but also beautiful and bizarrely wondrous. She turned her gaze to the place past her garden fence and though an anxious prickle still emerged, it had little to do with the woods themselves.

Though Violet was quite tired from walking and writing and thinking all day, she didn’t want to rest or even go into her room. She wanted badly to say something, to explain some small aspect of her journey to another person…even if her story would have to be disguised and otherwise rendered unrecognizable.

Taking a deep breath, Violet edged through the alleyway, past the drainpipe (again the trapped demon fizzled but made no recognizable noise) and then was walking through town. Her clothes were dirty and poked full of rips and holes, her arms and legs lined with nettle stings and scratches, but she still felt weirdly okay despite it all.

When she came upon the white picket fence that bordered Maud’s house she could still hear humming, though it was a bit quieter than before. Maud had moved further up her front walkway, to a clear patch of concrete, and seemed to be hard at work on a new drawing.

“Hi Maud.” Violet said.

Maud smiled faintly and straightened up, leaving a pink castle half drawn on the concrete before her.

“Hi Violet.” She said.

“…Would you mind if I drew something with you?” Violet asked, feeling suddenly shy.

Maud nodded, not even trying to hide her enthusiasm. A great big beam lit her face.

“Of course not. Come on in.” She beckoned.

Violet opened the gate and stepped through, accepting a proffered stick of green chalk.

For the first time in a long while, she felt as though everything would be alright.