Dear Readers,
It was back to granddad and myself as Mae again after I got the handy torch.
I said this was a great story now. Granddad said oh you like the spooky stuff, huh? I said he knew I did! And that I hated the other stuff. He said the other stuff was important too and asked me to hang in there. I said ok I guess.
The scene shifted back to me as Adina. I was in a whole new area now. No music. Just sounds of the wind. It was dark and grey and there were snowy sticks sticking out of the ground.
I came to a house and the camera zoomed out to show the whole lot of it in frame. There was what looked like a dagger with a severed arm holding it on top of the house. The house itself was situated on big sticks, elevating it off the ground somewhat. I walked up the ramp and onto the porch.
Just then, a voice from inside asked who was out here walking on their porch? I called out hello? and the voice said oh girl, it's all over now before a massive white flash transported me inside!
It was very dark and cramped in the house. There were shelves on the wall and a window looking to outside with a pink tint on it. The snow raged on outside while inside I could hear a fire crackling. There was a bit of a glow as well that lit up the house a tiny bit.
I walked to the right and climbed up the stairs. When I did, the room above lit up. There was someone with a massive hunch in their back up here standing next to the fire. Above them was another character with a wind instrument of some kind. It was silent until I got closer and music and speech came along again.
The hunchback spoke. They said there were old bodies in the north where the ground never thaws. Frozen in the dirt and ice for millenia. In some of them there was a sickness against which we were no longer strong. They said someday the earth will warm, and the ice will melt and that sickness would finish the work on us that began when we were first born. I made an ellipsis.
They then yelled at the kid above to please stop that honking and the kid said nope. They said fine and that they were going to leave the kid where they'd never find them. The kid laughed. I said "I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?". They said I knew the answer to that as I just showed up. Then they said ugh, we all just show up and that staying was the problem, but I wouldn't have to worry about that would I? I said "Is that an extremely vague threat?" and the kid said her? Vague threats?
She told the kid she'd get specific with them, that she'd bury their pieces in a lonely hollow. Or not even bury them as she didn't bury the last one and that one did chores! She said the kid's family would never find them. The kid said oh no. not that., sounding very much non-fearful.
I said "Is this your normal dynamic?" and she said this was the dynamic of everything, not even for this kid. She said they didn't even give her a name back at the sawmill, did they? That it was just kid? The kid then said her full name was Sawmill Kid. The hunchback then said she was now just Kid. I said they didn't name her? and the kid just continued playing.
The hunchback said you never realise how little and how much you need a name until they refuse you yours. I was like huh.
I said I was sorry to keep steering us back to this, but I had to reach the frozen lake. The hunchback asked when I'd be out there tonight, freezing, would I look for her ring? She said once something was down in the brambles she could never see it. The Kid said she found her ring last week and she said so you did. She said it was her second most prized possession. She kept the most prized in a shrine, so precious was it to her. So painful too and that they had to keep the precious and painful close. I said I felt like we keep getting off-track here...
She sniffed and said she could smell the forest god's blessing on me and that if I knew anything I'd wash until it came off with my skin! She said when I leave, I was going down into the brambles like all the others. She said when she has to go outside to fix the weather, because the weathervane got knocked around, again... The Kid then said she had a really stupid system going here.
She said when she'd get out to do that, she'd look out on the hollow and nothing would be stirring and that would be what would happen to me.
I asked her why she didn't just kill me right there and then in a brave, nonchalant way and she said it was because of that smell.
She asked me what I was and I said I was an astronomer. Former apprentice. She said oh honey, all the stars in my head will go out like candles tonight.
I asked her what she was. She said the forest god wasn't really a god. She was twice their size and twice as real. She said that whoever I was, even I was twice as real as they were.
I introduced myself as Adina Astra. She said it was ridiculous and that she could tell I named myself. Just the last part at least. She asked what would make a little girl change her last name? and I said nothing she'd understand! She said I didn't know a thing about it and that she came from somewhere...
Gonna pause there but I'll cover more next time. The music is pretty cool here :) The kind of music that plays in a game when you meet a kooky character and this one is quite kooky.
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