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forced himself to think of his present family: Gedim, the man who was father to him now; Burthe, his mother; and his baby sister, Hilde. Thinking of Hilde finally brought a smile to his lips. How could he be morose when his sister’s fever had finally broken during the night?
    Past is past
, he thought as he resumed walking.
    Soon, ahead of him, he saw the moss-covered trunk of the great oak he used to mark his turning point—as close as he would come to Johannisburg. It grew where the ravine ended, the sides gently falling away into mere hills. At the point where the oak grew, the creek he followed forked into two streams—one turning deeper into the forest, the other filling a deep pool ahead of him.
    Between a steep shale cliff and the massive crown of the oak tree hovering over it, the pool was invisible from the village. Even naked, the oak’s black limbs seemed to reach out and claim the pool for itself. In high summer, this area would take on the character of a verdant cave.
    Uldolf smiled every time he saw this place, especially at the boulder next to the roots of the oak. The white rock was about a head shorter than he was now, but had seemed gigantic when he was young. Even so, there were rewards for the child who climbedits smooth surface all the way to the top. It placed the lowest limbs of the oak just within reach.
    In the years before … before he lived with Gedim, he had spent endless spring and summer afternoons here, jumping from the limbs of the oak into the pool. It had always been his secret place. He had never shown it to anyone.
    If it wasn’t so late in the morning, he might have climbed that rock again. Not to climb the oak, but just to sit and look at this place. It calmed him, especially when he was troubled by thoughts and dreams of the past. And for some reason, the past felt very close to him right now.
    He reached the fork, and was about to follow the stream away from the pool, deeper into the forest, when something about his oak tree made him stop.
    Some animal had mercilessly clawed at the trunk. Fresh white scars glistened in the dawn light, dangling shreds of bark and moss. Some of the claw marks reached higher than his head. The sight filled him with a sick unease, as if something had attacked the one good childhood memory he had managed to hang onto.
    What kind of animal?
    Something moved at the foot of the boulder by the creek bed. He froze for a moment, not quite comprehending what he saw. Several seconds passed before the flashes of hair and skin resolved into something concrete.
    In the water, curled against the white side of the boulder, her back to him, was a naked woman.
    Her skin was so pale that at first Uldolf thought her a corpse. But, after a moment, he could see her breathing. He ran to the boulder, boots splashing, abandoning all pretense of stealth.
    “Hello? Are you all right?” He placed a hand on her shoulder.
    At his touch, the woman whipped around and uttered a scream of such pure terror that Uldolf lost his balance and fell backward into the creek.
    The woman scrambled away from him. She panted, breaths coming in great sobs. Uldolf could see now that she was badly injured. There was a nasty wound in her right shoulder, barely clotted, trailing blood down her arm. The right half of her face was covered in blood from a massive gash that cut from her temple to up under her hairline. She kept pushing with her legs, away from him, until she backed into the oak. When she hit it, her eyes widened and she shuddered, crying out and grasping the wound on her shoulder.
    “Please,” Uldolf said, grabbing the boulder and pulling himself upright. “I want to help you.”
    She shook her head.
    Not only was she covered with blood from her wounds, she was coated in filth from her knotted red hair down. The only part of her that was remotely clean was her left foot, which was spotless.
Must have trailed in the water awhile
, Uldolf thought.
    “What happened to you?”
    She