The woods were dense with trees and denser with undergrowth. Yet even with this coverage the storm bet heavily on the two cloaked figures trudging through the entangled under brush. The going was made even rougher by the fact that briars were growing all about. The smaller one stumbled and fell to her knees. She struggled to get up, stumbled a few steps, then as she fell she cried out, “Mother!”

She turned quickly, but at first she didn’t see her daughter. Panic invaded her already weary heart. It can’t be, she thinks. She could not have caught up with them already. Then a movement caught her eye and a cloaked figure weakly began to rise. Her breath caught for a moment, but she then realized it was just her daughter. As the young girl falls down again from exhaustion, her mother came to her side.

As she helped her daughter along, “I am so weary. Must we keep running?”

“She is near and soon will catch us.”

“Why does Aunt Raghda want my soul? Are we far from the tree?”

“The tree is near. We will be safe under its old limbs.”

“But why my soul, mother?” She looked into her mothers eyes and saw a sad weary terror there.

“I do not know and fear that I may know soon.”

She had lived with Aunt Raghda ever since she was a very little girl. She had been taken in after her parents had died in a fire. Aunt Raghda had never done anything that caused her fear. She never suspected anything until the day that her daughter came to her claiming that she saw Aunt Raghda throw a snake out in front her father’s horse, causing the horse to throw him and break his neck. She didn’t want to believe this and it was not until Aunt Raghda tried to kill her that she began to learn the truth.

A shadow fell over them blocking the way. They looked up with dread, but were quickly relieved. It was not Aunt Raghda. It was Morgan, the kind mute that did odd jobs around town. But this was puzzling. What was he doing so far from home? Her mind was tired and slow in puzzling this. But her instincts were sharpened by the chase and pure terror rose again in her.