It wove through the air thrashing and falling. It skidded to the ground no more than fifty feet from me. Then it got up, staggering. Its cold murky eyes stared at me, freezing my blood. I felt sure its wound was fatal, but the beast uttered a grisly cry, then wobbled to a hole in the ground and disappeared.

Still rolling, the stone flew off the end of the tree, coming so near to me I had to leap out of its way. Behind it walked a solitary figure—the Woodsman, wearing his white robe, now unstained by blood or sweat or tears.

Then the whole world shifted before me. The land I stood on seemed to sink, and the land on the other side of the chasm rose—Charis with it. The tree was no longer horizontal but vertical, still connecting the two worlds, no longer as bridge but ladder. Against the upright tree stood the Woodsman himself, though he was much bigger than the tree. His feet touched the ground of the lower world, and his head rose above the ground of the upper world. The cosmos had been reoriented, and for a moment the upside down became right side up.

Who was this Woodsman? How had he beaten death?

No sooner had this happened than everything became as it was, horizontal again—two worlds joined by one bridge, the great tree, and the Woodsman normal sized.

All the retaining walls of my mind—carefully constructed to deny the supernatural, to explain away the miraculous—fell to the ground like shacks in a hurricane. Much of what I’d seen in Thuros had beaten upon those walls, but only now did they collapse in ruins. I knew then, in the face of the Woodsman’s return from the abyss, that the course of my journey had been charted by an unseen hand, which had led me not just to this world, but to this moment. Yet I felt not only awe, but terror.

I watched the Woodsman go to Malaiki now and talk to her. They were too far away to hear, engaged in private dialogue.

What are they talking about?

Eventually they moved toward the tree. They climbed up and walked upon it. Malaiki seemed to buckle and falter, as if in pain. I feared she would fall. But they walked hand in hand, moving farther and farther away, then appeared to blend into one, until they disappeared from sight.

Despite the distance, it wasn’t long before the Woodsman came back, without Malaiki. Next he chose Quon, whose feet shifted and head hung. Quon bit his nails while they talked. What was going through his mind? Did he have the same doubts and fears as I? What was the Woodsman saying? If only I could hear.