“Ye never told me yer name,” Perfidy said, following behind the woman as she deftly pushed branches aside with her walking stick. Each time, they would snap back just as Perfidy passed by. She’d been struck a dozen times already, but her reflexes were finally beginning to improve, her hands grabbing them and shoving them out of her way.

“Didn’t I?” the woman said, not looking back. Her white hair looked more silver this deep in the forest, like a frozen waterfall clinging to the cliff of her back. Though the woman’s feet definitely seemed to be touching the ground with each step, Perfidy didn’t detect a single footprint in the soft earth. A quick glance behind her showed a clear trail of her own prints but not the woman’s.

Snap!

Perfidy winced but didn’t cry out as the branch stung her, lashing her cheek. A dozen curse words that her father had taught her sat on the tip of her tongue but she held them back.

Ma, she thought. Why? Why ye? The kindest, best person in the world. Ye deserved better. From them. From me. From the world.

“No, ye dinnit,” she said, but then froze. The woman whose name she still didn’t know wasn’t there. But she had been a second ago. Perfidy still had the stinging cut on her face to prove it. “Hullo? Where’d ye go?”

Perfidy began to run, ignoring the stabbing, slashing branches, swatting them aside like flies. The overgrown trail, if it could even be called that, had vanished along with the woman, leaving her alone in a sea of flora. She spun in a slow circle, growing more and more disoriented as to which direction they’d been headed in, much less which way would carry her back home.

Home, she thought bitterly. I have no home. Ma was home, an’ now she’s, she’s, she’s…

“Dead,” she said aloud. She thought speaking that word would make her stomach churn, would make her want to curl up in a ball and sob her eyes out. But, to her surprise, it didn’t. Somehow, she felt just a bit stronger than before, like she’d faced the worst truth the world could throw at her and survived to tell the tale. “I’m alive,” she added. “Ain’t I? Well, I best find out. Oi, Disappearin’ Lady! Where in the ruttin’ rutty void did ye scamper off to? Show yerself ’fore I start throwin’ things.”

If the lady heard her, or was even within earshot, she gave no sign, the forest as eerily quiet as a day of mourning. Perfidy blinked and everything had changed.