As she hurried along, she thought about how she had come to this weird region. She was just an ordinary girl of her holt, nothing special at all. In fact she was unspecial, because she just couldn't see well; without sending she would have been in constant trouble. She liked to paint and weave and make jewelry, and was learning how to decorate pottery. Those hearthside skills did not suffer from her myopia. She hoped to grow up to be a good weaver, making rugs of special beauty with designs and pictures that every elf would want. She also liked to make berry pie, mainly because she liked to eat it so much. The main problem there was all the time it took to pick the berries, because the berry patches close to the village were all picked out and she had to range fairly far afield, and that was hard because she was lost the moment she strayed from the main paths. She couldn't count the times she had had to call for help, mentally, just to find the path again. When she got a wolf friend she would be able to go out farther, more safely. For now, she had her cat friend instead, and she could do her hearthside practicing. Her fingers were long and nimble, but she still had a lot of skill to develop. While she practiced with these things, alone, she liked to sing to herself. She always stopped when any other elf was near enough to hear, of course. But Sammy liked it, and that was most of what counted.

She had gone out looking for berries in the cool morning, with Sammy. The cat had seemed bored; the truth was, he wasn't much interested in berries. "If I had a feather, I'd tickle your whiskers," Jenny said teasingly. Then the cat had taken off, and she had known she had to follow, no matter what, because when he got into one of his moods and set out in pursuit of something, he didn't stop until he found it. She had no idea how far the chase was to take him, this time!

He had cut through a section of the forest she was unfamiliar with. It was said to be haunted, but she doubted it; spirits normally didn't waste time with simple trees. Mainly she was afraid of poisonous serpents or other hungry wild things that would be lurking to gobble Sammy or her. Yet she had to keep going, lest Sammy be lost.

She ran and ran, her vision blurring as she struggled to keep up. All she saw was Sammy's fleeting tail, and bits of scenery whizzing by. She was better at seeing motion than things; otherwise she wouldn't have had a chance to stay near Sammy. Then, suddenly, the cat went over a ridge, and she followed, and discovered that there was no other side to it. She flailed in air for a moment, too scared to scream. Then her feet touched ground again; it had only been a slight drop, shrouded by fog. She ran on, still barely keeping the cat in sight.