It occurs to her suddenly that she hasn’t checked on Uaine’s SoulSeed today. She takes it out of her pack, unwraps it, and examines it. It’s a bit dimmer than it was yesterday.

“Where do I go now, Uaine?” she addresses the SoulSeed. She doesn’t expect an answer and she doesn’t get one. Exhaling, she closes her eyes against the monotonous landscape of the forest. With her eyes closed, she hears the sounds of the forest more clearly, and for a few minutes, she soaks in the various sounds made by the living creatures. On a whim, she starts listening with her changed hearing, and what she hears makes Croi gasp.

What she had thought of as noise is actually a song. The forest is singing a song. The flora and the fauna each have their own melodies, but instead of being discordant, they harmonize. Croi opens her eyes and looks around. It is the magick that takes the different melodies and puts them together into one song: the forest’s song. Croi listens to the forest singing for a long while and gradually realizes that there’s a different sound, a different song being sung somewhere in the forest. She takes out another scarf from her bag, ties it into a sling that she puts around her neck, and gently transfers the pixie over. Then she climbs down the tree and follows the sound, walking for a long time before finally reaching the place the new song is coming from.

At the foot of a hill are two tall trees standing like sentries, two arm spans apart. The new song swells here. With a jolt, Croi realizes that this new tune is the Song of the Earth, of Talamh magick. She sang a bit of this song to stop Uaine from eating her, name first. Many slender saplings surround these two trees. At least she thinks they are saplings. When she moves closer, these saplings stir and wake, their bodies transforming into long, thin creatures with no feet and long arms. The heads of these creatures are shorn, and their eyes are blanketed white. As if they sense Croi, they extend their arms to prevent her from passing through the portal.

Croi comes to a sudden halt before backing away. Her footsteps cease only when she is a safe distance away from the creatures. Her heart is pounding and her palms are wet. What is she supposed to do now? How can she sneak past them?

Consult the book.

Book? What book?

The book the Hag gave us.

Oh. That book. Croi brings the pack that she is carrying on one shoulder to the front, opens it, then stops short, and her mouth drops open. The pack falls to the ground, almost overturning the pixie out of the sling that hangs around Croi’s neck.

“Who are you?”

I am you. The other half to our whole.

A cold breeze prickles the back of Croi’s neck. She sits down on the ground abruptly, feeling her heart speed up in accompaniment to the fear that suddenly chews at her insides. She knows, even though she doesn’t want to, who this voice is. She felt the butterfly tickle when Uaine tried to claim her name. She felt the alien presence within her. Uaine woke this voice inside of her. No, that’s not right. She didn’t wake her; the dryad simply allowed this voice a way to be heard. Croi swallows.