Charlie notices her at last. He starts. His movement is answered by the woman’s twitch. But she does not run, not even when he rises and shows her his blood-smeared palms.

“Our friend is wounded,” he says, calmly, soothingly, the way Charlie can. Evidently he has decided the woman is not their enemy. Livia agrees with his assessment. Whoever she is, she does not belong to those who shot at them. She is part of the forest. There may be a sharp stone hidden in her fist, even a knife. But not a gun.

“We need help. Water. A doctor. Are there people around?”

The woman does not answer but moves two steps to the side, to gain a better view of Thomas. Livia follows the look. The bandage sits loosely around his head and face. Already it is spotted with red. It will soak through before they have carried him a quarter mile.

Charlie risks taking a step. The woman stares at him from her grey face.

“Help, you understand. Someone who can tend his wounds.” Charlie points to Thomas’s head. “Stop the bleeding.”

She does not react but allows him to approach to within two yards. Charlie folds his hands together, an altar boy’s gesture, fingers closed, thumbs resting against the bridge of his nose.

“Please!”

The word does something to her. It is familiar; frightens her, recalls her to a moment in her past. Her head jerks down, her shoulders up, much like a cat’s when startled by a noise. Then she tries it, her lips shaping themselves around the sound. Biting it off. Tasting it. Ready to spit.

“Plea-sseh.”

Her expression does not change with the word. It is as though she has unlearned her face’s gestures. It convinces Livia once and for all that she is living here, alone in the forest, without human contact. All at once the old servants’ stories come back to Livia, about the ghost in the woods. Her father’s soul. His reason: gone missing, roaming amongst trees at dawn. But this woman is as blank as he, and smokes with equal abandon.

There is something odd about her Smoke, however, something that sets her apart. It takes Livia several moments to put her finger on it. She smokes with equanimity. Steadily, near-constantly, always the same light-grey Smoke, subtle like a mist. It clothes her more thoroughly than her rags. In summer, Livia catches herself thinking, she will walk the woods naked, dressed only in her Smoke. The thought brings a flush to her cheeks. Anger, embarrassment. Envy? A moan from Thomas cuts short the thought.