This surely was an option. I couldn’t understand my hesitation, especially since the voice came from the direction I’d meant to follow through the trees. As we advanced into the forest I felt as if my mind could take in nothing except green. Even the tree trunks were fattened with green moss. I sensed growth progressing all around me, too measured to be visible, although suppose some aspect of it formed into a face? I did my best to focus on the route between the trees and the voice to which it seemed to promise it would lead. More of a tune was audible now, though it sounded as though the performer was searching for one. Every so often I caught a few words I took for a refrain: “Call me my name.” This surely suggested a folk song, which might very well mean it was coming from the festival, but at least that would take us out of the woods. I had no idea how far we’d followed the nominal path when Roy said “Have we done the third mile yet?”

I wished he hadn’t asked. “I hope we won’t have to,” I said.

The idea seemed to let the woods close in. When I looked back the far end of the path was indistinguishable from the trees. In the distance ahead it grew equally impossible to locate. The stillness all around us felt like the imminence of a transformation. We were crossing an elaborate mosaic of fallen leaves, who knew how many years of them, and I remembered my aunt saying there were places where leaves chased you even if there was no wind. Glancing back showed me nothing of the sort, but I could have fancied the path stirred underfoot, as if the leaves were restless. Perhaps I was treading on insects, not an appealing notion. I could have thought the sensation or its source had enlivened the woods, and here came the threat of faces in the trees again, a vision I wished my aunt had never lent me. I felt desperate to grasp the words of the distant song so as to rein in my consciousness, but could still hear only that same phrase: “Call me my name…” As I strove to bring the voice closer it seemed to lurch at me, only to fall silent. I was willing it or anyone to become audible when Roy said “Have we done it?”

I felt almost robbed of words, or nervous of understanding. “What?” I said like someone no more than Roy’s age.

“Aren’t we back? Isn’t that a house?”