Likari watched him in silence as he thrust his arm in elbow deep and then tore away at the wall of foliage. It was not easy work: the roots were tough and woody, and the moss was thick, but eventually he had torn out a hole big enough to look through. He peered into darkness that smelled of damp and rich rot. Likari, near naked, had begun to shiver.

“Build a fire for us while I do this,” Soldier’s Boy suggested. Likari gave a relieved nod and ran off to collect twigs and dry debris.

Soldier’s Boy cleared the doorway and ventured inside. He blinked, letting his eyes adjust. The walls and roof had held, but the forest had still invaded. Cascades of pale roots had penetrated and actually strengthened the walls. More groping white roots dangled from the ceiling. The earth floor was damp underfoot. He could make out vague shapes that had been her possessions. There, against the wall, that would have been a chest of cedar-wood and that collapsed huddle of moss and mildew was where her bed had been. He found one of the windows and began to clear it to let more light in. The central hearth of careful dry-stone work had survived, but the smoke hole above it was blocked. The afternoon was advancing. He looked out of the low door. Likari had kindled a small fire and was perched on the rolled blanket beside it.

“Come in here! You see that? Climb up there and open it up for us. Once that’s done, we can bring the fire inside. We’ll be a little more comfortable tonight.”

The boy peered into the darkened lodge. He wrinkled his nose in distaste for the damp smell and the busy beetles and pale roots that dangled down from the ceiling. “Could not you just speak to the forest and bid it give us shelter for the night?”

It was presumptuous but Soldier’s Boy chose not to take offense. “I could. But that would use magic. And I need to build my magic, not spend it. So, tonight, we will stay in here.”

I sensed that he had other reasons, and most of them were that his beloved had once lived here. He looked around a chamber that a Gernian would have considered a root cellar and saw a cozy home, lit by a warm hearth and filled with the comforts that befitted a Great One. His secondhand recollections startled me. He recalled copper cooking pots and green glass bowls, hair combs of ivory and silver pins for her hair. Yet his memories of her wealth were tinged with sadness. Perhaps only he knew how lonely she had been. Did he think that somehow he could retroactively amend that by residing here?

While Likari tugged and pulled diligently at the shrubs, roots, and moss blocking the smoke hole, Soldier’s Boy moved purposefully about the room. She had had no heir to inherit her wealth, not even a favorite feeder to claim three cherished possessions. So, as was their custom when dealing with folk who were full of magic, her home had become taboo once she had died. Magic had a price and left a residue, the Speck believed. This chamber remained as it was the day she last left it. Lisana had died on the far side of the mountains. She had known she was dying, and had stayed behind to be near the tree she had chosen. Her youngest brother and three of her feeders had stayed with her, loyal to the end, to prop her failing body against the tree and guard it until the tree could send its seeking roots tendriling into her body to absorb both the nutrients of her corpse and all that remained of her person.

These things he knew almost as clearly as if they had happened to him. These were the memories Lisana had given him. And so he went to where a shelf had been, and groped on the floor amid the wreckage of the long-ago rotted plank. From its debris, he lifted a soapstone lamp. He went outside and scrubbed it with fallen needles beneath a cedar tree. He would get oil for it when he went to the Trading Place. He held it in his hands, feeling it warm beneath his touch. She had liked to sit outside in the mild evenings of early autumn with its soft glow lighting the night.

He looked up at the sky through the lacy fronds of the cedar trees. The light was going fast. If they were going to eat tonight, he had to hunt now. He clenched his teeth. Now that he had found the house, he didn’t want to leave it. He longed to lovingly restore it to what it had been, to see the log walls lit by dancing firelight, to recline on the bed where she had slept, to drink from the cups she had used. He ached for her with a depth of feeling that bordered on obsession. He was sick with his loneliness and love, and I pitied him.

Yet for all that, he disciplined himself, as my father had taught him when he was the same boy I was. He looked up to young Likari, who was still dispiritedly dragging roots and moss and vines out of the smoke hole. “Do you still have my sling?”

Likari grinned. “I saved it for you.” He fumbled in a pouch at his belt and then tossed down the flap of leather with the long thongs wrapped around it. Soldier’s Boy caught it neatly. He turned to leave.

“Do you wish me to hunt for you?”

Soldier’s Boy was almost startled. He hadn’t even considered it. He made a quick decision. “No. Thank you: finish clearing the smoke hole. Then clean the hearth inside and bring the fire into the house. Gather some firewood for the night. I’ll see what I can get for us to eat.”

The boy stood in a half crouch over the chimney, staring at him. He made no reply. Soldier’s Boy turned and walked away from the house reluctantly. He didn’t want the boy to tidy the hearth. He wanted to do it himself, to be sure that every stone was put back as it had been when Lisana lived there. He hadn’t gone a dozen strides when the boy called after him, “Great One, this is a bad-luck place! Please! Don’t leave me here alone!”

Soldier’s Boy halted and turned, surprised. “Why is it a bad-luck place?”

“A Great One lived here, and now she is gone. We should not be here. To come here uninvited is the worst sort of luck. It does not matter that she has been gone for a long time. The bad luck is still here.” His voice quavered on the last words. He pinched his mouth shut to keep his lip from trembling.

Soldier’s Boy stood still, listening to chill wind in hemlock and cedar needles. Then he said, “I was invited. And you are my feeder. It isn’t bad luck for me to be here, or for you.”

The boy didn’t reply. I looked at him through Soldier’s Boy’s eyes and thought how young he really was. Soldier’s Boy didn’t give it another thought. The light was going fast now. This time of day animals would be on the move, but it would not last long. I might pity Likari, left alone with his fears, but Soldier’s Boy simply assumed he would cope with them.

His hunting luck was good. I could feel him draw on my skill and experience with the sling when he used it. It felt odd, almost as if he were bleeding me for sustenance. At the same time, he could not open that link and take from me without leaving his own thoughts vulnerable to my spying. I caught a glimpse of his plan. He would stay here, in Lisana’s house, and eat all he could for four days before making a quick-walk to the Trading Place. He hoped he could regain enough of his weight to be impressive to the folk gathered there. There was something else, too, something he guarded more closely. I could not see it, but knew he anticipated it with excitement but also with a strange regret.

This was a different forest he moved through, as different as the forest on the other side of the mountain had been from my prairie home. That was a revelation to me. I had thought that all forests would be, well, forests. To discover that they differed as much as one city does from another was almost shocking. On this side of the mountains, evergreens predominated, cedar and spruce for the most part. Their fallen needles carpeted the earth and I tasted their resinous scent with every breath. I passed anthills that were waist high; at first glance they seemed to be merely heaps of rust-brown needles. Ferns were also plentiful, and mushrooms in astonishing variety. He recognized some as energizing for his magic and picked and ate them. Soldier’s Boy recognized them from Lisana’s memories. My reluctance to trust such a secondhand memory swayed him not at all from eating every last one of them. And when he had finished, the subtle humming of the magic in my blood rose. He walked on with a satisfied smile. He liked being able to take care of himself, I realized.