It took us most of the day to find the campfire caves. Tam was eventually able to walk on his own, but I kept hold of his wrist anyway. He kept stumbling. But it turned out that the man somehow had a sense of direction in spite of his situational obliviousness on fleeing the village, and he was able to set us on a path toward a potential place to shelter for the night. It was quite a hike, sure, but no paths led from town to the caves --there was no reason for carts to come out that way-- so we would hypothetically be safe there.
The forest never quite changed once we had put the village behind us. The stumps became fewer and fewer, and the old growth became lusher and lusher, but otherwise it was simply unbroken swaths of green and brown everywhere. Not only that, but the feeling didn’t change either. No matter how far away we got, I couldn’t help the darting glances to every branch that rustled, every flutter of a bird’s wing. I expected a blue uniform to step out from behind any one of the broader trees that we passed, and repeatedly jerked to look back over my shoulder to be sure.
Tam, meanwhile, descended into a gloomier and gloomier mood. He was upright, but his posture hung dispiritedly forward, glazed eyes staring at something five thousand miles in the distance. His wife’s blood steadily dried into his clothing and, worse, the skin all up and down his arms. He didn’t seem to care --not about the blood, not about the potential for a bluecoat ambush, only vaguely about the direction they were going in. I had it on faith that he knew where he was going based on one faint mumble early on of, “This way.”
But eventually the relatively flat terrain began to ripple into little hills --humble compared to the mountains. We balanced our way over a log that had fallen over a fast-flowing stream that was still swollen with rainwater (I wondered if it was still raining up in the mountains, or if the rain had even reached them). The sound of rushing water was still in our ears when the land rose up again, and rose into a hill --yes, still a hill compared to the mountains-- that loomed over us and sprawled out to either side.
Tam bumped shoulders with me rather than speak out loud, turning us eastward along the base of the hill. The caves came into view shortly after, mercifully unoccupied. They weren’t all that deep, but they would guard from rain and contain some warmth from a campfire. Plenty of people had stayed there before, judging by the firepit filled with charred wood and ashes and the stack of firewood tucked away inside. In the very back of the cave, on a boulder that must have taken several people to roll in, was a stack of heavy woolen blankets.
Tam didn’t stop moving. There was a sort of absence to his movements, as if his muscles were running without the guidance of the mind. He went straight to cleaning out the fire pit, so I let him do that while I paced around and noted several smaller campfire caves further along --all empty. One of the caves had a crate filled with canned and preserved foods --enough-so that I couldn’t lift the crate myself. I took a few cans back over to where Tam was arranging wood in the pit and crouched down to watch him.
His eyes were dull as he worked at it, so I wasn’t certain whether he failed to start a fire because of his state of mind or if he simply did not know how to start a campfire. It was Soryya who had tended the fire back at the house. Here, he picked out a good stick and spun it between his palms, and spun it, and spun it, but to no avail. Oddly enough, he started tearing up again and sobbing quietly as the fire refused to cooperate --not even that initial stream of smoke. It was as if he had clung to some vestige of hope that in kindling that fire he might somehow summon his wife and daughter back to his side, but it was slipping through his fingers over and over until he dropped the stick and dropped his head to his knees, crying.
I watched him. I had thought, perhaps, that he had finished with his mourning. Sure, he was sad, but shouldn’t one cry be enough to get all the feelings out? What was the point of crying if it didn’t relieve any of the anguish? A child cries to get the attention of his parents or call for help, but an adult… I suppose, why should it be different for an adult here? Was he, then, crying for help? How was I supposed to help short of physical impossibilities?
I started to reach for his shoulder-- but I feared the static shock of touching it. I suppose, to some extent, he seemed so fragile I was a bit afraid of breaking him. Instead, I reached past him to pick up the stick and pull another one over to me. I pulled the knife from my belt to carve a little dimple into one stick, then perched the other in it to spin hard and fast with the whole of my weight behind it. From spark, to kindling, to fire --I had the logs burning in short order. Living on my own on the fringes of society had necessitated the cultivation of such skills.
When the air pockets began to snap and crack embers into the air, he tilted his face from his knees to stare into the orange light. “They keep these caves well stocked for campers and travelers who get lost in the woods.” His voice was thick and rusty, as glaze over as his eyes.
I looked at him and tilted my head, so he drew in a breath and kept going. “Folklore-- F-folklore says that goblins used to live in these caves. They’re the ones who carved into the side of the hill. If you look--” He made a strained sound as he twisted around to point at the brown stone of the walls. “If you look, you can see where it looks-- it looks like they scraped the walls with sharp instruments. But then the elves chased them away. Elves or--” His countenance sagged. “...or man.”
Taking his cue, I gravitated toward the wall of the cave to run my fingers over it. As far as I could tell, it was stone. Not so much the grey stone of the mountains, but an an earthy stone that I suppose looked as if it could be chipped with sharp enough tools. I looked, but couldn’t find any hints of scraping. I looked back toward him instead, waiting for him to continue, but that was all he was willing to offer. He sagged his head to one side and fiddled sullenly with one of the cans.
I moved back over and offered a can to him, but he pushed it away with a shake of the head, rose to take a couple of blankets, and bundled himself into a cocoon against the back wall of the cave. Again, I peered at him curiously. Perhaps he blamed me for all of this. If the people of Mitissilva had thought me a presage of bad things to come, it stood to reason that the people of this village might too. Even Tam.
And yet, there we were. Something bad did come. I didn’t think of myself as an ill omen, of course, but there was a reason I had deemed it wiser to sit outside of society rather than tangle myself up in its moving parts. I thought about this as the grey sky darkened and evening set in. That, in addition to debating the wisdom of having a fire going tonight. We had been running and walking for so long, though, that surely it was safe.
I poked a couple more logs onto the fire and decided to forego my own meal for the evening too. It wasn’t solidarity or anything. I wasn’t especially upset, I don’t think. At least, at the time I didn’t want to think of myself as upset. I was just… pensive, thinking about the day’s events and all the things that led up to them. That would do well enough for my appetite for one night.
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