Autumn comes insidiously to the Great Shade. The days grow shorter, and on each tree and bush the leaves start to change color until Anna Stina can lift her gaze and see more yellow than green. Still it is the air that best heralds the turn of the season. In the evening, the forest cools quickly. Time becomes harder to tell. The beams of light that once fell straight through the foliage fade by midday, and as the wind blows in from the city to let her count the chimes from the church bells, she often thinks she has miscounted, until the light fails, each day earlier than the day before. When storms ravage the foliage, the forest floor is also scorched with whirling gusts of wind, stinging cold. Each day they take advantage of the final gifts that summer’s bounty has to offer. The branches of the wild apple tree hang heavy with fruit to pick and dry. There is a multitude of chanterelles. The fish still bite in Owl’s Bay, but Lisa smells the air with a worried look.
“Come with me.”
They each carry a child, going deeper into the forest where a hidden path leads on under beard lichen and decomposing oak. They haven’t got far when Lisa stops short and peers in between the trees towards a low hill. She takes a few more steps and finds what she is looking for. She shifts a bunch of dry sticks to reveal some planks that have been tied together. These can be moved, and when she has lifted them out of the way, she gestures for Anna Stina to come. It is a burrow that stretches half a dozen feet into the hill. Thick roots serve as beams to keep the roof up. The floor is hard enough to make its surface feel like stone.
“Did you make this?”
Lisa shakes her head.
“I prefer to sleep where the only way an intruder can enter is not the way I need to escape. I don’t know whose it is. But I don’t think whoever made it will need it anymore and I don’t think anyone else knows about it. I found it years ago, and nothing has changed.”
Anna Stina creeps closer as Lisa stretches to tug on one of the logs that have been buried in the earth to help carry the structure’s weight. It doesn’t budge.
“In the summer I don’t need the shelter anyway. But now it’s getting cold, and soon there’ll be no more food.”
Only now does Anna Stina understand why Lisa has brought her here.
“You’re leaving.”
She receives no answer but silence, and that speaks clearly enough.
“Can’t I go with you?”
Lisa looks up out of her own thoughts, furrows her brow, and shakes her head.
“Why not?”
“There are rules to follow for those who live as I do. You have broken them already. You mustn’t have any ties from which you can’t disentangle yourself in the time it takes to stand up and swing the bundle that contains everything you own over your shoulder. You must avoid the company of others. Women are bad. They might be all right individually but never more than that. Their intentions are never easy to interpret. Often they are malicious. Men are easier but more dangerous. They want what is yours and there are no lies they won’t tell to get it. If they are denied, they’ll use force. In the same moment that a price is set on their enjoyment, they’re off, and are nowhere to be found, leaving you alone to pay. But children are worst. They burden you. Soon these will be too heavy for you to carry and will anchor your life, and you’ll never shed that chain. Already they weigh too much. Once you work out the best way to carry them both, I will be long gone, and you’ll never catch up with me.”
“But if you help me?”
“If there was only the one, maybe. With two it can’t be done. You have to find another place for them.”
“Where?”
She follows Lisa’s gaze through the trees, where the City-between-the-Bridges can be glimpsed, amid pillars of smoke and sharp spires.