"I would like to stay and watch the game," she said. "But I have to leave." She began to walk in the direction of the Northern Forest.

"Nobody goes that way," he said. "There isn't anything there except miles and miles of trees. So dark in some places, they say, that it seems like night, even on days like this when the sun is shining brightly."

Helen looked back at him for a moment, fixing his image in her mind. Then she began to walk purposefully on the road that the maps called Anyaclaver Way. Anyaclaver Way was crisscrossed with deep cracks out of which weeds and grass grew. It was the dry season, and tall brown grass grew thickly on either side, as if it was a proscenium leading up to the Northwestern Forest.