I. The Valley

It was in greatest need that we came upon that land; we were far from our homes and far from our knowledge. We had crested an exceptionally large hill which was completely unexceptional in all other respects and, looking down the western slope, saw for the first time the valley, glittering with dew and morning.

It was first decided that we would seek the dwellers of the valley out where they might be and ask that we may take refuge for a time therein. Two days of such searching, looking down from the hill tops for we dared not descend into the valley unannounced, for signs of habitation yielded nothing; we rejoiced, and thanked the heavens for our fortune in finding a good, bright land unoccupied. It seemed thus, but apparently they were amazed by our failing to perceive them.

            Our people spread out, leaving space for the future planting of crops, and began to build homes. I drifted about, not quite haphazardly, through the thick woods with my family until my father stopped us before a meadow. I could hear a stream nearby, but I have never been sure he did. I have often suspected that his quiet proclamation “here” was almost solely born of the image of the meadow simply striking him in his path.  For myself, I thought it a lovely meadow, much like the pictures in the story books I had left behind, sunlit and entirely without shadow somehow. It felt as a blessed place and, saying as much, my father immediately began pacing a layout for a sod house upon the ground.

            The air felt alive, and I took my liberty without a word or notice and slipped off in the direction of the stream. Meandering without any sense of urgency but in a peaceful wakefulness of mind I came upon the creek.

            Before now, it has been said that we were far from home; we had left your place and now had gone a year and a day west. I cannot speak of why we left, for that weighs heavy on all our hearts, though perhaps not so heavy as these memories now. It stands, however, that you can imagine the pleasure in stepping out of my boots and into the biting cold of the flowing water. 

            The cold aside, this was vaguely daring, for the light was so strong that I could not see past the reflections on the surface of the water, crouch as I may, and had need to feel my way along with my toes. Once or twice I felt an anonymous something brushing against me feet and ankles but at that time I still held those thrills of the unknown as pleasures. It was purely for joy that I splashed in the water before tiptoeing back to the meadow with a wet coat and high spirits.

            The sky had grown remarkably dim without my noticing, or perhaps unremarkably so considering that the forest did not seem much the darker for it.  While this bothered my mind, my mother, in the midst of denouncing my disappearance, assured me that that was simply the way of light in valleys. To come and go slowly, the peeking over the tops of the mountains like children a small table is the sun’s habit, she told me. This was our first night in the valley and contentment and possibility warmed us as much as the small fire built against the cold. I remained bothered, but only in that small way of the unfamiliar but not unknown. I fell asleep quickly; I did not observe that the light of the fire under the moon did not match the shadows, nor the illumination within the trees outside the clearing.