be here. You knew I would not be able to find my way out of the wood alone.” He did not accuse her of laying a spell on him, but it was in his mind. “You knew, and still you let me go.”
“It was your decision. I said I would not prevent you.”
He smiled and shook his head. “I am a fool, Angharad, as we both know. But you could have told me the way out.”
“Oh, aye,” she agreed cheerfully, “but you did not ask.”
Growing suddenly serious, she regarded him with a look of unsettling directness. “What is your desire, Bran?” Their meal finished, it was time, once more, for them to part. “What will you do?”
Bran regarded the old woman before him; wrinkled and stooped she might be, but shrewd as a den of weasels. In her mouth the question was more than it seemed. He hesitated, feeling that much depended on the answer.
What answer could he give? Despite his newfound appreciation of the forest, he knew the Ffreinc would kill him on sight. Seeking refuge amongst his mother’s kinsmen was still a good plan. In the months he had been living with Angharad, no better scheme had come to him, nor did anything more useful occur to him now. “I will go to my people,” he replied, and the words thudded to the ground like an admission of defeat.
“If that is what you wish,” the old woman allowed as graciously as Bran could have hoped, “then follow me, and I will lead you to the place where you can find them.”
Gathering up the remains of the meal, Angharad set off with Bran following and little Gwion Bach and the dog running along behind. They walked at an unhurried pace along barely discernible trails that Angharad read with ease. After a time, Bran noticed that the trees grew taller, the spaces between them narrower and more shadowed; the sun became a mere glimmer of shattered gold in the dense leaf canopy overhead; the trail became soft underfoot, thick with moss and damp leaves; the very air grew heavier and more redolent of earth and water and softly decaying wood. Here and there, he heard the tiny rustlings of creatures that lived in shady nooks.
Everywhere—around this rock, on the other side of that holly bush, beyond the purple beech wall—he heard the sound of water: dripping off branches, trickling along unseen courses.
The morning passed, and they paused to rest and drink from a brook no wider than a man’s foot. Angharad passed out handfuls of hazelnuts from the bag she carried. “A good day,” observed Bran. He owed his life to the old woman who had saved him, and as much as he wanted to part on good terms, he also wanted her to understand why he had to leave.
“A good day to begin a journey,” he added.
“Aye,” she replied, “it is that.” Her answer, though agreeable, did not provide him the opening he sought, and he could think of no way to broach the subject. He fell silent, and they continued on a short while later, pressing ever deeper into the forest. The farther they went, the darker, wilder, and more ancient the woodland became. The smaller trees— beeches, birch, and hawthorn—gave way to the larger woodland lords: hornbeam, plane, and elm. The immense boles rose like pillars from the earth to uphold tremendous limbs, which formed a timber ceiling of intertwined branches. It would be possible, Bran imagined, to move through this part of the forest without ever setting foot on the ground.
Deeper they went, and deeper grew the shadows, and more silent the surrounding wood with a hush that was at once peaceful and slightly ominous—as if the woodland solitude was wary of trespass and imposed a guarded watch on strangers.
Bran’s senses quickened. He imagined eyes on him, observing him, marking him as he passed. The impression grew with every step until he began darting glances right and left; the dense wood defied sight; the tangles of branch and vine were impenetrable.
Finally, the old woman stopped, and Bran caught the scent of smoke on the air. “Where are we?” he asked.
Extending a hand, she pointed to an enormous oak that had been struck by lightning during a storm long ago. Half-hollow now, the trunk had split and splayed outward to form a natural arch. The path on which they stood led through the centre of the blast-riven oak. “I am to go through there?”