hesitation. Deeper comprehension would come to her of the whole awful
puzzle. And come it did, yet not in the way she imagined and expected.

The air was very still, the sky a cold pale blue, but cloudless. The
entire Forest stood silent, at attention. It knew perfectly well that
she had come. It knew the moment when she entered; watched and followed
her; and behind her something dropped without a sound and shut her in.
Her feet upon the glades of mossy grass fell silently, as the oaks and
beeches shifted past in rows and took up their positions at her back. It
was not pleasant, this way they grew so dense behind her the instant she
had passed. She realized that they gathered in an ever-growing army,
massed, herded, trooped, between her and the cottage, shutting off
escape. They let her pass so easily, but to get out again she would know
them differently--thick, crowded, branches all drawn and hostile.
Already their increasing numbers bewildered her. In front, they looked
so sparse and scattered, with open spaces where the sunshine fell; but
when she turned it seemed they stood so close together, a serried army,
darkening the sunlight. They blocked the day, collected all the shadows,
stood with their leafless and forbidding rampart like the night. They
swallowed down into themselves the very glade by which she came. For
when she glanced behind her--rarely--the way she had come was shadowy
and lost.

Yet the morning sparkled overhead, and a glance of excitement ran
quivering through the entire day. It was what she always knew as
"children's weather," so clear and harmless, without a sign of danger,
nothing ominous to threaten or alarm. Steadfast in her purpose, looking
back as little as she dared, Sophia Bittacy marched slowly and
deliberately into the heart of the silent woods, deeper, ever deeper.