Seriously Weird: People of the Mist

to know.

"There are many things you don't understand," she would say, "But you will one day. Trust me. I would not do anything to harm you."

Ral believed her.

There were days when Ral sat in the cabin and tried to work things out. He often looked at the few decorations his mother had pinned on the walls. Photographs, small and brown, of people he had never met. Pictures of strange lands, where huge watery shores lapped mountains with snow. Plates with strange flowers painted on the rims, drawings of birds he had never seen, burned into slices of shiny wood.

"They were your father's," his mother would say, "But he is gone now. You will never see him."

"Is that why we live here, by ourselves?" Ral would ask.

"It has something to do with it,"

"But my father may be alive. I want to meet him?"

"He does not want that." his mother would say.

"Why not?"

"You ask too many questions."

Always the same answers. Ral would sigh and lean back against the wall.

But there were days when he forgot the unanswered questions. He would feel so full of life. He drank in the warmth of the hills, he would run away from the cabin as fast as his legs would go. Up the hills, along the animal trails, jumping from rock to rock, or dashing down steep shingle slopes at breakneck speed. The cold air blew in his face, the grass lashed his legs, the sun splashed him with its warmth...

He was running like this one day when he saw another human. He stopped, breathing hard. Shock ran through him like a sudden pain. He was terrified! He lifted his head and sniffed the wind, trying to pick up a scent but the air was moving the wrong way. Instinctively he ran along a valley and climbed a rock face so he was on the other side of the stranger. Now he could watch unseen from the shadows.

The stranger was a woman. She was the same height and shape as Ral's mother. Not beautiful. She carried a bundle on her back and used a stick to help her walk. On her head was a hat, with a wide brim.