Seriously Weird: People of the Mist

Ral crouched nearer to the cold rock and watched the woman drawing close. In a few moments she would be passing and Ral would see face, and then only her back. He felt a great curiosity inside him to see the woman's face. Only her chin was visible. Black shadow from her hat masked everything from the chin upwards.

Ral waited until the woman was passed by, then he slipped quietly back over the rocks and ran down into the valley again. He tore along the rough, dried-out stream bed and circled to a clump of thorn bushes. This was a place he knew well. The trunks of the bushes had grown huge and twisted, like prehistoric snakes, with dead bark hanging from them, and deep ruts in their sides. Ral scrambled under one of these trunks and waited.

The stranger came closer. She was singing. Ral listened intently. The words of the song were about the first morning, the first blackbird, the first light. Ral knew about these things, because his mother had taught him. She had taught him to read from a book which told about how everything began. Ral was pleased with himself for understanding the song.

The woman reached the thorn bushes and stopped. She looked at the shade under the bushes and came over to it.

"This will do," she said, slipping her pack off. She set it down on the ground and came under the shade, then she sat down beside it and took her hat off. Ral was so close he could see the drops of sweat on her cheeks.

The woman undid some straps on her pack and pulled out a bottle. She removed the lid and drank.

Ral felt a sudden envy within him. Why did this woman, this stranger, have the freedom to drink, when he, Ral, had to always return to his mother whenever he wanted something? Why was he the only one who had to wear a muzzle?

The woman heard him moving.

"Who's there?" she said, turning frightened eyes at the place where Ral was hiding.

Ral lay very still, hardly daring to breath.

The woman pulled a long, shiny knife from her pack and stood up.

"I can see you in there," she said, "Stop fooling around!"