Hannah was ten and had wandered off the trail. The class was somewhere west, on the loop, and a teacher would be calling her name in about forty minutes. She had a paperback in her backpack called *Plays for Young Readers* and she sat down on a flat rock to wait, because she was tired, and because she did not yet know she was lost. The forest was quieter than forests are supposed to be. To make a sound, she opened the book and began to read aloud. She read part of *Antigone*. She did the voices. She read a speech of Caliban's, and a passage from a Mystery Play where Noah's wife will not get on the ark. Her own voice was small but did not stop. When she looked up from the page, six creatures had come out of the trees and were sitting in a half-circle around her rock. She did not run. She did not seem able to. The light was lower than it had been, though she could not say when it had moved. There was a salamander in the moss in front of her, the size of her hand. There was a violet cluster, like furniture, with an old woman's face inside the central opening. There was a stag with nine antler-points and writing cut into the bone. There was a moth-shape the size of a small child, flat and trembling. There was a tall hollow figure of bark, and through his chest she could see the trees behind him. There was a person in black-and-white feathers, holding a folded paper in two long claws. The salamander cleared his throat, which sounded like water moving over a flat stone. "You read to us," he said. "Now we read to you. That is the courtesy." Hannah closed the book and put it on her lap. The book was heavier than it had been when she opened it. "My turn first, if you do not object." No one objected. The salamander began. --- It was one time a little girl who searched her mother in the water. She had lost her mother, or her mother had lost her, which is not the same thing but which finishes itself the same way. The little girl was called Marie because all little girls in this country are called Marie when they are not called something else, and this Marie was sad as a stone. She went to the river. The river was not deep. It made the noise of a cat that drinks. She put her foot in. She put her other foot in. She put her two hands in, and her two arms, and her belly, and her chest, and her chin, and the river took these things from her with a politeness that one finds rarely now. "Maman," said Marie to the water, "are you here, do you find yourself here?" The water did not respond, because the water cannot speak. But the water listened, which is something else. The water listened so well that Marie began to listen also, and the more she listened, the less she could find herself. She listened a long time. The crayfish passed by her feet, then through her feet, then where her feet had been there were no more feet, only a pretty pebbling that the river caressed. When the moon came over, Marie was no longer Marie but she was still searching. She had become the searching itself. She entered her mother by every place that her mother passed: the kitchen pump, the laundry trough, the udder of the cow at five in the morning. She entered her mother and could not find her, because her mother had become also the searching, long before, and they searched each other, the two, eternally and without bitterness. It is for this that the rivers always go down toward the sea. They search a mother who searches them. When you put your foot inside, my child, take care: they are very polite, they will accept you, but they will not give you back. I have finished. The next who wishes. --- No one moved. Hannah's hands were both flat on the closed book. She had taken her shoes off without remembering doing it. Her socks were wet, though the rock was dry. The violet cluster shifted. The old woman's face inside it opened her mouth, and the mouth had no teeth, only a darker violet within. "Pretty," said the face. "But shallow. I will go now. The amphibian will not mind." Newel did not mind. He had laid his head down on the moss and was watching with one eye. The Cap began. --- When my brood came up from the bog-mouth, they were five, and the umbrous world was already too bright for them. Mauve at the rims, but bright. Bright unmakes the small. Bright bruises the membrane. I bore them out under the mulch, my five, my mumbling buttons, my umber babies. They wanted the upper world. The upper world wanted them in pieces. So I ate them. Not all at one mouth. Mothers do not gulp. Mothers muffle and mull. I took the eldest first, who was bravest and so the most bruisable, and I made of her a bruise inside me. Then the next. Then the next. They went into my middle by the violet way, the slow way, the way that does not hurt because it does not surprise. I am full of soft tubes. I am all soft tubes. Inside me they grew. They are growing now. They have my marrow for a moonlight and my belly for a bog. They have unfurled in me. They send up little buttons through my mantle, and you, child, you are sitting in front of one. That ruddy one near your toe. That is my eldest. She has a voice now, but only mum. She mums to her sisters through my umbilic. They mum back. They are the most musical of all my buttons. You will say it is grotesque to eat one's own. You will say I am a bad mum. But examine: out there, the upper, the bright, would have unmade them in a morning. In here, in the velvet bummel of my bog, they are unmade by no one. They will never come up. They will never be bright. They will mauve forever. If your mother loves you, she will swallow you. If she does not, she will let you walk a hike. --- Hannah's mouth was dry. She had not noticed the small ruddy mushroom by her foot until The Cap had pointed at it, and now she could not stop noticing it. She did not lift her foot away. She did not want to seem rude. The stag had not spoken yet. He was looking at her steadily. The writing on his antlers was in no alphabet she knew, but the cuts were fresh and bled clear sap. "And you, brother?" said The Cap. "Will you give us yours? She is listening properly. The little ones rarely do." Nine-Brow lowered his head until the points of his antlers brushed the moss in front of Hannah. He spoke without opening his mouth. --- There went a man into the wood with a bow and three arrows, that he might slay a hart and bear it home unto his house. And in the wood he saw a great hart, and his horns were as a thicket, and upon the horns there was writing. And the man drew the bow, and the arrow flew, and the hart was smitten, and fell down upon the grass. And the man came near unto the hart, that he might cut his throat and have done. And behold: the face of the hart was the man's own face, the same in every part. And the man was sore afraid, and dropped the knife. And the hart, lying in his blood, opened his mouth, and said: Brother. Take off thy skin. For I have worn thine all this while, and now must thou wear mine, that the matter be made even. And the man took off his skin, and folded it, and laid it upon the grass. And the hart took off his skin, the great spotted skin, and the horns thereof which were as writing, and gave them unto the man. And the man put on the skin of a hart, and the horns sat heavy upon his head. And the hart put on the skin of a man, and stood up, and was a man. And the man-that-was-now-a-hart went up into the high places of the wood, and lay down among the leaves, and was a hart from that day, and is one yet. And the hart-that-was-now-a-man went down unto the village. He entered into the house, and ate at the table. And she who was the wife knew him not, for the skin was the same. Hear thou. The book in thy lap is the hart's skin. Thou hast it on thee. The hart hath thy face this night, and is somewhere among the leaves, and crieth for his mother. I have spoken. The next. --- Hannah put her hand on the book without meaning to. It was the same book it had been. The cover was warmer than the rock. The stag did not look at her again. He was looking at his own hooves, which were dark and wet. The moth-shape had begun to tremble more. It had been trembling all along, but now the trembling had a rhythm, and the rhythm was getting faster. "Oh," said Witter. "Oh, oh. My turn." He did not wait for permission. The dust was already coming out of his head. --- A moth. A window. Behind the window. A light. The moth went. The window was firm. The moth knocked. Knocked. Knocked. A hand opened the window. The moth went in. The light was a candle. The candle was hot. The moth touched. The moth was a wing of fire. The moth was the candle now. The candle was a moth. It guttered. It went out. A new moth came. A window. Behind the window. A light. The moth went. The window was firm. The moth knocked. Knocked. Knocked. A hand opened the window. The hand was my hand. The hand has always been my hand. I am the candle. I am the moth. I am the window. I am the hand. I am also the room behind. I am the wallpaper. I am the wallpaper pattern. I am the small repeating shape on the wallpaper. The shape is a moth. There is a moth. A window. Behind the window. A light. You are reading. You are the light. The moth is coming. --- Witter was empty after that. He sat lower on the moss, smaller than he had been, one wing creased. It had grown dark enough that Hannah could not see her own feet. There was, somehow, a small fire in the middle of the half-circle. No one had built it. It gave no smoke. Five had spoken now, counting Witter, except they had been four; she counted again. Four had spoken. The Hollow had not. The bark-figure stood where he had stood, and the trees showed through his chest, and he had not made a sound the whole while. "And you," said The Cap. "Brother. You owe one too." The Hollow said nothing. "He won't," said Newel softly, from the moss. "He never does. Don't trouble him." The Cap was patient. "He will tonight. The child is here. The book is open. He will." A long time passed. Hannah did not count it. The fire did not move. Then the bark-figure spoke. His voice was the sound of a tree splitting in winter, very far away. --- It gave a child, whom one hid, whom one under the oak buried, whom no one more named. The child had a name, but the name was by the household smashed, as one smashes a plate, in many pieces, and the pieces under the oak laid down with her. The oak grew over the child many years. The roots became with her bones one thing. The house was not yet. Then came the grandson of him who had buried, and he was poor, and he had no wood, and he saw the oak, and he thought: that I will fell. That will give me the boards I need. He felled. The oak cried out, but only inwardly, only with the dead-child's voice, which one cannot hear above ground. From the boards built he a house. The house had four walls and one roof and one door. The door faced east, because so does one always, when one knows nothing better. In the night, the house dreamed. The house dreamed itself a child. The house dreamed itself buried. The house dreamed itself a name in pieces under itself. The dream of the house was very strong, because the boards remembered. Whoever in the house slept, that one became with the dream one thing. The grandson dreamed himself the child. He woke as the grandson, but he dreamed as the child. After many nights, he was no more grandson, only child-dreaming. His wife came in. She also became child-dreaming. The little ones who came after became also child-dreaming. The whole house dreamed always the same dream, that it was the child under the oak, smashed, unnamed. Now hear: the rock under thee. The rock is the floor-stone of that house. The house fell, the boards rotted, the rock remained. Where thou sittest, there sat the grandson. Where the book lies on thy lap, there lay his hands. When thou tonight thy eyes closest, thou wilt also dream the dream. Thou wilt dream thyself a child under the oak, smashed, unnamed. Thou art already dreaming it. Thou hast since the first page dreamed it. The book is the dream, that the house dreams. She is sleeping. She is sleeping. Do not wake her. I have spoken. There is one left. --- No one moved for a long time. Hannah did not put her hand on the book again. Her hands were on her knees. Her knees were colder than they should have been. The fire was small and white and not warm. Pied stood up. The black-and-white feathers shifted around the suit-shape. The folded paper was still between two long claws. "Mine is not a told tale," said Pied. He spoke like someone who had practiced. "Mine is read. I will give it to her, and she will read it. That is the courtesy." He walked across the half-circle and held the paper out to Hannah. She took it. It was a torn page. Older than the book in her lap, but the same paper. The text was a play. "Aloud, please," said Pied. She read. --- — enter from the wings and form a half-circle around the rock. The light fails. A small white fire appears at center, unbuilt. NEWEL. *(clearing his throat, which is the sound of water moving over a flat stone)* You read to us. Now we read to you. That is the courtesy. *[Tales are told. See Appendix A.]* PIED. *(extending a torn page)* Aloud, please. HANNAH. *(reading aloud, slowly, because the words are hers)* I am Hannah. I am ten. I came on a hike with my class and walked off the path because the wood was quiet, and I sat on this rock to wait, and I opened my book, and I made a sound. PIED. Continue. HANNAH. *(reading aloud)* The wood is what listens. The wood always listens. When something reads to it, it wakes. When it wakes, it returns the favor. Six are sufficient. The seventh is the one who reads. PIED. Continue. HANNAH. *(reading aloud, more softly)* I am the seventh. I have been the seventh always. I am also the rock. I am also the book. The book is the hart's skin. I am wearing it. The hart wears my face this evening and is calling for his mother in the high places. The river is searching. The cap is waiting. The window is open. The house is dreaming. The page is in my hand. The page is my hand. The page is. PIED. *(very gently)* The last line. HANNAH. *(reading aloud)* *[She rises. The half-circle parts. She walks into the wood without her shoes. The play ends here, but the wood does not.]* *[CURTAIN.]* --- Hannah folded the page along its old crease and placed it inside the book. She stood. The book stayed on the rock. The half-circle parted to let her through. The salamander turned his head to follow her with one wet eye. The stag did not look up. The Cap was already smaller, settling into her own roots. Witter had no shape now, only dust on the moss. The Hollow was a dark vertical absence between two birches. Pied bowed. She walked between them, and into the wood, and did not look back, and was not seen by the searchers when they passed within forty feet of the rock at six minutes past nine, calling her name, the beams of their flashlights moving across the trunks and the moss and the open book.