Chapter 47: The Old Witches

I say that 'something' caught me, but the term 'someone' might be more accurate. Things like the difference between those two words were blurring a little bit at this point, fading from consciousness as I was. Though it wasn't entirely my fault that physics was misbehaving. After all, magic never makes things easy.

I digress. The thing that caught me was none other than the Elm tree. I don't know how I recognized it--her--because she didn't look anything like a tree. I simply knew that she was the Elm.

She had dark hair and olive skin. Her eyes, a light hazel, were flecked with gold and amber. She wore lilac colored robes that I didn't know the age of but certainly didn't belong in this century.

"Thank you." I said, as she helped me to my feet. We were in a forest, I think. Shadowy, flickering outlines of trees surrounded us, and the dappled sunlight that filters through a canopy lit our faces.

"Words are... hard," she said slowly. "I haven't spoken... long time. Don't need to."