She miaowed conversationally, pressing her head into his hand with abandon. Her tail flicked a little, and she seemed very pleased with the arrangement herself. Meanwhile, the forest was growing darker and darker, the deeper they traveled into it, and little sparks of light would wink in and out now and then from the bank, or float over the stream, willow-the-wisps or lightening bugs or something.

There were stakes, now, too, shoved into the mud of the banks, hung with ragged clothes now and then. Nothing else, just the tatters of abandoned clothes, fluttering in the slight breeze. But no sign of who might have planted them.