“Young lady?”

The girl shuddered, again caught off guard by the formality the man, Lochlann, used with her. But why should it bother her? Why did everything bother her? She wished she could ask Mel, but the instrument had refused to speak with her since they had left the fairy door behind.

“Young lady, are you okay,” asked Lochlann.

How like him, she thought, to worry more about another than his treasure in her hands. But how did she know that? How could she assume something like that about a person she had only just met?

“It’s nothing, really. Anyway, since this belongs to you, I should give this back,” she said, holding out the hammer. As she did, she felt as though someone were twisting her insides.

Something was wrong.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes,” the girl replied, though the twisting was now turning into foreboding. What was this? What was going on? Her voice almost rose to a shout. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Now just take this thing already!”

Her hands trembled. A pit formed in her stomach. Ringing echoed in her brain, and her heart quivered.

This is the end.

That thought thundered into her mind, further shaking her. The end of what? Her journey? Yes. Yes, that was true, but what else? Her ambition? Her directionless wandering? Yes. What else. Her suffering? Yes. It should be. Her searching? O-of course. Her sorrows? But what else! What else! What of the emptiness? Why did she need to return this hammer? Why had she traveled so far and so long? For what reason did she seek this hammer?

Lochlann stared a bit longer at the girl’s face and then at her unsteady hands.

Why had she set out in the first place?

He reached out.

What was the point?

His eyes glanced back at her, those foggy, starless eyes. The sad eyes turning laugh lines to creases. Those eyes shadowed and tired. Those eyes without spark, without laugher, only grief.

Why was everything so wrong?

His hands touched hers. And she yanked away.

Those empty eyes now widened, as did her own. She looked down at the hammer clenched close to her chest, and then back at the confused eyes. Her mouth opened, but she closed it without speech before open-ing it again. Fighting the emotion building in her throat, she gasped, “I-I can’t! I can’t!”

“What?”

“I don’t know! But… but I just can’t!”

She grabbed Mel and her bag and bolted out the door, the man inside weakly calling her name after her. Water and mud splashed under her as she ran, ran back to the forest.

It was wrong! It was all wrong! Somehow, it was all wrong! There wasn’t any point!

“Wrong…,” she whispered between gulping breath. “It’s all wrong! That’s not what I wanted. That’s not—it’s not what I—”

Her voice rose to a scream. “This isn’t what I wanted! It’s wrong! It’s all wrong!”

Sobbing, she crashed through trees and brush, branches scraping and tearing, the hammer clutched close. She ran. She ran until she came across a waterway and stumbled on the loose riverbed. She fell with a splash, swallowing water through her gasping mouth. Coughing and sputtering and with blood lightly swirling away from scratches across her body, she looked up. At a bend in the river stood a familiar willow tree. Off in the east, the first beams of sunlight crept over the treetops, bathing the tree in a crown of gold and gilded emeralds. Its knotted, twisted bark became an elegant garment, and the water dripping from leaf and branch glistened like stars.

With aching limbs, the girl dragged herself out of the water. She stumbled toward the willow, wincing as she stepped on the foot she had slipped on. As she came to the base of the tree, she collapsed.

Exhaustion overpowered her. She had not slept in close to a day, and after traveling through three fairy doors, trudging through mud and forest, fighting through her moon curse, and her flight, she had not a drop of strength left. Her vision faded, and as the daybreak darkened, she whispered in her mind.

“Please… this isn’t what I wanted. Please… please, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”