Chapter II

  The Spirits

  It was the first day of the new year, the one hundredth of the Sixth Age. The date was the first of the month of Nubye, which means “clouds”, and heralds the first great rains over Remex and Bangye-Rua. The home-owners had fortified themselves against the coming torrent, and anyone who had a field prepared for the first rice-planting.

  Besides all that, it was Vito’s eighteenth birthday!

  When he woke, he prepared his list of things to do in his head. His father had told him when he was very little to always make a list, or he’d lose things. First was to get dressed. Second was to go to school and take his exam. He had wanted to celebrate his birthday first, but his mother had wisely advised that if they did, she wouldn’t be able to feed her goats on time, not to mention any friends he might want to invite would still be in school, and their parents might not be as receptive to skipping as she.

  Vito planned to invite Camai, Diggi, and Sria when he got to class. They’d already suspect they were on the list, but it would be good to make sure they knew they were invited. Third and last, then, was to return home and host the party. Vito and his mother lived in a small hovel of spotted plaster over wood, but it would serve competently as the venue. Besides, on Bangye-Rua one could expect no better. There had been no large dwellings, kings, or nobles for many centuries, only the school and its surrounds were left from those days. Nearly everyone’s home looked like the one Cione and Vito’s father had built— small, quaint, functional.

  Now that the list had been made, it was time to execute its contents. Vito peeled his covers off himself. His surrounds were so humid that his skin felt like a frog’s. He looked at his naked body in his small mirror. He had to back up slightly to capture his whole self. He did not look like the people native to Bangye-Rua.

  Cione and her folk, the Bangye-Ruans, were a golden-skinned people, with light hair and greyed eyes— either totally grey, or brown or green greying into desaturated tones as the iris raced away from the pupil. His skin, on the other hand, was more like chocolate than like gold, and his eyes, while a little greyed, burst with a deep, exotic lavender shade.

  No one on Bangye-Rua but he had brown skin. No one but he had purple eyes. His ears as well, were long and came to points, instead of being round like the island natives. No one on Bangye-Rua but he had pointed ears. No one on the island shared these traits because his father was a foreigner, from the land of Serrai-Rua far to the south. His father’s complexion was as dark as coal, his eyes the color of an anemone bloom, and ears as sharp as a blade. He had given Vito a measure of his looks. He had also given him the scar across his left eye, and another along his collarbone. There, his skin was a lighter shade. The scars had gotten longer as his body had grown.

  Vito liked that he was different, though some found him strange. Even his friends couldn’t help but comment on his appearance from time to time, and with increasing frequency as they all had gotten older. They sometimes asked him if he was constantly hot, since his skin was darker, or how he had gotten his scars. He hoped that today, on his birthday, they could refrain. Vito put on a pair of pants his mother had made for him of black sheep’s wool, and a cotton shirt she had bought on the docks of Onagio. He had socks sewn out of goat hair, which would need to be replaced soon. This was one of three outfits he owned, which was more than most unmarried villagers. Next, he took the goatskin holster he had crafted for his book off the floor where he’d left it, and slipped his book into it. He tied a rope around his waist, and the holster to the rope. He secured it tightly, wondering if the extra weight on his right leg would make it stronger than his left. He went to his bedroom door and entered into the main chamber of his home. From there he went to the front door, unlocked it, and opened it to the world outside. It was an overcast day, and it would likely start raining again soon.

  He got one shoe on and then remembered his pen. They’d probably have one for him at school since many students didn’t own one, but he also knew that they didn’t have as many spare pens as they did students, meaning if too many came without one, he might end up penless. Even though it was annoying, he kicked off the shoe he’d gotten on, and went back in to get his pen, tucking it behind his ear. He could put it in his pocket, but he had an irrational fear that the pen would somehow get ink all over his leg, which was of course impossible, since the pen before being dipped in ink was simply a shaved shard of pig bone, inert in every way. The ink itself was all at school, and his mother kept only a single small vial at home. Regardless, he’d had the nightmare many times that the pen would suddenly burst with ink, somehow stored within from prior use, and explode everywhere, permanently tattooing his entire thigh. So, he tucked it behind his ear.

  With this taken care of, he returned to the shoes, this time not to be cheated.

  Vito was a fast walker, and he quickly made up the time he’d spent going back for his pen. He trod along the dirt footpath, carved by the feet of countless Bangye-Ruan men, women, and flocks of livestock. There was no name for where the road went. Cities in Remex to the west had names: Blindin, Onagio, Oualn, but here, the central gathering area was nowhere near that size. They just called theirs: “Town”.

  There was nearly nothing there. A fire pit, a home or two owned by the oldest families, their farms and ranches, a few relics from the first settlers to arrive on the island, eight hundred years ago, and, of course, the schoolhouse. That was where the road led: a nameless collection of huts.

  As Vito was walking there he came upon his friends: Camai, Diggi, and Sria, as well as another student, Halkh, and their teacher, Mr. Quaglione.

  “Hey!” he called out to the group.

  “Hey!” the students called back.

  “Ah, Vito!” said Mr. Quaglione. “You’re usually to class before I am,” he added with a wink and a smile.

  Vito chuckled.

  “Was almost out the door before I forgot my pen!” he told his teacher.

  Mr. Quaglione nodded. “That’ll do it…”

  “You feel ready for the exam?” Camai asked his fellows.

  Diggi, Halkh and Sria all answered confidently:

  “Uh-hmm.”

  “Yeah!”

  “‘Course… It’s not the Paragon Examination or anything serious like that…”

  Vito was far less bombastic, “I didn’t study this morning but I did last night so I’ll probably do okay… I think I know most of the stuff.”

  Mr. Quaglione laughed, “it isn’t you who should be worried, Vito, you always do well… I’m not sure Diggi studies at all!” he snorted with laughter. The students laughed with him, all except Diggi, of course.

  Vito couldn’t help but chuckle, though he gave Diggi a contrite look which he hoped conveyed his regret in doing so. He knew that in other places, teachers were expected to act very particularly. Such expectations were unheard of on the island. Some kids even brought Mr. Quaglione sweets or money so that he would give them an answer or two, or recommend them as apprentices to wealthy farmers or ranchers. His own mother had hired one of his recommendations, Inigo, who had thankfully turned out to be somewhat competent. Many other employers hadn’t been so lucky.

  Vito respected Mr. Quaglione’s knowledge, but not his character. There were few opportunities on the island, Vito knew this well. The Spiritwood choked most of the land, and none would dare oppose it. Mr. Quaglione was not only giving unqualified individuals chances to receive work they had not earned, but stealing these precious few chances from those who were truly deserving. The scarcity of work on Bangye-Rua made this arrangement all the more lucrative. No one would even consider trying to clear new land to make their own fortune— it would be suicide.

  Vito wondered if the older man knew what damage he was doing to businesses, or if only Vito was aware of how deep the disruption really went. It had become a big problem, with many employers ceasing to consider recommendations since their value had been so polluted. He wondered too, if it was unusual for a person of his age to deeply consider actions and their broad consequences in this way, and then he felt prideful.

  The six of them strolled down the dusty road. On either side of them was the Spiritwood, which their ancestors had fought great spirit-wars to carve paths through. The earth was thirsty from the final fiery wind of the unusually long dry season. Yesterday’s rain had already been drunk up by the plants and the ground. Ahead of them was a prime example of this: the Patch.

  The Patch was a little swampy pond which used to prevent ancient Bangye-Ruans from easily getting to Town. A long time ago, a path of dirt had been sunk into it, and maintained, making a muddy bridge over the bog. However, over the unending dry season, the whole swamp had dried up, leaving a brittle bridge of dirt over a pit of silt which led straight into the Spiritwood on either side. No one could remember the last time this had happened, and all had expected it to have been filled again with rainwater by morning. It had not. All six of the party stopped for a second, looking at how brittle the bridge seemed, how close the ancient trees had grown on the left and right.

  “Let’s look for a trail,” said Mr. Quaglione.

  The children nodded, and began examining the tree line on either side of them. Sometimes, smaller trails had been carved out by the ancients, and while less well-maintained, they were still much safer than walking through the Spiritwood proper. They looked for anything that might represent a path: a cut tree, trimmed foliage, but they weren’t hopeful. If there was a path here, they’d likely have seen it before, since they walked this way to school five days a week. Not to mention, if another path had existed, then there would’ve been no reason to maintain a bridge: the people would have simply broadened the other path and went around it. After twenty minutes of searching, it was clear there was no alternate route.

  Mr. Quaglione tested the bridge by putting one of his feet onto it. It held. He exhaled.

  “Do you think you could climb down into the pit and then up the other side?” he asked the students.

  Vito looked down and across. There were no handholds, and the dirt was loosely packed— it looked like it might crumble if someone tried to slot their hand into it.

  “I don’t think that’ll work…” said Vito.

  His teacher nodded in agreement.

  “Yes… that dirt doesn’t look robust enough to climb.” He looked across the bridge, his eyes tracing its mound-like shape. The base of the bridge was a hill of dirt, with the main walkway protruding slightly upwards like a ridge. If someone lost their balance on the narrow strait, they could easily slide down the hill to the bottom of the pit, over ten feet down. It probably wouldn’t kill them unless they landed badly, but they’d also be lying face to face with the Spiritwood. Getting them out might be a problem too. A person in health could easily scramble back up the hill, but if the faller was injured, this could present a dire problem. Immobilized, inches from the Spiritwood— it was a story that did not usually end well.

  Mr. Quaglione gave the situation one last once-over. The bridge, the Spiritwood, the pit.

  “We’ll go one at a time, single file, so as not to put too much stress on any one part of the bridge. I’ll go first.” He put his foot onto the dry, cracked surface, and then his other foot. He began to slowly walk across. Next went Camai, then Halkh. Vito went third, putting his hands out to either side to help his balance. Next came Sria, and finally Diggi. As they reached the middle, Vito nearly lost his balance, and called out to Mr. Quaglione,

  “We should just walk on the side of the hill!”

  “No! It’s too steep, and the ground isn’t as tightly packed, it could easily shift under you!”

  Vito considered doing it anyway, but was too afraid to contradict his teacher. He felt like this way was more dangerous, but he decided to, as he had many times before, respect his teacher’s knowledge.

  When Mr. Quaglione had nearly reached the other side, Vito felt a piece of the bridge crumple underfoot. He tried to lean away, but that only caused the chunk of packed dirt to come fully loose, and he felt himself falling.

  “Help!!” he screamed as he fell.

  “Vito!” cried Sria.

  His body struck the side of the hill and he began rolling down the slope, picking up speed. He tried to brace himself against the hillside with his hands, but he only scooped up loose dust. When he caught sight of the bridge again, he saw Mr. Quaglione holding the other students back from reaching him.

  “No!” their teacher commanded them.

  “HELP ME!!” Vito screamed.

  No one moved. They were either too afraid, or too under the thrall of Quaglione’s command. Vito soared into the bottom of the ditch, still with momentum to spare, throwing him over the lip of the pit and into the Spiritwood.

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  “AHH!” he shouted, smacking into a bush. He was facing the ground, but he heard Mr. Quaglione say:

  “Leave him, he’s with the spirits now!”

  He heard the children protest, unsure who was saying what.

  “We can’t just leave him!”

  “What if he dies?!”

  “What’ll happen to him!?”

  “Oh my… but how…”

  Mr. Quaglione cut them all short.

  “There’s nothing that can be done now! Get across, quickly! The spirits are not to be trifled with!”

  Vito heard five sets of footsteps scrambling away as he pushed himself off the ground weakly. He was covered in dust and leaves. He got onto his knees, then pushed himself up so he could stand. All was quiet around him. The trunks of the trees were wider than he was tall, and the bush he had run into was heavy with leaves bigger than his head. The ground was littered with sticks, and a few animal bones. It was clear no human had come here in a long, long time. He began breathing heavily. There was no sign of anything supernatural around him, but the stillness, the darkness, made him feel uneasy. He ran towards the pit again, planning to return to the Patch and find some way to climb back up. But the more he ran, the farther away the light seemed to get, even though it was ahead of him. Soon, he did not know where he was. There was no sign of the lip of the pit, or the bush he had crashed into. He picked a huge leaf off of himself and tried to match it with any of the plants around him, but it wasn’t similar to any of them. He looked around and swore that when he turned, he wasn’t in the same place he was before.

  “Where—!” he cried out in frustration. He leaned up against one of the massive trunks.

  “Where am I…” he felt tears begin to run down his face. His “friends” had deserted him to his fate. He considered that they might be nearby and could hear him, and shouted again,

  “Help!! Help!! Don’t leave!!” There was no answer, and the sounds seemed to die preternaturally fast. Vito saw some of the leaves swirl before him in the wind, and jumped. He began to back away from the trees. He heard a low noise emanating from all around him. It seemed to be coming from everywhere. Whispers: thousands of hushed voices were talking over one another. He looked up into the trees, and some kind of five-limbed creature darted out of sight.

  “Who’s there!”

  No one answered. Vito’s eyes moved between every plant in sight, looking for anything which might be the origin of the sounds. As he did, he noticed that one of the trees had strange features, with each leaf seemingly engraved with golden paint, depicting scenes of events unknown to him. Vito could not see them clearly because they were too high up from him, but the figures in their tapestries did not seem human in shape. A squirrel ran up the length of the tree, and Vito caught sight of its mouth— it had fangs. He felt an undulating vibration underneath him, as if something huge was burrowing through the earth. He jumped back.

  “Ah!”

  He prepared to run, but felt something touch his arm, wrapping around his wrist. It was a leafless branch, wrinkled and cracked with age.

  “YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE COME TO GRANDFATHER OAK’S WOOD.” He heard a booming, ancient voice say. He saw the trees around him bend and sway as if moved by the wind, but all Vito felt was a lazy breeze.

  “WE ANCIENTS WALK THIS REALM, AND WE KEEP IT FOR OUR OWN.”

  The tendril tightened until Vito couldn’t even wiggle his hand.

  “Let me go!” he shouted.

  “YOU WILL DIE HERE.”

  Vito heard this and screamed, tears falling from his eyes. He wished that he hadn’t fallen, that the bridge could’ve just held out a minute more. He pulled as hard as he could at the branch, trying to get free, but it wouldn’t budge. He tried stabbing it with his pen, but it did nothing and shattered. He heard a noise, and looked up from his task. From the darkness of the woods a mannequin-like creature appeared, moving unnaturally, as if it were a puppet. Another thing morphed out of a nearby bush of poison ivy, a wooden woman with wings like a butterfly, horns like roots, and hair made of dead leaves. A frog hopped from the underbrush, and slowly grew, its eyes bulging until they burst out on wriggling, worm-like stalks. It stood like a man, and grew a barbed tail like a bush of nettles. Two tusks grew from its bottom lip, and a second mouth opened on its belly. The three spirits mortified Vito, and he cried out,

  “Please, don’t hurt me! I fell in here by mistake!”

  The three didn’t pay any attention to his plea. The mannequin spoke.

  “We don’t care much why you’re here, little creature, we’re Envy…”

  “Lust!” said the wooden woman.

  “And Disgust!” said the frog.

  Vito was confused at first, but came to understand that these were their names. Lust turned to Envy,

  “Why’s it so small? Is it a midget or something?”

  Envy shrugged, “I dunno. What do you think, should we just scare it away this time?”

  Disgust’s stomach-mouth drooled green fluid. “I’m hungry! Let’s eat it!” it said.

  Vito inhaled sharply at hearing that. He undid the latch to his holster and took out his book, beginning to bludgeon the branch, trying to get it to let him go.

  Lust ignored Disgust’s suggestion. “You know Envy, we don’t have to do that stupid introduction every time we find a human, it’s not like they even understand us anyway.”

  Envy was about to reply when Vito spoke.

  “I can understand you! Stay away!”

  Suddenly, Vito saw the three spirits’ faces turn to shock. They cried out, and the branch released Vito, curling back to the tree it had extended from.

  “Eep!” shouted Envy, Lust, and Disgust.

  “WHAT THE!” he heard the booming voice say. With his wrist free he bolted, running as fast as he could away from the beings, his book tucked under his arm. As he crashed through piles of dead leaves and old spider webs, he heard a fearful shout behind him:

  “It knew our language!?”

  Vito didn’t know where he was running, only that he had to get away from the evil spirits that were trying to kill him. The thought briefly crossed his mind: “bad”, not “evil”, but the distinction hardly seemed to matter now, evil or bad, they were trying to murder him. When he could run no more, he found that he had come to a hill of dead grass. He huffed, trying to suck in enough air. He slipped the book back into its holder, and latched it. He looked around wildly, a leaf shaking from his shoulder as he did.

  He saw that, at the top of the hill, was a tree of black bark, with violet leaves so dark as to be nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the tree. In the crook of a branch sat a humanoid figure, completely black in color. It had no mouth, no eyes, no ears, nor any texture to its skin. It looked like it was made of shaped black water, it was so smooth. It was about three feet tall.

  Vito remembered that no human-looking figures had appeared on the leaves of the tree that had attacked him, and since all the grass was dead here, and the tree was strange looking, Vito guessed that this spirit might be of a different sort than those he had just encountered, perhaps oppositional to them. He considered that Envy, Lust, and Disgust had also been human in shape, but still felt that his analysis of this being a different sort of spirit was correct. He was too tired and deranged with fear to think straight in any case.

  From the other part of the forest, he had felt a sense of ancientness, a primordial terror, as though the whole forest teemed with eyes. Here he felt calm, sedated, as if there wasn’t a thing that mattered in the world. He caught his breath as he slowly trekked up the small slope. He looked over his shoulder, didn’t see anyone chasing him. When he turned back, he saw that he had been mistaken about the black figure having no features. Its perfectly spherical head now housed two yellow eyes, and a huge, green-lipped mouth full of black teeth. He stopped. The creature’s eyes and mouth left its head, attached at the ends of tendrils of dark, dripping oil. The tentacles extended towards him until they were close, then stopped, arranging themselves into a swaying mock-face.

  “What kind of spirit are you?” the creature asked in a deep, honeyed voice.

  “I’m…” Vito was about to say that he was a human, but thought better of it.

  The spirit’s mouth inhaled sharply, and Vito took a step back. It seemed to chew the air it had sucked in, making savory sounds as it munched.

  “You look like a human, but I’ve seen them before, and you’re too small to be one. You smell like a goat…”

  Vito turned, but the eyes and mouth snaked around him.

  “Are you a goat?” it asked.

  Vito looked at his socks, made of goat hair, and the holster which held his book, made of goatskin. His shoes were also made of goatskin, cut from the exact same hide his holster was. He didn’t know what to say.

  “No… I’m not…”

  “Then maybe you’re a goat spirit? Or maybe you’re an Aethra who was once a goat? Surely there’s some goat in you?”

  “I… don’t think so.”

  The spirit’s eyes were getting closer and closer, and Vito backed up, towards the dark tree. “Can you help me find the way out? I want to leave this forest,” he said.

  “No… well… yes, maybe I can. But we’ll have to go together. Won’t you go on the journey with me?”

  Vito narrowed his eyes, and stopped backing up, seeing that the eyes and mouth were shepherding him towards the trunk of the tree. He stood his ground, and the eyes and mouth came an inch before his face.

  “Who are you?” he asked the black spirit.

  “I’m the joiner. I love to join things. Bring them together, bind them as one. Sometimes I pull things apart, but I always fit the pieces back better than I found them.”

  Vito tried to turn around and walk down the hill again, but every way he turned the eyes and mouth would block his path. He feared the power of the spirit, and didn’t try to push them aside. “What kinds of things do you… join,” he asked, trying to distract it.

  “Little lost goats when I can get them.” Vito felt a chill run up his spine. “Won’t you go on the journey with me?” it asked, its teeth chattering as it spoke. Vito ducked underneath the eyes and mouth, and ran.

  “No!” he shouted back.

  The eyes and mouth launched forwards, pursuing him.

  “I think you will.”

  Vito tried to outrace the tendrils, but they were too quick, and wrapped around his middle, tightening to hold him fast. Once again, he was trapped.

  “You will join with me,” the creature said, dragging Vito towards the tree. He waved his hands around, flailing to try to escape, and ended up shaking the thing’s tentacle, causing its grip to loosen. He worked his hand under the stalk which connected the thing’s mouth to its head, and began prying it up. The mouth gritted its teeth,

  “Stop moving, it will be painless. We will become one.” The thing began bringing him towards the bark of the tree. The wooden surface began to coalesce and ripple.

  Vito was not going in there. His fear had lessened in lieu of anger— he had already been grabbed by a tree spirit’s branch today, and was no longer paralyzed at the prospect. He was still afraid, but this time, he knew it was possible to escape. He pounded with his fists, throwing his body this way and that, and found that slowly but surely, he was overpowering the spirit’s grip. Its disjointed mouth let out a growl. It lifted Vito into the air, waving him around to try to dizzy him, but he merely closed his eyes and kicked out his feet, causing the tentacles’ movement to become even more erratic and confused. It misjudged his strength, and when he threw his weight all to one side, the tendril and he went hurtling off into the forest. Vito felt something collide with him.

  A nasally voice was yelling at him:

  “Hey! Watch where you’re going, punk! Don’t you know who I am?!”

  The dark appendage began trying to drag Vito back to the hill of dead grass, but he held onto the trunk of a tree. He breathed heavily as he looked right and left for the speaker. He finally looked down, and saw a small creature, about the size of a young child. Its skin was blue, and it had horns like a bull arcing up from either side of its head. Its eyes were rings of green on a yellow canvas, it had stumpy little arms ending in three-fingered hands, and it had no legs, only a wispy column of blue smoke trailing from its waist. But its most absurd trait was its clothing. It wore wrappings of black linens bound tightly around its chest, a gold ring on its right horn, and a neat little scarlet scarf wrapped around its neck. “It must be a spirit,” thought Vito. In any other place, he’d have judged it to be some entertainer’s discarded puppet.

  “Help me!” he begged the little thing.

  It crossed its little arms in what it clearly thought was an intimidating show of defiance.

  “I’m not helping you with any-Thing till you apologize for running into me!”

  Vito was in distress too great to argue with it.

  “I’m sorry! Please help, this thing’s trying to kill me!”

  The scarfed spirit’s eyes suddenly grew wide and then narrowed.

  “Wait a minute, but I’m Thing… did this guy tell you that he was me?”

  Vito didn’t understand.

  “What?” he asked, starting to lose his grip on the tree trunk.

  The scarfed spirit nodded as if it had learned some piece of valuable information.

  “Don’t you worry little goat, I’ll set this all straight,” it said.

  Vito gave the horned spirit a confused look before the tentacle ripped him from the tree and began waving him in the air once more.

  “I’m not a goat!” he shouted as he returned to beating and prying at the oily tendril.

  Suddenly there was a blur of blue smoke as the little scarfed spirit blazed through the air to meet the black tree on top of the hill.

  “Hey there pal, I heard what you’re up to! Didn’t think you’d be seeing the real Thing, did you… well… your days of identity theft are over!”

  The black figure in the tree grew a second mouth, and answered back,

  “What are you talking about. Go away, I’m busy.”

  As the two talked, Vito continued to fight the thing’s tentacle in the air, screaming and shouting as the black spirit whipped him this way and that.

  “Hey! I’m not done talking you! You better drop this whole act or—” the spirit with the scarf began to say, before the black one whipped him with one of its branches.

  “The goat is mine. Take it up with the Terror of Sleep or Arbiter if you don’t like it.”

  The horned spirit’s face briefly turned from blue to dark red. As red as its scarf.

  “Now you’ve done it!” it said. With an expression filled with rage, the blue spirit rose its right hand, which grew giant and clawed. It grabbed the long appendage that held Vito, and ripped it to shreds.

  Vito fell from the air, no longer held up.

  “Ahh!” he shouted, guessing his height to be over twenty feet in the air.

  But before he hit the ground, he felt the hand of the spirit with the scarf catch him, and close its fist around him, such that he could no longer see out, but not so much that he was harmed or could not move. He heard a terrible noise like the ripping of flesh, and then a monstrous bellow. He imagined that a dragon must roar as that spirit did. He shivered, and curled into a ball.

  After a few minutes, the fist unclosed, and he saw that the tree, the hill, and a few of the surrounding hills, had all been demolished. It had begun to rain. The giant hand tipped, and he slid onto the disturbed dirt. He saw that chunks of the hill were strewn about, and the terrain itself had been flattened. The tree was in three pieces, and black oil slowly dripped from its body like blood from a slaughtered animal. As Vito stood on the uneven ground, the scarfed spirit’s hand returned to its normal size, and it turned to him. Vito found the whole ordeal very incongruous. Looking at the little blue thing, and the scene surrounding it… he couldn’t imagine it being capable of such destruction. It looked so silly, so friendly.

  It stuck its right hand out to him, and Vito shook it.

  “I’m Vito, thank you,” he said.

  “I’m Thing, T-H-I-N-G. Got it memorized?”

  Vito blinked.

  “Yeah, sure thing,” was all he could think to say.

  “I’m surely Thing indeed! This poser really had you all mixed up big time… not unexpected though. I bet there’s a lot of spirits who wish they could have my strength,” it flexed its tiny arm, and a minuscule muscle appeared, “my smarts,” it massaged its bald head, “and my devastating good looks!” It ran its hand over its face, accidentally poking itself in the eye. “Ow…” it said.

  Vito gulped. He didn’t know whether this spirit was insane, or just odd. He concluded that whatever it was, it was already better than Grandfather Oak, Envy, Lust, Disgust, or the joiner — the black tree spirit.

  “Hey Thing, do you think you can help me leave this place? I didn’t come here on purpose, I fell in, and I can’t find the way out,” said Vito.

  Thing looked confused, “You fell into a hill? You gotta tell me how you managed that one…”

  “No no, I mean the Spiritwood. I was walking over a—”

  “OHHH,” Thing interrupted, “well jeez, why didn’t you just say that. Out of the Spiritwood, okay… hold on, why would you want to leave the Spiritwood? What if the humans are mean to you? Don’t you know it’s dangerous?”

  Vito blinked again.

  “I’m a human.”

  “What are you talking about, you’re a goat,” Thing said, as if it were a natural conclusion.

  “No, I’m not. See, I don’t walk on all fours, or have a beard, or eat grass—”

  Thing suddenly put a finger up.

  “HOLD IT, humans can eat grass too, they just don’t for some reason, so that doesn’t prove any-Thing.”

  Vito sighed, “but I don’t even look like a goat, just look at me!”

  Thing did as it was told, examining Vito very closely from head to toe.

  “Well, I guess your energy does have some hints of sheep, and cotton…”

  Vito got an idea. He kicked off one of his goatskin shoes. Thing recoiled in fear.

  “Oh what the— how did you do that! Your energy just totally changed!”

  Vito laughed. He laughed, and he laughed. It wasn’t because what had happened had been especially funny, but because he really needed to laugh after what had happened to him that day. His exposed sock got covered in mud, but he didn’t care. Eventually, Thing started laughing too, snorting and chuckling like a shrill piglet.