Author's Note: This is the revised/edited version of the prologue and first chapter. It's almost completely rewritten. This version is not beta read yet, but as soon as Anne reads it, I will repost. I just wanted you guys to get a feel for what I'm doing to the story. I've almost completely re-written it, so if you've already read it, maybe you'll feel like you're reading it for the first time? Feedback is much appreciated!


Merwyn

Prologue-

Merwyn stared up at the moon with silent watchful eyes. She examined each pore and crevice and gazed on in awe at the exchange of the silvery liquid tint melding with the inherently dull grey color of the moon's surface. An inquiring hand reached up toward the sky, fingers splayed wide as if she might cup the orb in her palms and cradle it as she would a tiny bird.

She did this sometimes, when she wanted company. She would imagine a face in the round, full orb of the moon, and it would give her a small measure of comfort to believe that she was not alone.

She had never seen another person that she could remember, nor heard another voice, and at the times when she thought the solitude would break her, she would go outside, and stare intently into the countenance of the moon, trying in vain to learn its secrets.

She had appeared suddenly in the midst of this strange and terrible forest, when she was but a child, and the passing of time had been incredibly slow; the hours faithfully marked in her mind. She had no memory of how she had gotten here, only the faint recollection of her name.

Her first concrete memories were of waking in the small wooden cottage that she still resided in, and looking out of the window and seeing the vast sea of stretching green, and she felt her stomach drop inside of her. She had known instinctively that she was completely alone, but she ran outside and called anyway. Her voice had been hoarse when she finally stopped screaming for someone to help her. She gazed into the forest, and saw how dense it was, and knew that she must venture into it. She had to know for sure if she was alone. if there was civilization somewhere in the depths of untamed wilderness .

Her small legs wobbled slightly as she walked forward and had the unsettling feeling of being enveloped by the massiveness of her surroundings. She did not remember how long she had wandered, and she had spent days, weeks trying to find an end to the forest. She could not, for it did not end. It was an infinite mass of branches and leaves. She was weary to her very bones by the time she decided to turn back toward the cottage, it was a place to sleep and be warm if nothing else.

She then realized with a sickening fear that she had wandered so far into the wood that she could barely navigate her way back to the cottage that was like a blemish upon the visage of an otherwise beautiful face. The cottage was tiny, with only one room. On the outside, the wooden frame was deeply distressed, cracking in places, with remnants of color staining the wood in erratic spots.

Her first night back in the cottage, she learned a terrifying lesson: the wood was never stagnant. It constantly changed and moved like the currents of the wind. She was lying down trying to fall asleep, and the forest usually a good hundred yards distance from the cottage had crept silently like a snake upon its belly up to the windows. It completely surrounded the small house, until there was no exit, no refuge from its overwhelming presence. She curled into fetal position on the bed, a trembling mass of flesh. The tangy stench of pine, burned at her nostrils.

Wooden branches furiously tapped against the window as if wind-blown, and she gaped in horror as spindly finger like shapes raked against the glass, trying to get in. Strange, willowy shadows danced menacingly up and down the walls. Disembodied voices echoed in the hollow of the room, until even the silence was deafening. She wasn't sure if she had actually heard the voices or if in her extreme terror, madness had descended upon her. She could not decide which the greater evil was: to be outside in the midst of the forest as these things were happening, or to be trapped inside, where there was no escape from them.

She woke the next morning, her hands clamped over her ears, her mouth open, lips curled up in terror. She had never been more frightened in her life, and that never happened again. But there were times when she almost wished something terrible would happen if only to break the awful silence resonating in her ears. There was no one to talk to, and the stillness of the forest was only broken by the occasional chirp of a bird, or the howling of a lone wolf. Her voice had long since fallen into disuse, and she only spoke in moments of pure joy, or moments of terror. This did not leave a large margin for speaking, and when she did speak, her voice sounded strange to her ears. Distant, somehow.

She longed for companionship. For someone to talk to, to share her thoughts with. She had so many questions, and no answers. There were not many things in the cottage, but there were a few books. So, Merwyn did in a sense know that there were other people in the world. Someone must have authored the stories that she read hungrily. But, they were just a glimpse into a world that she could only dream of, and never satisfied the hunger for a companion. But where were these other people that she ached to meet? And why could she not leave this damned forest?

Her loneliness had welled up inside of her until she could feel nothing else, and she did something that she was ashamed to remember. It had happened about three years ago, when the internal ache for the presence of someone else, for her solitude to end, became overwhelming. She peered morosely down at her arm. The white paper-thin skin was stretched taut over the blue green veins that spread like the roots of a tree down the length of her wrist. She wished to grab a knife and slash at the essence of her existence, and let the blood trickle warm and sticky down her skin and her solitude would be ended.

She had grabbed a knife, and pressed it purposefully into her tender flesh. Her hand trembled, unsure as the skin dented under the tip of the blade. A pink flush rose to her skin, a steady reminder of the life flowing of her. She hesitated at the sharp prick of the knife, and groaned inhumanely in half-crazed frustration. She couldn't do it. She launched the blade at the wall, and it hit with a loud thud, and clattered to the floor.

"Coward!" she hissed bitterly. She could not end her own life. She just couldn't. She would spend the remainder of her days alone, but she would live. A violent sob ripped from her lips. "Help me!" she called out. "God help me!" The sob wracked her shoulders, until exorcised. Then it was gone. "I don't want to be alone anymore," she whispered solemnly into the night, her voice a mere shadow.

That night had been a hard one to recover from, but she had done, it, and in a strange way had come to accept that she would live in the forest for the rest of her life. This would be her life, and she had to move on. She could not mourn what she did not know, and she did not know if there were any other people, or if there was a place other than the forest that she had come to despise.

Merwyn gave the moon one last languid glance, and turned back toward the house. The fireplace flickered, casting the windows in a comforting orange glow. The corner of her mouth rose into a faint smile, and she wrapped her arms tightly around herself as the wind began to pick up and nip at her fingertips. She closed the door quietly behind her, and crawled into the bed in the corner of the room and covered herself with blankets, making a sanctuary between her and the outside world. The wind tapped against the window for a few minutes, and then unsatisfied, left to call on some other place.

Chapter 1: A Stranger Calls

It was early morning when she awoke. The light from the square windows filtered into the room at odd angles, chopping up the room into bits of light and dark. She flopped back onto the bed with thud, and her arms flung up over her head. Then she heard it, a small crash and then a tiny "oof!"

Then silence again.

She sat up quickly, visibly startled and threw her blankets off her shivering body. There was a dark form in the opposite corner of the room, the only corner unburdened by furniture, but she could not quite make out a distinct identifying shape. Her feet quickly pressed against the hardwood floor, and she stood there, muscles tensed waiting for the ting to move.

It did not, it simply lay there lifelessly.

She gulped slowly, the saliva absent from her mouth making the swallow coarse and unpleasant. Her eyes widened unconsciously as the form began to tremble and come to life. It made more noises and then whimpered. Shaking more heavily, and gathering her courage around her, she called out to it, "Hello?" The word seemed almost foreign to her lips and she had to struggle a little when saying it.

The darkened figure, hiding in the last bit of dying shadow that graced the room, turned suddenly. It shot up to its feet, and the light shone upon it, revealing a face much like her own.

Human.

Her stomach dropped inside of her. So there were others like her! This thing, this person like her was so different, and so much the same. It had two hands, two arms, two legs. It had lips, and a nose, and eyes. And yet, it was taller than her, more heavily built, with broader shoulders, and more angular features. Its hair was short and dark golden brown much like the bark on trees in the wood. It had dark gray eyes that reminded her of the hazy, gloomy fog that heralded before a storm.

She tremulously backed away; both at once exultant that she had found another like herself, and frightened that this person would harm her somehow. These two emotions battled within her until she could stand it no longer. The curiosity and exultation won. "Who...are..." she paused, trying to remember the proper way to ask someone their name. She wasn't even sure that she had ever done it before. Her vocabulary was limited to that of a nine-year old self taught on a few books. Remembering, she inserted the last word, "you?"

The person standing tall opposite of her, shifted slightly, appraising her with his unsettling eyes. Her voice sounded odd, thick and distant, like that of a deaf person. She also talked a bit louder than necessary, and he wondered if she would even hear his reply. "Ruskon. My name is Ruskon."

Her eyebrows rose on the plane of her forehead, as she heard his voice. It too was very different from her own; it was deep and had a rich timbre to it.

He stared warily at this wild thing before him. Her eyes had an untamed looked painted in them, like she had long been fighting the decent into madness and the battle had scarred her and her eyes a somber green. She looked young, possibly in her late teens, he thought. Her entire body was taut, like she was waiting for him to make one false move, and she would bolt like a frightened deer out of the cottage and into wide open spaces. "Can you hear me?" he asked.

She gave him a distasteful look. "Yes."

"Oh. It's just that your voice sounds a bit… funny."

Merwyn had been by herself for ten long years, and during that time, the use of her voice had faded; without the benefit of being surrounded by language, she had lost the ability to hear herself when she talked. She sounded almost like a deaf person might, and the ability to speak normally again might only be gained back through hearing the way he pronounced his words, and intensive use of her voice.

She shrugged absently, and observed him silently; noting that his face was covered in tender green and purple bruises and a few cuts decorated his skin. She raised an eyebrow when she saw the garment that covered his bottom half. It completely encased his waist, and then continued to encompass each leg in cloth, and ended at his knees. His calves were covered in a thin white cloth that was soiled with various undeterminable substances and the fabric was torn in more than one place. Most unusual, she thought. She lifted her gaze, back to his face.

"Where are we?" he asked.

Her lips were awkward half moons as she tried to form the next words. "I do not… know."

Ruskon surveyed the cottage haphazardly. His eyes wide and stunned, and then he darted abruptly toward the door, and flung it wide open. It banged loudly against the wall and then swung shut. It only occurred to him after had begun running, that he had been amused that she looked frightened of him, and how he must of looked, running foolishly out of the cottage and into the wood! She must have thought him mad!

Merwyn was taken aback, and she followed after him without a second thought. She watched in astonishment as he careened violently toward the forest entrance, branches whacking angrily against his arms in protest. And then he was gone from sight.

She started after him, then thinking better of it and decided to wait for him on the front stoop. So many things were racing through her mind that they became a confused jumble of bits and pieces of thoughts.

Where had that person come from?

How did they get here?

Why did her voice sound funny?

She could not focus on anything, or one single answer. Her eyes were transfixed on the edge of the forest, waiting for the moment when the stranger would return.

Ruskon appeared through the trees a few minutes later, looking very dejected. She stood expectantly to her feet, and he approached her slowly, a look of dismay on his face.

"This forest… does it end?" his voice was thin and worn. "What's beyond it?"

She wasn't sure what he was saying to her, but she knew it was about the wood. She was silent for a moment too long, and Ruskon grew impatient.

"Well?" he irritably snapped.

Merwyn frowned at him, and held up a hand, a signal to wait. Patience was not one of Ruskon's strong traits, and he rudely tapped his foot as she collected her thoughts.

"It does not end," she finally said. "It goes on… forever."

"Unbelievable! This is totally unbelievable!" he screamed furiously. The harshness of his voice made Merwyn shrink back in fear. He ceased to realize that she was beside him, and he dropped bleakly to his knees, let out a guttural cry that sent shivers down Merwyn's spine, and then he pounded his fists forcefully into the ground, over and over. His breath came out in sobbing gasps. His knuckles were swollen and bright red, blood forming in the gashes on his fingers. She winced as his wounded fist met ground, anticipating the pain he would feel later when he was no longer numbed by fury.

Rage finally spent, Ruskon was still, his shoulders hunched over, legs carelessly curled beneath him. His breathing became slow and laborious, and then he was quiet.

Merwyn approached him as if he were a dangerous wild animal that would smell her fear if she got too close. She stood above him; her bronze colored hair fell down her shoulders like a curtain as she inclined her head toward him in curious examination.

He looked up at her, his face austere. "We're banished here. Forever."

He stood numbly to his feet and stumbled back to the cottage without saying another word to her. She hesitated wondering if she should follow him, and decided it would be better for him to be alone.

She walked along the edge of the house, examining her small garden, making sure her plants were growing according to schedule. She bent down into the soft tilled dirt, and fingered the leafy green tomato stalks that she had planted a few weeks ago. Small holes, dotted the plant's leaves, and she mentally cursed the bugs that had been eating at her plants. She would have to figure a way to keep them away from her garden. She sneered briefly, brushed the dirt off her skirt, and stood to her feet.

She decided it was time to go back, and see what could be done for this hapless stranger that had taken up residence in her living room. Surely it must be as confused and as scared as she had been when she arrived here. Well, maybe not as scared as she, she had been alone and but a child. She opened the door to the cottage, and it squeaked loudly as she did. Ruskon was sitting in the armchair and staring moodily into the fireplace. He jumped visibly at her entrance, startled by the sound. Merwyn smiled sheepishly at him, and shuffled in, quietly closing the door behind her.

He hopped to his feet, his cheeks stained pink with embarrassment. "I want to apologize for how I behaved just then. I—I didn't mean to frighten you." He gazed kindly into her eyes, hoping to convince her that he was not a monster. "It is not much of an excuse, but, I was briefly out of my mind. I—I wasn't expecting… well, there is just no good way to put this!" A brief smile flashed across his features.

She nodded as if understanding, but it took her a few seconds to fully comprehend his speech. "Oh," she absently stated. She looked uncomfortably around her, searching for some way to lighten the awkward moment, but she had no idea who this person was or of any social customs which were supposed to be accompanied with the meeting of someone. She was utterly lost in that regard.

He raised an eyebrow and looked at her questioningly. "Do you have a name?" he asked softly. This girl standing before him greatly resembled a frightened mouse.

She nodded, but she had not thought of her name it in so long that it seemed alien on her tongue. It sounded like the name of something else, perhaps a flower and not a person. "Merwyn," she said so quietly that he almost didn't hear her.

"Well, Merwyn, how long have you been exiled?"

She bit her lip, for her comprehension had left her once more, like a fog fleeing in the night. "I don't—I don't—" this speaking thing was beginning to become a burden. The words that she wanted to say came to her slowly and only in a half-light of remembrance. "Understand," she sputtered at last.

He smirked slightly, but his voice was gentle. "Yes, you have a complete look of bewilderment on your face. I take it you don't know where you are? Is that it?" He took care to be patient with her, not to frighten her.

She stared blankly at him. He spoke so quickly and expected her to understand just as fast, that she felt like a fool. And the feeling was entirely new to her, she who had been alone for so long.

"I'll take that as a yes," he answered. "Well, I'm not sure where we are exactly, but maybe if I tell you how I got here; it will be some sort of explanation. Where I come from there was a woman named Brona. She could do wonderful, horrible things using magic. She was a witch," he said severely.

He stopped, his eyes drawn to some other place, some other time. Merwyn stood quietly waiting for him to continue, while simultaneously trying to keep up with his narration. He looked back at her from the far off place that he had been, bridging the gap between them, and smiled slightly.

"Excuse me, where was I? Right, my father in a moment of desperation asked a favor of her, and he became indebted her. His payment, his curse, was that I was banished here. Debt paid," he said ruefully. His voice was thin. "I'm not sure where we are exactly, but I do know that is a place of the Witch's creation. It's not real. It's some sort of spell."

Merwyn sat upon the bed behind her and let his words sink in. In truth, she did not understand most of what was spoken. She sat quietly, dissecting his words piece by piece and trying to decipher their meaning. It took her awhile, but she posed what she thought was a vital question. "What is a witch?"

He laughed abruptly, almost mockingly. "Are you serious?"

She shook her head. "Yes. I may seem a bit-" pause again, "foolish to you. I have not spoken for such a long time." She smiled, proud at herself for completing a sentence without having to search for too many words. "I have been in this place for many seasons. So many, I have lost count. When I awoke here, I believe that I was about nine or ten years old. That was when I had-" she had forgotten the name of the reflecting glass that had once resided above the desk against the northern wall. "I don't know what it was called. It showed me what I looked like." She shrugged as if dismissing the thought. She remembered looking into the glass and seeing her reflection, but the memory of what she looked like was beginning to fade away. She remembered that she had had reddish brown hair, green eyes, and pale skin. The rest had disappeared into a distant archive of memory.

"A mirror?" he offered.

She smiled in recognition of the word. "Yes! A mirror! But, it broke, into so many pieces. I have not seen myself since." The words came more readily to her memory now, and she talked with an unsteady ease.

He looked slightly alarmed, "That must have been about ten years ago! You look to be about twenty! My God, have you really been here that long!" His words came out loud and fast, and Merwyn, not knowing why was slightly perturbed.

"I don't understand why you are talking so loud now. But, if you say I look about that age, you would know better than me." She stood to her feet again, and slowly stepped over to the window to gaze out at the only world she had ever known. It wasn't even real. Everything she had known was a lie. Tears rolled mutely down her cheeks, and she didn't wipe them away.

She unconsciously clenched her hands, not quite used to this emotion of anger; it was so all encompassing. She had never felt this way before; there were so many things she had never experienced before. So many things lost. He walked up behind her, not sure what to do.

"I didn't mean to frighten you." It came out an empty sentence and he let it drop away awkwardly.

She continued to stare out the window. "I know. Oh, I really don't know!" She spun around to face him. He smiled reassuringly at her.

"When I was alone here, I used to wish for somebody else to talk to. You know, I've never had a friend," she said the last word as if it were sacred. "And now that someone else is here with me, I'm not sure what to do."

He placed his hands on her shoulders and stood firm and square in front of her. "I'll tell you what we are going to do, we are going to escape! We are going back to the real world, where there are other people and such beautiful things." He looked out the window beyond her head, "and not this dark wood that does not end."

"It doesn't!" she cried. "I've tried to leave it more times than I can count, and I've always ended up here again. No, I don't think there is a way to escape. It is here we shall die." She said this so nonchalantly that it deeply unsettled him, in her tone there was culmination of many years worth of despair, such as he had never known.

"There has to be!" he said almost desperately. "I know a little more about witchery than you do. There is always a way to escape!"

She nodded half-heartedly. She knew all too well the folly of false hope. She had let it wound and jade her until there was almost nothing left of the girl that had first arrived in the wood. Not that she knew much about that girl anyway. "We can try. But, I've been here a lot longer than you, and I know the forest better than you do. You don't know... it like I do." She said wryly, lifting her hand and gently pressing her fingers against the glass of the window, as if trying to use it as a conduit to empty herself of her chaotic emotion. It was cold against her skin, and she shuddered. She let her hand drop back to her side, and stared back at him. "What am I to do in the real world? For all I know, I have no father and no family. I have no place. I don't even know who I am."

He let his hands fall from her shoulders. He watched her for along time, letting silence build awkwardly between them as he tried to concoct the right words to say to her. He couldn't find any. "If when we get back, we cannot find your family, I will be your family." He said it reassuringly and although Merwyn was not altogether used to the patterns of speech, she received its intended affect, she felt better.

"I don't know family," she mildly stated. There was no emotion attached the sentence, and Ruskon couldn't tell what she was thinking. She backed unsteadily away from the window and sat in her chair again. Family. To have someone to love her, and want her and take care of her, it seemed too good to be true. But, she went along with Ruskon's plan, because she so desperately wanted to be able to hope. "You can sit on the bed. There isn't much here," she said referring to the sparseness of the cottage.

"Yes, I've noticed." He studied her one more time, at her hair that was an odd color he had never seen. It was almost red, and almost brown, but not quite either. He yawned, and thought that he had never felt this tired before, and so he let his eyes grow weary and close to the light of the day.

Merwyn smiled softly at him as his head settled resolutely on her pillow and he drifted off to sleep. She got up and went outside, and into the dark wood that surrounded the cottage. She gazed into to its deep green, almost black, depths and smirked. None of it was real, and she was going to escape. She was going to see the places she had dreamed of. The vast blue water that went as far as the eye could see; cliffs that hung over the water like guardians. These places would be real to her soon. Ruskon was going to help her, he would be her family, and he would help her understand this new world that she was going to be a part of. She would never be alone again.

Never.