Note about the Setting: Most of my other stories had vaguely European settings. I kind of wanted to change that up here. You can consider the setting of this story to be very vaguely in West Asia. Feel free to interpret that as the Western part of Asia, or a westernized version of Asia. It's a made-up place anyway, and doesn't reflect a specific region of the world.

For the most part I stayed away from foreign words or terms (that would need to be italicized, for example); but let's just say those foreign words you'd expect to see here got "lost in translation". I made an exception for "Maman" because a) it's self-explanatory, b) I thought it was kind of cool that it's a word that's common in both French and Persian. I also tried to use names that are commonly used in the East and West (with some exceptions).

Sarah had run away. She had meant to be gone just long enough to catch her breath from her mother's over-protectiveness. However, she was starting to realize that this may have been a very poor decision, because when she returned, the panic from her being missing might make Maman increase her grasp on her tenfold.

Everything had changed for the worse since her father passed away. She and Maman had been given a month to pack their belongings and find some relatives to take them in, so that they could clear the mansion for the new governor's family. But her mother had very little family to speak of and her father's family would never take them in. They had not approved of her parent's marriage and wanted nothing to do with Maman. She had written to her distant cousin, who had written back explaining he had no room for them in his large home, but he would visit soon to offer them some financial assistance. He never came. Maman had tried to appeal to the Emperor himself for assistance, for it was he who had personally assigned her father the post of governor in this tiny village in the middle of nowhere about five years ago, but there had been no word from the royal palace either.

So she and Maman had to move to a tiny cottage by themselves, with no servants. Maman was used to doing her own housework, she had had to maintain a cottage before by herself and take care of her sick parents before she had met Sarah's father. But Sarah had never lived a day of her fifteen years without an attendant waiting on her hand and foot. Maman did all the cooking and cleaning and shopping and keeping accounts, but she did expect Sarah to help her with all her tasks. She kept insisting that she no longer had the luxury to spend all day with her books and studies. And she seemed to refuse to let her daughter out of her sight. It was maddening and Sarah could not bear it anymore. She wanted to go live with her grandparents in the city, for they had written to say they would gladly take in their own kin, even if they would not take in Maman. But Maman had refused.

When Sarah decided she had had enough of the forest, she started to make her way home. This was not her first time in there, though it was strictly forbidden by the governor for anyone to go in there. Even the woodcutters and foragers who had to make their livelihoods from the forest were only allowed to venture into sanctioned areas. But Sarah had never been one to do as she was told and she and one of the servant's daughters had sneaked away to forbidden areas of the forest.

But she had never wandered this far before. Her father had been livid the day she and Shumi had been caught. The governor's own daughter, discovered breaking the one express rule of the village that he strictly enforced on everyone else, was potentially damaging to his reputation. Anyone caught in the forest was heavily punished, though Sarah did not know how. She had wondered if she was about to find out, but she suffered no worse fate than being locked in her room for weeks. She did hear her parents row about Shumi, and she had caught a glimpse of Maman comforting Shumi's mother, the chief housemaid at the mansion. Shumi had been sent away, and Sarah never found out to where. Shumi's mother would have been sacked, had Maman not intervened.

When Sarah walked by the hollow tree with a bird's nest for the third time, she began to worry that she was lost. She had noted her landmarks very carefully. Before she had come to the hollow tree, she had passed the diseased-looking tree with fungus growth on it. But no matter which way she walked, she felt like she was coming back to the hollow tree.

To make matters worse, it had started to rain. Very soon, it was coming down in torrents. Sarah tried in vain to seek shelter under trees, but none of them provided respite from the downpour. She moved without any knowledge of where she was going. And soon, she came across an open gate. Relived that she had made it out of the forest, but too cold and wet to worry about exactly where she was, she slipped in through the gate and started banging on the front door. When it opened, she stumbled inside and crumpled into a wet shivering pile on the ground.

The girl who had opened the door had not moved. Sarah was going to ask if she might have a towel please, but then she realized that the girl was Shumi. Before she could move or say anything, there was a large commotion and Sarah thought there was a stampede coming down the hall.

At first she thought there was a bear charging at her. And then she saw the ferocious red eyes, the sharp teeth and the horns. The creature was roaring or shouting; Sarah couldn't tell. She had passed out.