I don't know how long I have walked. But I keep walking. My dress is torn from getting through the hedges that mark the entrance to the village. But I still keep walking.

I'm sure it was days ago that I fled. Now, I don't know why I did it. I'm hungry, tired and very frightened. I've heard them calling me several times. I've seen tem calling me, from whatever tree I had climbed up. Mama, Anna, Thea, Martha are all among them. I feel such guilt for leaving but I can't go back. I knew they'd kill me. They'd kill my child. Now, I have to keep walking

My foot falls on yet another pine nut but I don't even flinch. I have enough of these injuries that it doesn't hurt anymore. I lost my shoes yesterday, when the stones on the floor made holes in them and grew blisters at the bottom of my foot. What does hurt is my head, which is throbbing after I hit it on that branch. The trees are so much taller here, bushier, I'm sure I've never been in this part of the forest. It's unfamiliar, scary, and I'm glad that I have the last shreds of daylight to keep me company and help me find a place to stay for the night.

This is not good for the child, surely. The child needs to be cared for, the mother needs plenty to eat and drink, have a soft sleeping place, not the bristly forest floor.

I toss a stone at a rose bush with a stunning orange flower perched on it. However, beauty means nothing to me, rather something I spit at in disgust.

I have been eating raspberries, they're everywhere! It must be time for them to come out, the end of spring, start of summer. If I didn't have them, I would surely die.

I keep walking, walking.

My mind wanders back to Melchior, as it always does. I wonder what he's doing, where he is. I know that he's been sent away to that school for troubled boys. I wonder if he read my letter. I wonder if he hates me.

He has all rights to hate me. It is because of me that he's at that school, he'll hate me even more when he finds out about the child. And yet I still yearn for him, to pull me into his arms and talk to me like we'd talked so many times before.

And I also yearn for Ilse. She was such a kindred soul, always willing to help. I remember when we were running around in front of the church and I tripped and scraped up my knee. She came and put her cardigan over it, and helped me wobble over to my house, where my Mama put cool water on it, which made it sting, but Ilse was always there, holding my hand and telling me not to cry. I was dismayed when she was thrown out of her house and disappeared for weeks on end. When she finally came back, that was the day that Moritz killed himself.

I pass the orange rose again and its radiance disgusts me. I want to tear it apart, destroy it, never to have its beauty again.

Wait. If I saw the rose, it means I'm near the village. I have to move away. I can't get too near, or they'll see me. But something draws me closer. I keep walking, against my better judgment, towards a large building. The lights are leaving. Night will be soon. I have to find somewhere to sleep.

When I finally reach the wall, it's already dark. A thin mist has begun to settle among it. As I walk around the wall, I notice the tall, thin stones coming out of the grass. This is strangely familiar, all of this. The wall gets longer and longer and the stones get fewer and fewer. As I walk further, the sense of dread comes back, as it has so many times over the past few days. I fell like hundreds of eyes are watching me and as many souls are following me.

I trip over and something hits my foot, the same place where I stepped on the pine nut.

"Ouch!" I exclaim, and look to see what had caused the sudden pain. Another one of those long stones. But this one intrigues me and I bend down and take a closer look at it. A gravestone. I thought as much. I squint in the fading light to see the inscription.

Moritz Stiefel

1878 - 1893

Loved by so many, yet still left behind.

The full impact of everything hits me then and I break down in uncontrollable sobs, clutching the gravestone. I think about all that I've lost. Mama, Anna, Thea, Martha, Ilse, Moritz, Melchior.

Oh, Melchior, Melchior, I loved you and how much I try, I can't bring myself to regret what I did with you. It seemed wrong at the time and even afterwards but I love you and I wish that I hadn't left you behind.

I sit there for another few hours, until I have cried my eyes out and have no more tears left to cry. And even then I sit there, thinking about everyone and everything that's happened.

"Wendla?" a voice jolts me out of my thoughts. That voice. That familiar voice.

I turn slowly, and though the fog, the falling night and tears, my eyes meet Melchior's tear-stained ones.