Faithful Pebble
Part Fifteen
"Don't mention me."
That's what the woodcutter had said just as the wanderer was leaving. Startled by the sudden urging from the man, he had halted and blinked back at him. "What are you talking about?"
"You plan on goin' up there." The old man gestured toward the hill, toward the road, his closed door, his empty house and gloomy kitchen. "Try to rescue her and all that. I can see it in your eyes. We old men, we can easily tell these things." He sighed and sat back in his chair by the fire. "Eventually… Our conversations stopped between her and I. Nothing I said or did could get her out of her muted shell and after a while I grew tired of prying." He trailed off as he put his head on a fist. His eyes dulled, focused on some memory the wanderer couldn't see. "I had," he mumbled. He stared into his hearth, at the fire that danced impartial to his regret and folly, the hardness of his heart. There was some morsel of comfort he found in it, remarkably, gracefully, undeservingly. "I paid one of the village girls to tell the young'un that I had died to sever contact. As you imagine, it was an impulsive decision, rash and cowardly. I had yelled at her and in my anger I… I left."
At the time, he had been angry, the wanderer. Still as he stood there before the well, as he stood there in the man's home watching his thin back clothed in rough white cotton, in fur-lined goat skin bent under the weight of his guilt, of his fear and pride that prevented him from correcting what he'd done, the wanderer let his anger dissipate for understanding, understanding for pity, pity for compassion. In some ways, this man and his pebble weren't all that different. No wonder they were—
His pebble?
The wanderer hummed.
Calla