The wind is changing. Thomas can hear it in the trees. There's that song – that odd, off song – it's louder, now, he can hear it clearer than he ever has before. The wind is singing to him.
He moves silently between the trees.
Soon, the fluting notes of the breeze are interweaving – interlocking. There is something else – there is another sound. Of water, of – of another sound. A kind of haunting strain. In the shadows, his eyes are dark, and the rough fabric of his shirt blends into the shadings of the forest, as he creeps towards the water, and looks between the leaves.
There is a girl sitting in the middle of the river.
She has blond hair glinting with gold, pale skin, and she's wearing a rough skirt and jacket over a grey shirt.
And she is playing the violin. The sound reaches up through the race of the river – it tugs at some elemental tendon of his heart, a memory woven into blood, into bone. Perhaps the lingering tune his mother sung, before she knew his father, before she lost the ability to make a painting out of the wind.
He moves closer.
The girl's lips are puled down in a frown with concentration, her eyes closed, and the violin is a little out of tune, damaged in places, worn away at.
He finds he cannot breathe.
A twig cracks.
The moment breaks, the girl drops the violent – it clashes disjointed in the air, and picks up a gun he has not seen, pointing it directly at him.
Show yourself! She shouts it, fingers trembling. Thomas shrinks back, suddenly afraid, and she makes to shoot. Show yourself or I swear I'll –
He steps out of the shadows.
I mean you no harm he says