The day after my experience whilst gathering milk thistle I rose early, I was feeling strangely unsettled as if there were some unfinished business I had failed to attend to. I had my breakfast and then headed to Errak’s home in Bree, a cottage just north of the Inn Gate which skirted the Bree farmsteads. Upon my arrival I could hear chopping wood, I headed to the rear of the cottage where. Errak was there chopping wood on a block with a hand-axe, his child lay on a blanket on her back playing with a crude wooden toy, (I surmised he had made it for her). He was seemingly intent on the job in hand and hadn’t noticed me arriving. I coughed and he looked up, his face ruddy and wet from his labours. I asked him whether he was feeling better and also asked after the child. He merely said ‘Yes... thank you for inquiring.’ in a manner that seemed unduly cold, far from his grateful demeanor when he sought my help recently. I had no idea what to do or say, it was rather awkward and so I knelt down before the child and picked up the toy as she had dropped it. As I handed it to her I had that same feeling of foreboding that I’d had when gathering the milk thistle. A dark, bad feeling of impending doom, I felt chilled to the bone. The child, I had noticed, although playing with the toy had no expression, she was blank, she didn’t return my smile. Her father bore the same vacant expression. Errak then turned and said quite flatly ‘She’s fine, let her be.’ in the same stoic manner as before, his voice devoid of intonation. I bade them farewell feeling utterly confused, was this to do with their injuries? Something is happening, what it is I have no idea? Whatever it is I am determined to be prepared to help as much as I can as I feel this entity or whatever it may be will not be going away anytime soon.
I set off for home a plan in my mind. I would need to pack carefully, thoughtfully and be properly prepared for my next journey. I needed to gather cedar, fir and juniper to prepare healing oils of a fine grade. The place to gather enough of the evergreen woods I needed would be in one of the only two remaining forests untouched by the Numenoreans. The closest source of this type of wood and within riding distance from Bree was The Old Forest. I shuddered at the thought, but I needed to obtain enough to make a large quantity of the healing oils for what I believed was next to come. I thought then of my formerly betrothed, Wylam, I didn’t oft think of him but now, in my solitude I felt the need for company on my travels, but it was not going to be. The Old Forest was not a place for a maiden to wander alone, nor a man I pondered.
‘Eyanna Vine, pull yourself together!’ I told myself. This has to be done and I am the one that needs to do it and so I’m heading west, whether I like it or not.
