Dear reader, twice now have Lorenz and I searched among the trees for our second stone giant, and twice we have found nothing. Well, not nothing. The woods are wide awake, alive with brilliant flowers. Flame came with us on both our “explorations”, and each time he playfully pounced and rolled in all the colors. It was a delight to see, but Lorenz is understandably disappointed with our lack of progress.
Our searches began well enough. On our first day we started out early in the morning, and we counted out our steps to the giant in the river. He wrote this number down in a little notebook, thinking that perhaps we could use it to calculate the number of steps to the next marker on the map. A good idea, I thought, but in which direction to continue? He suggested we head due east and led the way with the aid of an intricately detailed compass. It was one of the finest things I’ve ever seen. Lorenz said it had been a gift from his aunt, and he told me a bit about her as we walked… how she lives most of the year in a large estate to the north, and how he spent much of his time as a boy there, riding horses and playing with her many, many dogs. It made me smile to see him reminisce so fondly, but his brow furrowed when we reached our allotted steps and found nothing. We walked on for a time longer and searched around, but no luck. By then it was getting late and we decided to head back.
On our next outing, Lorenz asked me about my family. As we adjusted our path, I told him about Auntie Ember and how she had raised Lettie and me. He seemed impressed to hear that she had done it all on her own. I explained that Auntie Ember had been married once before, but her husband had died very young. It was sometime after that when she took us two little girls in. We were all the family she had now.
We paused our hike to look over the drawing and consult Lorenz’s notes. He sighed, and with a smile that did not reach his eyes, admitted it seemed to be “another fruitless day”. Trying to stay cheerful, I said we had done something very important indeed: we had ruled out two places where the stone giant was not. At this he laughed out right and I giggled. Still, we were stuck. Both a bit disappointed and at a loss for how to continue, I proposed we take a break next week with the Spreenin faire. Perhaps the time would grant us a new perspective.
All the lovely wildflowers in the forest and the talk of when I was a little reminded me of one of my favorite faery tales from my childhood, of the tiny maiden no bigger than a thumb and her great journey through such a large world. It was a story that always made me think of the spring, what with the magic flower she was born from, but when I went back to revisit it this week I was a bit sad to remember how she had been taken so far from home. Did she ever find her mother again, the one who cared so lovingly for the flower and then for her? The tale didn’t say, but I hope so. It made me miss Auntie Ember, so I think I will write her a letter, perhaps after the faire. I can tell her about my new dress, and the festivities, and… if we are very lucky, maybe about finding the next giant.