Looking inwards this part was standing above the perfumes. If scent could rot in your mind this was where it would have done so.

It called her a witch too and she has been repulsed by that too.

He sighed, the puzzle was saying Torrie was deeply connected somewhere. Why couldn’t his time be filled with simpler matters where he could just tend the dead on behalf of the bereaved. That was where his civic duty belonged. Macabre maybe but it helped people deal with grief and he felt good about that.

As he did with frequenting the Oak. These things were fixed and not filled with the unexpected. They were normal and devoid of supernatural impossibilities and people who resigned from the path at sensible ages. Or even people that walked in time and sent letters. It was wrong and against the natural order of things. Into the darkness he whispered his thinking aloud.

“Why me, what have I done to warrant all of this?”

He rested both hands on the top of the stone wall surrounding the patio save for some steps that led up to a lawn that in turn ran into the trees.

“If I am going insane please tell me, someone… Anyone…”

A breeze drew in momentarily from the east and on it rode a child’s voice.

“Because you made an oath to protect me.”

“The last time I helped it got you killed.”