She wandered among the trees aimlessly. It was late in the fall, he could feel winter’s first bites in the air. The trees were bare and the leaves on the ground were dry, but she was almost silent. Sometimes he heard her make a faint rustle, if he strained and concentrated in his hiding place.

He quietly turned a page in his notebook and tried to sketch a map. Her movements seemed random, but maybe there was a pattern. Patterns could be analyzed, decrypted. But his pen had died in the cold and it took him several moments to find another one in his pocket. He tapped the nib with his tongue and looked for her; she had moved to another cluster of trees, where she flitted amongst the pale trunks.

He slunk towards her. The leaves scraped and slid loudly under his feet, but if she heard she gave no sign. She stopped near one tree and leaned against it.

This, too, seemed important. He found a place between two large roots and jotted it down, keeping one eye on everything she did. He wrote it all down zealously.