7 The letter

Luna ran all she could to get back to the cave. If I am Selene, then everything that happened in the dream might also be true, Luna thought. She set the pace more and more until she reached her max. When she entered the cave, she ran straight to the bag.

Maybe the letter is in the bag, and maybe it says something about what is going on? She thought as she found the secret compartment in the bag. She took the envelope out of the room with shaking hands. It was all right, the massacre and the man with the knife.

She looked at the red-golden bird with spread wings, it looked really very familiar, she thought. It was difficult for Luna to open the envelope with her shaking hands, but she eventually succeeded. The letter was written in a neat but easy-to-read script.

Dear Lady Selene

You probably wonder why I write, and it may even be that you do not know who I am at all, but I fully know who you are. I have admired you, you are always the first one I spot in a large crowd. You always smile, even when something troubles you or someone insults you. I am sure you do not know what your family has done in the past, therefore I do not think you deserve the same fate as them.

Something will happen today that will change everything, and I do not want anything to happen to you. Hurry away from your home and get as far away as you can. Do not look back, forget about your family. I will find you when the time is right, tell you who I am and why I did what I did. I hope you will see the bigger picture by that time, and forgive me.

Nev

Luna read the letter a few times, thought, and read it one last time. The letter was put back in the envelope, which was then put back in the secret room.

"What the hell is going on!" the birds flew away in terror nearby at Lunas outburst. She quickly put her hands to her mouth. My God, what have I done, what if any one of them is still out in the woods. Luna spent some time falling down, and started thinking clearly again.

Who is Nev, is he someone you can trust, and how will he find Selene or is it me he will find? I am probably Selene now, or am I still Luna? What will he do when he finds out I am not really who he is looking for? Should I come with an excuse, 'I hit my head so I can not remember anything', will he believe it? She sat and thought when it suddenly dawned on her that she had forgotten something.

It had gone so fast in getting back to the cave that she had completely forgotten what she had gone out to find

…

Luna went back out into the woods to find the lake again, this time with her bag. If I am lucky, no one has eaten my berries. She thought as she walked.

She had spent more time reading the letter and thinking, then she had thought. It was already getting dark and she had to take extra care not to fall over roots or tree stumps. She was about to fall a few times, but kept getting her balance back just before it went wrong.

After something that felt like an eternity, she reached the lake. She walked over to the pile of berries, that she could faintly sense.

Carefully she moved the berries over into the bag. It looked like they were all there, there was at least a lot of them. She took the bag over one shoulder, and started walking, but something stopped her. There was a figure on the ground.

Luna was about to scream, but she took herself in it, and held it inside. The figure did not move and she could not see if it was breathing. Luna walked closer, touching it with her foot, there was a slight hoarse sound coming from it, but no more than that.

She squatted down to look better. A touch of moonlight crept in between the branches of the trees, illuminating the figure's face.

It was an old woman. She looked very bruised and the area around her one eye was swollen.

I can not just leave her out here, Luna thought, she is probably just as alone as me.

She started to try to move the woman. It was hard, but managed to get her moved a little at a time.

If the trip to the lake had felt like an eternity, then Luna did not know what the time she was spending now was. She managed to get the woman back to the cave, but it was not easy.

She laid her down on the branch bed, and sat herself next to her so she could lean her head on the cave wall. Luna sat and watched the woman, who was breathing in small rushes. She did this for some time before she herself dozed off, and eventually fell asleep.