“No, stay a little while longer⁠ ⁠… for the sake⁠ ⁠… for the sake.⁠ ⁠…”

She slowly lifted my hand towards the light, my hairy paw which I detest. I wanted to withdraw it but she held it tightly.

“Your hand.⁠ ⁠… You undoubtedly don’t know and very few do know, that women from here occasionally used to fall in love with them . Probably there are in you a few drops of that blood of the sun and the woods. Perhaps that is why I.⁠ ⁠…”

Silence. It was so strange that because of that silence, because of an emptiness, of nothing, my heart should beat so wildly. I cried.

“Ah, you shall not go yet! You shall not go until you tell me about them ⁠ ⁠… for you love⁠ ⁠… them, and I do not know even who they are, nor where they come from.”