Phoenix Maplewood the healing of nations

She was a small thing -- yet she possessed a particular swagger, a gracefulness, in her smooth gait. Reek moved in closer and allowed his sad eyes to fall upon the woman's features: sharp, angular, but not without beauty in their arraignment. Perhaps there was a time when Reek would have fawned over such things, but now-a-days, beauty intimidated him. Like all the good things that had walked into Reek's life, beauty was doomed to fade away into nothing. Just as his marriage had frayed at the seams— just as Tavi had walked out on him.

He watched for a moment in silence until the stranger spoke. A question to which he only responded with a confirming nod. Though he was in no present danger of starvation, having had a meal the previous day, the pains of hunger were quick to return. The next question she levied required a bit more explanation. "For a time, yes," he answered. The claim he once held over the maplewood now felt long distant to Reek -- it was like looking at a snippet of someone else's life. "—but it's nothing more than a graveyard now."

He paused and bit his lip. The remains of his fomer family surely lurked within, hidden away deep within the annals of the maplewood. "What is it you hope to find among the headstones?" He asked, motioning to the barren branches of the wood surrounding them.