Blackfeather Woods there is something rotten in the state of Denmark

The world has become surreal. The passage of time is meaningless; there is light, there is dark, there is the shifting of the trees and weariness, all-consuming. Titmouse roams the woods, but he has forgotten his nightmare of a waking-dream that was his hallucination; he has forgotten the slaughtered crows, the warning of Abraxas — even the pounding of his head has abated. Perhaps he has grown used to it.

When he slinks through a gap in the trees (they are like a vibrating scribble of ink, frenetic, endless spasms) he sees the girl shape herself out of the darkness; he does not recognize her, unfortunately. The boy - now a man, pitiful though he had become - could smell Abraxas lurking near and he mistook the shape of the woman and her constellations as the agitated shadow - thus he pulled away, unsure whether to approach.