Broken Antler Fen with scarves of red tied 'round their throats

for the second time since her exodus from the woods has she left her new home, spurred mostly my doubt.

it lingers, like a bitter taste in the back of her mouth. should she have gone with maegi? she was, truly, the last family she had left. and yet, would she not feel the absence of her sister, her mother, so much more sharply should she return to her old haunt? her mother's body was still there, the tree that had crushed her, too. people that knew what had happened. and she could not face them.

that made her a coward, didn't it? she felt hot shame at the thought, though surely it had to be true. 

coward.

she starts, the muttered word close and soft and harsh. had she said that aloud? she could not remember her maw moving, in the same way as before. slightly unnerved, she continues on, a fair distance from what is unknowingly @Praimfaya's claim but approaching it at a steady clip.