Somehow time and love were in twined. The more she was subject to time’s laws, the more she was capable of love.

Not that big cosmic love which is the root and source of our being. That was something she always lived with, always knew. This was a different love, one that reminded her of her life before she entered the forest life. It was the love of small things, it was a little love. Gasping at the tiny hummingbird or the passing of a cloud. Touching a small kitten and feeling its raspy tongue, hearing a beautiful song played on the flute, hugging her mother cuddling in the covers at night, seeing the moon, watching birds in the morning. Simple wind in the trees and grasses, singing and dancing, giving a gift, making a picture, or simple truth acts, thoughts, it was that sort of love – the love in time. Playing, seeing a baby.

The nostalgia this love produced in her was so profound, tears would stream down her face without a stop. Each tear was a moment and the more she felt the more she seemed to race through time’s portals on earth. And yet it was as if time were hurtling her back to her childhood innocence, not toward the inevitability of old age, suffering and death.

She had to leave the forest sometimes in order to feel this, for if she did not, she became cold and cruel. Separated from humankind she lost the perspective needed to connect to those who came to her in the forest. She didn’t wish to frighten them with too much alien presence, so she took on the poison of love and time almost as a sacrifice for the sake of these others. And when she had to return to the woods again, the transition was difficult and painful. Sometimes it was like running into a burning fire. Others it was like diving under the ice of a frozen lake.

Even though she was well-versed in the methods of elemental transportation, there was always an initial shock upon entry.

She learned how to do this first within her forest then expand it further and further throughout the forest network and beyond to meadows, villages and towns. In the places where people lived, this process was more difficult and less predictable. There was emotional pollution that bent the waves of force, and so many other communications meant that night was the only time to even attempt the movement. Once dawn took hold, the shifts weren’t as available. She had practiced slipping from point to point and could soon go on from one end of the forest all the way to the mountain wall.

Sometimes the concentrated force of a single person drew her so she couldn’t shift out, sometimes her repulsion or fear made transition difficult. When most were safely dreaming or passed out drunk, or nuzzling babes to sleep or making love, then it was possible. There were always the night-pacing mad ones, the sorrowing widows, the lonely worried children or the quietly reflective old people whose sleep was never long. But all of this was quiet compared with a cacophony of commerce in a normal active day.

No one ever saw her come and go. She was proud of her learned ability to remain unseen at those crucial moments. If someone did pick up a wave in the air or some tiny anomaly, she set an ensorcelment for an instant. Usually a sweet memory would capture the observer’s attention, like a daydream. All it took was a very brief opening.

The curve of time transmitted on an entirely other frequency than space. She could go directly from place to place in the infinite horizontal grids.

Time shifted only for others around her, and only when she remained in one place in her forest. She dreamed their experiences with her, and they lasted for years and even decades, but only a moment’s time had passed in the forest. Only long enough for a leaf to detach from its branch, or a blossom to land on the bushes. Was this time? It was impossible to know, only to observe. She thought about these things – it was important to keep learning.

She never had children, not in the forest. But many lives have passed in her connections with those who came to her in the deep woods. Many of them experience love and family life with her, children and grandchildren, all along the generations. To some of these she was matriarch. To others she was just a little daughter. It was a fulfilment of their wishes, not hers.