![]() ![]() ![]() Zedd had sparked Richard's hunger to learn, to know. Many times they just talked, the old man always treating him as an equal, asking as much as he answered. He had shown Richard which ones to look for, where they grew and why, and put names to everything they saw. From when Richard was very small, his friend Zedd had taken him along, hunting for special herbs. Having spent most his life in the woods, Richard knew all the plants-if not by name, by sight. The oaks, being the last to surrender to the season, still stoically wore their dark green coats. With nights getting colder, it wouldn't be long before their cousins down in the Hartland Woods joined them. The maples of the upper Ven Forest were already tinged with crimson, proudly showing off their new mantle in the light breeze. ![]() Richard combed his fingers through his thick hair as his mind lifted out of the fog of despair, coming into focus upon seeing the vine. It was the smell that had first caught his attention, a smell like the decomposition of something that had been wholly unsavory even in life. Pods stuck out from the vine here and there along its length, almost seeming to look warily about for witnesses. Sap drooled down the wounded bark, and dry limbs slumped, making it look as if the tree were trying to voice a moan into the cool, damp morning air. ![]() Dusky variegated leaves hunkered against a stem that wound in a stranglehold around the smooth trunk of a balsam fir. ![]()
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