Correspondent v. Courier

The anger she felt over having a cell phone shot from her face and communication with her Editor interrupted wanes. At leats to the point where she can pretend to affect the open affability of her profession. Still, Pepple refuses to answer any questions.

Who are you? Where are you from? What's your real job here?

(She also wants to ask about the beard he'd grown - itself a fantastic throwback to an earlier aristocratic age; pointed at the bottom, with thick mustaches to either side - but refrains.)

He offers her coffee served in a chipped ceramic mug. Hungry, thirsty, she accepts. It tastes much better than expected. It's followed by a hard biscuit. It's broken in half, split between them.

At least tell me how you cut yourself, she says finally.

Whether it's her persistence, slight guilt over having shot the phone from her face, or the simple pleasure afforded by sharing a small meal with an attractive woman, Pepple can't say why he answers her, but he does:

There are people living in the forest, he says simply.

What sort of people?

They follow to a questionable set of ethics.

Am I in danger?

Pepple thinks. You should be fine if stay within the grounds, he concludes. They haven't left the forest yet.

Back at the grounds she walks to the eastern edge and peers into the dark forest. It's dense, virgin, or first cut so long ago as to have reverted to virgin wood. An inscrutable, ancient veil of spruce, oak, maple. She stands very still. She hears nothing, only sweet songbirds high and unseen.

The Courier arrives in the same brown, grease-stained uniform as before. His elfin frame stands beside the oak, making the oak, in contrast, seem that much more grand.

He and the Correspondent strike up a conversation. The Courier reveals the nature of his doings over the past two years:

I'm on - or was on - retainer by the post office to handle special deliveries. It's a decent job. I do one delivery a day. Some are easy, some are far away. It all depends.

She asks where he picks up the telegrams.

Post office box, he says blandly. Until they stopped coming two days ago, and a man that looked just like me - won't tell you how hard it must have been to find my replacement - came to my door and gave me the same kind of telegram I usually deliver, addressed to me.

What was your first delivery?

It was to a little person, he says, adjusting his glasses. Two years to the day.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.