Can I ask you something?

“Can I ask you something?”

“Only if I know the answer. I wouldn’t want to disappoint a woman of your renown.”

“Why do you call me ‘my lady?’” I asked.

“Well . . .” The question seemed to surprise him, and he shifted his prickly mass as if to recline in contemplation. He was a complete gnarl of leaves and twigs. His beard was a carpet of green moss, and it wobbled when he spoke. “I don’t know. Aren’t you?”

“I was once. But that was a very long time ago.”

“I miss the very long times ago,” he said, yawning. Even his tongue was a broad leaf. “You could really stretch out in them. The times today are so curt. Never bother to stick around, as if they’ve got some better place to be. Rude, if you ask me. But what brings you out today, my lady? Another adventure?”

“I seem to have lost some of my memories,” I explained.

“No! You don’t say? That’s a terrible business. Terrible. Memories are like roots. They ought to stay where they’re planted.” He leaned closer like he wanted to tell me a secret. His face was as tall as my chest. “You know, when most people lose something, they wait until the last place to look before finding it. I like to start there. Saves time, you know. That’s important since there’s so much less of it now.”

“Well, I don’t think I have to worry about that. I’ve only ever kept my memories in one place.”

“Smart,” he said with a wink. “Very smart. Then you don’t have to worry where they’ve got off to. Have they escaped before?”

“Never.”

“Hmmm. Tricky . . .” His leafy fingers stroked his mossy beard. “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with where you’ve kept them?”

“Not entirely. But I’ve given it a good once-over, and it seems sound.”

“Hm. Stolen then.”

“It appears so.”

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I lost some memories once.”

“You did? Where did you find them?”

He opened his mouth to answer. Then he stopped and scowled at the heavy canopy over his head. “I don’t remember.”

I smiled. “Well, I’m afraid I shall have to keep looking.”

“Quite right. Quite right. Best not to give up, and all that. But you’d better hurry. The train is coming.”

“Train?” I looked across the overgrowth. It was identical in every direction. If there’d been a path, it had long since been swallowed by the forest. “But where is the platform?”

“The platform?” He thought for a moment. “Oh dear. I hope we haven’t lost that, too.” He pounded his heavy trunk on the ground and I nearly fell. “Get up, you lazy buggers! The lady needs to know the way.”

Fireflies blinked among the ferns. They flickered as they drifted up, like a dance of constellations. They floated on the air and gathered in groups inside the glassless street lamps that rose here and there among the trees, remnants of a bygone age. It was breathtaking—a gas-lit walk through a twilight forest.