In the House in the Dark of the Woods

by Laird Hunt

For my own part I kept very quiet, as quiet as I have ever been, for there are things in this world that you think will never come to pass that will rob you of your voice for nothing but the joy of them when suddenly they do.

I laughed then and tousled her hair for it seemed most marvelous that there should be this little bit of hope here at the end of my long journey. I told her this and she smiled and said that it was just so, that even in a wood as dark as this one, there was always hope.

The world, I told him, was a grand thing as long as you stepped straight and kept to your course.