Page 118 - NS 2024

to where Min went on her long walks. As long as she comes back, seemed the general sentiment reflected among her guardians.
“Nothing dangerous around here, anyway. What are we worried about, a coy dog?” was Sister Tonya’s response to a break supervisor who claimed she had seen Min slipping out into the woods. “The worst thing she could do is get lost, and given that she hasn’t done that yet, I think she knows her way around enough to be trusted. She’s finally doing quite well in her studies, after all.”
Was that the important part to you? Seems not.
Min was struggling to find her way back this time. It was fall, and this meant that whatever drudging she did was at the mercy of a torrid rain. Her minute frame seemed swallowed up by the beast of the woods. One young doe walked into a small opening between the trunks ahead of her path. Had she not looked up, she may have walked right into it. The level of comfort the creature had was unlike anything most people would ever experience with forest wildlife, but this was the norm for Min. Whenever she walked alone, she paradoxically walked as one alongside other residents of the woods. Birds would sometimes perch themselves on her knees when she sat slouched against the base of a sturdy enough tree, and once a fox had come out of its burrow and curled up next to her to rest. While wandering, furry or feathered friends would flock around the outskirts of her vision and follow her as she crept deeper and deeper into the bowels of the poplar prison.
The downpour had swept away much of the forest floor and left several trenches and small