CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 21

Sally smelled the glade before she actually stepped into it. Its scents were lush, primal, and sharp. There were deep mossy undertones, like the bark of the seven ancient elm trees whose thick trunks encircled the glade. There were high fragrant notes, like the pollen and the wild flowers that grew all across the clearing. There were plants here that had flourished for millennia, plants that couldn’t be found anywhere else on the planet.

Sally couldn’t help but catch her breath when she entered. The rest of the forest was often noisy, filled with a plethora of sounds. There were the raucous bird calls, the grunts and howls of the creatures that fought and foraged on the forest floor. There was the sound of the wind in the branches and the occasional rain on the leaves, and there were the thousand other unexplained noises that haunt such a wild and untamed territory.

The glade was a different matter altogether. There was hardly any noise here at all. It was as if all sound