You shake yourself to alertness in a late-autumn forest. The last leaves fall around you, bronze and fallow and blood-golden. A chill wind stirs the light hairs at the back of your neck, and your spine prickles in sympathy. You feel cold in a way that has nothing to do with the wind or the slow descent of the sun. There is a taste to the air like snow and grave dirt. Autumnal, you think. Nothing to do with leaves.
You glance to your left. Your companion lifts his brows. Curious, you think, more than startled. Were you telling him something? You can’t remember.
What is your name?
A.M. Tuomala 