The old woman crinkled her face and kept knitting, refusing to answer Lisa's question. Lisa didn't mind, she was still focused on getting warm. A silence sat between them until the old woman got up, went into a bedroom and came out again with a pair of boots and sturdy socks. She handed them to Lisa before returning to her chair. Lisa accepted them gratefully and slipped them on while the old woman started to hum to herself. The shoes were worn in and too big, but they would keep her feet warm. However she hoped she wouldn't have to wear them long enough to get blisters.
"My son was dragged off into the woods years ago," she said, "on this very day. Before you came, I thought I heard him calling to me. It's been twenty or so years though, so I know he could never come back."
"Did you go looking for him, when he disappeared?"
"No one goes into those woods, miss, not anymore. They are haunted. We just assumed he ran away, or a goblin got him."
"I'll go look for him,"
"And why would you do that? Its been years since he's been gone young miss, decades, there is no way he is still out there, and the woods might get you."
"I have to do something. I pop up here with these weapons and this armor in front of your cabin. You said it might be magic, well magic has to be god for something. This is the only clue I have."
"I think it's foolish, but I won't stop you."
"It's really dumb. I know. I can't just sit here though, waiting to get back. I have to do something. And I'm still ninety percent sure that this is a dream."
The old woman did not try to stop her, and only nodded when Lisa thanked her for the gift of the shoes. Outside the sun shone brightly, and when she looked at the woods a mile away she saw no reason to fear them. Vultures didn't ride the winds above the trees, and the howls of wolves didn't project from it. It didn't look like a Disney caricature from one of their European films. It was only a group of evergreens. And she walked towards it feeling, as the old woman put it, foolish.
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