Bearers of the Black Staff: Legends of Shannara by Terry Brooks Page B

like living apart. They are self-sufficient folk content with their own company. On some days, they exchange barely two dozen words between dawn and dusk. They assign him chores and responsibilities and expect him to follow through. He is as reliable and self-sufficient as they are. He does not need minding and prefers his own company. He seldom fails to do what is asked of him.
    The hunters and trappers who come by now and then sometimes stop but more often do no more than wave as they pass. Everyone living in thehigh country knows everyone else; there are few enough of them that it isn’t hard. They look out for one another in a haphazard sort of way, mostly when it is convenient and they think to do so. No one expects anything more. Self-sufficiency is a code of living that all embrace and accept.
    It is a good life.
    Now and then, he is dispatched to the villages of Glensk Wood or Calling Wells for supplies the members of the family cannot fashion or grow on their own. A trip to one of the villages happens perhaps once a month in good weather, less in bad. It has become his task to make these trips; he is good at bartering and cautious in his dealings. When he is sent to procure something, he is usually successful. Because he is less annoyed by the communities and their larger populations than are his parents, he is not unhappy about being sent. He finds that although he is happy living alone, he likes people, too. He comes to know a handful of those who live on the valley floor, and a very few become his friends.
    One of them is a girl.
    He meets her by accident, just a few days shy of his fourteenth birthday, while walking home from Glensk Wood. She is coming down the trail as he is going up, and when he sees her he thinks his heart will stop beating and never start up again. She is tall and strong and beautiful, and he has never seen anyone like her. He slows without thinking, captivated for reasons he will never be able to fully explain, but she seems not to notice. She approaches, nods a greeting, and passes by. She does not say a word. She does not look back as she walks away.
    He knows because he looks back at her.
    It is several weeks before he is able to return to Glensk Wood, and then only because he finds an excuse that will hide his real purpose in going. He does not know the girl’s name. He does not know where she lives. But he is confident, in the way young people are, that he will find her. He sets out early, eagerly. He walks quickly to Glensk Wood and then spends several hours looking for her in a random sort of way, thinking that somehow he will stumble on her. When that proves unsuccessful, he begins asking about her, hinting at a business transaction he hopes to conduct. Again, he fails. The day ends, and he is forced to return home knowing nothing more than he did when he came down out of the high country—save one thing.
    No matter how long it takes or what he must do, he will find her.
    It is another month before he makes a second try. By then he is beginning to believe that he is fooling himself about what is and is not possible. The girl might have been visiting. She might have passed through one time and then gone back to wherever she came from. She might never return. He begins to question his behavior. Thinking it over in a more rational state of mind, he feels both foolish and strangely unsettled. He has never felt this way about anyone. He barely knows any girls his age, and none of them affect him in this way. Why are things so different with this girl? He does not like it that he so obsessed with her when in truth he has no reason for being so.
    But still he goes and still he looks, and this time he finds her.
    Once again, it happens by accident. He arrives in Glensk Wood not long after sunrise, having set out while it was still dark in order to make the most of his day. He is just passing through the cottages at the north end, not even really looking for her yet, just making his way