His cassock was gone, nowhere to be found. His eyes looked wild and confused as he rose from the ground. I ran towards him. “Norton! What in God’s name?” I bent down, took his hand, and helped him up. He stumbled as if he was drunk. I didn’t smell any wine on him. He smelled terrible like a cave. “What happened? Where have you been? Abbot de Brinkeley is worried about you. We feared the worst.” We had come to expect the worst. It was easier. My father had said, “Hope in one hand, shit in the other. See which one fills up faster.” That was how it was, or how it had been for years now.
He rubbed his throat but did not speak. I turned him around on the path and started out of the woods. I thought I had. I thought I had only come off the footpath into the trees a bit before seeing the girl. Where were we? My breakfast rolled over. I removed a handkerchief from my pocket and mopped my worried forehead that was breaking out into a cold sweat. “Can you walk?” I let him go. “Where are we?” I felt dizzy and lightheaded as if my blood pressure had suddenly risen and dropped.
Just then a May Day parade broke through wearing animal masks, all whistles and bells. I stepped back, putting my hand against Norton’s chest, holding him back, off the deer path. There were foxes, owls, badgers, and boars. They picked up their feet and held out their hands. Their tambourines were strung with colored ribbons that they shook and patted against their hands and hips. I followed at a distance hoping they’d lead us from the woods, but they seemed to go on for miles deeper into the forest. I became tired and thirsty. Norton dropped to the ground and stared up at me like a child. I would’ve panicked if I wasn’t exhausted. I dropped down beside him and fell asleep for a long while.
I dreamed of the girl. She ran from me on and on through the forest and the trees. It was getting darker, and she laughed like a bird before disappearing into a mossy chasm hidden in the rocks.
I was woken by somebody shaking my shoulder. “Brother Francis, get up.” It was Brother Luke and Vigilius, two of the youngest brothers in their late twenties. Brother Norton was already standing beside them. I rose and downed a good bit of wine that Vigilius handed me in a skin. “We got lost.”
“I see that. How?”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my head. “I didn’t think that I had come far into the woods. Then I made the mistake of following the mummers. They got us lost.”
“Hmm…” The two of them took us back to the abbey. It was late afternoon by the time we got there.
