[piosenniel]

Holly took the map with a 'thank-you' to the Ranger, and oriented herself on it. She was alarmed to see the number of strange incidences logged on it, and the fact that many were clustered about the The Shire, made her increasingly uneasy.

She traced with her finger the route of one of her trips late last autumn. She had travelled with Peri to Crickhollow, and thought to pass through the hedge there into the Old Forest. There was a particular quality of light at that time of year that she wanted to capture as it played upon the silent trees. The Forest had been even more quiet than she remembered it, as she recalled now - except for the occasional harsh croaks of birds which seemed to proceed her as she made her way in to a small glade. She recalled the pale light as it sifted down through the branches of the trees surrounding the glade, and something niggled at the back of her memory.

'That was it!' she thought to herself. ''It was the birds, small, black, which had glided on silent wings to perch in the boughs and look at her. She had wondered at their great number, thinking it strange that they hadn't flown to warmer lands for the coming winter. They had stayed and watched her until she finished her sketching and made her way back to the Hedge. Again the call of one proceeded her to the outskirts of the Forest. Peri had been nervous, she now remembered, during the time spent among the trees, but she had passed that off as just the ususal sense of gloom felt among those old trees.

Now she felt as if he had sensed something else. Perhaps she should tell the Rangers about the birds.