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"Hoom now, one mustn't be hasty. A danger to me, you say?" Greenbeard strode farther up the slopes, carrying Wenda and Mara, one in each hand, the reindeer trotting behind. "Does it wield an axe?"
"No," said Mara, "it is a spirit of evil! It hungers!"
Many steps the Ent took before he answered. "There is little enough that we can do against such a one," he said at last. "We will go to my home."
The Ent said no word more. Wenda held Mara's cloak about herself tightly, shivering nonetheless. Had Mara meant Mori and Stamo? Had the wraith fled from them? Could it be that they were more than a match for it? Why then was it still free? It did not matter. It was chasing her again, and she was doomed. Of this she was sure. Ever since that moment when she had faced it far in the north, she had known. She had seen this in its eyes. There was no hope for her, and she had been a fool to think there ever was. Why had she run from the Green Man inn? She had only the will to live, deep in her bones, rendering her no different than the beasts. Half beast she was anyway. Sometimes it felt more than half.
The Ent placed her on the ground and she trotted along, keeping pace with Padu and Manu. Thinking like a beast always made it happen. Somehow she felt a little safer this way, doomed though she knew she was. Maybe she could outrun it? No. She looked up. Mara had wrapped the cloak around her shoulders again, having received it from the free hand of the Ent.
Wenda smelled it in the air. It was gaining on them.
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