“You are broken,” they said, “and much red juice has run out of you: put some in.”
When we reached the edge of the valley, there was the moon just lifting her forehead over the rim of the horizon.
“She has come to take care of you, and show you the way,” said Lona.
I questioned those about me as we walked, and learned there was a great place with a giant-girl for queen. When I asked if it was a city, they said they did not know. Neither could they tell how far off, or in what direction it was, or what was the giant-girl’s name; all they knew was, that she hated the Little Ones, and would like to kill them, only she could not find them. I asked how they knew that; Lona answered that she had always known it. If the giant-girl came to look for them, they must hide hard, she said. When I told them I should go and ask her why she hated them, they cried out,
“No, no! she will kill you, good giant; she will kill you! She is an awful bad-giant witch!”
I asked them where I was to go then. They told me that, beyond the baby-forest, away where the moon came from, lay a smooth green country, pleasant to the feet, without rocks or trees. But when I asked how I was to set out for it.
“The moon will tell you, we think,” they said.
They were taking me up the second branch of the river bed: when they saw that the moon had reached her height, they stopped to return.
“We have never gone so far from our trees before,” they said. “Now mind you watch how you go, that you may see inside your eyes how to come back to us.”
“And beware of the giant-woman that lives in the desert,” said one of the bigger girls as they were turning, “I suppose you have heard of her!”