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Recap of Part OneIt was sometime in the autumn of the year before that Aaron and Stella met Milen, a woodsprite, who lived in a small patch of woods behind their homes in the suburbs of the city. The woods are the last remnants of an ancient forest of incredible proportions. What remains has been almost sculpted to fit the grid system used by local development. Milen, who, so she says, sleeps through the winter to awaken the spring after, is a rather mysterious figure. Neither Aaron (who doesn't quite believe she's for real) and Stella (who is quite willing to take that leap) could find out much about her. How she got there, if she's always been there, and why no one else had seen her before, these things were all a mystery. There were other mysteries as well, which Aaron was ready to point out. Milen has wings, but they aren't physically connected to her body, hovering about an inch away from her back. She can fly, but she says her wings aren't completely necessary for this. She seems to be somewhat telepathic, and "absorbs" knowledge from the minds of people she's near. It seems she doesn't even realize when this is happening, and the knowledge tends to go away when those people leave her vicinity. Milen cannot step far outside the borders of her woods. She faints if she gets more than three steps away. The area defined to be "her woods," however, seems somewhat nebulous. In any case, she refuses to enter anyone's home, and has never referred to any human beings by any portion of their names. She really, really likes acorns, and collects them. It's known that she eats some small quantity of them, but collects more than she consumes. Stella managed to convince her to part with some, even though Milen is typically loathe to lose them. Why isn't precisely known, but could have something to do with Milen's "unconscious telepathy." There was one time when, regrettably, Aaron became so frustrated with Milen's seeming deception that he tried to pull off her wings. Since, in his mind, there was no way Milen could really be the magical creature she would have to be were her claims, perhaps he thought that there was no real problem. Milen passed out for a moment afterwards, but when she awoke, a moment of cold fear entered the minds of both Aaron and Stella, and for a split-second, Milen's eyes were not blue, but red. No words were said, no thing happened in our physical world other than the woodsprite opening her eyes, an unaffected observer would not be able to observe anything happening, and almost instantly she was her old self again. But the infinite dread of that single moment, arising, it seemed, from outside their own minds, made a lasting impression on both the humans. While they don't much talk about what happened, it will probably never be forgotten. Stella once gave an umbrella to Milen during a rainstorm. On the first day of summer, there was a time when Milen, standing on the border of her woods looking out into the world of humans around her, seemed to make a decision, one that involved taking a step outside her woods. She rushed back after a single step, but the decision remained. In the autumn, Stella managed to get a little historical information from the usually reticent woodsprite. One of the reasons she doesn't speak of her past is that much of it is forgotten by her. She says that, after hundreds, thousands, tend of thousands of years, maybe even longer, almost anything can become forgotten, even things you would think you could never forget. Soon, the lines between the things you imagine and the things you actually experience become blurred, and one day disappears altogether. But memory is a strange thing, and at some times it is clearer and more certain than others. It is possible that this is not the last thing she has to say on the issue. Near the end of autumn, an ominous fact was revealed: Milen's "physical form" comes at the expense of some stolen portion of Aaron's self. Exactly what is unknown, but it has resulted in the minor, yet perpetual, headache that Aaron has had all year long. Milen describes what she stole (involuntarily, she says) as "attention." Furthermore, it seems that Milen's continued physical existence vitally depends on her proving to Aaron that she actually exists before his headache goes away. Because of this, Milen agreed to a "challenge," coming from Aaron, to survive his objections to her reality. He attacked the problem from several novel angles, but at the end seemed satisfied (if frustrated) with her answers. Still, the fact that Aaron himself issued the challenge that may ultimately help the woodsprite of which he is not fond seems odd. Finally, the fateful first day of winter arrived, and Milen retreated back into her woods. She was aided by Stella, who perhaps felt a little guilty because the woodsprite's time had been consumed with the "silly humans." Somehow, when Stella was not paying attention, she and Milen came to be in a previously unseen portion of the woods, which seems much larger than should be possible given the size of the subdivision. Milen began to weaken, and for a short while appeared much reduced in size (about which she seemed quite embarrassed). But she regained her strength as they approached the mysterious center of the woods, a single giant tree, still green despite the winter, at which place Stella saw Milen for the last time until the following spring. So ended the first full year of the sprite's experience with humanity. Much remains unsaid, and most of it may never be known. But after all, this story has only begun. Much remains to tell about the woodsprite and the humans with which she must co-exist while, all around them like a dream with no end, turn the seasonal boughs of the hidden glade.
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