Wildwood Imperium

And at that very moment, when the kiss was laid on the boy's head, and the mother's arm were firmly wrapped around her child as they'd been when she'd first held him, when she'd first cradled him as a baby, when she'd held him as a child crying over some lost bauble, when she'd held him as a boy when a fever had come on strong, when she'd held him as a young man in the full throat of summer, and when the horse had thrown him and he lay motionless on the flagstones and she'd held him then- at that very moment, the ivy ceased its endless writhings and lapsed into immobility and fell quiet.

But, there's like a hole world out there! Filled with mystery and awe and sorrow and happiness.

And at that very moment, when the kiss was laid on the boy's head, and the mother's arms were firmly wrapped around her child as they'd been when she'd first held him, when she'd first cradled him as a baby, when she'd held him as a child crying over some lost bauble, when she'd held him as a boy when a fever had come on strong, when she'd held him as a young man in the full throat of summer, and when the horse had thrown him and he lay motionless on the flagstones and she'd held him then- at that very moment, the ivy ceased its endless writhings and lapsed into immobility and fell quiet.

Two men, one fairly dragging the other along, suddenly entered the clearing and, their eyes trained behind them, ran headlong into the owl’s creation and knocked it, every maple branch and every twig of dogwood, to the ground in a splintering crash. The owl fell backward, devastated.

First, the explosion of life. Then came the celebration. Such as it had been for generations and generations, as long as the eldest of the eldest could remember; as long as the record books had kept steady score. By the time the first buds were edging their green shoots from the dirt, the parade grounds had been cleared and the maypole had been pulled from its exile in the basement of the Mansion. The board had met and the Queen decided; all that was left was the wait. The wait for May.