Tarrow Woods

The foreigner child arrived alone in the late summer. As he stepped towards Bayhall villae, his shouts of agony mixied with claps of thunder as his tears ran down his face alongside the rain. It was unclear whether he was causing the sudden, unnatural storm.

Blood was dripping from his fingertips, claw marks of unknown origin running up and down his arms. Nobody knew what to do with the small boy. He would let no villager come close to him.

No villager, except one.

She was as young as he was, carrying nothing but a small flute. She lifted it to her lips and let a soft note play out, quelling the small boy's fears of the strange place he now found himself in. He began to softly chant, the clouds overhead dispersing and his tears drying.

The girl reached forward, softly taking his had. No words were said. None were needed. She led him to a doctor, who cleaned the foreigner's wounds.

For the first time, the boy smiled. "Tarrow," he said, pointing to his heart. He looked inquisitively at the strange girl, who smiled sweetly back.

"Cara."

Cara hadn't often thought that that one encounter in her youth would mean much later on. The boy would pass on, leave town, and never be heard from again.

But he came back. Year after year he came to the own in the summer, strange occurrences happening whenever he arrived. Sometimes it was an out-of-season storm. Other times, it was a sudden burst of chill in the middle of summer. The elders of Bayhall village called it magic.

After several years of leaving and coming back, the foreigner stayed. He made a home in the outskirts of the city, living among the poor and destitute. He survived by performing on the streets, mystifying the villagers further with colored patterns appearing out of nowhere and strange incantations spoke in a foreign tongue. His pale hair and face became bot feared and admired in the village. He didn't care about either.

The only person he ever sought the company of was Cara. She was the only person that mattered to him.

Cara's family at first resisted the youth's insistence on being near her, hiding her away and refusing to let her visit him. When a sudden drought hit the town soon after, they changed their minds.

Life was back to normal, for a short time.

But peace simply can't last forever.