Lucif looked at her silently. It was seated beside her, but she could sense its tension, as if it had been very very worried. It didn't say anything for a moment, and Penny Rose, still shaken by the fall, and the warmth of the box in her hand, and feelings of fighting happiness, excitement, and terror in her heart, reached out a tremulous hand to stroke its fur."Hello, Lucif," she said, quietly.
"Hello, my dear," it replied.
"Did you dream, too?"
"Yes, my child, I dreamed..." and its mirror eyes looked at her enigmatically. "They are the world you create, you know," it said, thoughtfully, looking in her eyes.
Penny Rose looked at the box in her hand. "Perhaps my world is more than I know," she said simply.
"It always is," Lucif replied, with a slight sigh, "in all directions."
Penny Rose smiled a little, "I see," she replied without wonder, and looked at the box again.
"It is morning, my dear, and we must be off again, I believe."
"Alright," said Penny Rose, and got up to go with it.
Lucif stared at her for a moment, and then, without a word, began to lead her down the edge of the stream, through the rolling woodland in which the water wandered, the rising sun gleaming golden and pink on the trilling waves and ripples of it.
They had gone for some distance, weaving in and out of the forest land, picking berries here and there to eat, and drinking momentarily from the stream, when they happened upon a strange figure.
There, in the middle of the river, sat a wizened woman, round and apple-cheeked, sitting upon the huge bowl of an upturned basket, large like a rock in the midst of the brook. She was humming and cross-legged, seeming to idly weave the reeds in her fingers, yet the way her hands moved, it seemed as if they were hummingbirds, striking here and there, the reeds disappearing under them into the bowl of another basket. And more, the basket was changing colors as she hummed, dull greenish-brown reeds turning a brilliant red under her song, a song that sung of energy and merriment and joy, with the clouds of summer storms and winter winds in it, too.
Lucif paused, transfixed. And Penny Rose, too, looked, but tried not to stare. The box still was warm and bright inside her pocket; she could feel it like it had been all morning.
The woman noticed them, and nodded, as if something had been confirmed. She smiled brightly, and whistling lightly, set aside her work. Penny Rose looked up, and the woman caught her eye, waving to her, beckoning her to come closer. Penny Rose glanced, unsure, at Lucif, who nodded slightly, and sat lightly on the river bank. Penny Rose stepped down to the edge of the water, and waited.
The old woman took her bright red weaving, touching it here and there, and then, with a whoosh of wind and water, sent it flying into the water straight to Penny Rose, where stayed, near her, a little boat. She automatically caught it, afraid it might float away down the burbling stream.
Lucif said, quite low, "Go, my dear, she beckons you," and Penny Rose, still quite uncertain if the little craft might careen down the stream, stepped timidly in with one foot, and pushed off with the other.
Like a line had been attached, the red boat sailed quickly right back to the hands of the little old woman, whose eyes shown with approval. She patted Penny Rose on the head, and stroked her cheek absentmindedly as she looked away for a moment. Then, in less time than Penny Rose could notice, she had upturned her basket, until it was floating sideways on the little brook, and the woman sat inside it, at the very place where the side and the bowl of its round bottom met. Penny Rose looked in wonder at what it contained. Baskets: baskets of every shape and size, every color of the rainbow, every permutation of design, baskets, baskets everywhere. The old woman looked at her, with a sort of strange concern. Penny Rose glanced back at Lucif, to find it was staring at her with a strange sort of tension.
The old woman waved her excitedly to come into the big basket, and in Penny Rose stepped, her little red boat obediently staying at the big basket's side. She looked around at all the many, many baskets, both bemused and curious, but unsure of what to do.
The apple-cheeked woman took her hand and gestured to all the baskets. Then she held up a finger, as if to say "one," and ushered Penny Rose forward to the inside of the big bowl, bedecked as it was with every woven color of the rainbow. Penny Rose looked around, but shook her head, "Thank you, but I cannot take anything," she said politely. "But they are very beautiful."
The old lady frowned at her, and shook her head, gesturing to the bounty once again, and urging Penny Rose to take one.
"I simply cannot. I don't need a basket for my travels," she replied.
The old lady nodded emphatically, and frowned again. Penny Rose glanced back, worried, at Lucif, who was still watching her with more tension in its posture than she was used to seeing.
The old lady smiled an apologetic little smile, and gave her a little push bodily toward one side of the basket bottom.
"Very well, if you don't mind," said Penny Rose, unnecessarily, and looking about, her eyes lit upon a little basket that was woven of a very pretty grey, deep and undulating. It was not perfectly round, but a little oval, and had little winglike-handles. It was not quite perfect, and for that, Penny Rose immediately felt fond of it.
"Is this one alright?" she asked, reaching out to touch it.
The old lady looked a little frightened, but walked quickly to it anyways, nodding emphatically, and handed it with a flourish to Penny Rose.
"Thank you so..." but before she could finish, the old lady was pushing her toward the edge of her basket, and very strongly, as if she were a strong strong wind. And out of the basket Penny Rose went, over the side, into the brook with a splash, her basket in her hand, to be swept immediately down the stream by the dark currents of the river that ran down in the deep. Her last view was of the basket upending once again in the stream, sinking, and sending up a bubble.
The cold robbed her lungs of air at that moment, though, and as she struggled, she flew down the stream in the quick, cold, snowy melt that ran in the heart of the little brook.
