Tori stands at the fork behind her cabin. Both paths lead into the forest. Only, she isn’t facing the forest.

Puzzled, she scratches the back of her neck with her right hand, trying to satisfy an itch that isn’t there. Her left hand rests just above her hip on her tiny waist.

She shifts her weight to her left side, switching hands as if the fantom itch had crawled its way to the other side of her neck.

“It’s not there.” She speaks softly, though no one is around to hear.

Glaring at the back of the cabin, she wrinkles up her nose and frowns. “It simply is not there.” She repeats.

Whether it is the itch or some lost object, I can’t say. I only know something isn’t there that is supposed to be, and it is eating at Tori.

Releasing both hands to her sides, she sighs. She stands there a moment longer, then, decides maybe it isn’t all that important anyway. Or maybe, she is simply losing her mind – you would if you were stuck in isolation for so long.

After another short pause and a shrug of her shoulders, she spins around to follow the path that leads to the left. Down a small hill into an even smaller clearing where she keeps her make shift underground storage unit.

She is half naked, wearing only a skirt and some rain boots. Normally, she wouldn’t have bothered with the skirt, but the boots are always a must as this time of year the clouds never cease to dump torrents of water from above.

It is a too hot, late spring day. The kind of day that starts in a pool of sweat and ends in a pool of sweat. Days like these Tori finds clothes oppressive. And besides, her cabin is far enough outside of town to deter all but the bravest of visitors.

“Ha! Visitors.” Tori laughs to herself because there is no one to laugh with. At any rate, most people in town are cautious of her at best, terrified at worse.

She doesn’t mind, preferring privacy. It allows her to work without interruption. And that is exactly what her work demands.

In town, rumor is well-circulated that Tori wears no clothes.

“Ha, Rumor!” again Tori laughs out loud. This time cackling with a certain amount of smug glee. “How can it be a rumor if it is true?”

And it is true.

Sweat means sticky clothes, sticky clothes means more laundry. More laundry means more time doing pointless chores, and less time for work.

Now, if she had a washing machine, that would be different. But those days are long gone.

Today, however, Tori had thrown on a skirt because lately a few brave pubescent boys from town had been creeping about, trying desperately to catch a glimpse of a naked lady.

A beautiful naked lady, I would add, but Tori would not. She doesn’t consider herself a thing of beauty. After all, a body is a body, meant to house a soul, she thinks. A house. Nothing more.

Unless of course…

No, no she wouldn’t go there. Couldn’t. It had been far too long since the Peddler’s last visit. To think of him now would only make her body ache and she has no time for that. There is too much that needs to be done.

Tori continues down the path, but stops abruptly. Her skin pricks. Goose flesh explodes across her bare chest, running down the length of her arms. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand straight on end. Frozen, for a moment.

Watched.

She is being watched. Not directly, more like through some type of fuzzy lens. Not the village boys for they have no access to this sort of lens. And even if they did, they certainly wouldn’t know how to use it.

Someone is close, but not yet close enough for there to be any immediate danger. Although that could change, and fast. Tori must move.

Now.

Quickly, she sprints back to the cabin. Stopping short in the very spot she stood only a moment earlier. There, lying exactly where she thought it should be, was the item she was looking for only moments ago.

Her spade.

“I knew it.” Now panicked, she sprints around the cabin and ducks into the doorway.

If she had a door she would have barred it but she doesn’t. Instead she pulls the heavy cloth, that provides her no protection whatsoever against intruders, from the hook on the wall. It falls over the hole she calls a doorway. This would at least buy her… well, nothing but it is all she can do.

The spade.

It wasn’t there and then it was. She isn’t loosing her mind after all. Someone not from this world borrowed it and had just returned it. And that someone was still close. Very close.

Tori throws on a shirt, sticky or no, she will not meet whoever it is in a vulnerable state. She reaches under the bed for her taser, the very weapon that had cost her her son when she first showed up in this god forsaken world.

While most Borrowers are harmless, Tori could never be sure. When you are wanted in your homeland for a crime you didn’t commit, you can’t take any chances.

Especially, now. What with the Keepers at war.

Silently, Tori creeps across the cabin to the side of the doorway. She slows her breath, one of her gifts, to an almost stop. If anyone from the village saw her in this state they would pronounce her dead, not being able to find a pulse. Still, Tori is very much aware. Maybe more so.

In moments, she will have all but disappeared. A trick of the mind, an illusion, for she is very much there, hiding in plain sight.

A soft knock and a man enters the cabin.

Tori’s entire body relaxes and she lets out a heavy sigh of relief. Still, she can’t undo her gift. Not that quickly.

“Peddler!” She cries, though no sound escapes her lips.

Relief. Tears. Joy.

Slowly, her pulse returns and she becomes visible to the man in the room.

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