The Scions of Shannara by Terry Brooks

continued on his way.
    Coll was waiting with the fish by the time he returned, so they hastily built a fire and cooked dinner. They were both a little tired of fish, but it was better than nothing and they were more hungry than either would have imagined. When the dinner was consumed, they sat watching as the sun dipped into the horizon and the Rainbow Lake turned to silver. The skies darkened and filled with stars, and the sounds of the night rose out of dusk’s stillness. Shadows from the forest trees lengthened and joined and became dark pools that enveloped the last of the daylight.
    Par was in the process of trying to figure out a way to tell Coll that he didn’t think they should return to Shady Vale when the woodswoman appeared.
    She came out of the trees behind them, shambling from the dark as if one of its shadows, all bent over and hunched down against the fire’s faint light. She was clothed in rags, layers of them, all of which appeared to have been wrapped about her at some time in the distant past and left there. Her head was bare, and her rough, hard face peered out through long wisps of dense, colorless hair. She might have been any age, Par thought; she was so gnarled it was impossible to tell.
    She edged out of the forest cautiously and stopped just beyond the circle of the fire’s yellow light, leaning heavily on a walking stick worn with sweat and handling. One rough arm raised as she pointed at Par. “You the one called me?” she asked, her voice cracking like brittle wood.
    Par stared at her in spite of himself. She looked like something brought out of the earth, something that had no right to be alive and walking about. There was dirt and debris hanging from her as if it had settled and taken root while she slept.
    â€œWas it?” she pressed.
    He finally figured out what she was talking about. “At the cottage? Yes, that was me.”
    The woodswoman smiled, her face twisting with the effort, her mouth nearly empty of teeth. “You ought to have come in, not just stood out there,” she whined. “Door was open.”
    â€œI didn’t want . . .”
    â€œKeep it that way to be certain no one goes past without a welcome. Fire’s always on.”
    â€œI saw your smoke, but . . .”
    â€œGathering wood, were you? Come down out of Callahorn?” Her eyes shifted as she glanced past them to where the boat sat beached. “Come a long way, have you?” The eyes shifted back. “Running from something, maybe?”
    Par went instantly still. He exchanged a quick look with Coll.
    The woman approached, the walking stick probing the ground in front of her. “Lots run this way. All sorts. Come down out of the outlaw country looking for something or other.” She stopped. “That you? Oh, there’s those who’d have no part of you, but I’m not one. No, not me!”
    â€œWe’re not running,” Coll spoke up suddenly.
    â€œNo? That why you’re so well fitted out?” She swept the air with the walking stick. “What’s your names?”
    â€œWhat do you want?” Par asked abruptly. He was liking this less and less.
    The woodswoman edged forward another step. There was something wrong with her, something that Par hadn’t seen before. She didn’t seem to be quite solid, shimmering a bit as if she were walking through smoke or out of a mass of heated air. Her body didn’t move right either, and it was more than her age. It was as if she were fastened together like one of the marionettes they used in shows at the fairs, pinned at the joints and pulled by strings.
    The smell of the cove and the crumbling cottage clung to the woodswoman even here. She sniffed the air suddenly as if aware of it. “What’s that?” She fixed her eyes on Par. “Do I smell magic?”
    Par went suddenly cold. Whoever this woman was, she was no one they wanted anything to do