Sofia and Aunt Sybil passed each other wordlessly to echoed shouts of "Next".

Sofia tried to deduct from her expression what she was thinking, but her eyes were lowered and her hands folded in front of her as if she was about to enter a convent.

Sofia didn't understand her aunt's behavior. How could this strong-willed, rigid person suddenly become this fearful and pliant? She hoped that it was just an act and that, later, Aunt Sybil would dissect the meeting in her usual harsh and unforgiving manner.

Right now though, Sofia went outside and searched for her uncles, Sermon and Davis. She found them not far from where she had seen them before, and before she could even greet them, Sermon had already enfolded her in a big hug. They hadn't seen each other for more than a year, and he had always felt a deep fondness for his niece, although he was quick to forget people once they were out of sight. Even when he was in town, a long time could go by without a visit. Sermon never understood how all his best intentions could come to so little.

"How long have you been back?" Sofia asked.

He shrugged with a guilty expression.

"He's been back for three weeks," Davis answered for his brother. He also hugged Sofia, but only because it would be strange if he didn't. He was clumsy and awkward and generally didn't like being among people. He was still much in love with his wife Rhea, who had left the village many years ago. He kept waiting for her to come back, in vain, and the sorrow over her absence had corroded his face.

Sermon was the opposite, his face wide and glowing, always sporting an easy-going smile, but with a golden glint in his eyes that said he would always look out for himself before anybody else.

"I've been meaning to come to see you," Sermon said, not speaking the truth, but not lying either. He winked at her in a conspiratorial manner. "I brought you something. We'll wait for that charming sister of ours, and with her permission, I will whisk you off to my house to give you your present."

"And tell me stories about your trip?" Sofia asked, excited. The prospect of a present almost made her forget the Assessors.

"And maybe tell you a few stories about my trip," Sermon agreed.

He looked over his shoulder, and his face darkened.

"There's Sybil," he said, and a little louder he added, "Dear sister, we've been waiting for you."

His voice sounded mocking, but Aunt Sybil didn't take the bait.

"Here I am. Good to have you back, Sermon. I expect that you have properly reported your return to the assessors."

"It's why I came here. And to see my niece, of course." He patted Sofia's head and gave her an encouraging smile.

"Aunt Sybil, Uncle Sermon has brought me back a present from his trip. Can I go with him to get it?"

Before Aunt Sybil could answer, Sermon interjected,

"Or I could pass by later."

That last remark sealed the deal. Aunt Sybil knitted her brows together in a painful-looking way.

"Very well. But don't stay out too late. I need to resume my post."

"Of course you do," Sermon said sarcastically.

Aunt Sybil turned to her other brother.

"Davis, was there any news of Rhea?" she asked as politely and indifferently as if she was a distant acquaintance.

"Not this time," Davis said through his teeth.

"Well," Aunt Sybil said, and didn't add anything further. She didn't look fondly on people who abandoned their responsibilities, and Sofia had heard her talking on many occasions about Rhea in the harshest possible terms.

Sofia barely remembered Davis' wife. All she could recall were Rhea's long red hair that she had worn in elaborate braids, and her tendency to anger and cry quickly. And then, one day she had been gone. There had been searching parties along the river, but Aunt Sybil had said right away that "Rhea left, and good riddance". For once Sermon had not contradicted her, only disapproving at the volume she had said it.

As Aunt Sybil left without a word, Sofia slipped her hand into Uncle Sermon's and said,

"What did you bring me? Where did you go?"

Sermon laughed.

"Always impatient. You'll have to wait 'til we get there."

"Then hurry!"

"A hurried traveler never gets anywhere," Sermon said.

Sofia looked at him thoughtfully. He was smiling, as if at a private memory.

"You've been gone a really long time," she said.

"Have I? It feels like a lifetime and a blink of an eye at the same time."

"It was more than a year."

Sermon nodded, but didn't say anything.

"Why did you go?" Sofia asked. She had intended to ask him where he had gone, but then it had come out differently.

"Sometimes, I just have to breathe a different kind of air. But something always pulls me back here. Family, I guess, and habit."

"I don't know if I would come back."

"Maybe you would, and maybe you wouldn't. That is something you only learn when you leave. Although I sure would hope that you'd come back."

"Where did you go?" Sofia asked, getting it right this time as her curiosity overtook her anxieties.

Sermon started talking, and Sofia reveled in the familiar lull of his voice. There was something in the way he spoke that made the lands appear in front of her.

Only one road lead out of the village. About ten miles into the countryside, it reached Lake Antara, which was a lake of such dimensions that it could almost be called a sea. Legend had it that during the Cold Age, millennia ago, Lake Antara had been frozen, the ice many feet thick, so that travelers could ride straight over it. There were still stories and paintings about this time. It had become imbued in common knowledge, even though it had happened too long ago for anybody to know it with any certainty, and the water had long devoured any trace of the times.

At the lake, the path divided into two roads, one continuing along the western shore of Lake Antara, and the other taking travellers east. For those planning to cross the lake with a ferry, it was best to head west. The nearest port was only one and a half days away. In the past, Sermon had always chosen this path, but this time, feeling especially aimless and restless, he had decided to travel the long way along the Eastern Road.

Soon he discovered that this road was much lonelier than the other. There were few fellow travelers, and most of them didn't seem very eager to form connections. As always, there was a certain politeness that connected people on the road. They greeted each other carefully and ask where the other person was coming from and going to. In case of trouble, a helping hand was easy to come by. There was an implicit contract of mutual helpfulness, but there was little true warmth and friendship.

Sermon found himself not minding. He who always formed quick and loose attachments was welcoming the solitude for once. When he arrived at the most Northern town this side of Nihon, called Errnen, he didn't remain there for long and didn't seek out any amusements. Instead, he headed towards a mountain chain that he had been told about by a fellow traveler. This man had stayed with the Silent People after the loss of his eldest son, and after a few months, he had been healed from his grief. When Sermon met him, he had been on the way back to his family.

"It was strange," Sermon said to Sofia. "As I listened to the old man talking about the Silent People in the mountains, whom I had heard about before, but had never spared a thought, I was overcome by the strongest urge to join them and to vanish forever. I have never experienced a loss like this man, but I felt like I understood exactly what he had gone through and what he had been needing. I felt sad, as if I was grieving too, though I didn't know for what or whom."

So, Sermon had headed to the mountains.

The Silent People were known for being welcoming but distant to strangers. There were always people passing by and staying for a few days to enjoy the peace and quiet, but few stayed. Those who did had to work to earn their keep, as the Silent People did not accept conventional forms of payment after the first week of lodging.

"What did you work, Uncle Sermon?" Sofia asked, imagining all kinds of dreadful, strenuous labor.

"Believe it or not, I learned to weave. I spent days and weeks at the loom, and at first, I thought that I would never succeed. But after a while, I started getting the hang of it. After a couple of months, it felt as if my hands had learned how to work the loom by themselves, and I was just sitting there, watching the threads going over each other, turning themselves into cloth as if by magic. I had never been this calm in my life, and I felt so proud when I held the finished fabric in my hands. The weight of it was heavy and light at the same time. I felt like a boy who had done something worthwhile for the first time in his life."

Sofia listened to her uncle, drinking the bitter and sweet pomegranate juice he had bought especially for her at the village store, or so he said. She thought that she understood, but at the same time, she didn't understand.

"Why did you come back?" she asked.

"I stayed for eight months," Sermon said. "I loved it, but it was not my life. The Silent People are - well, silent. And while they have a well of stories and know how to communicate them, I started to miss hearing words. Just the sheer sound of them. I would go without talking for such long times that I sometimes wondered if I had lost my speech. I would go somewhere I was sure nobody could overhear me, and I would talk to myself just to make sure that I still could. But you know what? I didn't know what to say anymore, and at one point I thought that if I stayed any longer, I would never leave, and I would lose my voice. And I didn't want that after all."

Sermon shrugged, hesitating. There was an uncomfortable silence as neither he nor Sofia knew what to do with this intimate confession.

"But now, what you really came here for!" Sermon exclaimed suddenly.

He shook himself as if he was shaking off the very memories he had been recalling, and got up to take a large package down from the cupboard.

Sofia's heart skipped a beat at the sight of it. She held out her hands with a greediness that made Sermon laugh. The package was much lighter than she had expected. It weighed barely anything.

"Can I open it?" she asked, suddenly timid.

"I would be very offended if you didn't. I have carried it around for a long time, and even though it doesn't weigh much, its size is not exactly handy."

With trembling hands, Sofia opened the lid of the package and reached inside.

It was a structure made of thin wooden rods, painted in black lacquer, with red paper in-between that was almost see-through. Inside the construction sat solid black silhouettes attached to fine sticks. A small wax candle stood in the middle. Its wick was slightly darkened as if it had been burnt before.

"It is a lantern. The Silent People use them to tell each other stories," Sermon said. "Though they have many, many more of them. They usually put them up in a row or a circle and light the candles inside of them. The silhouettes then shine through like shadows."

He carefully pulled one of the sticks that was attached to the figure of a hunter and it sprung up. The figure's arm lifted, and he bent forward as if preparing to kneel.

"See? You have to be very careful not to tear them. The Silent People spend hours mending them after each performance, or adding shapes. It is always evolving."

"How do they tell a story?" Sofia asked, mesmerized.

"They all get together, and the audience sits in front of the lanterns. Then three storytellers go from one lantern to the next. One of them lights the candle, another moves the figures and rotates the lantern, and the last one puts out the candle. For the next lantern, they change places."

"So, every story is told by different people?"

"For the long stories, yes. There is also another kind of story, which I once had the privilege to watch. It is told by a single storyteller to an audience of a few people who walk past the lanterns together with the storyteller."

Sermon looked at Sofia. "With this," he said. "You can tell your own stories. Any story you like."

Sofia was so happy that she couldn't even thank him. It was only on her way home, carefully holding the lantern in both hands, that she realized she finally had something to show Orì.