Through the Fog, Part 1

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Juliet asked. The sun was settings behind the sparse trees. The path was clearly leading them up a small mountain, winding this way and that. The higher they went, the denser the fog.

“Absolutely,” Fin replied. “It's a well-known shortcut. It's a good way to get around that broken-down bridge in the valley.” He led the way, walking stick in hand, making turns that Juliet could barely parse out from random gaps in trees.

“But have you ever actually taken it yourself?” Juliet asked. She kept her skirt hiked up a bit. Though they had yet to encounter any mud, it seemed inevitable with how sodden the air was.

“Well,” Fin said, then hesitated. “Not strictly. But I have very good directions! Da made me memorize them before we left.” Now they were skirting along the edge of a cliff, with only an ancient, raggedy fence marking off the sheer drop.

Juliet stopped in her tracks. “Um. Did the directions say anything about a giant face in the fog?”

“Huh?” Fin looked up from his intense focus on the ground. There, floating perhaps a dozen feet ahead, was a vague face. Eyes and a mouth were clearly visible, shaped in patterns of light and dark inside the fog.

“Hullo!” the fog greeted cheerfully.