Once, when he was twenty years old, Tandar went back to the Boy Scout camp in the middle of winter, when it's empty and silent, and climbed up to the ridge. There was a little snow falling. It settled a little on his shoulders, on his sock hat, on the thin bare branches of the underbrush and he left a chain of footprints all along the ridge behind him.
He walked a long time without seeing anybody, not even animals, even though a lot of birds saw him and watched without saying anything. He went halfway to Paxquarra, to a high place beyond anyone's hearing, where you can see for miles. And then he spoke for the first time. He shouted.
"Mollly!"
Maybe it was the loudest noise he ever made. He let it ring and waited a moment, stamping. Then again--Molly--Molly--Molly--turning a slow circle, a tiny scarecrow figure alone on a mountain, bellowing in every direction. The sound didn't echo back, it just flew away, and then after a minute he almost whispered to himself, in a voice no living ear could have heard: "Don't forget. Don't forget me."