A shadow moved through Willow’s home.

  With great agility and clever uses of qi, the shadow carefully and quietly stalked its prey in the main room of the house.

  It left to the outside world just as quickly as it entered, prey successfully captured, and no one the wiser.

  The shadow moved to the unmarked plinth behind the home and coalesced into the sitting form of Willow holding a freshly made honey cake. Her core ached from the prolonged use of the technique Harmony taught her in addition to her earlier core training, but the hot and sweet treat in her hand was worth the aches. Her sister would likely punish her for this later, but that was Future Willow’s problem.

  Her spirits appeared next to her and she split off pieces of the cake for each of them. Eos couldn’t taste anything as far as she could tell, but it would be rude to leave them out of the spoils. And of course she put a piece on her Ma’s grave marker so she could also enjoy the fruits of her daughter's labor.

  “Not that this wasn’t a great use of time and resources,” Change chimed in while chewing his piece of cake. “But shouldn’t we be doing more woods exploration today to find you an earth spirit?”

  “I agree with my brother, child.” Harmony hummed. “It has been almost a full year since we met, and you have yet to find another spirit to add to our group.”

  Willow ignored the negative emotions coming from her friends and savored her piece of cake for a moment before responding. Maple really outdid herself on this one, she’d have to tell her later.

  “Look, we’ve checked all around and all we’ve found is various wood and plant spirits. Plus that one river spirit, but they were way too strong for us.” She started licking the fingers that were holding the cake and looked at her friends. “I’m starting to think there aren’t any good earth spirits around here.”

  Change tried to argue. “And I told you, if we find a cave system, there should be tons of earth spirits in there.”

  “I’m not jumping down the well again.” The girl said while holding up her arms as an X.

  “Yes.” Harmony agreed while delicately nibbling on her share of cake. “We were lucky Mister Xin put a stop to that foolishness before she got hurt, brother.”

  “I still say we didn’t give my idea a proper try.” Grumbled Change as he finished off the last of his cake piece.

  Eos merrily burned their piece of cake and contributed nothing but their can-do attitude to the conversation. Willow appreciated her friend's optimism considering their constant failure to find more friends.

  It definitely wasn’t from a lack of trying. She’d explored as much as she dared all around their little community. Even overcoming her completely understandable fear of the surrounding woods hadn’t yielded any tangible results. She even managed to not get lost this time.

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  Meanwhile, her core training with Harmony and Change had been going great. She could now do a lot more cycles than she had fingers and toes to count. Harmony even taught her that nifty technique to harmonize herself with her environment which had been quite helpful on some of their excursions. She still couldn’t do that thing Change had tried when they first met, but he said that’ll take a while to get right. Personally Willow thought he was just afraid of doing something that’ll hurt her again, even if he didn’t want to say as such.

  With all the cake devoured save the solitary piece atop her Ma’s grave, the spirits returned to their spaces inside the girl. Willow got up and dusted off her simple dress, while turning to her Ma’s grave marker. She clasped her hands and sent some kind thoughts to the idea she held in her mind of what her mother was like.

  Willow had no concrete memories of the woman. Apparently she had died while they were travelling to the Vale they now call home, but the girl only got bits and pieces of the story. Her Da didn’t like talking about it, and Maple only told stories of the happy moments she had with Ma rather than the rough journey they had getting here. Yew doesn’t mention her at all, at least whenever he was in Willow’s presence.

  The girl had a vague feeling of a qi that was similar to Maple’s but earthier whenever she tried to think of her mother. She didn’t know if the feeling was a memory or a hope of what the woman was like, but she clung to the idea it represented regardless.

  Her spirits were surprisingly quiet during her moment of contemplation aside from Eos sending some warmth and comfort her way. Normally they’d chime in at any time so long as she was alone, but they seemed to grasp the solemnity of the moment.

  Moment over she gave a last wave to her mother’s grave marker before she started running around the edge of the community. She’d always enjoyed the sense of freedom and fun that running provided and she could now run full out for much longer since she started training her core. She wasn’t sure what the connection was, and when Harmony tried to explain she kinda zoned out and only got half of it. Since she took the time to explain it the first time, Willow didn’t want to inconvenience her friend by making her explain again.

  Besides, she felt like she got the most important part. Something about qi going to her muscles and making them stronger.

  As she ran she saw Aunt Sarah on her porch working her loom to make cloth out of the cotton her family had grown last month. She gave her a wave as she zoomed past and the older woman waved back. She also noticed Remy there, but as usual he tried to make himself hidden from her which made her sad.

  She started to tire as she made it past the Xin household which was fine as she usually tried to avoid going near Old Ping’s place due to the rotten qi that had increasingly started to emanate from her area. The old woman had also started to come out less and less. Her father was very concerned about her health, but also seemed almost excited whenever he talked about it? It was very confusing because both emotions seemed genuine, but were mingled in a way she didn’t understand.

  She had stopped telling people how they felt to her spiritual sense, because enough people had told her it was quite rude to talk about. So she was unsure if anyone else knew about the rotten state of Old Pings qi.

  As she started walking back to her home she realized that she had avoided searching in that area of her community for an earth spirit. It was mostly so she didn’t have to feel that rotten qi, but it was also so she didn’t disturb the guardian of the Vale. With the technique Harmony taught her though, maybe she could get away with it. Tomorrow then.

  Waiting outside her home was a very angry looking Maple wielding a ladle. She hated when Past Willow got her into these situations.