Alice watches the firefly intently, except by its glow, it is an ordinary firefly, she looks around and there are no others like that, a few common fireflies around nothing more, there is no creepy noise or dangerous silhouette.
She follows the firefly for a while with her eyes still lying down, the insect wanders like any other without any purpose, but this fortuitous encounter will not become a mystery, Alice will look for all answer she can get.
Alice would like to sleep more, but if there are others like that out there she won't see them in the day, she wanders with no clue or direction, she was lucky to find this firefly as a clue, she wishes it had been a little more than lucky, an animal that leaves tracks.
The forest isn't that big, but it would take at least a month to cover its entire length, not to mention caves and other hidden places that might exist. Alice has seen a pocket once that entered the bowels of the earth through a hole in a tree, it was one of her strangest adventures.
Alice decides before sunrise to stick around for two more days, much longer than she had originally planned, but it's worth the search for what might have caused that firefly to emit magical light.
There are many springs in this forest, the temperature is quite pleasant most of the day and night, Alice now sleeps during the day so that she can spend the whole night looking for fireflies and other clues, so she will be able to make it more rested.
The wild animals here are less aggressive and the beasts are rarer, some beasts just fled when they saw her, she was surprised by the calm of this place.
Alice continues to collect a little of the medicinal herbs each time she finds it, it is no longer her main objective, just a consolation of searching for something blindly that may not even be there.
Alice sees a few more fireflies like the one from the night before by chance, there's no connection between where she sees them and where she is, they're not really an active part of anything, mere bugs surviving.
On the last night Alice sees three of these fireflies circling over a rock, she observes these carefully and they also look very common, she then turns her attention to the stone they circle and nothing unusual either, she touches, smells and even tastes that stone, and then she sits on it.
Alice hears a whisper, she doesn't understand at first, and it repeats itself, it doesn't take long for it to be clear, that's a laugh, a fleeting laugh, she thinks again about the possibility that there's a fairy around, but it's already hard to find fairies in places where magic is strong, in an abandoned and forgotten forest this seems impossible.
After a few repetitions it's possible to understand better that whispered laughter, it doesn't have the grace of a fairy voice, or any close relative of them, it's an ugly, squeaky laugh, it's not just one, it's possible to identify at least three different voices.
Alice observes that between the laughs there is also a conversation, in addition to the voices that certainly don't belong to a graceful creature, there is a weird dialogue.
The fireflies land on Alice's shoulders to her complete surprise, so she can hear better and more clearly.
"Hey big bugger?" the call is accompanied by a laugh. "Haha really big buggy" another voice mixes with the first and amidst more laughter another mockery. "big stinky bug!" the third voice is more mocking and more daring.
Alice shakes her head from side to side, she refuses to believe what might be the only implausible explanation, other than of course being crazy.
The mocking and calling continues, more daring each time, Alice gets up, she walks a bit and fireflies fly around her, she keeps pretending not to understand now, she's thinking.
When the fireflies start to move away, she knows she doesn't have time anymore and she responds, she doesn't know how to address them, or if what they say is just like a parrot repeating what it hears.
"Hey frog food?" Alice's call is ignored the first time, she repeats it twice more until the fireflies fly around her again, from farther away now.
They say some nonsense things to each other, it seems the words don't have a real meaning in their communication, after a few more minutes they turn back to Alice.
Alice has no better option if she hasn't already left these insects behind, talking to them is like a guessing game, every moment everything changes its meaning.
"Ugly torso, want that what?" laughter is the only constant in the communication of these unnatural fireflies, but it is already obvious that they are not freaks, Alice cannot draw a parallel between those creatures and any other that she knows or has ever heard of.
Those creatures have the dialogue of uncivilized humanoids, sick fairy habits, and the incomprehensible interest of lost-souls.
"Keep talking hollow trunk" Another characteristic is that fireflies always alternate when talking, none of them speaks twice in a row and everyone always speaks in the middle of the previous one's speech, sometimes making it impossible to understand what they just said, as if they were talking to themselves one moment, with each other the next, and with her suddenly without any connection to what they just said.
"Don't talk rotten leaf nonsense anymore" Alice walks to keep in the middle of the circular flights of fireflies, she thinks if any of the ones she saw before were like that, maybe it would have been easier to talk to just one of them.
"You guys act weird because" Alice teases them lightly, their most forceful responses are the simplest and easiest to understand, at the cost of having to call them back every time she gets the hardest with her words.
"You and phlegm are the same, everything stupid without us" Alice has already lost almost an hour to reach this point, and certainly these fireflies will hide when the day starts, she only saw these creatures at night.
"Rubble in the grass or in the mud, it doesn't matter, you all silly!" some of them always give a harsher response in retaliation for Alice's harsh words.
"No, don't rustle, just roll, and still idiot, idiot always idiot" Alice doesn't remember more irritating conversation than this one, veiled or haphazard insults, senseless responses from mysterious and meaningless creatures, a bizarre place and meager time, little result, and a lot of effort, it was easier to talk to her troll friend.
"Small stinks and dumber than myself, crazy to talk to idiots" Alice's harsh words this time raised more laughter than offense.
"Where bugs don't come and where bugs don't go, I don't understand and I don't want to see, leave without answering because idiot is always idiot" Alice doesn't understand her own words and doesn't try to make sense of her thoughts, instinctively tries to imitate the way of the fireflies to talk.
The whispers multiply, but these come from farther away, and dance among the trees, Alice sees a large oak tree beside a large blossoming cherry tree, all other trees in that forest so far looked very common, some more valuable to a lumberjack, others more valuable to a carpenter, but none worthy of an artist's attention or a nobleman's wealth.
But now in front of Alice two huge trees prostrate, the oak would certainly be a coveted piece of luxury furniture to be used in a nobleman's house, and the cherry tree with its flowers and berries in sight could inspire a talented painter.
The fireflies dance around these two trees, the light from the fireflies makes that place more dazzling, orange hues from the dawn of day begin to cross the sky to complete the spectacle, Alice doesn't manage in her few vague questions after any relevant information.
That place seems special, but there is no report of anything special that happened there, not that she found it, Alice has the idea of asking a little more about this Santa Ana when she passes through that village again, maybe the saint did something miracle around here after all, which, for sure, those who were exploiting that forest didn't.
That place only brought more questions than answers to Alice's already very full head, magic is always confused, Alice is already used to this norm, but how did people deal with this in the past? And why did they want so much magic if you can't understand, it shouldn't be easy to use? Alice thinks.
The fireflies vanish into midair one by one as the day begins, Alice doesn't think much about it, not even watching those two trees get more and more mundane before her eyes.
Alice is far from where she left the boat, she will run most of the time to be able to reach the boat and cross the river before nightfall, Alice's heart is slightly warmer from the view of the beginning of the day.
She doesn't stop to eat, just walks more slowly, she finds the boat without much effort, some animal overturned it, almost broke it, but I still have to resist at least one more crossing, a risky hunch.
She gets into the boat and sets off across the river with the sun already setting, the moon is high when she reaches the other side, she's not sure if this time she was more or less swept away by the current, she breaks up her camp and she gets a little tense with what she finds when picking up firewood.