Ola looked to Emil questioningly. Emil, understanding Ola’s bewilderment, grinned at him. “Aye, it seems odd, does it not?” he remarked. “But there’s a beautiful reason that we are asked to respect.”
Soon, Mar-Marie returned with a crockery pitcher of water and cups. She offered some to Ola and Emil. “If you’ll be so kind as to sit over there while you drink your water, I’ll finish up my sun-making in a stitch. Ord is down in the root cellar doing some work. Now, if you’ll just excuse me a bit, I’ll finish up and we can welcome you proper.”
Carrying the pitcher and cups over to a bench Mar-Marie had indicated, Ola and Emil sat down to wait. Ola noticed that the Wolf was now sprinkling the area she had swept with water, making it damp but not muddy. Then she came back with her broom and swept the sprinkled area furiously. Ola had never seen such a thing.
“It’s a kind of ritual that Mar does every day just at sunset,” Emil explained. “She calls it sun-making. She believes that if she does not leave the path in front of her house spotless and easy to travel in the dark each day, that the sun will not be able to find its way to her door...Mar says that the new day will not come if her path is not clean and easy to walk in the dark.”
Ola gave Emil a broad smile. He liked Mar already! She understood the power of Enigma! “Emil, Mar be’in a wise creature. Yor find’in the brightest light only by clean’in the places that can’t be cleaned! Yor mak’in a path in the dark for the brightest light!” Emil, still not fully acquainted with Ola, gave his new friend an appreciative, but uncertain look.
When Mar-Marie had finished sweeping, the path in front of her house was extremely smooth; the dirt surface hard-packed and clean. Without a doubt, Ola could see that the stretch of path going past Mar-Marie’s house clearly stood out from the rest of the path. He found it hard to imagine the sun walking along in the dark and needing a special surface to find its way, but he respected the belief of his host. If nothing else, her efforts did make the path beautiful and easy to walk. And who really knew what made the sun rise? He certainly didn’t. Maybe she was right!
“So, come on into our house, sweets,” Mar-Marie invited. “You’ve found a lost traveler, I see, Emil?” she said, looking at Ola.
Walking into the house, Ola saw a male Wolf, dressed in rough dark clothes; like legends Ola had once heard of voyagers on the distant seas. The Wolf had long ashes-gray hair. Ola judged that he was perhaps forty years old, similar to what he guessed Mar’s age to be. The Wolf was heavy set, like his wife. Although his rough coat bulged with a bit of a paunch, he was nevertheless strongly muscular, with thick arms, broad shoulders, and clear eyes circled by wizened rings.
“Ord,” Mar-Marie said to the Wolf as he ascended the last stair or two out of what was apparently a cellar under the house, “you must leave your work and welcome a new friend.”
The Wolf walked quickly over to Ola, holding out both his paws to him. “Greetings, take peace in our humble house,” he said, grasping Ola’s paw in both of his own in a warm pawclasp. “What business brings you?” he asked.
“My business?” Ola repeated, pausing. “I am a Gateless Wolf, a follower of the path of Enigma.”
“Seeing your outfit, there’s no question what you are,” Ord replied. “We’re well-acquainted with the path of the Gateless Wolf. But what’s your business?”
“I be’in a wanderer in search o’ the lost and trooubled,” Ola answered. “I roam the wilds hop’in to find travelers need’in help. I be’in in yorn lands in service to a missing Wood Cow, late of the Hedgelands, family of Emil, and now unknown.”
A shadow passed briefly across Ord’s happy face. “This Wood Cow—the Hedgelands, you say? There’s many a missing beast that’s n’er seen again in the Hedgelands,” he said, looking grim. “You came out of the Everlost,” Ord observed, “that means you’re likely either escaping from someone, or hunting someone. No one goes into the Everlost on a lark. So, what’s your business?” Ord’s words were now cool and hard.
Ola was confused. “Why, I be’in a wander’in beast, no moore, no less. A help’in creature. I be only escap’in King Stuppy’s rouges and cutthroats. Why do yor welcome a stranger with such questions? Yorn own good beast sense knows well that what I say be’in true.” Ola suddenly leaped up and swung into the rough-hewn rafters of the farmhouse. Hanging by his feet he looked at Ord with twinkling eyes. “If yor need’in more proouf that I be’in a true Gateless Wolf, I’ll just be’in play’in yor a tune on my flute,” Ola said, putting this flute to his lips.
“Now, you're a feisty one,” Ord returned, shaking his head with a renewed affection. “I'm glad you’re full of spirit, a feisty one! But don’t hold it hard against me...I had to test you. We’d be sorry later if you weren’t what you say.” Then, to Ola’s astonishment, Ord himself swung up onto the rafter and hung by his feet too!