The gauntlet has been tossed, a challenge at the end...portends a grand eloquence or a fall face-flat in the mud. Dear readers here we but see, one more glimpse, hurried forward if you will, of the Maddie but once seen, and now seen again!

*****

It was a beautiful spring day. Laying aside her Great-grandma Elizabeth's memoir, Maddie whistled for her dog and started towards the woods "Mama! I'm taking Talula for a wa-a-lk," she sang out over her shoulder. "Back soon!"

Talula came bounding by her side, nose in the air. Maddie knew these woods like the back of her hand. She'd wandered them almost since she could walk. Coming up to and going around one of her favourite boulders, she made her way down a small incline, full of small rocks and last year's dead leaves, to the creek which trickled by. Talula went ahead of her, already wading in the water, lapping it up, then looking back at her girl, dripping water from both sides of her very wide grin. "Silly girl, do you know how funny you look?" Maddie chided her, trying very hard not to burst out laughing.

"Silly girl, indeed," she heard behind her. Quickly turning, with Talula instantly by her side, Maddie saw a very tiny old lady with white eyes and hair, holding a stout walking stick in a very gnarled old hand.

"W-w-who are you?" she blurted out.

The old woman chuckled, "As I said, silly girl. Know you not who I am? Did they not seek me, but disbelieving found me not? Ah, but you believe, don't you? Just like your great-gran did."

"But, you can't be, I mean that was over a hundred years ago, you're not real. C'mon Talula, let's go!" But, Talula, being a canny creature already acquainted with the ways of the old lady, just nuzzled Maddie's hand as if to urge her on.

"Oh, do sit down, child. I am neither here nor there, nor ever was, but was, as those who saw me will tell you, have told you in your gran's book. T'is true, every bit of it. Now, I will tell you my bit after your folk had all gone.

You will be the keeper of my memories and dreams, for after this last telling, that is all they will be and they will be yours for the keeping, but only yours. And, if someday, you should come by it, my little place, whe'ere it may be, why you will know to open those dreams and watch them unfold, just as I was charged to do one hundred years ago when I opened up my ancestress' book of dreams."

And, with that, the old woman wove dreams upon dreams, filling them with her memories, too, with brightness and darkness, dreams of forest, creatures, men, women, and children, she spun and spun and as she did, Maddie fell into a deep sleep.

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"Maddie! Maddie! Where are you?"

"Over here, Mama, coming! Oh, Mama, have you ever met the old woman who lives in the woods? She's just like the witch in Gran's book and she tells the most wonderful stories!"

"Maddie? Are you feeling alright? Come in and lie down, my sweet."

"But, Mam, I'm fine. I've never felt better. Talula knows her. Have you met her?"

"Maddie, now listen to me, you've been reading too much lately. There is no old woman in those woods, there never has been. Nobody knows what happened to Abigail Tingsley, but she was close to one hundred years old back when your Gran knew her. You just had a bad dream out there and I want you to rest."

Watching from the woods and listening, the old woman turned away, shoulders hunched over, with tears in her eyes. Slowly making her way, she faded like the mist until she was gone.