Artemis is, after all, the goddess of hunting.
The night sang odes to itself beyond the window: I remember that. The stars, strangely bright, and a shy, waning, almost liquid moon. The world stretched out in front of me in the form of a long paved road that I didn't know, but at the same time, it was more familiar to me than anything. Of the trip, the steering wheel and the gear and the pedals, I don't remember anything. I don't remember my body or the leather under my hands. There was no body to live in, so much less a car to drive. So I floated through the land of Artemis and Nix, in silence. I was in a trance, and there was no thought that would dare run through my mind. I just drove. And when, after hours and hours, I finally arrived at the gate that had once been green, I burst out of that trance, and a terrible feeling came over me; around me, the world was real. Dark and green and huge. The sounds of the night danced into the car through the open crack in the window, quiet but tangible. The gurgling of water somewhere and the whisper that leaves express when they are stroked by the wind; the orchestra of cicadas and crickets with the occasional ominous participation of an owl; and the characteristic sound of the silence of the night. Because at certain times, silence is also a sound - the loudest and quietest of sounds - and has its own characteristics. As I opened the car door, the silence was a pair of unsettling eyes looking directly at me, warning of fate. And I looked directly at them, shivering under my white chiffon, and nodded. It's here, isn't it? I can taste water in the air. I took off my high heels and left them in the car. When I put my feet out, they found the earth hot and humid, almost creamy.
