“He didn’t know kids, but he knew that Oriana was a fellow traveler. It scared him, it really did, but he sensed that, inexplicably, she needed something only he could provide. Winter was over, but spring had not yet come for him and Oriana. They were between uncharted seasons, at the cusp of change, but only at the cusp. He didn’t know kids, but he supposed that sometimes a kid needed something she couldn’t find at home, but only in the wild of the forest.”
