Sophie

You know, only a few weeks ago my only thought was to leave this place. You have to understand, there aren't many options for a young woman here. I'm barely twenty-five, I want to... I wanted to do something else.

But I can't think such thoughts now. I just need a bit of cheering up, and Cern here - Mr Stag Head, he's a god, do you know? - he tries to help. He's very romantic, but the things he writes, you can't really put on the internet for others to read, they'll think you are a bit mad in the head.

I know, it's a cliché, a Romanian girl looking for love on the internet, heh. No, I'm not desperate, I'm very picky. I would just like to meet someone, somewhere, where I can go visit, and maybe fall in love. I'm only twenty-five, not in a rush. Heh. My mother was with baby when she was sixteen, so it's good to wait.

But it's hard to keep spirits up now, with our world coming apart. Maybe soon there won't even be somewhere else or someone else to fall in love with. Maybe people in the village say it's the end of the world. I try to tell them, no, no, don't say such terrible things! Keep your spirits up! But no one says this to me. Even Cern, he's often wrapped up in his morose thoughts.

So it's up to me to keep everyone's spirits up. Is that fair? I need some cheering up, too, sometimes.

We live so far away from everything here, it's like being in another world. I haven't been too far away, just a few times to the city, but I know how it is out there. Different. In every way.

Here, we don't blink an eye when a bird speaks to us, or when we see the faeries go on a hunt, or Fata Padurii change her skin, or when old Mosul wanders across the road. Or when he comes into the tavern with his horns and his cape.

Okay, so maybe that would have made us blink a while ago. But now? With everything happening out there? Mr Stag Head - Cern - is as close as we get to normal.

We will never be able to go back to how things were now. The Law has been broken, the ancient truce forgotten, and the gates opened up. Will you be able to forget? Will any of you be able to stay quiet? I think not. I think it will be written about, and also on television, and radio... Maybe even in the cinema, there will be movies about it. Computer games...

Unless the world ends, of course. Then our secret will remain so... for all time.

Cern is a god. Not God-god. He's been very clear on that, he says: "I did not make this world, don't blame it on me, I only live in it." He's a god, one of many, many. He's a god of the forest. Which, if you're going to be god of something, is a pretty good thing to be a god of.

I've known Cern Since I was four years old. I ran away from home when my father was drinking - he was a good man, only not so much when he was drinking - and I walked all by myself into the deep forest. It was raining, and quite cold, and it was getting dark.

I found a dry spot under the roots of a big tree, because I... I didn't know the way back and was too scared and tired to walk. When he came to me, I wasn't frightened. He spoke softly to me, took my hand, and led me back out. When we could see the lights of the village, he let go of my hand.

After this, I would see him often. He would stand at the edge of the forest, and I would come to him, and we would talk.

When this war began, he was forced to leave his forest. He came to me, said his people were being hunted down, and I said to him: "Cern, the best thing you can do right now is come to us, help us fight." He did this because he cares for me. He wants to protect me.

But it's us who must protect them now. They are all lost without us, I think, the people of the forest.

Your "secret world" is not so secret to us. We've lived with magic for as long as there's been a village here. We know monsters. Vampires, shapeshifters, flesh-eaters - ghouls - all these things, they are not just fairy tales to us. They are facts of life, like poisonous snakes and wild animals.

When I was a child, I learned to respect and care for the forests and those who live in them - but also to fear the things that live in the dark places. Things that steal children, life Fata Padurii. Oh, she wasn't evil, it was never about that. There were safe places and unsafe ones, and if we walked into the unsafe places, it was only fair that we would be unsafe.

Those were the laws we lived by. It's how there was balance and peace herer for half of thousand years. We all respected the Law. But now? Seems the Law has been forgotten, and our world is secret no more.