Atop the brow of the hill, at the farm's very edge, stood an oak as old as the earth. It's branches were gnarled, and twisted, and black... that the girl's every bone ached to climb.

There was a low creak, distant first, that grew so immense that it almost knocked Angharad to the ground.  She peered through the dark as dirt fell loose from the crooked ceiling, and she knew she was no longer alone within the warrens.

[NOTE: Angharad, "Ahng-hah-rahd."]

As she beheld the scribbled note, she could picture the old washerwoman perfectly. She imagined she might've creaked as she moved, and that her aged and overworked hands would wring together like old rags. The woman had not spoken in their moment of meeting, but Angharad remembered clearly the way that her lips would tremble, as if silently muttering the words of the very note she had written:

"Don't go near that old oak, miss. Her roots are bad, as is the dirt she writhes in."