Don't look back in anger, I heard her say

the devil is not as black as he is painted Oh how Otem makes them laugh! They cackle at her false bravery, at the confident face she tries to show them as she darts into the heart of their madness. But what she doesn't know is that they are the baking soda to her youthful piss and vinegar, and we all know what happens when baking soda and vinegar mix, now don't we? Invisible hands reach out towards the oaken girl as she dashes past. They pull and tug at her hair, not hard enough to stop her or really slow her progress in any meaningful way, but enough to sting. Enough to be mean. For these spirits are mean. They have been usurped, and although they are now back in their own space and time, their beautiful maze of bamboo has been lost. Now all there is to mark the majesty of what once was, was a thousand howling and furious voices and bodies, all swirling and swarming together to try and approximate how things used to be. "Don't go that way!" A voice calls to Otem, and suddenly before her is a pillar of mist so thick that it appears impregnable. "How about this way?" A path opens in the mists before her. Rift Havoc