Your secret friendship with Rose develops quite a fair bit. You have quite a bit of time to play with her. Due to your success at "hunting", father seems more than happy to leave you in charge of the hunting. Everyday, you head out to do the snares, Rose awaits with a string of hares for you. Then, you have a while to play and have fun, before you need to head home to avoid arising suspicion. You gift Rose with a few luxuries that she can't scavenge from the woods such as preserves, a blanket and a few other man-made goods. Father notices your rise in behavior, but he simply dismisses it as you enjoying the woods and all the time you're spending in it. Like you, Rose assures you that it's best you never meet with her parents. When asking if her parents even know of the friendship or whether they're in the dark like yours, she vaguely implies that her mother does know, and watches you two playing occasionally. You never see her, mother, but you don't mind. For now, all is good.


You run through the undergrowth desperately with all your speed, but like always, Rose is much faster than you. She taps you in the shoulder before speeidng away in the blink of an eye, stopping by a tree to lean against it for you to catch up.


"You're too fast!" you complain.


"You're too slow," Rose says, sticking out her tongue. 


"Let's play another game," you say.


"Hide and seek?" she asks.


Despite Rose's unnatural ability to find you during hide and seek, by what she claims to be "sniffing" despite her being far away, you have much more of a chance of success in hide and seek rather than trying to outpace her. She's faster than a deer, you'll never beat her in that field.


"Yeah, let's do hide and seek," she says. "I'll be on first, if you want."


You nod eagerly, as  she spins around on the balls of her bare feet, clasping her hands over her eyes.


"One, two, three…" she begins to count, as you turn and sprint off into the woods.


You have a few places in mind that would make a good hiding spot. There's a little den underneath one of the trees that you could hide in. It should be easy enough to crawl into, although you've had similar hiding spots before. Still, it's one of the best spots you have, and the closest one.


There's also a more risky choice. The burnt out cottage that here mother supposedly lives in is close by. Rose says she only uses it for sleeping in, so you could hide out in there.


There's also her father's cave. It's slightly father away, but Rose seems to have an aversion to it. You could get to it if you run past enough, and hide away in there. There's been no reports of trappers in the area and Rose hasn't mentioned seeing him in a while, so you should be able to hide out there.

You hide in the burnt out cottage

You quickly make your way to the burnt out cottage. As you reach the clearing and see the blackened thatch and ash and the burnt stone, you feel nervous. Still, with your crucifix clutched tightly in your hands, you move forward into the burnt out cottage. You step through the doorway, crouching down into the ash. You pause, as you notice several black, burnt bones sit in the ash. You frown and wince, realizing that Rose's mother does, as a matter of fact, still live in this house… or at least, she stays here. You don't want Rose to have to come here and relive whatever awful memories he has. You wonder whether this is a good spot to hide.

You stay here

You wait there in the burnt out cottage for at least an hour, far longer than it ever took Rose to find you before. Eventually, you see her cautiously approaching towards the house, sniffing the air.


"Jacob? You're not in the house, are you? If you are, come out, please, she says nervously.


You step up, peering out at her from behind the stone wall. She frowns, looking annoyed.


"Jacob! I told you to stay away from here!" she says, sprinting towards you and grabbing you by the wrist. 


She begins dragging you along the path home.


"What? I needed somewhere to hide," you say. 


"Not there!" Rose complains, fiddling with her wooden ring. "It's going to take forever to get your scent out of the ash so she doesn't know you were there!"


"She's..." you begin to say, before deciding to hold your tongue.


"What?" Rose asks, raising an eyebrow.


"Nothing," you say. "I'm sorry. I won't go near there again."


"It's OK," Rose says. "Come on, it's been a while. You need to get home."


You nod, and walk home alongside her.