God, I Pity the Violins by StarSpray

Coda

The coordinates that Quynh's strange friend had given him led to a forest, reached by an overgrown footpath that branched off of of an English country lane. Booker had looked it up before coming—he was many things, but stupid was not one of them—and now that he was there he wasn't even sure why he'd bothered. The sun was hot in the cloudless sky; a fallow field stood between him on the side of the road and the forest, which he knew to be surprisingly large, with no roads cutting through it, only a small river winding lazy and brown through the thick trees.

Booker sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. His head ached dully; he needed a drink. Somewhere not too far away a sheep bleated, and farther off a dog barked. Other than that it was quiet. But curiosity won out, and before he could talk himself out of it, Booker was at the edge of the woods, and then inside them, following a twisting, winding path beneath ancient trees, thick-trunked and hoary. Their tangled branches blocked out most of the bright sunlight, so he walked in a sort of green-tinted twilight. The air was close, heavy with earthy smells of moldering vegetation and growing things. And it was very, very quiet. Once in a while a bird called, or something rustled just out of sight in the underbrush, but after a time even those sounds ceased.

This had been a bad idea. After what felt like hours upon hours Booker turned around—but the path wasn't there. Panic spiked before he looked again and found it, just not quite where he had thought it was. He looked at his watch. It had been thirty minutes. He gave in and fished out his flask.

Then he heard the sound of flowing water. The river was nearby. Figuring he might as well go at least that far, Booker went on. After a few minutes, he heard something else: voices, laughing and singing, either nonsense or a language he'd never heard before. His feet carried him forward until he emerged, blinking, into bright sunshine on the grassy river bank. In front of him was a pool formed at the side of the river, outside of the stronger currents; its surface was almost entirely covered with water lilies, and on the bank sat a man and a woman, bathing their feet and laughing together. The woman was clad in a light green dress with a silver belt, and wore a garland of lilies on her head like a crown. The man had brown curly hair and a thick beard and a ruddy face made for smiling, and he too had flowers in his hair. It should have looked ridiculous, but it didn't. They were the ones laughing and singing.

Booker had never seen anyone so uncomplicatedly happy.

The man spotted Booker almost immediately and jumped to his feet, skipping over a pair of discarded yellow boots, almost dancing down the path to take Booker's hand. "Hey, merry dol! Welcome, stranger!" he cried. "Come and sit and stay a while with us!"