It was impossible to say what kind of life the little girl had ahead of her. What she would become. What job she would do, whom she would love, whether she would grieve, lose, or win. Whether she would have children and what kind of people they would be. You couldn’t even imagine what she would look like as an adult. At the age of four, nothing was yet complete. The color of her eyes shifted between blue and green, her hair, which was dark when she was born, had now lightened, although there was a hint of red among the blonde, and the color could easily change again. It was very difficult to settle on anything now. She was lying face down with her face turned toward the bottom. The back of her head covered with thick, congealed blood. Only the braids that started from the back of her head and floated had brighter shades.
In any case, you wouldn’t say that a horrifying atmosphere prevailed in this scene. Not more horrifying, anyway, than if she hadn’t been lying there in the water. The noises in the forest were the same as always, unchanged. The light filtered through the trees and fell in thin beams, in the same way it always did when the sun was out at this time of day. The water moved calmly around her, and its surface wrinkled only when a dragonfly occasionally landed on it, causing small ring-shaped ripples. The transformation had begun, and soon she would become one with the forest and the water. If no one found her, nature would follow its course and make her its own. For now, no one knew she was lost.
