The Place
Whispering Hollow is an autumn forest of amber light and low, whispering branches, its clearings wide enough to hold a trade, its silence broken only by the smile. The forest runs 8 km from the first clearing to the last, and the 8 km is the length of the trade the forest keeps. The canopy is low and amber, the branches whispering in a wind that is not there, and the whisper is where the forest keeps its one voice. The ground under the trees is a soft carpet of fallen leaves, a deep rust to a true quiet orange, and the carpet breaks where the amber light of the forest has taken it, the light lying in the clearings in a glow that is warm and kept low. The air smells of the berries and of the small game and of the secrets, and the smell is where the forest keeps its one gift. A traveler who has walked the amber in autumn says the forest is a face that has decided to keep its smile on, and the saying is the traveler's only word, because the forest does not end and the whisper is all it does. This is the place where the smile is the only honest face, and the face is the only thing the forest will keep.
How They Live
The Fox Men build their dens in the clearings, chambers of woven branch and hide lined with fur and moss, their entrances low and guarded by the smile-wall. Light comes from the amber of the forest, which glows faintly in the half-light, and from the fire, which is small and kept low. Food is the forest itself: the berries, the small game, the secrets, and the trade that keeps the smile honest, the trading-lines running in the amber forest from one den to the next. Water is drawn from the clearings' springs, which the traders tend like a garden, the springs lying in the roots of the forest in water that tastes of the berries and of the autumn. The defense is the smile itself — a visitor who steps into the hollow is already in the path of the trade, and the trade is the alarm and the welcome and the sentence. The day is measured by the smile, which is also the calendar, because the hollow is the only clock the forest needs.
People
Home of the Fox Men, whose dens are counted by clearing, and the clearings keep some five hundred fox-men in the forest, five hundred being the most the berries can feed in a lean season. The traders are the sleeker females, with the thinner silver mark and the longer memory, who keep the trade honest and the smile on, and the keeping is the only rank the fox-men have, for they have no king and the not-having is their only law. The fur of the fox-men is a thick soft coat from deep red-amber to a true quiet orange, with the fur-tips a clean bone-white, and the bone-white is the fox line's most persistent claim. The mask-mark is a single silver mark along the cheek, worn as the smile that is always on, and the always-on is the fox line's most persistent claim. A fox-man who has not smiled at a stranger in a season is called "the one who forgot the deal," and the calling is the only punishment the forest gives, because the forest does not punish and the smile is all it does.
In Stories
The place where the smile is the only honest face, and the face is the trade, and the trade is the secret, and the secret is the price. It was in the amber of the clearings that the fox-men first learned the weight of a smile kept on, and the learning cost them the quiet and gave them the trade. The forest has kept the smile ever since, and the keeping is the forest's way of holding the secret honest, and the secret is the only price the forest will take.