She didn't know which was worse, going downhill or going uphill. She used to think that down was easier. She didn't have to fight the pull of the earth that way. But her shoes were heavy and sometimes she stumbled over them. She'd once plunged headlong, tumbling head over tail until she'd finally caught herself and kept walking, still with bruises from her fall. Now she had a walking stick, a thick limb of oak. It had worn smooth where she held it, a natural grip. That didn't prevent her toes from sliding to the front of her iron shoes. When she'd first started walking, her feet had bled every day. She'd tried to preserve them with bandages of rags and later her own clothes. They were already torn to shreds. Now her feet were almost leather, furlongs of walking had rendered all weakness from them.
Just so had her journey stripped her veneers. Her old life, the parties, the harpsichord lessons, the petty rivalries and pettier gossip, they all belonged to another person. A person with soft, white feet that were accustomed to silk slippers, not iron boots.
When she'd first started walking, she'd counted her steps and tried to calculate. Her stride was this long, she took that many steps in an hour, she'd traveled this far, her shoes had been worn down that much. The numbers had left her mind, along with the rest.
Every day she walked, no matter the weather, no matter the terrain. She'd passed through mountains that swept over her head, terrified that she'd have to climb to their peak. She'd passed through trackless forests, where the trees made a close roof over her head. She'd passed through cities larger than the one she'd left so long ago. Once, a boy had thrown a stick at her. Sometimes she got some bread or meat from a stranger. Sometimes the dogs were set on her. Sometimes she'd gotten leers and calls, those places she left glad that she wasn't able to rest.
Her compulsion to move only ended at sundown. In the darkness she was able to tend her wounds. She could find enough food to settle her hungry stomach. She often succumbed to a dreamless exhaustion shortly after stopping. No matter how tired she was, or when she was briefly warm and content under a pile of leaves, she had to move, to follow the compass that pointed its inexorable way.
She thought that her heart would more easily stop beating than she would stop walking. She thought that if her heart did fail her, if all the insults to her body caught up with her, she'd still be walking, a silent corpse. In her grimmer moments, she wondered if she already was one, and was merely playing at life.
All she knew was that she could not stop until she'd walked in a pair of iron boots until they'd worn away and fallen off her feet.