My grandmother hoards bread. She takes a slice and picks it to pieces, rolls the pieces into little balls between her twisted, bony fingers, then stuffs the balls into the pockets of her dirty old apron. They harden in there, become little white pellets you'd probably mistake for pebbles if you didn't know where they came from.

Once they've hardened, she leaves them all over the house, talking to my great-uncle like he's still alive and right there with her as she shuffles up and down the stairs and the hallway. "Keep with me, Hans. Don't cry, don't cry. I'm laying breadcrumbs, see? We'll find our way back."

Her accent is so thick I used to have trouble understanding her. Mom gave me the task of picking up after her, though, so I guess I've gotten used to the way she talks. I used to walk right behind her and pick up the bread as she set it down, but that got her upset enough to yell, "What are you, a crow?" She shooed me like shooing birds, her arms waving wildly, and I ran away from her.

I didn't tell Mom, though, because usually Grandmother's docile, and I like having her in the house. When she's lucid, she tells the best stories. I don't want her telling those stories to the walls of some assisted living facility. I just learned to wait until she was out of sight before picking up the bread balls. Then when she comes back and sees them gone, she just sighs and says, "The birds took them. No, it's all right, Hans. I'll just put more out. Papa gave me more bread this time. I think it's enough."

I've asked Mom if she knows why Grandmother does it. She just sighs and says, "Your grandmother had a hard childhood." I used to think that meant Mom didn't want to tell me because she didn't think I was old enough; now I think it's that what she knows doesn't make sense. When I ask Grandmother about it, she mutters about forests and not eating gingerbread, and tries to give me some of her bread pellets.

"So you don't get lost," she says clearly, and looks at me as though she sees me, as though she's lucid. "Don't get lost in this wood. You never find your way out."

That, I think, is the truth. Grandmother tells wonderful stories, but not about herself and I think she waited too long to try, until all that's left is the bread and my great-uncle, the birds and being lost in the forest, the choice between eating and maybe finding your way home.

I follow behind her, and I don't pick up the bread she lays down until she's out of sight, but while she's in the room with me I whisper, "You're home, Grandmother. You don't have to lay the trail anymore."

If she hears me, she doesn't show it. Maybe I sound like the birds to her. And maybe it's me she's talking to when she says, "Not much longer now, Hans. We'll be out of these woods, and we can sleep."

BIO: J. C. Runolfson likes poking at faery tales. Sometimes, they poke back. She's previously had work published in Reflection's Edge, Lone Star Stories, Goblin Fruit, and The Sword Review, among others. At the whim of the Navy, she lives in San Diego.