[ WP ] There is a road where people depart , but nobody ever arrives .

The boy with no name climbed the boulder. Its flat top was worn smooth by the feet that had passed across it in the time since the world began. The boy followed in those invisible, innumerable footsteps as he walked to the edge of the boulder. There, standing between the spirit poles, he could see the whole village laid out before him and everyone who had gathered to see him. 
 
 The shaman's name was Voice of Spirits. Her body was old, her skin wrinkled and sagging, but she was still agile as she danced around the boy, calling the spirits to witness. Finally, she came to rest and swept off the mask, the skull of a great bird topped with feathers as long as the boy's arm. She replaced it on the spirit pole it had come from, lifting the heavy skull with ease. She touched the boy on the shoulder, and he knelt. `` You are no one,'' she intoned ritually, her voice stretching out to reach every ear in the village. `` You have no name and no place in the world.'' 
 
 The boy saw a girl standing outside her family's hut. She waved at him with a surreptitious motion of her fingers, and he hid a smile. Over the years, he had often hoped that his name would be a good one that was strong enough to bring her to his side. In his most secret thoughts, he sometimes thought of her as Beautiful. He was ashamed of it. It was not his place to name her. But sometimes, he thought it anyway. 
 
 Voice of Spirits continued, `` It has been fifteen summers and one day since you entered this world, nameless one, and today is the day you will walk the Road.'' Her long arm swept out and a knotty finger pointed. The ceremonial gate interrupted no wall. It stood alone on the northern edge of the village. White spirit-marks slanted this way and that atop its red timbers. As she pointed, her apprentices pulled the gate open. Beyond it was a stone path leading straight as an arrow into the virgin forest. The other three directions were for people to use, but the North was the spirits' way. The people did not touch the northern forest and did not travel into it, except on one occasion. 
 
 `` The Road belongs to the spirits,'' Voice of Spirits said gravely. `` Nameless, you do not belong in this world. Nameless, you are like a spirit that walks. You and you alone may go among the spirits. If you live, if you return, you will return with a name, and we will know you at last.'' 
 
 Voice of Spirits put a hand under the boy's elbow, and he rose smoothly to his feet. She dipped her fingers into the bowl of whitewash that belonged to the spirits, and she painted marks on his face with sure, swift strokes. `` The spirits will recognize you, and in time they will tell you your name.'' An apprentice came up the boulder, holding the boy's iron-headed hatchet. Voice of Spirits took it from his hands and turned to place it in the boy's. She raised her arms to the sky. The villagers mimicked her and joined their voices to hers for the last words of the ritual. `` No one leaves, but no one does not return.''
