‘But are you sure you can find them?’ the women asked as they gathered round. ‘Do you know where they grow?’
‘Of course she does,’ Alia said, hardly moving. ‘She knows all the secret groves and the hidden places.’
Normally, once Katchka was done, Alia would be the first to scold. ‘Why should you scoff the fruits of others’ labour when all you do is run and hide?’ she’d chide as she held up her scratched fingers and broken nails. ‘You’re always off at play whilst others do the work, and the first to return when there’s eating to be done.’
Now Alia was desperate, ready to cling onto whatever hope she could conjure. ‘I bet she’d find those mushrooms without a shred of difficulty, easy as picking lovage.’
‘Not really,’ Iwa mumbled, trying to shrink away. But there was no denying it, she’d always been able to pick up all kinds of things in the forest and sometimes not even old Katchka could tell what she’d found, like the purple berries she’d come across one time. About the size of an acorn and soft to the touch, nobody had known what they were, but later Godek’s old hound, who had been sick for a week, had eaten some and all of a sudden he started jumping and barking like a pup.
Slowly Iwa hunkered down against the side of the ship and tried to merge into the dark. Her head swam with fear as she pressed hard against the wood. To go into the forest at night was suicide. What if some malicious Leszy, or other tree sprit caught her? The clan stories were full of people who ventured into the woods after dusk, never to be seen again. Sometimes the clan would find their heads hanging from an oak or a linden, the branches twisted, like fingers, in their hair. Even the memory of the purple berries filled her with terror. She should never have got caught in that part of the forest, but she’d run off after a fox cub and had wandered far into the undergrowth.
After Godek’s hound had recovered, the clan had sent her out to gather more of the berries, but they had disappeared and, no matter how hard she’d searched, she couldn’t find them again.
Perhaps that was for the best. In truth there’d been something wrong about the place, a vague feeling of disquiet as she entered the grove, as if she’d stumbled into something evil. Perhaps some malign Leszy held the grove as its sacred place. Even the trees appeared unfamiliar, their leaves, sharp as knives, shimmering in a pale, unnatural light.
‘Slip out once it’s dark,’ Katchka said. ‘Those murderers have more than enough to distract them, with their vodka and their feasting. You’ll be able to creep out of the camp, easy as rain slips off a hide.’
Easy for you to say, Iwa thought, when you’re not the one risking your neck. But it was no use: the women had already forgotten about her, their eyes gleaming as they imagined the swift revenge they’d take on the helpless Poles.
‘I’ll mix in just enough for a slow death,’ Katchka smiled, her teeth chipped and broken like blunted knives.
‘Tonight,’ Alia said. ‘It’ll have to be tonight, when the sky is moonless and Matka Ziemia lies shrouded in darkness.’
Iwa opened her mouth in protest, but there was nothing she could say or do. Slowly she sank to the ground and put her head between her knees, while the women huddled together and talked over their plans.
‘Only a fool faces danger without fear.’ Iwa felt a hand on her shoulder; it was Jacek. ‘And then he’s swiftly dead.’ With a gasp of pain the old hunter leaned closer, the stench of blood growing as he pushed something into her hand. It was a totem carved in the shape of a boar. All the hunters kept such totems, carved from the teeth of their first kill so that the power of the animal would pass into them and forever guide them in the hunt. Iwa rolled it smoothly in her hand, her fingers trembling over the bone.
‘We’ve faced much together.’ The hunter’s voice was so soft it took Iwa a moment to realise he was talking about the totem. ‘And it has never guided me falsely.’
Until now, Iwa thought, but took the thing all the same.
‘It should be with me, to help me in the ancestor world,’ Jacek said slowly, as a thin stream of blood gurgled between his lips, ‘but I will have to find my own way. It’s far more important that it guides you now in this world.’ He put his hands around her fist and gripped her tightly.
‘I’ll guard it well,’ Iwa clutched the totem to her, ‘so I can return it when we meet again in the ancestor world.’
‘The hope of the clan follows your tread.’ Jacek coughed up a thin film of blood. He’d tried to sound confident, but his eyes held little conviction. ‘May Karnobog guide you and…’ Iwa reached out to him, his skin clammy to her touch as he sank back, the words dry on his lips.
So what else was there for her to do but smile and crawl off into the dark? If only the timbers could open up and swallow her whole. What if I were to run away? Forget about the mushrooms and never come back? It’s not as if the clan ever cared about me anyhow. But how long could she survive out in the forest alone?
There were stories of hunters who’d abandoned the clan or been exiled, and sometimes they came across hermits living alone in caves or tiny crude huts – half-mad creatures babbling to themselves as they eked out a bare living. They were shadows, forgotten by clan and gods. Few would come too close to them, lest they be cursed by their spirit.
Even the mere thought of it was enough to stick clammily at the back of Iwa’s throat. Her world, Karnobog
