There was nothing to mark her passing into the world of the Leszy, just a slight tingling in her throat and a warm glow at the back of her head. Yet, for all that, she had the sense that she’d wandered into somewhere best left forgotten. Even the ground seemed different, the texture hard and unfamiliar as if her tread didn’t belong here.
Everything seemed strange – even the stars were different somehow, the constellations which had guided her from childhood melted away into a thick dark swirl. Since when had night fallen? Surely it should still be daylight? She looked at the sky for familiar patterns but there was nothing. The stars stretched over the ebony sky without rhyme or reason, like shiny pebbles scattered on the shore.
Slowly she began to make her way along the track, furtive glances cast about her as she prayed to the Leszy of this place, or else to Jezi Baba, the night mistress. If anybody would help her in this place, surely it must be her.
At least this should be the right track. She remembered the first time she’d stumbled across this place, walking almost in a daze as if blinded by the sun. She’d felt that tingling across her skin that awoke within her the feeling that she’d crossed into some unknown and unnatural place.
Not that she’d felt anything like that after, when she’d tried to find the track again. No, this had to be the right spot. Perhaps her desperation had forced her to cross whatever barrier had been drawn over this place. Strange shapes pressed in on her, the visage of trees hardly seen in the world outside, as if she was far from the keeping of Matka Ziemia.
Yet there was no sign of the berries. With a cry she ran over to a small clump of bushes, her hands ripping through them as her fingers dug into the bracken. Finally, she sank back on her heels, her eyes filling with tears. The berries had to be there, they should have been there hanging under the leaves.
She glanced over her shoulder, but there was no trace of a familiar path. The forest track curved across the ground before twisting away to follow some unfamiliar course. Perhaps this was the wrong place, but how could she have mistaken the path? No, the berries have to be here, they just have to. They can’t have disappeared. Surely she’d only taken a few steps along the trail, yet there was no sign of the boulder or any other landmark.
Just let me find the berries, she pleaded to whatever god or Leszy might listen. A single handful and I shall never set foot in this place again. Old stories welled up in her head, the evil of the Leszy who guarded their sacred places well and were unlikely to forgive any trespass; the heads of their victims left to rot amid the branches. Or else they’d gather up a harvest of souls and imprison them deep within the bark of some ancient oak. I only came here for my father’s sake. But there was nothing, only a chill in the breeze and the rustle of leaves.
She stumbled on blindly. Maybe Yaroslav was already dead, forgotten and alone in that painted cave. Forgive me for not being there to wish you well in the ancestor world. I’m sorry that I couldn’t give you the rites you deserved. And, if she didn’t find her way out of the forest soon, then she would follow him. But it was no use. Fearfully she peered about her, the dark clinging to the forest like dew, blotting out any semblance of a path.
Now she began to panic, a hot tide of bile rising in her stomach as her feet slipped across the damp ground. The warning of Katchka and the old ones rang in her ears. Never let yourself get caught off the forest paths at night or else the trees will gobble you up and suck out your marrow. Breathless, she glanced around, hardly daring to look where she was going. Strange shapes slithered around the branches and coiled in the gloom. There was a sudden chill and then there came a sound.
She tensed ready to run and then, in her haste and uncertainty, she tripped over a root, her feet sliding across the moss as she fell to the ground, her mouth filled with mud and grit. Cautiously she picked herself up. There it was again, off in the distance, the beat of air like the thin flap of wings. Getting up, Iwa brushed the dirt from her knees and laughed. It had been nothing more than an owl, or a bat.
Telling herself not to be so foolish, she pushed through the bracken. Her hands stung with a mass of tiny scratches as she pressed on, slower now, her ears tensed ready to catch the faintest sound.
Then she stopped dead. She was not the only person in the wood: something else moved amid the bracken. Then she realised what had scared her before. It wasn’t the flutter of wings that had only served to cover another sound, something far more unnatural. It was closer now, the pitch rising as the noise swelled. Instinctively she pressed her hands to her ears and dropped to her knees: it was the sound of Jezi Baba.
She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound dried in her throat. Her feet were rooted. Please, great mistress of the night, spare me, she tried to say, but her prayers deserted her. There was nothing but sound and fear. Behind her a twig snapped. She started at the noise and
