Finally she stood alone. Cautiously she pulled her hands from her ears but there was no trace of Jezi Baba. All was still around her, there was no sound, not even the scrape of the wind through the bracken. She was on the edge of a great lake, the waters calm and green. In the centre stood an island, the outline of its trees black as dead men’s fingers. A torch flared on the bank and inked shadows deep into the bracken as Iwa ducked behind an uprooted oak. There was something wrong about this place. A strange scent lingered in the air and, above her, a strange moon shimmered. It looked full; but how could that be? The old moon had waned barely a night ago.
From the island came the sound of a drumbeat, like footsteps. Despite her fear, she peered over the side of the trunk. A second torch blazed and between the two stood a stone altar behind which a figure danced. Iwa gasped as she recognised the long black robes: it was the pig-faced woman. A small iron cauldron stood on the altar and, as the woman danced, she threw a sprig into the pot, causing the cauldron to burn with an acrid hiss, tendrils of steam twisting into the dark.
Across the lake a figure stalked, a formless shadow that slithered towards the island, the water boiling beneath its tread. The drumbeat intensified as the pig-faced woman reached out, her hands open in supplication, as the figure of Jezi Baba floated above her. Now the body was more distinct, the semblance of a torso and the hint of a face swirled in the mist. At the heart of the figure a molten fire blazed, the light so intense that it hurt Iwa’s eyes.
As the drumbeat reached a crescendo, the pig-faced woman began to sing, her voice floating thin across the water. Iwa couldn’t make out the words: it was an ancient tongue, the vowels hard and guttural, wholly unlike anything the clans had ever heard. The song melted into the beat of the drum and gathered pace as the tone swelled. And, as if to answer the song, the figure of Jezi Baba burned, the fire blazing with the beat.
Above the drum came the sound of Jezi Baba, like fast-flowing water over loose pebbles. Iwa felt the noise course through her. She raised her hands to her ears but the sound seemed to be coming from inside her head as, towering above the altar, Jezi Baba swayed. She was more than an outline now. Her body appeared more substantial, with a hint of skin wizened across her face.
Iwa froze, her breath held deep in her throat. In the bushes behind her there was a flicker of movement, the merest hint of something in the undergrowth. Hardly daring to take her eyes from the vision before her she glanced over the top of the tree. The bark glowed with a soft unearthly light that shimmered across the waters.
There it was again, the movement in the dark. Despite the danger, she couldn’t help but peer closer. A little further into the forest there was a tiny bush, its leaves twisting sharply about the branches, and underneath hung a group of purple berries.
From the ruins another swell of sound shook through the leaves. Still she didn’t dare move. A deep thicket surrounded the bush on three sides, but the other lay exposed to the shore. One brief glance and the pig-faced creature was bound to see her. She had survived one encounter with the night hag, but Jezi Baba was always shifty, her allegiance ever turning like a falling leaf.
From the shore the sound quietened, but that only served to scare Iwa more. She pressed her cheek hard against the rotten stump of the tree, soaked with the damp scent of earth and decay. In the half-light she could see a myriad of tiny worms crawling across the bark. But these were like no creatures she’d ever seen before. Their skins glowed with an incandescent light that shimmered in the gloom as they slithered across the dead white wood.
Still she couldn’t move, the breath close in her throat. I was an idiot to have ever come here. From the distant shore, the drumbeat continued and brought with it a static crackle, like the coming of a thunderstorm. Except that there was something else about the sound; a deep, unnatural feeling that clung in the air. Off in the distance the bush shook, though there was no trace of wind.
Iwa blinked and, in spite of her fear, almost broke from cover. Was it her imagination or had the forest rearranged itself? Slowly she peered out across the blackness. There was little trace of the path along which she’d come only a few moments ago. Even the bush before her seemed to shimmer, the bracken around it twisting and changing. A trick of the light, she told herself, though she knew that was impossible.
She clung to the shadows and shook her head. Such things can’t happen. The forest hardly changed from one year to the next, the familiar landmarks always there to welcome the clan as they followed the herds. Matka Ziemia was as eternal as the stars. But somehow she knew that she was far from the domain of moist Mother Earth.
Helplessly she watched as the bush began to recede, sharp tendrils of bracken coiled about it. No! She almost cried out in fear. This can’t happen. In the darkness the bush shimmered. Already it had grown faint, the leaves hardly more than a shadow, but still she couldn’t pull herself away, her face clinging to the stump as she pressed her cheek into the dead wood. If only she could get to the berries – they seemed so close, barely more than an arm’s reach away. She tensed and willed her legs
