A distinct whiff of manure and sour milk comes off my guest today. She didn’t enter — she burst into the premises like she owned the place and immediately began poking her bead-like eyes around my abode. Then she slowly lowered herself onto a chair and ran her plump fingers over the tablecloth. Her mouth twisted into a grimace of contempt, but she remembered just in time where she was and did not dare utter a word.

  I don’t like guests like that. The only purpose in this village fool’s life is to watch from behind the fence to make sure the neighbors’ chickens lay worse than her own. But I do not chase her away; I prepare her a drink. Worlds have every right to choose any guides they please.

  I place a cup of a hot drink before her. A drop of coffee, just enough for color and smell. Everything else is rich milk, thick with sugar. Beside it stands a plate of cherries drowned in sugar syrup.

  The guest smiles blissfully and reaches for the treat. Sugar is dearer to this village rabble than any jewel.

  “It’s hard on me, poor soul that I am. Fellow villagers, ungrateful fools, sent me, wretched as I am, to look for an offering for the Forest. And where am I to find it? All around for thousands of versts — thick, impassable woods. Last caravan came to us three springs back.

  And now… my whole family will die if I don’t find a worthy gift. And all because of that filth.”

  The guest covered her face with her hands and burst into hot sobbing. Her round shoulders shook in spasms of sobs and howling. My disgust deepened, but I silently added another spoon of sugar to her drink.

  At last the woman’s sobbing grew quieter, and soon she went on:

  “It happened last spring. Winter that year was fierce: hardly any snow fell, but the frosts were such that the ground froze a full ten cubits deep. All the village wells froze solid, and the dead had to be kept till spring in the farthest barn, ’cause even the blacksmith with his three sons couldn’t break the earth.

  It was clear already then that no good harvest was coming. The women were wailing ahead of time, crying and lamenting. They knew that in the second moon of spring the field would have to be appeased. Everything was chilled through, no strength left in it of its own — borrowed strength was needed. And only living warmth can give that. So under the dripping thaw they’d draw lots and choose a bride for the field from the fairest maidens.

  And they put my Talanka on that list too, though everyone knew she was already promised to Znoviy, the headman’s son. Must’ve been jealous, vipers that they are. Especially Znata. No one even looks at that fool of hers. What good is hair down to the ground, when she herself’s pale as mold, one sneeze and she’ll be laid up for moons.

  Not like my Talanka. She’s sturdy and handy with her hands. And if need be, she can pitch in with the men’s work too. She was bragging how she dared the blacksmith’s sons, tried to push their father’s hammer off the anvil. And she actually did it — what a fool, just like me.”

  The guest straightened proudly, making her round bosom look even more imposing. Indeed, there was strength there beyond measure — and plenty of foolishness too.

  “So there I was thinking, maybe I could come to terms with the headman early on, marry Talanka off in secret so the drawing would pass her by, when I saw…

  From the northern forest, She was creeping along, right toward the neighbor’s garden — the Lesavka.”

  Lesavka, as my simple-minded guest put it, is the living embodiment of the forest. Different peoples give these beings different names: forest nymphs, fauns, kikimoras, and many more.

  I know them as Forest Souls. Gentle and soft, loving to weave fragrant herbs into their hair and to sing with the voices of birds and the wind.

  The guest swallowed and quickly took a sip of the cloying syrup the coffee had become. I sighed. There was no reverence here. This was an echo of fear — almost the true terror and chaos that primitive people felt when trying to grasp the power of lightning and forest fires.

  “I just froze there, scared to frighten away such luck. Then I took a closer look. Just a child, she was. Pale, almost blue in the face. Must be wintering in a forest frozen clear to its roots wasn’t easy on her.

  I ran to the shed, grabbed a crock of milk I meant to save for cream. Poured a good half of it into a bowl and went out to the garden.

  The lesavka smelled the treat at once. They’re mad for milk, they are. Sell their own mother for a drop.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  She stood there sniffing so long I started fearing she wouldn’t come. But hunger drowned everything else in her. All I could do was stand still, so as not to scare her off.

  And there she was already, at arm’s length. Now I could see her proper. Cropped so short she looked like a boy from afar. Though who’d mistake a girl for a boy — though here, ‘girl’ was only a name. Skinny as a dry branch, shoulder blades sticking out sharper than tits. Fingers thin, near transparent. Like a dead thing reaching toward you.

  But the main thing was the eyes. Green, like the juiciest summer grass, with no pupils. And in that green, dark pools the color of swamp scum, like little constellations scattered across the sky.”

  The guest’s voice grows a little sluggish. The primordial magic of the living world is strong even in memories. The souls of nature were once among the most revered forces. They were prayed to, offerings were brought to them, they were praised and begged for protection. No settlement could have peacefully taken root by a forest without first asking the will of the local soul.

  But people always take by sheer numbers. They rush through worlds like merciless locusts. No wonder higher life retreats into the shadows. In time, only legends and children’s tales will remain of it. Even now… what disrespect, to call a Child of the Forest, a Living Soul, some kind of lesavka.

  But all I can do is go on listening in silence…

  “Already when she started drinking, I noticed. Her ears weren’t long. Lesavkas usually got ears like foxes’ or deer’s. Sharp, covered in fur. Sometimes with little tufts.

  But this one’s ears were human. A half-breed.”

  And into that last word my guest poured all her contempt and hatred. That’s how they speak of those they hate with their whole heart, to the very depths of the soul. Hate born of blind envy and not understanding, of fear of those who aren’t like them.

  “The lesavka was hungry somethin’ awful. The fool slurped that bowl dry and just collapsed right at my feet. Curled up in a ball and fell asleep. Only her thin lips stretched into a smile. And the grass under her started turning green.

  I didn’t waste no time. Ran straight off to the headman and the blacksmith with the news. Found a bride. Someone to offer to the field. A lesavka’s got more warmth in her than any ordinary girl, that’s for sure.

  Help came right quick. They tied her up and dragged her off to the headman’s barn. The girl was weak as can be, and drunk on milk to boot. Looks like she didn’t rightly understand what was happening. Still, we tied her eyes with burlap, just in case. Who knows, might put the evil eye on the headman’s goats.

  So she sat in that barn till the second moon. They gave her the goat pen. Threw in some hay and brought her a cup of milk once a day.

  Tied her tight, like a sausage. Gave her drink from hands. And the lads stood under the barn all the time, just in case. Though the lads had to be chased off too. The bride had to stay unspoiled. And they kept trying to stare and paw at her. Not like there was anything to paw. We never did fatten her up on milk. Skin and bones she was, skin and bones she stayed.

  They hauled her out of the barn right before the wedding. The lads knocked together a tub quick, hauled water. Freed the lesavka from some of the ropes and the rags she had left, and lowered her into the water. Scrubbed off dried filth for over an hour. At first she squeaked like a mouse, then just snorted and shook. But she took it.

  Once they pulled her out of the water, they dressed her up proper. Didn’t skimp on a linen dress, green trim embroidered along the hem. And the girls wove a wreath of forest flowers into her hair. Her shaggy locks had grown some while she was healing up in our barn.

  Only the burlap stayed on her eyes. Not right for her to gawk at our girls and lads.

  And in the evening, with the last ray of sun, they buried her alive in her bridal finery, right in the middle of the field. They were scared to take the bindings off, though. And they mixed sleep-herb into the milk. So she surely wouldn’t run.”

  The guest stopped for a moment and drank some hot milk, where the last traces of coffee had fully dissolved. The final words were spoken with special pride. I’m sure she took a leading part in it all.

  “The field was fed that year. We had a rich harvest. The lesavka’s strength, even a half-breed’s, was enough both to warm the field and let a bit spill over to the forest around. By the first frosts all the roofs were re-thatched with new straw, cellars were full, and under every eave at each hut hung bundles of mushrooms, smoked hare meat, and useful herbs for all kinds of sickness.

  The next year was good too. So many weddings. And my Talanka already bore a granddaughter to the headman and got with child again. Filled out, got even prettier.

  But this year misfortune struck. The field where the lesavka was buried turned all black. The snow slid off it onto the gardens, rancid and salty, spoiled good earth for ten cubits all around.

  That’s when those fools, the blacksmith’s sons, remembered it was I who had lured the Lesavka and came up with the idea to give her to the field as a bride. They said it was now taking revenge. And now it needed another burden. Warmer and bigger, to pay for the lesavka and give it strength and life for several more years.

  And they came up with giving my family to the field in place of that rootless lesavka. They talked the whole village into it and came at night, smashed the door of the hut, grabbed me, my husband, my youngest son with his wife and my grandchild. Dragged us all out in nothing but our underthings and hauled us to the headman’s barn. Tied everyone up and locked them inside, and shoved me out toward the forest clearing. Told me I had one moon to find a ransom to offer the field. And if I didn’t, then my family would go to the new wedding.”

  The guest had completely lost interest in the treats. Her voice trembled with fear and spite.

  Spiteful, dull-minded fools, seeing no farther than their own nose, looking for profit at others’ expense. The lives of several people are a payment far too small for what they have done. Even if they all went and buried themselves in that field of their own free will, they’d gain at best a year or two. Just so the same fools in the forest beyond could gather an extra basket of mushrooms...

  This world is doomed. That is why it sent this storyteller to me today. She is a witness to the catastrophe, not yet aware of what has happened.

  Those ignoramuses, afraid of going hungry through the winter, killed the last Soul of the Forest. One that survived by a miracle, that had not lost hope or her blind, childlike na?veté. They stripped the world of Life. Traded it for an extra sack of potatoes and a loaf of bread.

  I close the door behind my guest. She glances back at the sugar left on the table, full of envy...