It all happened in an instant.
Marwig threw the stone as hard as he could to whatever had stopped behind them. It clanged against nothingness and fell flat on the snow. Afterwards, he charged with the branch in his hands to where the stone had clanged. At the same time, Bianka had pulled out her stone knife and leapt towards the same spot.
Two loud clangs were heard… and Bianka and Marwig were on their backs, aching and looking up. What was once invisible was now casting an imposing shadow upon them. Where once was snow and a background of birches was now an immense figure as tall as three meters, shaped like a dome.
A dome wearing the black pelt of a bear and the feathers of an entire murder of crows as a mantle. It held a black, iron cauldron in a long wrinkly hand.
“Now now…” the voice sounded ancient and feminine “There’s no need to be rude to an old lady, is there?”
Thin, bony fingers emerged from the black mantle. They pulled it back and revealed an unfathomably old visage. A long, protruding nose was the first thing, followed by a toothless mouth and a pair of tired eyes. The folds of her cheeks were pulled in what looked to be a gentle smile.
The face had emerged around the middle of the dome-shape. It promptly brought to mind a simple question: what was the one-meter-tall protrusion concealed under the mantle?
Bianka and Marwig looked at each other worried, recuperating from the cauldron’s unkind strike that had brought them both to the floor. The moss boy grabbed his improvised weapon from the snow, standing in front of the taller lady of birch.
“Stay back, witch!” his shrill voice resounded, frightened and yet courageous.
“Oh, what a brave little thing you are, young one…” she was sincere as she spoke. Unfortunately, it was not easy for the imposing creature to not sound at least a little bit condescending. She picked up the stone that had been thrown to her, her impossibly long arm seemingly as long as her body.
“I said stay back! I’m not scared of you!”
“If that were the truth… you’d be as foolish as this pebble in my hand, young one” she chuckled.
“What do you want from us?” Bianka asked, trying to keep her composure as she retrieved her knife, holding it in front of herself “Why were you following us?”
“Oh darling, a poor old lady such as me often gets a little bit lonely, you see…”
“Then why were you invisible, huh?!” shouted the boy of moss, waving his branch and hitting the ground with it.
“Well, well, that is a fine question, young one. I feared I wouldn’t be welcome in your company…” she squeezed her fingers on the little rock “…and can you blame me for being cautious? You did attack me as soon as you perceived me after all…” her tone almost inspired some sort of pity. Then many little cracks were heard and from her hand crumbled minuscule fragments of stone.
Bianka sheathed her knife and laid her hand on her companion’s, having him lower his branch. He looked at her almost in shock. The way she nodded and softly smiled was enough to put him at ease. As much at ease as you could be in the presence of a witch.
“Oh my, what gentle, tiny souls I’ve come across today! How fortunate!” she brought out her arm towards Bianka “Some call me Mother Berna. You may simply call me Berna, if you are so inclined…”
It was really difficult to tell what a witch had on her mind. If one’s eyes were the mirror to the soul, those of a witch were often smudged or cracked. In some cases, they were hidden by a frame of wrinkles, making them barely visible. Bianka looked at her long, bony hand with suspicion. As her instinct suggested a tenuous and cautious trust, she took her hand.
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Berna pulled slightly and the lady of birch was instantly back on her feet.
“My name is Bianka. My companion’s name is Marwig.”
“Names both fair and proud you bear…” she commented while pulling down the hood of her mantle. Uncountable braids of silver hair revealed themselves. No one braid had the same shape or size as the other, some going as far down as her knees. Wherever those may be.
Marwig was still unconvinced. He kept the branch, arranging it in a walking stick for the time being but holding it at the ready.
“Something peculiar has happened to our forest, I’m sure it doesn’t take a half-deaf crone like me to perceive it” she shifted her weight from a foot to the other and began to walk east. Now that she was in front of them, perceivable and moving, they noticed. With each step she took, something under her mantle clanked, jingled, gurgled and… murmured.
“Is it… is it a fire?!” asked Marwig alarmed, following after her.
“Wouldn’t we be seeing the smoke by now? The embers even!” she brought her cauldron under the black pelt. It disappeared “No, no. Something different, something different is plaguing our fair forest…”
“It feels like they are enduring whatever this is… constantly. It never stops, it’s like a-”
“Disease! Correct, young lady, correct” she took the liberty of pinching her cheek. Bianka pulled away quickly.
“But… I’ve felt diseases. Parasites, fungi, all sorts of things can make the tree sick. This isn’t any disease.”
“Does that mean you… can’t cure it?” Marwig wondered. The ladies of wood, after all, were famous for their healing prowess.
“I don’t know!” she raised her voice, struck in her pride, making him quake slightly “I… I’m sorry. Maybe I could be able to cure this but…”
“This is not a mere tree getting sick, young one. This will require more than a sole lady of birch to heal.”
“So… we should find more ladies of wood! So that we can fix this!” exclaimed the boy of moss, once again ready to take on the whole world.
The witch cackled slightly “The hungry one looking for berries shouldn’t ignore the mushrooms on his path.”
He stared upwards to Bianka’s face. She nodded in agreement with the witch’s affirmation. What did that have to do with-
“Which means, young one…”
Could she read his thoughts or just his obviously confounded expressions? You could never tell with witches.
“We may not find other ladies of wood but we shouldn’t disregard aid in different forms…” she smiled her toothless smile, looking down on him. Despite how safe he might’ve felt, so small when compared to the witch’s massive self… her talon-like fingers still managed to pinch his cheeks.
Silence fell on the group as their walk finally brought them to the edge of the woods. The snow carpet on the ground was thicker and sunlight freely poured on it. There used to be evergreens enclosing the woods, they distinctly remembered them. What was now surrounding them, however, were ghastly grey husks, pointing at the sky like spiky, cracked fingers.
“It can’t be…” the lady of birch scanned her surroundings frantically. As any doctor would do, she immediately approached one of the sickly trunks, laying a hand on it.
This wasn’t just pain. This was agony.
She could feel her own bark, her own skin crumbling to the ground, made brittle and grey by relentless parasites, feeding on her. She could feel her own sap, her own blood hardening in her veins as if even moving a finger could cause it to snap like a fallen twig. The ground beneath her felt indifferent to her suffering, feeding a slow, deadly poison to thirsty, desperate roots. The air felt too heavy to breath and it felt like there wasn’t enough of it as she gasped.
As soon as he took notice, the boy of moss threw himself against her immobilized, trembling body, knocking her away from the dead husk as she landed on the snow and started to breathe once again. Heavily. Copious, painful tears rolled on her cheeks as she threw her arms around Marwig’s small frame, sobbing violently. She needed to feel his lifeblood flowing through him, she needed to know that he was alive and so was she. The protracted agony, condensed in a handful of seconds, had passed for her. For the evergreens, however, it had lasted months. It still wasn’t over.
It finally dawned on the three forest-dwellers. It wasn’t a scar or an open wound. It was necrosis. This could not continue.
Berna shook her head. Someone could've read her expression as ‘saddened’ if they managed to interpret the very fine printing. Her thin, crooked arm outstretched and, in a few moments, a crow perched on it.
“There there, dearie. Mother Berna has a little favour to ask of you…” from under her mantle she extracted a handful of bugs which the voracious bird immediately devoured “We are going to need more help than I had predicted…”