Into the Deep Wood

Night of the Drowned came. It was a chilling name for a celebration that honored the dead and the river and asked its blessing for the coming spring - that it may bring life onto the fields and vineyards and a bountiful harvest of winter wheat.

For days before, the townspeople put up decorations. They would hang birch branches over their doors, and the women would weave flowers into their braids. Candles were set out on porches and stoops to honor the deceased. They would dance in reverence, burn pyres, and hold ceremonies to ask the Crimson River for good fortune and healthy fields and vineyards when the time came.

Much wine was brought from the vineries and set out by the river. Wooden tables were put up, open tents to shield from the sun, and at the very bank of the river - just downstream from the gristmill, was a cleared pit where the largest of the fires was to be set.

Marat was hesitant to attend. Such things were forbidden by the Order, by his faith. Although recognizing the winter solstice was widely accepted, this was something else entirely. But, It was not worth it to risk so much.

They came down the hill with many others early in the morning.

Horses stood tied to poles, their manes braided and necks adorned with wreaths of leaves and flowers. Music sounded.

At one point, Nadia had floated by them, stopping to tell Val how radiant and glowy she had been. This was a lie, as her skin had dulled and taken on dark undertones from the hardship of the pregnancy.

“I know you need to rest. Stay seated, my dear.” Nadia had said. “It is only for the last part, the celebration rites, when the sun goes down, that you need to worry about being on your feet. We will have one of the men’s horses bring you home afterward.”

When the sun caressed the tops of the trees, bathing everything in tones of copper and amber, everyone had begun to gather at the riverbank. A tall stack of wood tied with rope rose to the sky right next to the water. It would be lit soon for the All-Mother’s ceremony.

One of the men rolled a stump to them so Val could sit down as darkness fell and they gathered around. There were easily hundreds of people here, yet no soul made a single noise when Nadia stepped into the ring. She wore a scarlet dress that matched the river's red waters, and on her head was a wreath of grapevine leaves. On her face were drawn lines using soot, from jaw to brow. Her lips as well had been painted black. Behind her came what Marat recognized as the other Matrons. They were all dressed the same.

She announced herself and spoke of the year’s blessings, harvest, fishing, and births.

It began to get colder, so each Matron had taken up a torch, and they bent to light the fire all at once. In unison, they stepped back, forming a circle, as the flames rushed forward, eating their way through the tall stack. As if on cue, all the women walked to the line in the dirt and sat a few feet apart, forming a semi-circle around the ceremonial stage.

Then came Avgusta. She walked slowly but deliberately and without a cane. She, too, was dressed in scarlet, although her hunched petite figure carried the weight of her decorations with strain. Her face had also been painted.

She stopped at the front of the raging flames, her back to them.

“Hear me, oh, people of Chelkalka!” She cried out. “For it is this night that we give the gods what is theirs so they may give us what is ours.”

The crowd was silent and unmoving. It was the only reason that Marat had noticed out of the corner of his eye that several of the townsmen had moved forward around Val and himself.

He was no longer at ease.

“The gods bless the lands, those of ours and beyond!” Avgusta continued. “The Great Mother and the River feed our fields and our people. It is the souls of our dead she takes to their rest, and it is she that brings on her currents the babes born of our daughters.”

“Heed.” The Matrons said in unison, their heads bowed.

“We bring to her gifts so that she may gift us!” The All-Mother’s voice seemed louder, ringing across the clearing. A noise broke the hush from behind the people.

It was the squeal of a large pig. Three townsmen pulled on the ropes of an immense sow, who struggled with all her might to fight them.

It was heavily pregnant. The animal shrieked, twisting its head and body in every direction, desperate to escape the fire to which it was being led.

The All-Mother stepped aside, and the men pulled the sow to the middle.

“May the cycle of birth, life, and death feed the reds of the waters. May it bring us tenfold that which we give up now!” Avgusta called out. One of the men produced an axe, and in the silence broken only by the animal’s cries, he drove it down on its neck with a sickening, wet crunch.

Marat cringed and felt Val stir beside him. He put a hand on her shoulder. He felt his stomach twist for the offense that animal sacrifice had been in the All-Father’s faith. The creation that came of him was to be revered and never killed in waste. But, this was not his to oppose.

The body was then dragged and thrown into the rushing waters. It made a heavy splash, and then the current pushed it around in the shallows, pulling it into its flow and carrying it off. The head of the sow remained in a pool of blood at the head of the circle.

“Great Mother, take pity on us.” the crowd around them said, the words not quite in unison as they rolled across the hundreds of people gathered, those who could not see all the way to the front lagging behind just a bit in their chant.

“Gentle people!” Avgusta moved to the pool of blood. “Be still, as we have honored the Great Mother for her plentiness. Be still yet, as we pray for our daughters and their wombs which bring forth divinity into these lands, we must ask for more of the Mother!!”

Marat jerked his head around to take account of the people’s reactions, but there were none at the mention of divinity. Hundreds of people had all kept a secret that would have changed the world.

Another parting of the crowd, another being led to the front. But, this time, it was an adolescent girl dressed all in white. Her braid was undone, straw light hair loose around her back and shoulders. She could not have been older than fifteen or sixteen at the most. Her small body shook with the deep breaths she was repressing.

Avgusta took a step back, freeing the space directly in front of the pig head. The girl stopped just at the edge of the pooled blood and fell to her knees. The All-Mother bent down with great strain, dipping the fingers of her right hand into it, dirt sticking to the viscous reeking substance. She gently prompted the girl’s chin to rise, and with the blood, she drew a red sun on her forehead.

A red sun just as the one had been in the empty wooden house - painted on the floor.

“We honor those of our daughters, who had proven that they may bear the god-sons, whose wreaths sent down the river had sunk with a promise of their holy blood!” Avgusta announced.

The old woman bowed her head. All around them, in a rustle, every head of the attendees turned downward. Complete silence except for the rushing waters and the crackling of the fire fell all around them. Marat did not bow his head, although he saw that Val had. He carefully looked around, his worry growing. Surely…

There were no sounds around them; not even a child stirred. No infant cried. Nothing except the soft, suppressed sobs and sniveling coming from a single person in the crowd. He searched for the source of the sound, and his eyes stopped on another teenage girl. Her head bowed, but her shoulders shook as she tried to hold herself still while the tears rolled down her face. He held his eyes on her, and, as if feeling it, she looked up at him. He recognized her to be one of the girls that had crowded around upon their arrival, the one that ran giggling with her friends.

The sound of sloshing water made him turn back to the beach. Something large had been dragging itself across the rocky slope and splashing as it exited the water.

No…

A toad-like monster was dragging itself from the river, grabbing for the rocks and dirt with its remarkably human hands. It was roughly the size of a cow, with warts covering its body. Wet hair protruded randomly from the creases of its skin, and sores at the folds disgorged greenish yellow puss. Behind it, it dragged a pair of seemingly useless legs. They, too, looked human.

Marat’s body jerked on reflex, but he stopped himself, swallowing hard.

You must not hunt.

He heard Val’s gasp of horror as she, too, heard it and looked up.

“Marat!” She hissed quietly through her teeth. “Marat, kill it…”

He did not answer her. He stood, his eyes fixed on the creature as it crawled past the bonfire and around to where the girl knelt in the blood-soaked dirt by the pig's head. You could see her body fully shaking now, although her head was down and her eyes squeezed shut. The girl flinched with every lazy push of the creature's weight.

As it neared, she fell back, her eyes wide open, and she screamed, scrambling to get away. But, the Matrons blocked her path, the other townspeople on the edge of the half circle squeezing tighter in and providing no out.

“Marat!” Val grabbed his arm, hysteric now but still in a loud whisper. “Marat, do something! Marat!”

But, again, he did not move, ignoring her pleas and her pulling of his arm.

You must not hunt.

The girl did not even have a chance to get to her feet when the long, wrinkled arms of the monster grabbed her. The sticky fingers dug hard into her flesh. One raised further and caught onto the inside of her cheek as she opened her mouth to scream again. She jerked away, but its fingers pulled, ripping her flesh from the corner of her mouth and up her cheek. As its hand lost grip on the skin, slippery with blood and tears, it slowly tried to readjust its hold on her, now grabbing for the socket of her eye.

Pop.

He looked away. Marat could hear the thing as it dragged her just as slowly to the water. The entire time, her desperate pleading tore through the otherwise still night. As it entered, taking her with it, her screams turned to gurgling and did not stop even as her mouth filled. It took her under. Again, silence all around. Even the sobs of the adolescent girl had ceased.

Only the fire crackled, the river waters rushed, and Val breathed heavily as she looked on in horror, still clinging tightly to his arm.

His body was completely rigid, his hand clenched hard into a fist, and his knuckles had grown white. Marat’s focus was on the current, now peacefully rushing past. He felt eyes on him and looked to the side. Nadia was looking at him, her expression unreadable.

She was watching his reaction.

You must not hunt.