Читать книгу The Forest of Souls - Carla Banks - Страница 8

This is the story of how Eva was born.

Once upon a time, there was a forest, with birch trees that were bare in the winter and reached their fingers high up into the sky. But in summer, the leaves grew and the branches hung down in fronds. When the wind blew, the branches would wave and the leaves would dance. Then the sunlight made patterns of shadow and gold. And the tree trunks were white, like slender pillars along the paths.

In the forest, there was a clearing. And a man called Stanislau built a house in the clearing, a house of timber. And Stanislau and his wife Krishna lived in the house, where their first child, Marek, was born.

Stanislau planted trees in the clearing, cherry trees and plum trees, and he dug a deep well. The water that came from the well was clear like crystal, sweet and cool.

And Stanislau, Krishna and Marek lived in the forest and they kept chickens, and Krishna had a garden where she grew potatoes and cabbages. Marek gathered mushrooms in the forest, and they all picked the cherries and the plums that Stanislau took into town to sell. They were content.

Except that there were no more children. Marek grew big and strong, a happy boy with fair hair and a ready smile. And then, five years later, in the depths of winter, Eva was born. The last child, a little girl. The night of her birth, there was a storm that made the trees bend, the branches lashing through the air as the wind whooped and swirled.

Stanislau struggled through the forest to the village to find the midwife, and Marek stayed with his mother in the wooden house while the storm raged outside. By morning, the world was still and silent, and Eva lay beside her mother, wrapped in her shawl, and the snow fell for six days.

‘You have a sister now,’ Stanislau said to Marek. ‘You must take care of her.’

The winter passed and spring came to the forest. Marek liked to sing to the baby and tell her stories while she lay in her cradle under the trees and waved her hands, trying to catch the sunlight that danced in the leaves. And the time went by, and Eva began to crawl, and then she could walk, and Marek would take his sister into the forest where he could show her the trees and the birds and the animals that walked the paths, because the forest was vast and quiet–there were not many people, not then. There were foxes and squirrels and rabbits.

And the witch.

He taught her to beware of the witch who lived in the dark places in the forest.