Author: Tosya Kuznetsova
My parents named me Nikolai when I was born. But to my friends I was always Kolyan. The little kids in the yard used to shout after me, “Kolka the chatterbox!” When I was young, you see, I loved cracking jokes and telling funny stories. My mother called me Nikola. To my father I was “son” or “sonny.” But Grandma always called me Kolenka. And that name seemed the warmest and most tender of all.
Maybe that was why I loved spending the whole summer in the village with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma baked golden-brown pirozhki for me. Grandpa often took me into the woods to pick mushrooms and berries. And Grandpa’s favorite, his dog Naida, always came with us. He had found her as a puppy by the fence outside his house. She was trembling and whimpering pitifully. Grandpa took pity on the abandoned puppy, brought her home, warmed her up, fed her…
When Naida grew up, she became Grandpa’s faithful companion on all his trips into the woods. She loved playing with me too, swimming in the river and coming along when we went fishing. But Grandpa was the one she obeyed and adored above everyone else.
Only last year, Grandpa and Naida went into the woods and never came back. The whole village searched for them, but without success. In the end, everyone decided they must have drowned in the swamp.
There is a swamp in the woods. It doesn’t even look very big. But they say a lot of people have drowned there — gone in and never come home.
I found that hard to believe. Grandpa knew those woods well. He could have found his way home even in the middle of the night. And Naida was with him… No, there was no way the two of them would have willingly gone into the bog!
Grandma went downhill very quickly after that. She grew weak, lost interest in life, and started falling ill all the time. So I came to stay with her and help around the place. I repaired the porch, patched the roof of the shed, boarded up the holes in the fence, and chopped firewood for the banya.
It might have been a village, but they had gas by then, so there was no need to heat the house with a stove. There was running water too.
But there was one strange thing. As I worked, I kept looking toward the woods.
Something was drawing me there.
And one day after breakfast, without saying anything to Grandma, I set off for the woods.
Why not? Grandpa had shown me every path there. You could say I’d walked the whole forest with him. And if I told Grandma where I was going, she would only try to talk me out of it.
I decided I would be back by evening and bring some mushrooms for supper.
There were plenty of mushrooms, and my basket filled up quickly. I could have gone home.
But some force kept drawing me toward the swamp.
I thought:
“There’s no grave to visit, so at least I can stand at the edge of the swamp for a while and remember Grandpa and Naida.”
And before I knew it, there I was, standing at the edge of the swamp.
Suddenly I saw a young woman.
She was walking straight toward the bog. She was slender, wearing a white dress and a white kerchief over her head.
“She’ll drown!” I thought.
I ran after her, shouting:
“Don’t go that way! It’s a bog! It’s dangerous!”
But she went lightly on, jumping from one hummock to another. She didn’t seem to hear me shouting.
Then I saw a little island of solid ground ahead, with a tree growing on it. I thought I would be able to see the young woman better from there, and perhaps she would be able to hear me.
There were two hummocks between me and the island.
I jumped — one, two…
The second hummock slipped away beneath my foot, but I managed to push off in time. I landed on the island and grabbed hold of the tree trunk.
And suddenly everything around me was swallowed by thick, impenetrable fog.
I forgot all about the young woman. Now I was wondering how to keep myself from drowning.
I knew there was no way off the island until the fog cleared, so I would have to wait.
I moved closer to the tree, wrapped my arms around its trunk, pressed myself against it, and sat there.
The fog did not lift.
There were strange sounds all around me: squelching, bubbling, splashing water, whispers, little bursts of laughter.
Then I heard what sounded like footsteps.
Very close.
But I couldn’t see anything through the fog.
“That’s it,” I thought. “I’m done for!”
And suddenly something shaggy rushed at me, whining with joy and licking my cheeks and forehead.
“Naida!” I cried. “Where did you come from? Where’s Grandpa?”
And there was Grandpa, already coming toward me.
“I’m here! I’m here!”
The fog began to clear.
Grandpa and I embraced.
“Everyone thinks you’re dead!” I told him. “They searched the whole forest for you… In the end they decided you’d drowned.”
Grandpa pointed down toward the swamp.
“See that corduroy road?”
And sure enough, there was a road in front of me, laid with sturdy pine logs.
Yet there had been nothing of the kind when I came.
“I see it.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
We followed the log road until we reached solid ground. Grandpa led me back to the path, and we headed toward the village.
At the edge of the woods, Grandpa suggested we sit down and rest.
We sat.
Then Grandpa said:
“Not everything in this world, Kolenka, is the way you see it. Our world has many faces. Everyone sees in it what they need to see at that particular moment.
You saw a beautiful young woman walking lightly across the swamp. Right?”
“Right,” I said.
“But in reality she was a hideous old swamp Kikimora, bow-legged and smeared with slime. She was luring you into the bog.
You grabbed hold of a tree trunk on that little island. Right?”
“Right.” I nodded.
“But it wasn’t a tree trunk. It was what remained of the cross from a chapel.
Long ago, back in the days of the Tsars, there was a prison on the other side of the swamp for particularly dangerous criminals. They were kept in a barracks. There was a mine nearby, and they were made to dig ore there.
They didn’t live long. Most of them died while they were still young.
The guards simply threw the bodies into the swamp. They didn’t bury them.
Some of the prisoners tried to escape. But the guards had two huge dogs — wolfhounds. If a prisoner escaped along the road, the dogs soon found him and tore him to pieces. And those who tried to escape across the swamp met their deaths here.
Later, a chapel was built on this side of the swamp, with a wooden cross on its dome.
But in time, the chapel sank into the swamp too.
Only the cross still appears from time to time.
It was a good thing you grabbed hold of it. It saved you. Evil spirits have settled in this swamp and multiplied, but they’re afraid of the cross.
We came out of the swamp along that log road. Right?”
“Right,” I said again.
“Well, no one ever built a log road here.
You saw pine logs.
But in reality, they were the bodies of the people who died here. They rose out of the swamp to save you.
Now, another thing. Naida and I came to you. You saw us alive. Right?”
“Right,” I whispered, shuddering at what I was hearing.
“Well, that same Kikimora lured me into the bog too. And just like you, I rushed after her to save her.
Naida tried to save me.
So we really did drown here.
Now you go home. Grandma is waiting for you.
She was the one who begged me to save you.
But Naida and I have to go back.
Goodbye.”
And suddenly Grandpa and Naida disappeared.
They simply dissolved into the air.
I rubbed my eyes.
I was sitting alone at the edge of the woods, with my basket of mushrooms beside me.
When I got home, Grandma was waiting for me on the porch.
I told her everything and asked how she had begged Grandpa to save me.
She said she talked to Grandpa’s portrait, the one hanging over her bed. She had stood before his portrait and asked him to help me.
Then Grandma walked over to the portrait, stroked it gently and said:
“Thank you. Kolenka has come home and told me about you. Thank you.”
Then she turned to me.
“Your grandfather didn’t tell you everything.
One prisoner from that prison mine did manage to escape. By some miracle, he made it across the swamp.
He lived for many years afterward and started a family.
He was my grandfather.
Which means he was your great-great-grandfather.”
Ever since then, even though I still live with Grandma in the village, I never go near the swamp.
I still pick mushrooms and berries in the woods, of course…
I love the woods.
But the swamp?
Not a chance.