Where the Dark Stands Still by A. B. Poranek EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: A. B. Poranek
- Language: English
- Genre: Teen & Young Adult Monster Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 5.9 MB
- Price: Free
THE GIRL WHO ENTERED
THE WOOD
THE FESTIVITIES OF KUPAEA NIGHT are just beginning when Liska Radost leaves
the village behind.
Her eyes prick with tears as she takes a nal look over her shoulder. A gust of
wind snags at her shawl, threatening to devour the ame of her lantern. This
night, the solstice, should belong to revelry beneath a broad summer moon. It is
the night unmarried girls weave crowns of wildowers and oat them down the
river for the local boys to chase, the night that folk songs are sung to the roar of a
joyful bonre, the night when villagers pray to God for fertile elds and livestock
and wives. But most importantly, it is the night that, according to legend, the
fern ower will bloom.
And if the legends are true, this is the night that Liska will nd it. She will
take it into her hands and make her wish, and she will atone for her sins.
She treads deeper into the dark, through one of the many wheat elds that
crawl along the rolling hills and wreathe the village from all sides. In midday, the
sun will turn their stalks to spun gold, but now they are a foreboding rustle
against Liska’s oral-patterned skirts, bowing like penitents in contrition. She
raises her lantern higher, but its light is no more than a sputtering spark—a
mockery of the Kupała bonre that dances far in the distance, etching the
thatched rooftops of Stodoła into the night’s canvas.
Stodoła. Home. A home she will not see again if she does not succeed
tonight. She knows what rumors the villagers whisper: that she is a witch, that
she is as wicked as the dark magic harbored in the spirit-wood. She almost smiles
at the irony: that accursed place, called the Driada, is where the fern ower is said
to bloom.
It is her only chance at redemption.
Overhead, the moon rises, a great silver eye opened wide and watchful. It
spurs Liska onward, stokes the ame of urgency in her chest. In all the stories,
the fern ower only blooms until sunrise—there is not a moment to waste.
Her path takes her past the farmlands, to rolling hills dotted with phantomwhite birch trees and coarse grass housing an orchestra of crickets. In an attempt
to bolster her spirits, she starts to hum, a folk song about a girl and two suitors
and a rowan tree. The crickets set a rhythm, the breeze whispers in harmony, and
slowly she convinces herself she is not afraid.
Until the spirit-wood comes into view.
She has seen the Driada before—every child of Stodoła has, brought here by
the mischievous curiosity only a child possesses. How often did she stand in this
spot with Marysieńka, the two daring each other to creep ever closer to the
wood? Closer and closer and closer, until a growl or a rustle from within would
send them shrieking, running all the way home. Children do foolish things until
they are old enough to understand they are foolish—until their father teaches
them to weave the straw hangings found in every Stodoła home, or their mother
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