“Well now, what if there is only one dish on the menu,” muttered Ghost slowly, pulling his knife from his sleeve. “After all, they weren’t very smart about searching me; they only looked through the bag, shook out the food, the matches.” He moved toward Nort through the sticky mud. Nort stood, motionless; he was following the edge of the knife blade with eyes the colour of green duckweed. The hand holding the knife rose up, gathering itself into an arching swing, when the sharp edge lit up with a lively, trembling fire. Ghost froze too, not daring to believe his eyes. On the edge of the blade danced a flame. They turned around in unison, bewitched by the cheerful specks on the black surface of the marsh. Hundreds of tiny fires, obeying a single rhythm, danced around them. They beckoned, promising solid, dry ground, they called, promising satiety and safety, they bewitched, promising sleep and nothingness. The fugitives walked forward blindly, the black mud quickly stealing up to their throats, sucking out their remaining strength. The knife slid out of Ghost’s weakened hands. And now all the little fires suddenly went out, as if someone had blown out the candles on a birthday cake. The enchantment was broken. Their legs sank deeper into the mire. The cold froze their bodies.

“Forgive me, I didn’t want to eat you, I was only testing you…” The mud had reached his mouth.

“I understood; you forgive me too… The heavy rain was flooding over their thrown-back faces. Ghost was the first to go down to the bottom, when a powerful hand seized him, carrying him into a darkness that he was able to breathe.

“This is the night of my second birth,” thought Ghost limply, before sinking into a deep, dark place.

The scorching air quivered, stratifying the white clouds above the horizon. The sun poured out its blood, staining the sand. The scarlet birds of sunset stretched away towards midnight. The hammer glowed with heat, burning the palm. The youth lingered. The sunset pierced the air with the sharp blades of its rays. The hand dropped the hammer, unable to withstand the heat. It knocked silently at the door. A little cloud of dust rose up above the cracked door.

Warmth spread all over his body, reverberating blissfully in every cell. It was soft and dry lying there. Someone’s enormous hand lifted his head, and poured into his half-open mouth a thick aromatic infusion. Ghost opened his eyes slightly. A huge fat creature smiled happily at him. The childlike pink face looked at him with concern and love. He wore a frilly apron that was only large enough to cover half of his stomach. In a roughly assembled fireplace a fire was singing. On uneven shelves along the wall there stood dusty books of all colors. Their belongings, including the canvas bag, had been washed out and were drying over the fire. Ghost started up nervously.

“Don’t worry,” whispered the giant, bending towards his ear. “I took out the map and the stash and hid them.”

At a table made from a door sat a stern-looking old man, dry and thin like a praying mantis. Next to his foot rested a cracked wooden box.

“He fell ashleep for eighteen thouzhand yearsh, becaushe he didn’t know what to do next,” intoned the old man, lifting a bent index finger into the air. “That ish why it ish sho important to know what it ish that you are living for.”

Evidently this was the concluding part of a speech directed at the giant youth. The latter smiled even more broadly, and lifted up Nort’s soften body. He skillfully poured the steaming drink into the lad’s mouth. The latter began to cough. The giant patted him gently on the back.

“Where are we?” asked Nort, gasping for breath.

“Don’t worry, not in the castle dungeon.” Glancing at the old man, the giant added “We’re friends, you are safe here.”

“Don’t be afraid; musht be shtarving, such weaklinghs over there,” mumbled the old man. “Mama, ish our supper ready? I do feel like eating, though. It shmells pretty good. By the way, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to look for Sheiba, feed ush shome of her milk.

At this moment Ghost felt such an onslaught of hunger pangs, that his eyes went dark. Mama left Nort, and rushed toward the stove. Putting on thick oven gloves, he pulled out of the cracked interior a clay pot, which filled the whole cabin with its aroma.

“Everything’s ready, Madman!” He exclaimed happily. “Please come to the table.”

Mama deftly set out plates and utensils, and with a deep ladle served the thick, aromatic soup. He cut the bread neatly, clasping the loaf to his chest. He poured out foaming cider. They passed the next quarter of an hour in silence; only the birds coughed in the forest, and Mama, wiping away a few tears, put a second helping into Ghost’s soup plate. After eating, the two guests went to lie down. A chill seized Nort. Mama gave him a second blanket.

“Having rizhen from the dead, he ish in dishtressh. “What should I do now?” The voice of the old man shook with incomprehensible excitement. Salty wrinkles stretched tightly across his agitated face. “That ish why every pershon should know hish reazhon for living, and do everything in time.” Falling silent for a few moments, he added inopportunely, “I forbade the birdsh to laugh.”

The young one raised his eyebrows in sufferance.

“Yesh, yesh. We have a guesht “with shining eyesh in the houshe”. You undershtand?” Whispering, he added, glancing at the sleeping guests. “You don’t often hear about shomething like thish. We ought to help him, put him on hish guard. He’sh extremely hot.

…

In the morning Mama came back from the marshes with brushwood and some news. Throwing down his armload in a corner of the kitchen, he carefully wiped his reddened hands on his apron. Without becoming distracted from his work, the giant talked, while skillfully starting a fire in the hearth.

“There are mercenaries firing guns at the marsh fires – what for? They’re casting nets… surely they aren’t hoping to catch fish for their supper in the quagmire? Or have they lost their minds?”

The old man, as was his habit, raised his finger in answer to the question. His bushy eyebrows met at the bridge of his nose.

“A sharp vibration of the air, according to shome people, shurvivesh the rizhe of marsh gasshesh and with it alsho the dead bodiesh. But the shun hash carried away the wind.

Nort was convulsed. Ghost smiled.

“They are looking for your body.” He announced cheerfully, winking at Nort. “Well, and mine at the same time.”

“Could they come here?” Enquired the youth uneasily, getting to his feet with difficulty.

“Not posshible. Mama ish the only one who knowsh the paths around here. He hash shurvived sheeing the shlippery corpshesh! You were lucky that he left a bashket on that bank, and went back for it. The bashket dishappeared. Out of the eyesh of the first corpse arozhe the shun.” The Bony Madman ended his speech in his usual absurd way.

Relieved, Nort settled back on the pillow and closed his eyes. Mama put his palm on Nort’s damp forehead.

“He has a fever.” The fat boy complained. “I’ll go and make him a tincture.”

Ghost followed Mama into the small kitchen. He clambered feet first into an old armchair that was placed conveniently near the fire.

“Why is the old man always talking gibberish? He doesn’t seem to be an idiot.”

Mama smiled warmly, taking some little bags of dried herbs out of an overfull, very old sideboard.

“He was a famous scholar. Studied ancient cults or whatever you call it. He spent whole days reading books, and found enlightenment in that. I remember he would always say: “Oh, if I could only be unknown!” He saw into the future. We’re not living the right way, he said. In the past people never lived this way.”

“At that time I was an errand boy, a good-for-nothing orphan. He told me a great many things, only I could never remember any of it. He made up his mind to leave the hustle and bustle and go into the backwoods. He sold his estate and bought a piece of land in the marshes and a few bits and pieces. I went with him; well, how was he going to manage by himself – he couldn’t cut wood or fetch water. I have a kitchen garden behind the house, a goat. That’s how we live here.

Lost in thought, Ghost rolled a little ball of bread from the soft part of the loaf along the table. His short, light-colored forelocks stuck out disobediently in all directions. Above his plump lips there curled the first fluff of a moustache. Daring and sadness were mixed in his hazel eyes.

“I would have died of boredom. So, you know the local places well?”

Mama smiled, nodding knowingly.

“Your map is bullshit – excuse the bad word. Whoever drew it, meant to exterminate people, intentionally marked all the rotten places with crosses. Forgive me for peeping; it’s just that it showed a familiar area, and I couldn’t help myself.”

“What then, has someone already called on you here? Which corpses was the old man talking about? Is it possible they were searching for the sunken church? Have you seen it, by the way?

“So many questions! Yes, they were looking for it, only I can’t understand – why would they? There’s almost nothing is left of it; only the shame. What does it mean to you?”

Ghost made a tragic face and moved right up to Mama. The latter spat and moved aside.

“Listen, I can’t call you Mama! Well, what sort of a mama are you to me? That is, male kind? You’d better come up with something more appropriate. Mamai or Mazai, I don’t know.

“What’s wrong with my name?” The fat boy was offended. “Is Ghost any better? You might just as well call a Scarecrow ‘Garden’.”

He turned towards the hearth and, breathing heavily through his nose, audibly aggrieved, set about selecting dried herbs from a little bag, having hung a pot over the fire. Ghost thought for a little while about something, as he brought some brushwood out of the corner of the kitchen and threw a couple of twigs into the fire.

“M-mama, forgive me, I’m a bit tired. I wanted to share a secret with you. Can you keep a secret?”

Mama continued to potter about the hearth, pursing his lips, but his breathing became quieter, and it was clear that he was interested.

“Well then, listen. Only don’t tell anyone. I cannot say my real name, Poliksenes Ernst Theodore Amadeus, in full until I have avenged myself; so, I’ve revealed enough. I was born into a very rich and noble family. I grew up a happy child. Everyone spoiled and loved me, until my mother was taken ill and went to be treated in a private hospital somewhere high up in the mountains. My father loved her very much and soon went after her, leaving me in the care of numerous relatives.

Now my aunt, who had been trying to do so unsuccessfully her whole adult life, suddenly became pregnant and gave birth to a son. It began to eat at her that her scion would come into nothing, since I was to inherit the entire fortune. So she paid the vicar to erase all information about me from the church register, as if I had never been born. The old scoundrel sold me out, without batting an eyelid. Luckily for me, there were honorable people among my kinsmen too. My older cousin had also dedicated himself to the church. Thus it was that he chanced to overhear their whole conversation. He seized the book and ran off with it, following his nose. He wandered around the world for a long time, before coming upon the church here. At that time it was pleasant to look at. He hid the book and then drew this map. He put it, together with a note, in my favorite book, which I carried with me day night.”

Ghost fell silent, staring into the fire, as if absorbed in memories. In the courtyard the goat bleated.

“I didn’t suspect anything, since I was just a lad. The vicar confessed that the book had disappeared. Then my aunt decided not to take any more chances and to arrange an unfortunate incident. Something is running out of your pot. Aha, that’s better. Where was I?”

“An unfortunate incident” prompted the fat boy in a deathly-scared voice.

“Well now, why are you so agitated? I’m here with you, which means I’m still alive. Anyway, I was having riding lessons. So my aunt crept into the stable and shredded some kind of trash under the saddle of my poor horse. I learned about all of this later, but on that day Esmeralda bolted and so severely that they couldn’t find me anywhere. She threw me into a thicket in a thick forest. The forest around the estate was impassable, same as the one here. I fell and after that remembered nothing, evidently due to fear. You know how it is, the wind whistling in your ears, everything around you is spinning, and you can’t do a thing about it.

An old lady picked me up. I was such a fine child that she thought she’d keep me herself. At first, I believed that she was my own grandmother, and we lived together for several years, but then by chance I came across the book, which she had concealed beneath a floorboard in the storeroom. I was thunderstruck. In an instant all the memories came flooding back. Without stopping to say goodbye to grandma, I set off for the estate. Once I got there, I was faced with the bitter disappointment and pain of loss. No one recognized me, and they wouldn’t let me into the house; but then the servants told me that my parents were no longer alive, and that the heir to my fortune was a pimply freak who was clearly weak in the head. I swore then and there to restore justice, to find the book at any price and to reclaim all that belonged to me by virtue of my birth.”

Mama was crying, burying his face in his apron.

“Poor boy! I will help you, I will not leave you. Would you like a biscuit, or a dried apple?”

Ghost’s eyes were shining. He embraced Mama and took the proffered biscuit.

“Only, I can’t go there myself; I’m too heavily built for those passages. You need someone to help you; there’s no way you can do it on your own. Ask Nort to go with you. Explain everything to him; he seems like a good lad.

Ghost chewed the biscuit intently.

“I don’t know him at all. I’ll size him up for a week or so, and then we’ll see. Is there any cider left?”