In summer, when the river smelled of mint and the grasses sparkled like silver threads, bonfires were lit in Łękowice. It was the Kupala Night. Wreaths with lighted candles floated by the shore, and everyone - young and old - sang songs as old as the forest that grew beyond the village fences. Zosia was eleven years old and had pockets full of treasures: feathers, smooth pebbles, pieces of bark that looked like maps of islands. Tolek, a year younger, wore a red string around his neck from his grandmother Jagna and a small pocket knife from his grandfather, just in case. They both looked at the fire as if it was trying to tell them something. - 'Keep your eyes open,' Grandma Jagna warned, pressing a bundle of mugwort into their hands. - On this night everything is closer. The water has a voice, the leaves have ears, and the forest remembers. Don't pick the ferns without the forest's permission. Leszy is watching. Zosia nodded, although she wanted to ask what it was like when someone you couldn't see was watching. Tolek reflexively corrected the red string. Then they both looked after each other in a way that meant: let's go. The plan was still born at dawn, in the attic smelling of apples and dust. In her grandmother's herbarium, between dried mint and chamomile leaves, Zosia found a piece of birch bark, thin as parchment. On it - in dark lines - were drawn three stones by a large oak tree, a winding path through the ferns and a small circle described with words in cursive letters: The Well of Mocoha. Next to it was glued a wooden button with an engraved lightning bolt sign. - 'A Perun sign,' whispered Tolek when she showed it to him. - Grandpa said to carry it with you when you go into a storm. - And we're going in singing - replied Zosia, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. As the night thickened like plum compote, they slipped out unsteadily between peals of laughter and the flickering of fireflies. They crossed a wooden bridge, under which the river snorted and drew water, then passed an old willow tree, which whispered to itself. The forest welcomed them with a chill, as if it had opened an invisible door. The path was soft with needles and the ferns reached almost to their waist, swaying like sea waves. A tawny owl called out from a distance, and something bluish flashed between the trunks - a tiny spark that seemed to hover in the air. - A mistletoe - whispered Tolek, grabbing Zosia's sleeve. - You don't follow them. - We follow the map - whispered Zosia, although the firefly seemed to be winking at them like an amused cat. They held on to the bark with the marks drawn on it like the helmsmen of a nautical chart. Soon they reached a great oak whose crown stretched its arms up to the stars. At its feet stood three stones, just as in the drawing, moss-covered and warm from the day, though the night was chilly. Zosia knelt down and touched the middle stone. She felt a gouge in its rough surface - a fine fern pattern, the same as on the bark. She placed a perun button on it, and Tolek held his breath. Nothing happened for a long moment, only the bark wheezed quietly. Then the button twitched, as if someone had twirled it with a finger. A thin, luminous line appeared on the stone and flowed towards the ferns, drawing them a path that wasn't there before. - Is this... permission? - Tolek asked, though he wasn't counting on an answer. - 'Or an invitation,' replied Zosia with a smile that was a little bit of courage and a little bit of feigning courage. They followed the light. They didn't have to look for a path; the forest laid it out under their feet, pushing back the grasses, drawing the leaves so that they didn't have to squeeze through. They could see the dewdrops glinting like beads in the darkness, and the tiny snails drawing silver lines on the ground, like writing they had not yet learned. The further away, the quieter it got. Even the crickets were now playing in whispers, and the tawny owl had stopped calling. Between two knotty pine trees grew an archway of roots, like a gate. The tree must once have fallen, and now its tangled veins rose above the path, overgrown with mosses and mould. Beyond the gate, the air was different - denser and seemingly older. - Do you hear? - Zosia stopped as a soft sound came from the middle of the forest. Like a snippet of song, like the sigh of a pipe. - Maybe the boys from the other side of the river... - Tolek began, but stopped. The sound didn't come as if from people, but as if from trees. As if the trunk was singing inside itself. They walked under the root gate. As they passed, his skin trembled at the nape of their necks and their hair stood up, as if they had passed under an invisible web. The luminous line darkened but continued to pulsate, leading them towards a small clearing. The clearing was surrounded by ferns so lush they resembled whispering fans. In the middle grew an old erratic boulder, with pits and scratches that resembled a map of the sky. Next to it, like a pelvis made of granite, a circular bowl of water plunged into the ground. The water was so clear that it seemed like air, but when Zosia leaned in, she saw circles on the bottom - as if someone had moved a mirror with their finger. - 'The well of Mokosza,' said Tolek with a pious whisper. - This is how it stands here on the bark. - What if... - Zosia hesitated and touched the surface. The water was as cool as morning, and tiny lights flashed on her skin, like star yeast seeded into the liquid. - Better not... - Tolek wanted to pull her away, but suddenly something beside them sighed. Not a wind, not an animal. It was the tinkling of bark, the creaking of staves, the bubbling of resin. They smelled wet moss, old smoke and bark here, beside them. - Zosia... - whispered someone. The voice was not human, and yet Zosia had the feeling that she knew it like she knew the voice of the river at the bridge and the crackle of the pine in January. - Tolek... They both stood still. Tolek slowly lifted his penknife, not to use it, but to have something in his hand that was made of iron and from home. Zosia felt a chill on the back of her neck, as if the forest had blown down her back. - Who's there? - She asked, and her voice was thin but not broken. First they saw the eyes. Not really, because they were knots in the trunk of an old pine tree at the edge of the clearing, two darker circles in the lighter wood. But they hovered over them like eyes, and then a glow came out of the knots, as if a coal had been lit in the middle of the tree. A face appeared where a crack had formed an outline - a nose chipped into the bark, a mouth in a line of cracks, eyebrows in the moss. - 'We hear you singing,' said a voice, not from the mouth, but from all the leaves at once. - You have brought the sign of fire to the water. Tolek and Zosia looked at the perun button that Zosia was still clutching in her hand. It was warm, as if it had just been lying in the sun, although the night was thick. There was a quiet tapping from the forest, like the footsteps of someone very heavy walking slowly so as not to frighten the moss. - We just ... - Tolek began. - 'We're just looking,' finished Zosia, because that's what it was. Only this looking started looking back. The leaves at the edge of the clearing tilted, as if something had combed them with its hand. At the edge, where the ferns were tallest, the air moved. Something large flitted between the trunks - not like a deer, not like a man. The wax candle on Zosia's wreath, which she still had on her head, suddenly hissed and went out. The darkness took a breath. The well shone once more, as if someone had moved a finger inside it again. A voice from the bark seemed to smile without smiling. - The way is open - it sounded. - But not the same for everyone. Tolek grabbed Zosia's hand. They haven't run away. Not yet. They listened in stillness as something put a foot in the moss behind them. One, the other. The ground twitched. A shadow so tall that the stars trembled in the reflection of the water passed across the clearing. Seeds sprinkled from the branches, like a rain of invisible bells. Zosia turned her head. At the border of the clearing, two antlers clenched in the gloom, larger than those of the oldest bull in the forest, and a shape flashed by that she could not name. The voice rang out once more, this time just above them, soft and very old: - You have come at last.