The mist lay over the Rokitna like a thin feather of yarn, and in it the shapes of boats, reeds and lonely willow stumps were lost. Autumn was late, and it walked softly, unhurriedly, into this land, leaving rivulets of babe summer on the fences and on the pegs of the pastures. Lena got off the bus at a bend in the road where the tarmac was bitten through with cattails so old that night knew their slippery texture better than day. She had two bags, few clothes and far too many memories that smelled of dried herb, a heated chamber and wet moss under a lime tree. Kalinówka hadn't changed in years: the same houses with their low roofs, the smoke from the chimneys, the rooster that always crows too early, and the road that hovers by the wilderness wall like an unfinished sentence. The house after my grandmother was waiting. The door gave way with a creak that Lena remembered from her childhood; the blackened beams in the hallway smelled of tar and apples stored in a chest. On the bench was a selvedge - a belt woven in reds and whites, with a thin thread of blue woven in. My grandmother used to say: this belt can bind not only the waist, but also the things that escape words. Lena lifted the selvedge and felt the pattern under her fingers like the paths of ants in the grass; light, not prickly, yet firm. Under the beam above the cooker hung dried herbs: wormwood, sage, wort. On the windowsill stood a photograph from long ago - great-grandfather Jan in a linen shirt, against a backdrop of an oak tree so large that even in the grey, blurred frame you could see the scars of lightning. This oak, they said, remembers the chants that have not been written down in any script. His great-grandfather once went out over Rokitna and did not return. There was no story about it in the family, only a smug sigh when his name was mentioned. - 'You're back,' said someone from the threshold before Lena had time to close the shutters. The voice was husky, soft, like ivy on an old wall. Zocha entered without asking. The whisperer had hair like ash and fingers that still smelled of honey and tar. She smelled of a house where someone sleeps little as she stirs teas, spells and silence until late. - Dziady tomorrow,' Zocha added. - 'And you'll be in the grove because it came that way. Lena blinked. - 'If you just need to light a candle, I can manage. - The candle is for those who know where they sleep. For those who walk along the shore, you have to do otherwise. - Zocha lifted the selvedge, as if weighing it in her fingers. - This is the key. Not for the lock, for the road. - To what road? The whisperer bit her lower lip, looked over her shoulder at the window and continued speaking as if she were telling a child's lullaby, only her tone was lower: - The grove is waiting. The oak remembers your name, though you did not tell it to him. As you go, don't say anything you don't need to. When you hear the water calling you, don't answer. Not yet. Outside the window the willows rustled. The wind brought that peculiar chill from the river, which has nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with something entering a person through the skin looking for a place in it. - Why me? - Lena asked, not really to Zocha, more to the kitchen table with the crack that showed in the summer when lightning squatted on an old pear tree. - 'Because you came back,' replied the whisperer, as if it were the simplest of sentences. - And not everyone knows how to come back. Evening flowed down the walls of the house. Lena lit the cooker, peering into the hearth the way one looks into someone's squinted eyes. Steam rose from the kettle along with the smell of mint, and somewhere high up, under the ridge, something light rustled. The raven, which had lived in the linden tree behind the fence for years, tapped its beak on the glass twice and flew away. My grandmother called him Siwko, although he was black to the core of his feathers. That same night Lena did not sleep. She read her grandmother's notebook, written in an even handwriting and full of remarks about herbs, good days and days when it is better to move the buckets closer to the door. There were no stories in there, there was practice: how much honey to infuse for a throat that sits up from crying; how to turn the cup over so that sleep doesn't pour into the room backwards; what song to sing when someone walks quietly behind you and you don't feel like looking. Halfway through the notebook the page was torn. It began with the words: On the eve when the oak is silent, and the river speaks.... Lena turned her head. The window rubbed against the ledge, as if someone had run their fingers over the glass. And then she heard it. Not the snap of a branch, not the splash of a fish. A voice. Quiet, smoothed by water, speaking a word whose weight one knows before one understands the meaning: her name. - Lenaaa... The air in the chamber thickened as if a moment before a storm. Lena rose mechanically, walked to the window and saw that the mist over Rokitna was forming a path. The grasses in the meadow lay as if combed, and where the reeds made a gesture like a curtain, something blue twinkled. An errant fire - she remembered from the story. One of the many things better not to follow, especially at night. - Can you hear it? - Zocha appeared beside her so quietly that Lena took a step back. The whisperer stood in the shadows, with a shawl slung over her shoulder and a white bowl of honey and bread in her hands. - It will come. You will know by the water, she says. But don't go today. Tomorrow, when the first candle burns. - She showed a selvedge. - Tie what you want to separate from the rest with this. First yourself, then the threshold. In the morning the world pretended to be ordinary. The sun brought out empty stalks from the fields that clung to the ground only out of shame. Marek, a forester from next door, came in with the damp breath of the forest in a jacket that still smelled of resin. - You here? - he was pleased in a half-hearted voice. - The grove was restless at night. The crows had made a conferment, and they don't do such things without reason. When you're near the river, watch your feet. The peat pulls those who think they will pull his. - I'm looking," replied Lena. - Can you still recognise this place from the photograph? - She handed him a photograph of Jan's great-grandfather. Marek squinted. - The oak tree on the other side of the floodplain. It takes a long time to walk unless the waters have held your breath. Yesterday they had held. - He scratched the back of his neck. - And remember: when you hear something calling your name, count to nine in your mind. If it keeps calling, there's something that has patience. The afternoon flowed peacefully. Lena scrubbed the table, tied the threshold with a selvedge, as Zocha had taught, and looked through the drawer where her grandmother kept the bald wax candles. Between them she found a small bag of poppies and a note like this: Put where she watches the sky. Maybe a hand will find its way. There was no signature, but the slant of the letters was grandmotherly to the point of pain. As dusk entered the chambers and the first chill broke under her fingernails, Lena took a bowl of honey and bread, a sack of poppy seeds and a single candle. She wrapped the selvedge around her waist, as if holding her own breath in place, and left. Siwko circled above her and sat on the gate, croaking like someone who wants to say something but knows the words will stay in their feathers. The path to the grove was like an old woman's gaze: short and full of things you can't see right away. Between the pines sat a darkness made up of thousands of colours, for the night in the forest is not black, but layered. The mosses on the stones burned with a faint glow, as if someone had poured a bit of lost star flour into them. The forest was breathing. A marten rustled somewhere, an owl hooted far away and, closer by, the crackle of a trunk was a reminder that winters live in the wood. The grove opened up unexpectedly. An oak stood in the middle, so huge that the crown was lost in its own shadow. Scars stung the eyes on the bark, some in zigzags, others in circles. Lena placed a bowl at the foot of the tree, sprinkled a little poppy seeds around it and set up a candle. The wick glowed humbly, as if the light preferred a whisper to a flame. - I have come,' she said at last. Not loudly, but with the kind of air in her voice with which one speaks to someone sitting close by. - I can hear you. I speak as I have been taught. Immediately afterwards, a mist rose from the other side of the floodplain, not like that of the morning. This one was thick and full of tiny lights. The errant fireflies became clear, one, two, three, until they formed a caterpillar of light leading across the water. The surface of the Rokitna was smooth, but Lena could see tiny movements, as from a child's finger moving under the surface. Somewhere behind her back a dry stick crackled. Siwko snarled a broken, stifled sound, as if someone had silenced him with a hand. - 'Don't answer,' said Zocha, who appeared at the edge of the clearing, holding something wrapped in a linen cloth. - 'Not yet. Let him speak, listen. When he interrupts, count. The water whispered her name again. This time it sounded as if someone was speaking from under a mirror, with their breath reversed. - Leno... A silhouette slid out of the reeds. It was not a shadow or an animal. Someone was standing just across the river, on the other side of the floodplain, in the light of fireflies that piled light flames on his shoulders like brooches. A man. In a linen shirt, wet from the bottom to his hips, with his hair stuck to his forehead. His face was so familiar that Lena's heart made a movement, as if it leapt over itself. She had seen the same line of his nose, the same shadow at his mouth in a photograph from years ago. - I've been waiting,' he said. - The oak knows you. The river is calling you. Will you go? The errant fireflies moved closer, forming a narrow footbridge that could be crossed if one really wanted to. The selvedge on Lena's waist suddenly tightened on its own, as if someone had pulled the end from the inside. The forest held its breath. Mark emerged from the darkness on the left with a torch near the ground, holding the light so as not to bite the night. - Lena! - he hissed. - Stop! The water trembled, and in that trembling Lena felt a touch - unusually light, like the memory of a hand. The voice from under the mist sounded a third time, closer than it should have been, as if someone had moved through a mirror: - Lena...