Don't Call the Wolf

by Aleksandra Ross

Despite being such an ungainly little creature, the Leszy took the forest at a dead sprint. The trees flashed in and out. The red mist began to fade. The golden flames trailed away.

  Then, all of a sudden, the little god skidded to a stop.

  “We’re there!” he cried. “We did a few laps on the way, but we’re here now!”

  Lukasz nearly tripped right over him. Ren went face-first into a bush, and Felka simply collapsed in the middle of the path. Koszmar staggered off a few feet and was sick in the trees. Czarn and Ryś seemed completely fine, and although Lukasz wasn’t exactly sure what animal laughter sounded like, he was fairly certain they were making fun of Koszmar.

  “We’re there!” trilled the Leszy. “We’re there, we’re there, quick as a hare, led by a bear, and we’re there, we’re there, we’re there!”

  Birds were singing. Squirrels chattered overhead. It looked like a normal, only moderately enchanted forest. Even Lukasz’s shoulder hurt less. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  “And where is there exactly?” panted Koszmar, emerging from the trees and patting his lips with a handkerchief.

  The Leszy dropped the club and clapped his hands together, capering around in a circle.

  “Come, come!” He beckoned with a crooked finger. “All will be well, just follow the trickster. Follow the god. Follow the Leszy!”

  Felka groaned but otherwise stayed silent.

  The Leszy rapped his furry knuckles on a nearby tree root. Then he swung his club back onto his shoulder so violently that he almost whacked Jakub in the face.

  “Honey!” called the Leszy, also apparently to no one in particular. “Honey, I’m home! I brought guests!” Then he rounded on Koszmar. “And if you’re sick on the carpet, I’ll turn you into a mouse.”

  Perhaps already sounding a little mouselike, Koszmar only managed to squeak in reply. Ren glanced down at her mice, looking faintly horrified.

  The tree blurred. The earth shifted and shook, and suddenly—Lukasz doubted whether anything could shock him anymore—roots began to break through the dirt, curling and undulating like enormous serpents. The whole tree leaned backward, and a hole yawned beneath it.

  The Leszy trotted up to the hole and looked back at them.

  “Come on, come on! Bring your horse of course, of course. Bring your horse!” he hooted to himself, and looked delighted. “I made a rhyme, did you hear that? Come, come, let’s fill your tum!”

  Lukasz had already decided that the little creature was completely mad. Now he was also wondering if he was completely dangerous.

  If Ren was thinking the same thing, then she didn’t show it. In fact, she was the first to the tree roots. The Leszy dropped his club and clapped his hands again, beaming.

  “So brave, my queen! Always the first! Nothing to fear, my dear, my dear. Follow me!”

  Lukasz seriously doubted that. But Ren had already disappeared.

  “What if he kills us?” whispered Koszmar. He gasped. “What if he eats us?”

  “Don’t get my hopes up,” muttered Felka.

  As Lukasz descended through the roots, he encountered a set of smooth dirt steps. Up ahead, he could just see the outline of Ren’s tangled hair, her pale hand trailing along the wall.

  “Ren,” he whispered.

  She slowed, half turned.

  “Yes.”

  “The monsters came from below ground.”

  Ren looked up at him over her shoulder, and he didn’t want her to turn away. He didn’t want to lose her. Not after they’d just started again.

  “I know.”

  “Doesn’t that worry you?”

  She paused, held up their little procession for a moment, and stood on her toes to whisper in his ear. She was going to have to stop doing that, or there was going to be trouble.

  “You have to trust someone, sometime.”

  She grinned. It was a pretty, twisted little thing.

  “But this . . . god?” he asked.

  They began to move downward again. He knew he was grinning like an idiot, and he didn’t care. He could hear the others catching up. Ren turned back to him, walking backward. She wrinkled her nose.

  “I trusted you, didn’t I?”

  Her teeth flashed, and he knew she was smiling. Then she twirled back around to follow the Leszy.

  Lukasz followed, his heart sinking. He’d promised her no games; he wanted to start again. And here he was, telling lie after lie. He didn’t want this to end. And he knew it couldn’t end well.

  The ground leveled out, a new passage stretching before them. Roots curled outward and encircled thick yellow candles. The whole tunnel was cast in flickering brown-gold light. Their shadows played across the walls, spectral and distorted.

  “Come in, come in,” called the Leszy, long lost in the darkness ahead. “Your timing is impeccable. We’re just about to sit down to dinner.”

  They emerged in an enormous cavern. The far wall formed a kind of earthen castle facade: columns rose from grassy floor to dirt ceiling, each thirty feet high. Stained-glass windows twinkled down on them, set alight by the tree-root chandeliers.

  Club swinging, the Leszy burst from the grass in a shower of dandelion fronds.

  “Welcome!”

  Ren yelped and jumped back into Lukasz.

  “Oh dear,” said the little monster. He looked Ren up and down. “Oh dear, you look simply awful.”

  “Well—”

  As Ren started a retort that would probably get them all killed, the ceiling rumbled. Cracks raced over the dirt. Then suddenly, the night sky stretched over them like a sparkling navy blanket.

  “My apologies for the noise,” said the Leszy carelessly. “It takes the trees some effort to move for me. Now, up! We shall celebrate. You are on a quest! Most of you will probably die,” he added thoughtfully. He tapped his club against his lip. Then he grinned at them: “So this may very well be your last celebration.”

  And with that, animals flooded into the cavern. Squirrels raced down the walls, foxes wound between the slender legs of the deer, and badgers trudged patiently along behind the crowd. They were everywhere. Lukasz couldn’t tell where they’d come from. Maybe they’d come from everywhere.

  “He’s been hiding them here,” said Ryś suddenly.

  Lukasz watched as Ren exchange a glance with her brother. The mice scrambled down her skirt and disappeared into the grass.

  Realization dawned on him.

  This was why she needed to kill that Dragon. For the coyotes that played with the foxes; for the rabbits thumping their feet in time with birdsong; for the yips and growls; and underneath it all, for that quiet, eerie music of all the magic things in the forest.

  She was putting her life on the line for them. And he’d lied to get what he wanted— No. No, he reminded himself. He’d promised himself, years ago, that he’d do anything for his brothers. And here he was. This was about Franciszek.

  This wasn’t about pretty girls or lynxes or queens who happened to be both.

  The Leszy began to circle them, taking exaggeratedly large steps, tsk-tsking quite audibly. As he walked, he swung his club thoughtfully, and more than once, Koszmar had to duck to avoid decapitation.

  “Really quite awful,” the Leszy muttered. Lukasz realized he was focused on Ren. “Not good at all. . . . She has to look like a queen. . . . No, no, this won’t do at all. . . .”

  The Leszy snapped his fingers.

  The dandelions exploded like fireworks. For a moment, Ren disappeared in a cloud of fronds. Lukasz’s hand went to his rifle. Then the leaves settled, and they all stared.

  The ill-fitting shirt and stained skirt were gone. Eyes wide, Ren ran her hands up her new dress, its bodice formed by interwoven feathers. She picked at the billowing sleeves, gathered into tight golden cuffs at her wrists. She turned, the light skirt swirling, betraying the ghostly shadow of her legs.

  “Eagle feathers for courage,” the Leszy whispered, clearly enraptured by his own handiwork. “Spider silk f
or strength.”

  Ren reached up and touched her hair. She was crowned in golden antlers, threaded purple blossoms. The purple flowers were everywhere, spilling over her gorgeously dark hair, falling down her back.

  “Dragon antlers for the fight,” said the Leszy. Then his voice changed, no longer playful. “And wildflowers for love.”

  Ren did not look impressed.

  “Get it off,” she said. Her shy little smile had turned to murder on her lips. “Get it off!”

  The Leszy looked surprised. Then sly.

  “But my queen,” he wheedled, “this is how a queen should dress. This is how a queen should rule.”

  “I don’t care.” Ren had begun clawing at the sleeves billowing over her wrists. “It’s not mine. I want my clothes back—I swear to the monsters and gods, change it or I’ll change—”

  The Leszy rolled his eyes back too far, so far that the full green swiveled away and only white showed. And when the green rolled back, it was shot through with red. Lukasz’s hand tightened on his rifle.

  “Very well,” said the god at last.

  Another snap of his fingers and Ren was back in her old shirt and skirt. Her hair remained untangled and shiny.

  “Don’t know why you did that,” observed Koszmar. “You looked quite—”

  “Shut up, Kosz,” Lukasz cut in.

  “Come,” said the Leszy. “Let me introduce my family.”

  A lawn stretched ahead of them, with a wooden table in the middle. A hundred miniature versions of the Leszy crowded around it, each with a slightly shorter beard and a slightly smaller stomach. They stood on their chairs, screaming at each other at the top of their lungs. One little Leszy was quiet, but only because he was focused on inserting a noodle up his nose.

  The little Leszys squalled, and food flew thick and fast over their tiny heads. Another Leszy, identical to their guide, was running up and down the length of the table, pausing periodically to wallop the little Leszys with a chicken leg.

  “This is my family,” declared the Leszy proudly. “That is my wife, the lovely Leszachka.” The bearded Leszy paused in walloping the little Leszys. She took a bite out of the chicken leg by way of greeting. “And these pint-sized delights are my children, the Leshonki.”

  The Leshonki leapt up and down on their chairs and beat their chests with tiny fists. A hundred tiny clubs swung through the air. A hundred tiny voices whooped.

  Leszy chuckled proudly and snapped his fingers.

  The table transformed. Tureens refilled with soup, plates of potatoes and pierogi rattled as they appeared, and three enormous pork roasts landed on the table with a thud. Babka, chocolate puddings, and angel wing pastries materialized from one end of the table to the other, along with baskets of oranges and whole bushels of grapes.

  The Leshonki sat down with their clubs on the floor and their hands folded in their laps. Seamlessly, they morphed from eight dozen miniature monsters into eight dozen perfect sons. They looked princely with their pressed shirts and clean faces, even though one of them still had a noodle up his nose.

  Leszachka also disappeared in a burst of flames. Lukasz heard Felka gasp as the fire cleared to reveal a ten-foot-tall woman with black hair and a deep green gown, relaxed at the far end of the table. Empty chairs, wrought of gold with cushions of purple velvet, sprang out from either side of the table.

  “Come, friends,” said the Leszy, seating himself at the head of the table and tossing his club over his shoulder. “Let us eat and be merry.”

  As he threw away his club, the Leszy grew tall. He stepped down off the chair to seat himself in it. Only he was no longer the Leszy, but a kingly man with gray-brown hair and a beard and lines at the corner of his eyes. Like his wife, he was ten feet tall.

  “We must put on our dinner attire for you,” he said with a wink, and gestured to the newly appeared chairs. Without his bandy legs and potbelly, he had a somewhat less insane air about him.

  It made Lukasz trust him less.

  He lowered himself gingerly into a chair next to Jakub, leaning the rifle against one gilded arm. Jakub glanced sideways at him, and Lukasz wondered if the Unnaturalist was equally suspicious.

  What could this . . . god want?

  Across the table, Ren collapsed into a couch-sized chair, Ryś and Czarn curling up on either side of her. Her hands fell to her brother’s head, and with a furrowed brow, she ran her fingers over his ears. On her other side, Koszmar was seated next to a little Leshonki who immediately poked him in the ribs.

  “Ow!” yelped Koszmar. He shoved the little Leshonki, and a half dozen chairs toppled like dominoes.

  “Koszmar,” cautioned Jakub.

  Koszmar folded his arms.

  “He started it,” he sulked.

  The little Leshonki resurfaced from under the table, grinning evilly.

  Meanwhile, the rest of the Leszy’s children began to serve the guests. On either side, everyone ate feverishly, while still more feverishly the Leshonki refilled their plates. Lukasz kept farther back from the table than the others, one ankle crossed over his knee.

  He watched very carefully before he even took a bite. He wished Franciszek were there. Franciszek would have read about this creature. He would have known what to do.

  “So,” began the Leszy, gesturing expansively. “What brings you into my forest?”

  “We’re on our way to the Moving Mountains,” said Ren. “To slay the Golden Dragon.”

  Lukasz watched the Leszy drench a piece of chocolate cake in gravy and devour the whole thing with relish.

  “The Dragon, my, my,” chortled the Leszy. “Selected quite the beastie, haven’t you? Wouldn’t you be better off starting at home? I hear your little village is under siege at the moment, by the way. The strzygi have proved, ah, territorial.”

  Both Jakub and Felka looked up in alarm. Ren’s expression did not change.

  “The humans can defend themselves,” she said. “They have managed well enough for seventeen years.”

  The Leszy smirked and steepled his fingers.

  “Have they?”

  Some grease ran down his wrist and stained his sleeve. His nose began to quiver, and then he snuffled at the wrist like some kind of animal. When Ren didn’t answer, he continued, “What about your castle?” He pushed back the sleeve and licked his forearm from elbow to fingertip. Lukasz tried not to gag. “Strzygi are nothing if not persistent. Those walls won’t hold forever.”

  This time, Ren swallowed. Then she said: “Cut off the head, and the body will die.”

  The Leszy paused mid-lick, then chuckled.

  “Wise little queen,” he said. “Single-minded.”

  Lukasz glanced at Ren. Her eyes met his, and his stomach flipped. But when he smiled, her eyes flickered away. He kept his good arm around the back of Jakub’s chair, did his best to look relaxed.

  “You look very familiar,” said the Leszy suddenly, pointing at Lukasz with a whole roast duck. “Have I killed you before?”

  Lukasz didn’t answer immediately. He wasn’t sure what the little creature was getting at. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  Then the Leszy laughed maniacally, as if he had told a particularly clever joke, and began applying plum jelly to the duck. He stuffed the whole thing into his mouth, bones and all.

  “I think I would remember that,” said Lukasz slowly.

  The Leszy crunched down and then grinned, revealing unnaturally sharp teeth. They were full of shredded duck.

  “Rightly so, Wolf-Lord,” he said, “rightly so. Off to slay the Dragon, are we? Mountains are calling, are they?”

  Lukasz’s blood froze. He was aware of silence falling over the table. He was aware of his own heart beating in his ears. When he answered, it was in a deliberately casual voice:

  “I’m just trying to find my brother, Leszy.”

  The Leszy selected an orange and began to peel it with long yellow fingernails.

  “Which one?” he asked.

 
Lukasz felt his jaw twitch. The Leszy speared an orange segment with one vile claw and popped it in his mouth. As the yellow teeth worked on the orange, Lukasz found himself fascinated with the rivulet of juice running from the corner of the creature’s abnormal mouth.

  “You’ll forgive my confusion,” said the Leszy into the silence. “For nine have gone before you.” He gestured with an orange piece, speared on his fingernail. “I did like Rafał, though, I must say. Delightful man. Could’ve drunk me under the table, that one.”

  For a moment, Lukasz was numb. He was aware of everyone watching him.

  “Really,” he said at last. Flatly.

  “Yes, I believe that was Rafał,” said the Leszy. He rocked back in his chair and clasped his hands over his belly. He seemed to enjoy the moment. “He had nice eyes, your brother. Quite dreamy. Michał and Eliasz were quite lovely as well. A bit more the strong and silent type, aren’t they?”

  Lukasz choked.

  “Where—what—”

  “Oh, I sent them on their way,” said the Leszy airily. “To the Mountains, as they wished.”

  “To the Dragon?”

  “Yes,” said the Leszy, maddeningly enigmatic.

  “Did they make it?”

  “To the Mountains? Yes,” said the Leszy. He grinned, mouth so wide it almost touched his ears. “Back again? No.”

  Ren interrupted.

  “Please,” she said, leaning forward. “Please, Leszy. We’re going to the Mountains, too. Lukasz is going to help me kill that Dragon. I need to save my forest.” She glanced around, as if searching for inspiration. “It’s your forest, too. Surely you understand. If we don’t do something, it’s going to destroy us all—”

  The Leszy cut her off, eyes narrowed.

  “Don’t go. The Dragon will kill you.”

  “The Dragon is killing my forest!”

  As Ren and the Leszy began to shout, Jakub leaned in suddenly.

  “Give him your cross,” whispered the Unnaturalist.

  “What?” asked Lukasz.

  He was still too stunned by the revelation that his brothers had met the Leszy. Had Franciszek met the Leszy? Is he still here?

  “A cross will bind the Leszy,” whispered Jakub. “You’ll be able to ask one question.”