*
Big-Earth…
Little-Earth…
Bigger-Earth:
Earth-Man-Stars.
*
…I followed Kraas’s footfalls as she walked towards the stone.
Just then the moon appeared in the sky overhead and shone its half light directly onto the figure before us.
Out shot a scrawny claw which grasped and held my wrist in its iron grip, “He has silver?” screeched the witch of the wood.
I gasped in pain, slowly unfurling my still tightly clasped fist.
The hessian pouch lay scrunched and soggy in my sweating palm.
The witch snatched it up and emptied out the three, hard won, coins into her left hand…
Stepping to one side she hurled one silver piece in front of her, “For water,” she cried…
And one behind her, “For earth,” she cried…
And the third above, “For air,” she finished.
The coins disappeared from sight into the black night…
“This will do for the fire,” she grimaced, fingering the hessian pouch like it alone was worth more than silver and retreated into her hut.
Kraas followed… “Sit in front of the entrance,” she hissed, “and watch the wood.”
But she remembered to smile before crossing the threshold.
So, I sat in front of the entrance and watched the dark wood though the Lords alone know I wanted to turn and observe the unfolding inside the hut…
The hessian pouch was not the only thing thrown on that pyre.
Herbs at a guess…redolent… but it was the sounds that really got to me.
Unearthly… Uncanny…Indecipherable…sounds.
And then, after quite some while, in my direction, “Do you see aught?”
“There’s a wolf on the edge of the clearing.”
“What’s it doing?”
“It’s eyeing…me.”
*
The Red, the White, the Green…
Some things have to be believed
Before they can be seen…
*
