#1

Katya pulled a long blue skirt on over a plain black leotard. She braided her waist-length blonde hair down her back and put three things into a leather satchel; the first was a fat black book with a pen clipped to the binding; the second was a long silver chain with a slender key dangling from the end; and the third was a simple gray rock, flat like a skipping stone, with a round hole in the middle. She stared into the satchel for a moment, nodded to herself, then shut it and clambered down the ladder that led to her attic room.

It was easy for Katya to kiss her grandmother goodbye. She found her on the patio, staring off into the sea and looking tranquil. “Oh Katya, darling,” she said when Katya appeared beside her, grabbing Katya’s hand with her own thin, frail one. “You see how calm the ocean is today? Last night it was so wretchedly uneasy.” “Yes Grandma,” Katya said with a smile, looking out to the glittering expanse of ocean as well. “It’s beautiful.”

“Magnificent. Powerful. Alive.” Grandmother whispered the words reverently as Katya patter her hand. “Yes,” Katya said simply, agreeing easily. “But then,” Grandmother added, turning to stare at Katya with intense, misty eyes, “So are you.”

   Katya stared back in surprise. Something in her grandmother’s gaze caused her whole being to stand still, and she found that for a few short moments- and within them, eternity- she couldn’t move.

Then, because for a moment she had felt quite as serious as she’d ever felt in her life, she let out a burst of hysteric laughter. “Oh Grandma,” she giggled, “don’t let Mrs. Oceanus hear you saying such things, I’m sure she would get horribly jealous.” Grandmother’s eyes cooled and she nodded with a small smile, sitting back in her chair.

“I love you so much grandma. I’m going to the woods, okay?” She kissed her grandmother’s withered cheek, grabbed her fur coat from the rail, and set off towards the trees to the north of the house. She knew she would not return for quite a while, perhaps not ever, but she did not look back. It was far easier not to.

Katya walked deeper and deeper into the forest, until she reached a place where the trees were so close together that hardly any sunlight was able to stream down to the forest floor. She did not look around nervously or slow her pace, even when the cacophony of noises around her began- cracks of branches and shuffling in the underbrush that began as a quiet, subtle song and eventually became a terrifying symphony echoing off the trees.

She recognized it as an attempt to scare her, but she set her jaw and did not stop walking until she reached the biggest tree in the whole wood, a huge spruce surrounded by a circle of toadstools. She did not dare smile with triumph- finding it had been the easy part.

“I am here to pass into the second wood,” she said loudly, trying to sound sure. “I have payment,” she added, lifting her chin resolutely.

After a few long seconds, a figure crept out from behind the tree. It was a hobgoblin, a little man with mossy skin and yellow eyes that danced greedily. Katya bit her lip to stop herself from crying out in surprise. “Do ye now,” the hobgoblin cried in a brittle voice, “and what’ll that be, Aytak?”

“I…” Katya hesitated, “what did you call me?”

“Yer name,” the hobgoblin said with a glee, “it’s written on yer forehead.” Katya held a hand to her head for a moment and then put it down, deciding to ignore this. “My payment,” she continued boldly instead, “is my sense of taste.”

“Ooooh,” the goblin cackled, clapping his hands. “What an excellent offer. You know it comes with yer sense of smell, eh Aytak?” Katya sighed, “yes.” In truth she had not thought about it, but of course they would. “Alright then, take them. I just want to pass your gate into the second wood.”

The hobgoblin shuffled closer to her, giving her a hard look. “Ye’ll never taste sweet honey or warm bread, or smell the woodsy scent of a man or the salty ocean air again. Are ye sure about yer choice?” Katya was a bit surprised that he was giving her a chance to change her mind, but she shook her head firmly. “It’s all I can give you,” she told him. “Or at least, all I am willing to give.” He nodded and offered her his hand. “Shake on it,” he commanded in his slightly high-pitched voice, breath stale and moldy on her face. She gave him hers, and after a firm shake, the little man vanished with a shriek of laughter, and Katya was alone.

When he left he took something with him. The smell of the pine trees, of fresh dirt, was utterly gone. Katya breathed in a few times through her nose and then looked up at the tree.

There was a glimmering hole in the bark, like an upright pool of water, recently disturbed. Through it, she could see another wood, a mystical reflection of the one she stood in now. After a few moments of staring, mesmerized, into it’s depths, she walked towards the hole and fearlessly slipped between worlds.