of bugs. Lukasz stifled a gag as a spider skittered up his arm and crawled into one long, tufted ear.
The little creature asked gruffly: “Never seen a forest god before?”
Lukasz couldn’t help it. He laughed.
The club swung with terrifying dexterity, and then the little creature was pointing it straight at him.
“Watch it, boy,” he snapped. “Or I’ll knock that pretty head of yours clear off, understood?”
Lukasz heard Ren giggle.
“I came to see her,” said the little man. His voice abruptly changed. It had a silky, wheedling quality to it. “The queen.”
Ren stopped giggling.
The creature sank to one knee and swept the cap off his head. A few mice fell out and dashed away across the path. Ry? followed them with hungry eyes but thankfully stayed put.
Then, to Lukasz’s shock—and minor horror—Ren smiled. With her odd, liquid grace, she slipped forward to kneel in front of the creature. His escaped mice came back and began playing in the folds of her skirt.
“Stay on this path, and you will never the leave the woods alive,” said the creature in a soft voice. “The trees are encircling you. They are holding hands and singing sweet nightmares into your minds.”
Lukasz suddenly remembered his dream from the night before.
Then the creature added gently: “Did you see the storks?”
“Who are you?” murmured Ren.
Lukasz wasn’t quite sure what he was witnessing, but instinct told him not to interrupt. One of the mice crawled up on Ren’s shoulder and examined her intently.
“I am Leszy—” began the little man, before breaking off.
Looking slightly confused, he inserted a long finger in his ear and wiggled it.
Koszmar had sidled up beside him, and now he muttered, “What the hell’s a Leszy?”
“The Leszy is the protector of these woods,” interjected Jakub in a low voice. “He is both god and spirit, shape-shifter and trickster.”
“I thought she was the protector of the woods,” said Koszmar, nodding toward Ren.
The queen straightened up, the Leszy’s mice now gathered in her arms. Far from being suspicious of the little god, she looked calm. Almost serene. Before Lukasz could look away, she glanced toward him. And even then, her face softened. He barely recognized her as she raised her cupped palms to show him her tiny charges. They scampered out of her hands up to her shoulders, playing in her hair and squeaking at each other. She looked, he realized, happier than he’d ever seen her before.
Despite the very real possibility of being clubbed to death by a tiny madman, Lukasz couldn’t help finding Ren and her mice oddly charming.
“Leszy is different,” Jakub was explaining. “He is an ancient shape-shifter. He’s very wise and very powerful.”
The so-called Very Wise and Very Powerful himself had at last extracted the spider from his ear by one long hairy leg. With exquisite care, he deposited it on the ground.
“Doesn’t make sense to me,” muttered Koszmar. “Why now? We’ve been in the woods for days.”
“Me neither,” agreed Lukasz, feeling a little off-kilter. “We’re missing something here.”
“Your brains, perhaps?” suggested the Leszy in a snide voice.
With a strangely nimble gait for someone so round, the Leszy danced up to Jakub, who looked confused. All the same, the Unnaturalist knelt down. The Leszy leaned in so close that his slightly animal nose almost touched Jakub’s mostly incomplete one. Then, while the Unnaturalist remained as still as death, the Leszy put a knobbly hand on his face and pulled it down, gently tracing the scars.
He smiled.
“Well done, my queen,” he whispered.
He had a strange mouth. His upper lip was parted down the middle, curving up on either edge. The mouth of a cat, covered in fine fur.
Ren looked up sharply—almost guiltily.
Before any of them could reply, the Leszy leapt up and danced away. He flashed up the hill adjoining them, disappearing in and out of the trees. With his fur the exact color of the bark, he was practically invisible in the underbrush—
“Well? Come on, you lot! Come on!”
He reappeared, dancing among the trees. He hopped from one hairy foot to another like an impatient, slightly ugly child.
“Follow the god!” he trilled. “Follow the trickster! The saints know where I’ll take you, but the gods will it will be good! Follow the god, follow the god!”
Ren glanced back at Lukasz, and he had the sudden conviction that she was looking for his agreement. For some ridiculous reason, the possibility made him happy.