Haley Thistle
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The Leshy: Part Two (special preview)
🕑 Added 2023-07-15 21:00:01 +0000 UTCOne evening the leshy doesn’t even wait for you. It comes up to the windows of the church, watching you as you polish Pastor Lado’s pulpit. You have long since stopped being afraid of it, and instead, all you feel towards the leshy is a strong frustration. It is like a tom cat outside your window yowling every night.
You open a window to the church, which the leshy recoils away from, stumbling into the graveyard and nearly knocking over a tombstone.
“Why won’t you leave me be?” You ask, using a gentle tone. “Why do you make the wildlife grow around this town as if you are trying to strangle life from it? The hunters go missing one by one each day. You have more bones each day. What is it you want? Am I to be added to your bones? They aren’t very good! Especially the leg ones.” You let out a huff then slouched your shoulders. “I know you can speak, so at least speak to me on these matters.”
The leshy stares at you, strange eyes wide open and unblinking as you speak. “Buh-onssssss,” it gargles.
“I saved your life, why not spare mine and go elsewhere?” You point towards the forest.
“Luh-life. Yes.” The leshy nods. Its strange hands pat against its chest, or what could be a chest.
You narrow your eyes as the leshy does a strange little dance around the window. Patting its chest then hobbling to the left and weaving back in.
You sigh and shake your head. “What are you doing? You silly creature. Each day you get more and more ridiculous. It’s sweet in a way, but my ways are set and you’re making a mess of them.”
“Luhff,” it huffs out, spittle flying from its teeth.
Narrowing your eyes you wiped off your cheek. “Go back to the forest from where you came.”
The leshy steps back, crunching through the wall of the graveyard and toppling a few tombstones. It looks down, staring at the mess below its feet.
“Now look at what you have done!” You come out of the church, hobbling with your cane. “Get out of there! Get out!” You come up to the leshy and try to push it aside.
The leshy takes hold of your hand and plucks you up off the ground then sets you upon its back. Your cane drops from your hand and as soon as it hits the ground the leshy takes off with you into the forest. You scream, but no one takes notice of the sound. The leshy runs through the trees, dodging, swaying, crowing at the top of its lungs. That whistling rows louder and louder, echoing from the leshy’s form. You hold on as best you can and keep your head ducked down.
“I don’t think they are bad or good,” your husband once said. “They aren’t human. They don’t have that nature.”
“Says the pastor,” you scoffed at him. “How many beliefs do you have?”
Your husband just smiled at you. “More than you have.” He kissed you and looked back down at the drawing in the back of his bible. The creature there was something only someone genuinely imaginative could have drawn, or else, it truly was real. “If you see one, I think you’ll understand this world is more than what you can see. You can’t explain everything, my love. Sometimes you have beliefs, faith even.”
He was always like that, much like a pastor himself. Faith. Belief. It never was anything to you. You had your wits, your pride, you could stand up for yourself even if your legs gave out. But he had something you needed, and even when he died you couldn’t admit it.
You raise your head from the shoulders of the leshy, seeing the sunset going down over the mountain tops. The leshy shakes, grunting and stomping through the river. The leshy places you on the other side of the bank where no one has been before. The villagers spoke of what lay beyond the point and made it known it was unsafe to go beyond the river.
