Mushrooms

The road was becoming less worn out and already resembled a slightly visible path. The forest has also changed, it has become more humid, on the stumps more and more communities of known and unknown Sveta mushrooms appeared. During the next stop, Borislav suddenly said that it was better for her to go on alone, in his present appearance he would not be allowed to pass through here. Of course, Sveta had questions about herself, but would they let her in, and most importantly, who exactly could prevent her from going through and what should she expect? Alas, Borislav had no answers. He simply said that she was a stranger in this world, she didn’t manage to do anything wrong here, so let her simply go along the path, and fate will decide whether she should go along the path or not.

Such a farewell somewhat frightened, but on the other hand, she understood that she was going to explore a new world — nothing had changed. She keeps going and studying. Finally, Borislav told her not to touch the mushrooms until the forest changed again. When asked how long it would take for her to go through this forest, he replied that the forest is not large, but it is possible to pass in a day, but you can not even get out of it.

She still had half the hare baked in the evening. Faithful bow was also with her, so she was not yet afraid of hunger. On the advice of Borislav, she decided to trust her fate and moved on.

The path disappeared completely, then appeared again. Sometimes I had to wander to find her, Sveta regretted that she did not have time to build some kind of compass, and only remembering school knowledge, tried to determine its direction on visible parts of the path, find some distinguished object away and go to it in a straight line so start to wander around. But until the evening she never left the forest. The forest became dark and gloomy, there were mushrooms hanging on fallen tree trunks in clusters, here and there the bright hats of huge fly-agaric stuck out, white, brown, orange, and even blue and green mushrooms were everywhere. Remembering the farewell of Borislav, Sveta carefully chose the place where to put her foot so as not to accidentally step on the mushroom. This slowed the movement even further in thick, saturated with moisture and heavy aromas. Sveta decided that the local people had some kind of religious cult of mushroom worship, so they carefully guard and protect them here, but so far she has not seen any local people. And the day was fading, and therefore, seeing a small, dry mound, devoid of vegetation, she decided to spend the night on it. After destroying another half of the hare, she lightly smoothed the loose earth under the stove bench, lightly poured it over with a dead wood and laid out things, went to sleep, hoping to set off with the first rays of the sun. The heavy air became cooler, ceased to put pressure on the chest with its abundance of all kinds of smells, relaxed and lulled. Her breathing became smoother, and now she heard the distant murmur of the stream. Svetlana remembered that at dinner she almost drank the rest of the water. Therefore, I got out of bed and went to the sound, to collect a supply of water with me. The day was not yet completely burned out, and in the twilight she quickly found a small streamlet, entwined with mushrooms and interweaving of roots from all sides, as if all living things were trying to snuggle up close to him and get drunk. Finding a place almost free of mushrooms, Svetlana scooped up a handful of water and tried. Despite the warm humidity surrounding it - the water was icy and sweetish in taste. Apparently, a key was very close to the ground and the water did not have time to warm up. Having taken water with her, she again eagerly drank from the stream and, rising, slipped and flopped directly into the water. The scorching cold water made her cry out and jumping out of the water, she saw how tattered roots floated down the river, pieces of broken mushrooms and torn grass growing along the shore. Svetlana looked around, the vegetation was thick, the darkness increasingly covered the forest.No local people were still visible, so she took off all her clothes and carefully pressed them. Despite the night's freshness and swimming in ice water - she did not feel the cold. She was going to take the clothes and, as it is, go naked to the place of her parking, to hang it there for drying and put on a changeable clothes, but finally decided to once again scoop up fresh and sweetish water. Her bare legs parted on the wet and slippery grass, and she again flopped into the stream. Without rising to her feet, she was carefully going ashore on all fours. In the same position, she decided to crawl away from the stream, when suddenly the cap of an enormous mushroom appeared in front of her. Svetlana was about to go around him, but the hat suddenly rose, and the old man's face gazed at the Light from under her hat at Sveta.

- And why are we bogging here? - Svetlana heard.

“I just ..., I wanted ..., I did not want ..." Svetlana, startled by the unexpected appearance of the talking mushroom, began to babble.

- Yes, I saw everything. I wanted to collect water, slipped, fell, did not want to break anything ... Everyone says so. They will grow a bunch of legs, but they cannot learn to use them. - the grandfather said angrily.

Sveta lowered her gaze, grandfather and really stood on one leg. On one mushroom leg. How he got here was incomprehensible, but the fact that he was not here just a minute ago, Sveta was sure. Growth he, too, was not big. Light, standing on all fours in front of him was just below him. She sat on the grass, right in front of his grandfather, being on a par with him now. The day finally went out and in the dark the stream glowed faintly. With it continued to drain the icy water, glowing trickles gathering on the shore and pouring into the stream. In the place where these streams flowed, the grass trampled on Sveta's feet rose and straightened before her eyes.

- Well, why are you silent, tell me, who is this, whose will you be? Are you trying to do business, al? - the grandfather continued to creak.

- Just like in fairy tales, - Svetlana thought, trying to remember, how can it fly from the business ..., fly or run away from business or what? Are you trying to do business? Is it possible to try to do some business? She looked at Dad, he spoke sternly, but did not look evil. Mischievous lights were in his eyes, and he looked at her rather mockingly, not strictly. And she decided to contemplate:

- Grandfather, you feed, drink, in the bath room, and then ask.

“So you’ve kind of already eaten, there are still some zaikin’s bones trying to drag off the ants, and you drank plenty, you’ll shine straight from our water and even bathe in the bathhouse, the steam rises with you.”

Sveta looked at her hands, they really seemed to glow a little in the dark, no longer felt the cold, rather fever, and steam was rising from wet hands, as if it were true after a bath. And under it rose a carpet of tender grass, and after a minute she was already sitting in a small chair. She turned around, in a ghostly radiance of a brook around her there were not mushrooms on legs, but strange people on one leg and in multi-colored hats. There were young, old, men, women, and honey-mushrooms hanging from tree trunks and looking at the guest with interest. At first Sveta was embarrassed by her nudity, but talking mushrooms with human faces looked so surreal that she decided that in fact she was sleeping, and she just had another very bright and interesting dream. I did not want to interrupt this dream and Sveta began to tell. She told about how she first got through the door on Tunguska in her childhood, about numerous unsuccessful attempts, and how she got here now, just walking along the road where she would lead, but not mentioning Borislav.

- So, the guards did not meet you or what? Not done anywhere? Not asked where you keep the path? - interrupted her story grandfather.

His gaze now seemed to be trying to burn a hole in the girl. I didn’t want to lie under such a look. Svetlana told her grandfather about Borislav that he had brought her to the forest, showed the path and told to walk along it until the forest changed.But at once she did not want to talk about him, because he said that he would not go with her, because the locals did not like him.

“Oh, these guards, I would give them all the toys ...”