Scarecrow and the Lae

The Lake

The next day, I am flying above the green pine forests of Belarus. Having gone for 7 hours I had needed rest, so I found a quiet, hidden place to get my sleep. Once I had 8 hours under, I woke early and spent some time finding food. Before I got my powers at age 18, I was a Boy Scout. Went all the way up to Eagle, and earned 20 merit badges. One of them was wilderness survival. In fact those skills are why I am still alive today, with missing forearms to prove it. So living off the land is natural to me, as there are enough similarities in Belarusian climate and what I was used to in my homeland. My belly filled with roots, nuts and fresh spring water, I returned to the sky. It's clear today, as it is Spring, and I feel the pull of a spiritual call beyond my conscious mind, guiding me in the right direction. Crow knows where I must go to find this lake, where she is waiting.

There is so much I don't know, that I feel I must discover with the urgency of a starving animal. Who is the Spring Maiden? How long has she been sleeping? Why should she awaken today? Where is she from? What is the Black God? I know there are Spirits, like Crow. But I get the sense what I am searching for is manifest in this world, materially. Or was, once upon an ancient time, and shall be again. I was raised a Christian and believe Divinity has walked in the flesh of men. Not just one, as Jesus, but as several, across time. They teach and save humanity from our worst enemies, even if that worst enemy is our own corruption of ego. I have hoped to meet a Christ Vessel in my life but I'm not sure I deserve such a miracle. Crow is my ally, but not my God. I have done things that are in the gray area of morality, at least as humans conceive of it. I fight for what I see as the good of humanity, but that doesn't mean I feel I am good. My connection to Brother Crow has shown me the multiplicity of reality, and yet I'm not arrogant enough to believe that I always can see clearly what is truly evil and that I am free from it. Indeed, maybe I am most effective in my work for Balance because I know evil tempts me just as much as any human. But today, I need to find the good that will anchor me. That dream did not come to me by chance.

7 hours from when I started this morning, I see amidst the carpet of green a patch of blue. It is the lake from my dream. The still water covers a couple acres, bordered by a narrow shore and then the thick stands of pine trees. I swoop down to land by the edge of the crystal mirroring the sky. It's such a beautiful day that I can barely see beneath the surface. That is no trouble; I have other ways of seeing.

I sit down cross-legged on the lakeshore without a care if my clothes become soiled by the mossy earth. My Cloak hangs about my shoulders, and the hood covers my head. I remove the crow mask and place it on the ground beside me. My body relaxes out of habit as my mind becomes focused. I can feel that now is the right time, to seek what my vision has pulled me to this place for.

"Alright Brother, here we are. Let us search." Then I close my mortal eyes and my awareness joins with Crow as he emerges from within myself. He Silently wings out over the blue water, moving along where the water touches the land rightward from where my body sits. Patiently we circle together, and as the phantom path continues to work its way ever nearer to the center of the lake, our eyes are trained on the water below. After 5 minutes the search pattern reaches the middle of the round mirror that is the water, and my awareness hovers with Crow above the blue, peering downward. As time passes unheeded, the spirit eyes seek to go below the surface, to find what secrets the water has hidden in its depths. I estimate the sounding of its lowest point to be 10 meters. Suddenly the angle of the sun's light changes so that the objects under the skin of the lake are discernible. At first I can see only weeds of the water and small fish hiding amongst them. Then from the darkness at the very lake bottom, a vague shape begins to rise. Floating slowly upwards toward the surface is a pale form, flickering like an image on the screen of one of those old movie projectors. Like those old films, the aspect has no color, but there is a solidity to it at odds with the liquid it is suspended in. The unmoving shape of a girl faces upwards as though asleep, wearing an ephemeral veil over her. Her fair face is framed by unbound hair that holds no tint. I gaze down at the female in the water, stunned as I understand this is no human, living or corpse. She is a spirit entity, just as Crow. Yet I don't know what I am meant to do here.

Suddenly the lids of her eyes snap open, and I see a light shine in them. She sees Crow, and our gazes lock. Instantly, my perspective changes: I am suspended in the water, facing the girl. While I know this is a state of pure consciousness, and my body remains outside the lake, I cannot escape the feeling I am surrounded by a deep, oppressive environment. Not so much a loss of breath, but the murky weight of a spiritual dimension with distinct boundaries.

I see the girl's colorless lips move, and yet it is not my ears that hear the words, for I feel them like a siren call in my mind. "Who are you that visits my sleeping place? You are not like other men. They come at twilight when I make my song at the lakeshore, and the game begins. But you are here near midday, and not swimming."

I answer in the same manner as she spoke, without breath. "I am the Crow's Brother. It is by his wisdom I can project my mind down here, for this place is of the same realm to which he is native to. A dream called me to be at this lake on this day, though I am not sure why. Who are you?"

The phantasmal female seems unmoved by my words, but after a moment replies, "I don't know my name. The humans of this land have a word for my kind of being, a rusalka. Apparently I am one of several spirits who are bound to lakes. But I cannot say how long I have existed here, or what my reason for being is. I don't remember much besides my games. Will you play with me? Perhaps you can help me recall my true self? You seem to be what humans call a shaman."

I am silent for a moment as I digest the vague information this rusalka has supplied, but I hate to leave her hanging. "I suppose that is one word that would describe my function. But I am just as confused as you, girl. Crow is my companion, bonded with my soul, but he cannot tell me your name. My dream referred to a Spring Maiden, but I am not sure what that title has to do with your sojourn here in the lake."

I stare at the inhuman eyes of the spirit being, which are like glinting gray stones. She murmurs, "Maybe you could stay for a while, Brother. This place is lonely. I get sleepy until it's time to go out."

I'm unable to form thoughts at this point; a creeping cold feeling is permeating my consciousness as though I could be trapped, frozen here in the lake which is not a place for the living. It may in fact be a tomb. Though I cannot speak, I do hear words all of a sudden, and I recognize the voice of Crow:

Danger, Death comes.

Immediately, I Snap back to my body as my eyes open, peering in consternation about where I sit. A person comes dashing out if the trees and collapses on the lakeshore. The movement startles me into action and I stand quickly as I realize the interloper is a woman. She seems middle-aged and is wearing simple clothes. She rolls onto her back and screams in Fright and I turn my gaze in the direction her own are trained in desperation. I see then what is coming, as Crow warned. This is not nature; it is Other. A mass of solid darkness vaguely shaped like a bear runs on four roping tentacles instead of jointed limbs between the trees, while two more are stretched out toward its apparent prey. When it comes within seven feet of the woman it halts. Choosing not to be paralyzed by this purely-wrong sight, I whip my arms out and two daggers fly from their straps straight at the Thing. A sick yellow eye in the side of it's melon-head seems to notice me without concern as the blades approach and then pass through the black body like it is only smoke. But that cannot be correct, for one of its front Tentacles snakes swiftly out and stabs into the prostrate woman on the ground. Impaled through the midsection, she makes a guttural cry of agony and blood begins soaking the mossy earth. I cannot believe the horror of what I am seeing, as it is unlike anything I have been involved with in all my years as a vigilante. My weapons are useless, and yet I refuse to run away from this circumstance, no matter how inimical to rational sense and sanity it seems. I must try to stop this unnatural butchery.

The Beast of Darkness comes to crouch over the dying woman, and from twenty paces away I can see a round mouth gape in its head. Lamprey teeth line the opening into oblivion. Then it pauses for a moment before fastening on its prey, and I hear her wail a single word that rings out over the lake. "Kostroma!"

As the note echoes, I see that her spilled blood has begun draining into the water. And then out in the periphery of my field of vision I see movement, and I Snap my head about to gaze straight at the center of the lake. The Thing does as well, and what we both see is a wonder that I feel instantly stands in counterpoint to the unnatural entity. A human head crowned with blood-red hair rises above the surface of the blue water, hardly disturbing it. It is though all around has become still in a gasp of anticipation as slowly but confidently a body also emerges, until a fully-grown naked woman stands on the still lake skin. She instantly appears to be dry, as though she had completely left the lake behind, and an aura of ruddy light surrounds her. Her hair falls long on either side of her youthful face, and from a distance of 500 ft her water-blue eyes nail me to where I stand. The being who has risen from the lake is nothing like the phantom I had met before; she is alive, in fact larger than life, and I have an epiphany of understanding: This Kostroma is the Spring Maiden referred to in my prophetic dream. And I also see without any doubt that she is Divine, awakened at long last from the sleep she had been consigned to in the lake of her forgetfulness. I feel tears of ecstasy begin to well from my eyes, and I tremble from scalp to heels. This is why I am here.