Communion Among the Black Fire

               The train stopped in a remote area in a wooded and natural part of the country, and I found it a pleasing change from the sounds of the urban neighborhood where my hotel was located.  I admired the flora and fauna not native to my own homeland, and inhaled the fresh air of this almost untouched location of Ukraine, untouched by the hands of civilization and modernity.

               I stepped onto the platform, carrying my backpack of supplies and journals and other necessities, such as the hiking equipment as requested.  As I looked around, I noticed that no one else was getting off with me.  They eyed me from their seats as if I were an oddity to have gotten off.  I assured myself it must have been a local superstition based on the stories I had been reading about before setting out.

               I followed the dirt roads to my destination, as described in the letters sent by my more than helpful source.  On the way I passed by roughly a dozen houses, each one inhabited by watchful locals.  They seemed again untouched by modern society and were living happily off their own resources.  I could not shake their eyes, each pair of which locked on to me without hesitation or abashment… or manners.

               Off in the distance I could see the famed Lysa Hora hills: the biggest reason I was there.  I imagined all the tales I researched about its legend including the gathering of witches and demons, and the Slavic god Czernobog.  As I fantasized, a voice interrupted my thoughts.  I looked towards its source and spotted who was to be my guide.  He was an old man with a morose face and tired posture, yet his physique was stunningly strapping, like that of a lumberjack’s.

               His weary eyes scanned me up and down, and he stroked his bushy beard as we briefly shot up conversation.  I showed him the letters I had received, and he commented that he was in fact my generous source whom I had kept in contact with over the past months.  He spoke in English that sounded more broken than that of his letters, but with an admirable enthusiasm and knowledge of the language.  I became giddy at the prospect of what I could retain from this excursion, and how his knowledge of old Slavic tales would add to my specialty as a Folklorist.  This short trip would also have the benefit of giving me story to add to the travel magazine I worked for, but I cared more about the mythology than anything else.

               I was at that point very eager to start our planned expedition, but noticed that the sun was dishearteningly low in the sky.  The old man was kind enough to let me take refuge in his cottage for the night.  It was a humble place; on the edge of a thick patch of forest with intrepid wildlife that scurried heedlessly in the visibility of orange sunlight.

               My stay in his cabin was objectively comfortable, yet, subjectively it felt uneasy.  It had all the comforts of perhaps a vacation home in the woods, but the atmosphere was overbearing upon me, and I found myself short of breath from time to time.  The temperature, both inside and outside the home, was… to my best abilities of description, ambiguous, it felt warm, and cold, and both, and neither, and something new entirely.  I assured myself that perhaps my body was not acclimated to bacteria in this part of the world, and that I suffered an illness as a result.

               The sleep I gained that night was not pleasant, as I was assaulted in my mind with feelings and images of formless nightmares that lightly put their hands upon me and spoke bitter nothings into my ear.  I awoke the next morning at nearly noon, and meandered through the cottage to locate my host.  I found him in his room fidgeting to put away a calendar in a drawer while muttering something to himself.  He looked almost frantic and guilty, but about what I could not tell.

               He noticed me and shut the drawer in a hurry.  He managed to don his stoic countenance with surprising speed, and greeted me calmly.  I inquired about when he would take me up to the mountain discussed in our letters, and he suggested that a hearty meal was in order if we were to have enough energy to make it up to the top.  He soon took to preparing a rather dense course of meats and some exotic sandwiches with quite a helping of condiments and seasonings.  I noticed that he had generously given me considerably more than he gave himself, and he explained that his body, while still old, was accustomed to hiking the hills that surrounded his home, and that I would need more energy.  After the very filling meal, which may have defeated my supposed illness from the previous day, we gathered some items to make it up the mountain; boots, walking sticks, properly insulated clothes, et cetera.