The Slynx Read Free

watch out, or she'll pull you in the river--and when the song reaches a whistle: iyee, iyee! run for your life, man. He told us about enchanted bark, and how you have to watch out for it; about the Snout that grabs people by their legs; and how to find the best rusht.
    Then Benedikt spoke up. "Grandfather, have you seen the Slynx?"
    Everyone looked at Benedikt like he was an idiot. No one said anything, though.
    They saw the fearless old man off on his way, and it was again quiet in town. They put more guards on, but no one else attacked us from the south.
    No, we mostly walk out east from the town. The woods there are bright, the grass is long and shiny. In the grasses there are sweet little blue flowers: if you pick them, wash them, beat them, comb and spin them, you can plait the threads and weave burlap. Mother, may she rest in peace, was all thumbs, everything tangled up in her hands. She cried when she had to spin thread, poured buckets of tears when she wove burlap. Before the Blast, she said, everything was different. You'd go to a deportmunt
    store, she said, take what you wanted, and if you didn't like it, you'd turn up your nose, not like now. This deportmunt store or bootick they had was something like a Warehouse, only there were more goods, and they didn't give things out only on Warehouse Days--the doors stood open all day long.
    It's hard to believe. How's that? Come and grab what you want? You couldn't find enough guards to guard it. Just let us in and we'll strip everything bare. And how many people would get trampled? When you go to the Warehouse your eyes nearly pop out of your head from looking at who got what, how much, and why not me?
    Looking won't help any: you won't get more than they give you. And don't stare at another guy's takings: the Warehouse Workers will whack you. You got what's yours, now get out! Or else we'll take that away too.
    When you leave the Warehouse with your basket you hurry home to your izba, and you keep feeling around in the basket: Is everything there? Maybe they forgot something? Or maybe someone snuck up from behind in an alley, dipped in, took off with something?
    It happens. Once, Mother was coming home from the Warehouse, they'd given her crow feathers. For a pillow. They're light, you carry them and it's like there was nothing there. She got home, pulled off the cloth--and what do you know? No feathers at all, and in their place, little turds. Well, Mother cried her eyes out, but Father got the giggles. What a funny thief-- he not only took off with the goods but thought up a joke, with a twist: here's what your feathers are worth. How d'ya like that!
    The feathers turned up at the neighbor's. Father started bugging him: Where'd they come from? The market. Whaddya trade them for? Felt boots. Who from? All of a sudden the neighbor didn't know this, didn't know that, I didn't mean, I didn't, I drank too much rusht--you couldn't get a thing out of him. That's how they left it.
    Well, and what do they give out at the Warehouse? Mouse-meat sausage, mouse lard, wheatweed flour, those feathers, then
    there's felt boots, of course, and tongs, burlap, stone pots: different things. One time they put some slimy firelings in the basket --they'd gone bad somewhere, so they handed them out. If you want good firelings you have to get them yourself.
    Right at the edge of the town to the east are elfir woods. Elfir is the best tree. Its trunk is light, it drips resin, the leaves are delicate, patterned, paw-shaped, they have a healthy smell. In a word--elfir! Its cones are as big as a human head, and you can eat your fill of its nuts. If you soak them, of course. Otherwise they're disgusting. Firelings grow on the oldest elfirs, in the deep forest. Such a treat: sweet, round, chewy. A ripe fueling is the size of a person's eye. At night they shine silver, like the crescent moon was sending a beam through the leaves, but during the day you don't notice them. People go out into the woods