Coins are kept in the mouth of a dead person

“The forest rubs on also if one is hit by a twig or branch or if one stumbles on a stump, root, or something, so that one is startled. They are all that forest.”

Only a patch of smoke could be discerned on the horizon, but nothing of the sultry hills of the maiden’s native land. She knew not where she was, she did not recognize the still unnamed spurs of the Scythians, nor did she see the river Jiu; even less did she know that one day a border would be drawn through the water. For at that time no countries existed, and there were no borders. As a child the maiden had heard of this extreme, severe land along the Jiu, about the magic forests where people died of hunger, hallucinating and enjoying supreme ecstasy in the fury of their ruin.

As the maiden entered a grove of Aspen trees, she could see that her crimson horse was weary with exhaustion. She crouched before the horse and the pair lay down along the mossy terrain. But the maiden could not sleep for she was overcome with a dread she had never known. The canopy of Aspen trees shook violently overhead, they rattled and hissed, their sighs and moans choked the cool night air. The Aspens left her awed and anguished. Some agrestal essence emanated from them that besieged the maiden’s heart. She knew she had come to the edge of the world.

Although no villains pursued her any longer, the maiden found herself surrounded by a cloud of strange beings, a tempest of leaves thrashed past the quivering Aspens, she was in the region where the river veered unto the realm of the dead. Her eyes widened as the

immense column of shadowy creatures advanced upon her, she buried her face in the mane of her horse to temper the formidable howls of wind.

Suddenly, she could move neither forward nor backward, she could verily choose between the water and the overpowering beckoning of the Aspen grove, but in this saturnine gloom a brightness appeared before her, and she knew it could only be the light of a guardian spirit – this was no human mien – she pushed forward, mortally fearful but wholly enchanted and enthralled.

It became clear as she came upon the glow, that this was no ordinary light. The luminescence spilled forth from a flower which had not bloomed in earth’s bosom but unfurled into the muderous night: a swarthy bud that was bluer than blue. She stretched out her fingers toward the sapphire spark and at once felt the touch of another.

The wind and the rattling cries of the Aspens grew still, and by the cold glimmering light of the moon, which grew silver and strange above the stilling waters of the Jiu, she recognized the stranger in the black veil before her, grasping for her hand and covering her mouth with theirs, so she would not try to ask their name again. Once they released their hand from her face, they smiled with dark, warm eyes.

The figure in the black veil engulfed her at once, and she sank into their arms and onto the wet sand; the mysterious figure lay a garland of blue flowers across her fruiting body as if she were dead, concealing them both with the black veil once more.

As she slept she dreamed of floating over the river and onto the farthest shore where she came across a decrepit tree in which was a hollow containing many pieces of silver coin. The maiden took the coins and replaced them with her only belongings: two whetstones and the blade of a knife. Without warning, a butterfly sprang forth from her lips and flew into the cavity of the ancient tree, thence back to its earthly depths. She had quieted the elements, the true immortals. As the heavens cleared and the eternal curse lifted, the maiden awoke once more from her deathlike slumber.

— Kaitlyn D. Hamilton