The Linden That Became Winter

Kornii the miller says to me one day: you, Ivan, think wood only holds a shape? No. It takes on memory too. And he told me about a man, Lukash, who managed to cheat death itself with a linden log and a carving knife. And it all began when his wife Odarka fell gravely ill late in the autumn.

Odarka lay pale as linen, and the only thing keeping her alive was waiting for the first snow. She said: the moment I see a white blanket on the apple trees, my strength will come back. But that year the autumn dragged on. Cold rains poured down, the wind bent the willows to the ground, and still there was no snow. The house smelled of bitter herbs and wax. Lukash watched her melting away before his eyes, and he understood there was no waiting for snow. He had to act.

He locked himself in the storeroom. He took the palest linden wood, which had been drying under the eaves for three years, and began to carve. He carved day and night, the shavings just flew. He cut hundreds of tiny snowflakes, thin as cobwebs. Then he set to work on branches - he made miniature pines, oaks, even a guelder rose bush. And at the very top he carved a little bird with its beak open. His wife slept, and he created a forest.

On the third morning Lukash came in to her. Odarka opened her eyes and froze. All through the house, on threads, hung garlands of wooden snowflakes. On the windowsill stood a carved forest, and the branches of a real pine he had brought in during the night gave off a scent so thick it was as if January had already come outside. She reached out her hand, touched a wooden snowflake, and for the first time in a month laughed quietly.

But the miracle was not only in the beauty. When the stove was lit, the house began to warm. The dry linden, from the heat, expanded ever so slightly. And that bird at the top of the pine, the one with the open beak, began to make a sound. A thin, quiet whistle, like wind in the branches. Odarka listened to that song, her cheeks grew rosy, and her eyes filled with light. She asked not for medicine, but for hot milk with honey.

Kornii finished his sbiten and smiled into his grey beard. Odarka recovered then and lived another long forty years. People say it was the carver's miracle that saved her. But I think the wood had nothing to do with it. It's just that when someone is ready to carve you an entire forest so you can see snow, sickness has nothing left to do in such a house. It simply walks away, because it grows ashamed of itself.