Free Riding Icarus by Lily Hyde

mean, please will you take me across the river in your boat?”
    “Humph.” Nechipor retrieved his hat and stuck it back over his topknot. “I was planning to go fishing. Can you fish?”
    “I don’t know; I’ve never tried.”
    “Never tried?” he exclaimed. “Well, pickle my whiskers! All right then. Seeing as you’ve woken me up, you can come along and help me catch a big fat fish for my supper.”

    “What’s so interesting about the island?” the Cossack enquired as he rowed slowly out into the river. Masha sat in the bow of the boat, amid a clutter of fishing nets and hooks.
    She pointed at the smoke pencilling a faint bluish line up into the sky. “I just have this feeling,” she tried to explain. “It’s like trying to find the magic place between the dovecote and the church. I’m sure there’s something special there.”
    Nechipor looked over his shoulder at the smoke. “It’s a witches’ wood,” he muttered.
    “Witches?”
    “Oak trees and crows. Witches’ favourites. I feel a twitching of my moustache, young Masha. I’m not sure I like it.”
    “What does it mean if your moustache twitches?” asked Masha, trying to see if it really was.
    “It means a strange smell. A suspicious smell. I might even say the stink of that filthy old devil, may he choke on his own pong.”
    The oak trees ahead were a dark, sullen green, and after the dazzling glitter of the water the shadows beneath them looked black. The sun was blazing down but suddenly Masha trembled all over, as if cold air were blowing straight from those terribly dense shadows. But the trickle of smoke drew her, and the feeling that she was going to find something important grew. As the prow of the boat ran ashore onto the sand she hopped out, leaving her sandals tangled among the fishing line.
    The shade beneath the trees was not as dark as it had looked from the river. Sunlight lay in brilliant yellow patches between the deeper pools of shadow. When she stepped into the shade the grass was cold, lapping round her legs like water. The way between the trees looked intensely green and enticing, laced with ferns and the twinkle of little yellow and purple blooms, and the dead afternoon stillness here was broken by the tiniest rustles and shivers, as if a thousand distant voices were whispering about her passing. She walked on towards the heart of the island with a shudder of anticipation.
    Soon the sunlight reaching through the trees split into dusty spokes and there was a smell of woodsmoke. Masha emerged into a sunny clearing alive with butterflies. At the same moment as she saw a thin, red-haired woman crouched over a pot on a fire, the trees around her suddenly exploded with crows that flew shrieking and clattering into the air.
    The woman jumped to her feet and turned a white, scared face towards her. It took a minute for Masha to recognize her. Then through the uproar of the crows she shrieked, “Mama!” and ran across the grass into her mother’s arms.

Chapter 11
    V arious odd things had happened to Masha’s mother. She was smaller and much thinner than Masha remembered. Her long brown hair had been cut in a short bob and dyed bright red. Oddest of all was what on earth she was doing, in grubby old jeans and a T-shirt, tending a fire on an island in the middle of the river. There were so many questions, Masha didn’t know where to start.
    Her mother hugged her again and again as the crows wheeled and flapped and gradually settled down again somewhere further off.
    “Just look at you, so tall! And such dirty feet! Oh, how I’ve missed you, Mashenka.” She squashed Masha into another embrace.
    “But, Mama, why are you here?” Masha asked as soon as she got her nose out of her mother’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you come back before? Are you living here?”
    “Oh, Masha.” Her mother seemed unable to stop hugging and kissing her. “I wanted to come back such a long time ago.” She turned her head away and waved her