One of the youngest trees recovered from the shocking revelation. By that time the witch was already long gone, having gone even deeper into the ancient forest.
The young tree spoke to the others, "but, elders, witches disappeared together with the demons. You must have seen it wrong."
The old tree bent its branches down to the ground to take a closer look at the plants growing on the path, where the witch had passed. The plants lay dead on the ground, withered as if they had no water for months.
"It has been so many years," the old tree said. "So many centuries have passed, since the last time I saw a witch, but even now I can clearly remember them."
"Hey, what’s a witch?" a fairly young and thin tree with only four branches overheard their conversation. At that age, it was rare for trees to care about anything profound, yet it couldn't resist the temptation to ask, when all the older trees were so deeply immersed into the subject.
A middle-aged tree of no more than five hundred years answered the question. "A witch is a creature, which at first glance appears to be a human, but a witch is not a human. Witches always look like old women, but they are neither male nor female. Their arms and legs are too thin to be human, and their hair isn’t hair at all. It's more like fishbones growing out from their skulls."
"If their body is so thin, she must be very weak," the young tree came to a conclusion.
"Oh no, you should never think that," another tree, growing near the youngster, joined in. "Witches can use witchcraft. And just like magic used by humans, or like enchantment used by fairies, witchcraft can be very powerful."
"Woooow," the young tree was beyond amazed, "that's so awesome."
"But they’re evil," yet another old tree interjected, getting straight to the point.
Some younger trees, who hadn’t heard of witches before, were confused but curious.
The tree continued, "they sided with demons in the war, and together with the demons, they were defeated. They shouldn’t exist anymore."
Many younger trees expressed their trepidation mixed in with other various emotions with a chorus of "oh" and "ah".
"There is one explanation," said the oldest among the trees - the same tree which spoke first. "It is unlikely, very unlikely. I doubt it could happen, but maybe… maybe…"
The old tree took a long time to speak, but no other tree would dare to interrupt the respected elder. They patiently waited for him to finish, but he never did.
His leaves began to fall to the ground one by one like green snow. Once its shriveled branches became barren, a round green circle appeared around the old tree. The semi-transparent circle passed through its trunk and took the form of a green butterfly, as it flew up toward the sky, where it disappeared beyond the clouds.
The spirit of the old tree had left the realm of Earth.
Other trees stood in silence, respectfully mourning the death of their elder, who now stood bare and hollow. They remained still and mute for many months, grieving the departure of the most knowledgeable one, whose passing had occurred at such a crucial time.
However the witch, who had passed by earlier, had no interest in a tree funeral. He had more important things to do.
Even though witches were neither male nor female, they had a hierarchy and that hierarchy was present in their language. Only the most powerful among the witches, who held the highest positions could be addressed as females. All the other witches were treated as males, and no witch of lower rank would ever dare to address itself as a female.
He was a witch from the lowest among all the ranks. His duty was to mindlessly obey and to die for a greater cause. And that was why he had been sent to wake up a powerful witch, who could kill him if she had a bad morning.
For hours he kept on moving forward among the trees and bushes of the forest so dense that neither day nor night made a difference to the darkness around him. He didn't stop until he arrived at an old tombstone buried under the moss and fallen leaves. He waved his bony hand, and everything covering the ground dispersed into the forest as if taken away by a whirlwind.
Right next to the tombstone there was an entrance - an old stone staircase, which led underground. The witch confidently trod down without missing a step as if he was able to see everything in the endless darkness of the cave. His bright red eyes shone like two candleflames, but provided no light to illuminate - only dread to give nightmares.
After he arrived at the bottom of the staircase, he walked out of the dark hallway into a large chamber lit up by twinkling blue-green lights, which were floating in the air like sparks of fire yet remained stationed in their position, surrounding a huge block of ice like diamonds on a ring.
Another witch, much older and much uglier, slept standing while sealed inside the ice block for many centuries. She had a long hanging nose and even longer dangling ears. With both of her hands, she held onto a broom, which had a wide rectangular brush facing upward.
The low-ranking witch placed his hand on the block. In response to his touch the ice rapidly turned into fog, which leisurely dissipated.
The newly-freed witch opened her eyes and growled, "who dares to wake me up?" She glared at the visitor, "why did you interrupt my nap?"
"Baba Yaga," he addressed her. "A demon from another world is approaching."
"What does he want?"
"Nothing good."
Baba Yaga, the oldest and most knowledgeable witch, who had ever lived, sighed. "One useless war has ended, and another one is to begin? Will the world never know peace?" As she paced toward the exit, she used her broom as a walking stick. "How many know?"
"Us," the other witch answered. "I don’t know about others," he began following the elder witch.
"How did you find out?" she asked while climbing the first step.
"We felt the aura of a great evil, so we headed towards it to investigate. We found a suspicious circle in the air, so we went closer to check. It was a gate into another world."
"And what did you see in that world?"
"The world was in a state of war between good and evil, the kind of war, which has already ended in our world. But the war in that world was even more gruesome than the one in our world."
"What was so gruesome about it?"
"The actions of humans."
"How is that possible?"
"The humans weren’t united. Some fought for freedom. Others served demons."
Baba Yaga stopped mid-step, and turned her face around with eyes wide open in disbelief, "humans... served demons?"
"Yes," the other witch nodded once.
"The humans weren’t united," she weakly repeated the words, still doubting the possibility.
With the speed of a sloth, she moved her face forward and resumed climbing the stairs. After her centuries-long nap, her body felt stiff and needed time to fully regain its usual swiftness.
"Some of them wanted to be slaves," she rephrased incredulously. "So what about that demon, who is coming?"
The low-ranking witch answered, "she has brought absolute death."
"What?!" Baba Yaga shouted and turned around so quickly, that the air moved with her. "That’s not possible! An absolute death? How? Explain," she demanded.
The other witch shook his head, "I do not know."
"Then how do you know that it was an absolute death?"
"We have seen humans die. We have seen their souls leave their bodies. We have seen those souls rot into nihility in front of our eyes. Their immortal souls, which should have prevailed over death, had died."
Baba Yaga’s skin would have turned even paler, if it wasn’t already as white as snow. "Absolute death," her lips trembled. "Who can fight against such an enemy?"
She pondered in silence as she continued to climb the stairs. Once they had reached aboveground, she asked, "where was God, when that demon roamed that world?"
"Silent," the other witch replied, "just like during the war in our world."
"Oh no," Baba Yaga shook her head. "He wasn’t silent during the war in our world. If He truly was silent, humans would have never won." With the bony index finger of her left hand she began stroking her long nose. "I see," she said to herself. "Another war… no, not exactly… a payback… yes, more like it… that makes sense."
The low-ranking witch didn’t understand what she was talking about, and he didn’t dare to ask. He knew that it wasn't necessary for him to understand.
Baba Yaga chuckled, "when is the demon coming?"
"We don’t know the exact time. It may be months. It may be years."
Even without shark-like teeth, Baba Yaga's wide smile would still be creepy, "how sweet - so much time."
"May I dare to ask?"
"Go ahead."
"With whom are we allied this time?"
"Cannot you guess already? Who, in their right mind, would want to be a loser again?" And she laughed in a loud shrieky voice, which made all the nearby animals scurry away in fear. Meanwhile more distant inhabitants of the forest felt a kind of dread, which nobody had felt for the last ten hundred years.
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