A series of hollow hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo, drilled the notes deep inside Nika’s head, making her jump with the nerves and spill the oil all over the torch and her shaky hands. She got spooked by a damn cuckoo singing a lullaby somewhere in the woods around her. Or was it an owl? Nika wasn’t sure.

“Can I open my eyes now?” Mara asked for the third time, her eyes still firmly shut, just like Nika had asked as soon as she’d parked their car on top of the hill—after passing the last, lone houses and a town hall of a small, irrelevant village—in the middle of nowhere.

“Just… a moment,” Nika answered, fighting to flick the lighter with oil-slicked fingers. The fourth torch kept fizzling out, for some reason she couldn’t nail down. She had already taken out the rest of the newly bought camping gear from the car—the tripod stools and a small portable table—along with a bag filled with food, and set it all up inside the flickering cone of light from the three torches she’d managed to light up.

“You do know that torches have a specific smell and that I can hear the whoosh of fire each time?” In the soft glow of the jumping flames, Mara was grinning.

“Shut up,” Nika said, but her girlfriend’s smile lifted some of the anxiety from her shoulders. Everything needed to be special and she was afraid she would mess it up somehow. “You can open your eyes now,” she said, giving up on the torch.

Mara’s happy gasp was genuine. Even though she could probably guess what was going on, Nika had still managed to surprise her.

“Oh my, Nika!” Mara came to the table, smiling wide. “This is so romantic!”

Nika’s heart quickened, joy spreading infectiously through her veins.

“But I don’t understand, where are we?” Mara was turning around, clearly trying to figure out why Nika had driven them away from Rijeka—their city—to the outskirts, leaving the buildings and urban spaces behind, and set this dinner up on some seemingly random hill. They didn’t even need to hike, Nika had just parked the car at the top, at the side of the road in a small clearing, and prepared her Valentine’s surprise on the spot. In the gloom of the night, it was hard to see the surroundings, only the outlines of the road which they’d come by, shrubbery and short stubby trees crowning the sharp rocky landscape. And the huge structure blocking the view at the front, bathed in shadows.

“See there?” She pointed her finger towards it. The looming, wall-shaped black mass was only a few meters away from them, covered in half by underbrush and trees. “I know it’s too late to see it properly, but it’s a ruin of a Frankopan family fortress and the graveyard. The only things left from the lost medieval town.”

“No way, really?” Mara’s grin, already big, somehow managed to stretch even further, showing off all of her teeth. “How gothic of you!” She teased, but it was clear she was enjoying her surprise. “Thank you, this is really, really perfect.”

Nika finally breathed out the last of her panic. She knew, intellectually, that Mara would like something like this. Old castles, ghost stories, creepy folklore and dark romance with women keeping the skulls of their deceased lovers—that sort of stuff was Mara’s fascination and inspiration. Nika couldn’t understand that, didn’t like to be scared, didn’t like love stories ending in tragedies, but she loved Mara and wanted her to be happy. And not only that—Mara had confessed to her that she had never had a proper Valentine’s with the shyness of someone who clearly wanted it. The way Mara explained, she had never even had a real relationship. At least not until the two of them met half a year ago, and even then, who knows what would’ve happened if not for Nika getting drunkenly forward and then sticking around.

So, damn it all, capitalist hoax or not, Nika wanted her girlfriend to experience a true Valentine’s day celebration, worthy of a movie romance, just like she deserved.

She sat down on a stool, keenly aware of the cold air slipping down her insufficient clothes, chilling her down to the bone. At least Mara had had the forethought to take her homemade knitted hat when Nika told her to dress for the cold, even though Nika didn’t think it would be this bad. It was easy to forget real winter when living on the Adriatic coast, where the mild weather for the most part didn’t even warrant a coat.

Now, with frost licking her skin to rawness, she knew why they called this place and the nearby village Ledenice. The ice town.

In the distance, she could hear the tingle of a cattle bell, and at her back, the crackling of her torches, but otherwise, it was almost completely silent. Even the bird that had jerked her had shut up its call.

“This is all too much,” Mara said, sifting through the bag she’d left at the picnic table. “I mean, there’s food for at least three different dinners. Feta cheese? Is that cod pâté? That and prosciutto? You know I can’t eat both at the same time?”

“I wasn’t sure what you’d like more, so I took both.”

Mara stopped going through the food packages and looked at Nika with a loving smile. “I’m grateful, you know. I really am. Thank you.”

Nika shrugged, suddenly self-conscious under Mara’s warm gaze. Her heart sped up and for a moment she thought, this is it, this is the person I want to be with for the rest of my life, freezing together at hilltops.

“So, white or red?” Mara took out the bottles and Nika shrugged. She wasn’t big on wine anyway.

Mara picked one while Nika found the plastic glasses.

“I’m only sorry that we came too late,” Nika said. She was feeling guilty for having to stay at work longer, which is why they’d missed the sunset. “It’s only… dark blobs around us. Not very fun. We can’t even see the view of the Bay.” It had gone a bit different in Nika’s head while planning this. More mood-setting, atmospheric, with gray stones overgrown with lichen in the background, possibly the fog rolling out from the trees and slithering along the ground, Mara sitting in the midst of it, her long dark hair cascading down her back, like some Frankopan queen.

Mara shrugged, shadows cast by the torches shrouding her from behind, and poured them two glasses of dark purple wine. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Are you sure? I dragged you here for the fortress. Which we now can’t see.”

“And I know it’s here and I can even see the outline of its remaining walls. It’s a ruin, you said.” The bag rustled while Mara was taking out more food, while behind them, the bells started ringing faster. Nika didn’t know people in the village kept sheep, but that made sense. “I guess it looks like any Croatian ruined fortress, stone upon stone, only two of the walls remaining, roof completely gone. There are no rooms left, no floors, only hard ground, perhaps with grass so long it comes up to my hip. Am I wrong?”

Nika cringed, remembering the photos she’d found of the place. “No, not entirely.”

“This doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate this! I like it, really!” Mara hurried to add, waving around a sharp knife in one hand and a block of cheese in the other. “It’s just, this is really cool, too. Look at this!” She opened her arms, showing all around them. “Our small flames are fighting the dark and I can barely see you in the glow. We’re alone, with a ghost fortress only a hint in the shadows, not a clear shape. And there’s a bush right behind you, from which anyone or anything could crawl out and grab you.”

 Nika didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to look, felt foolish for even wanting to; for the goosebumps prickling her skin.

Mara’s amber eyes were twinkling in delight. Sometimes, her girlfriend’s interest in dark and morbid things worried her. Mara liked to joke it was preconditioned the moment her parents gave her an ancient Slavic name meaning winter and death, and at this moment, in the primal darkness brought out by the lack of modern appliances, with Mara’s hungry smirk bathed in the firelight, she could pass for a goddess ready to eat Nika alive and wash her away with bitter wine.

Nika’s name had an ancient Greek origin, but she didn’t particularly feel like victory was her thing. Mostly, she was on the losing side—falling for the wrong people and constantly getting left behind, by friends, family, and former lovers.

Hopefully, not this time. Let this be a win, she left a little prayer unsaid, deep in her thoughts. She wasn’t sure whom she was begging. The hard ground under her stiff feet, the cool air brushing the skin of her neck, the moon high in the dark purple sky, or some forgotten Slavic god? Whoever was listening, she guessed.

“Only thing missing is the ghost of some Frankopan prince joining the party,” Nika joked, trying to be a fun girlfriend, not a child afraid of the monsters lurking in the shrubs. She was too old to be scared of the night.

A high-pitched cry exploded from the road, far outside of their light’s safety, dousing her with blood-chilling dread, harsher than the winter air. Alarmed, Nika noticed she could not hear the dangle of bells anymore. The image of a slashed sheep throat passed through her mind, as vivid and as real as Mara sitting across from her, her eyes round in distress. Another shriek joined in, then the third, and a crash of something big. It all died down swiftly, until nothing remained but a slight sizzling of her small flames, tentatively fighting to break the cover of the dark. 

“What the fuck was that?” Mara was the first to react, watching over Nika’s left shoulder, towards the road they’d come by. Nika turned to look, but there was nothing there but the start of a snaking path disappearing behind the trees, descending towards the village they’d passed.

“It’s probably an animal, you know, sheep,” Nika said, her heart beating fast in her ears. It was too late in the night for slaughter; even a city child like her knew that. What else could’ve happened? There had to be a realistic reason behind the shrieks, a very normal and mundane, not at all creepy.

Mara opened her mouth to say something, but she stopped when a new sound emerged. An unmistakable, sharp blare of some kind of flute, followed by fast tzin tzin tzin of cymbals.

“Is that what I think it is?” Mara asked, listening intently to the sounds coming from downhill.. “Is that music?”

It was music, far away, but flown up to them on the unobstructed air.

“Oh, you know what!” Mara breathed out a giggle. “We’re probably hearing a carnival. It’s February and it’s the weekend. Most of these places around Kvarner Bay have some sort of carnival parties, and we’re not that far from civilization.”

The tension broke out from Nika’s rigid body in a rush, and she turned towards Mara, her girlfriend’s face gleaming with new joy. It was this behavior, more than her explanation, that helped calm Nika down.

Mara leaned towards her, conspiratorial. “Did you know that these carnival traditions are thinly veiled Slavic pagan rituals of seasonal cycles that managed to stay alive to this day?”

“I have some idea, yes, I do know about our protected folk heritage, thanks.” Well, at least, she knew about the most famous example—guys ringing the huge cattle bells at their hips, covered in wool; some groups with grotesque animal masks, some with bull skulls, and the least impressive, those without masks but huge flower hats. Bellmen. They walked in a procession, did some dance, while the bells rang and rang, banishing the evil and calling forth the spring.

And there were straw-men dolls hanging from the poles in the town squares—left there until Ash Wednesday, when they were burned at the stake—that most of the villages and municipalities around Rijeka proudly displayed.

 But, in all honesty, she didn’t know what other traditions existed. Nika wasn’t uninterested in carnivals. For the most part they were just parties under masks, an excuse for a drunken debauchery, with very bad folk music. So she usually skipped them. Nika would mostly be unaware of the local revelries until the time of the big, closing Carnival in Rijeka. The one where groups from all around the Bay, and even outside of Croatia, came to show their sloppily made masks, and where, of course, the bellmen made the last big show.

“For a moment, I really got scared,” Mara admitted with a laugh. “It sounded like someone was getting slaughtered.”

It had been exactly Nika’s thought, and she shuddered. “Let’s get back to our dinner,” she said over the distant music, trying to go back to a romantic mood, and Mara enthusiastically nodded.

“When we go back home, I’ll check out if this village has some special carnival plays. They usually have, like, roles and distinct costumes,” Mara continued, nodding her head towards the line of the road. “Maybe we can even come back to observe some of the rituals. I mean, not that they think of it like that.”

Nika should’ve done better research. She’d focused on the fortress and the graveyard, and didn’t even think about checking out if the nearby village had anything interesting to offer. Why would she? For the most part, these places were as interesting as watching growing weeds. Internally cringing, she checked her phone, but no, of course it didn’t have any signal, so she couldn’t even google it on the spot and make up for her lack of knowledge like that.

A drum joined in with the blaring flute and the cymbal, providing an ominous rhythm. Nika was aware of her uncomfortable position on the stool, of the cracked skin of her palms, so cold it burned, of the darkness closing in on them on all sides, barely kept at bay by the soft orange illumination of her light. Other than Mara, Nika and the table in between, there was nothing else but the music. Not even the metallic presence of her car by their side could comfort her.

The blaring got a bit louder, a bit distinct, and another shriek sounded, longer this time, following the tempo set by the instruments, like some weird singing.

“Are… are they moving? Are they getting closer?” Mara was again the first to react, pausing in the middle of making herself a cheese and prosciutto sandwich.

“Again, it’s probably nothing,” Nika said, hoping she was right. If not, if the revelers were going from the village up the hill, they were bound to reach the two of them at some point.

A drunken group of men stumbling upon two lonely women in the middle of nowhere was bad enough, but with the setup, and on Valentine’s day, no less, it was obvious they were not just friends. It might make the situation even worse if the carnival folk did come to them. Nika couldn’t bet on these people leaving them alone, not when it could turn dangerous so easily—to the worst-case scenario. There were scarier things waiting in the night than ghosts.

“We could, you know, go,” Nika tentatively started.

Mara was biting her bottom lip, lost in thoughts.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would they come all the way here? We’re high up, they probably just… I don’t know, got to a point from where we can hear them better.” That didn’t make much sense, but before Nika could object, Mara sighed. “Look, you did this amazing thing for me. We’re not throwing it away because we got scared of people partying close to us.”

“Are you sure?” Was it possible that Nika was blowing things out of proportion?

“Yes! They don’t even know we’re here. Let’s ignore them, and get back to enjoying ourselves.” As if to prove a point, the sounds got quieter again, as if the group was turning away from them. Mara beamed. “See? Think of it like this. It’s a part of the mood. Creepy music to go with the ruins. It’s a full package for a disturbing horror story.”

Nika didn’t want their night to become a horror flick. She only wanted it to have a spooky aesthetic, for Mara’s sake, but without them getting honestly terrified or hurt. “It’s just a bit unsettling. The shrieking. The singing, I guess.”

Mara left the sandwich on the table and took Nika’s icy hands into her own. “No one is going to ruin your perfect present, okay?” The warm glow waltzed with the shadows on her face, accentuating the sharp angles of her nose and jaw. “We’re going to eat this enormous amount of food you got us until we’re bursting at the seams, drink the wine and make out like teenagers. Like they do in the movies.”

And in certain movies, that would be the moment when a masked killer jumped out from the bush, the same one behind her back, and slashed at them with an ax.

Mara closed the distance between them. The stiffness slowly drained from Nika’s shoulders, and she got lost in the sensation of Mara’s presence, in the pleasant heat that was fastly growing inside her, chasing away the icy weather.

A loud crash of cymbals pierced straight into her brain, followed by a gut-churning screech no human vocal cords could make. Shocked, as if they were doused with ice water, they jolted away from each other and Nika felt the terror settling in her lungs. Mara retreated toward her stool but kept her hands on Nika’s—the remaining contact was the only point of warmth that held on when the cold rushed back with a vengeance.

Nika shifted in her seat—there was nothing on the road but the sounds—but she knew with held breath that the music was heralding whatever was to happen next. When musicians—carnival folks or someone else—finally emerge behind the trees. Everything was getting louder now, the tzin tzin tzins and the beats and the awful blares, coupled with voices joining in with shrieks and hums. It was getting so clear, so near, she could even distinguish the rhythmic repetition of syllables and jumbled words that were making out the song. It was only a matter of seconds now before the first shadows bearing instruments came into view, she was sure of that.

This didn’t sound like a party she wanted to join.

“Maybe it’s nothing, but I don’t like the sound of that,” Nika said, her eyes glued to the road, her mind filling in the blank spaces, conjuring the vision of a drunken procession on its way up to them, with the animal skulls and the blunt objects, easily turned into weapons. Everything could break skin and draw blood with enough force, even a flute.

The music was now echoing all around them. “We should go,” she started whispering, afraid that somehow, her voice would carry down to the revelers as clear as their creepy music was getting up to them, alerting them to their presence. Mara was curiously silent, and it was at that exact thought that Nika noticed the lack of touch on her palms where the cold wind rushed in to kiss the open skin.

“Mara?” She turned back, her throat blocked by the rising fear, to the fluttering light shining down on the empty stool in front of her. Before her mind could comprehend what her eyes were seeing, the torches blew out, plunging her into complete darkness.

Nika almost screamed, but dread gripped her body tight. “Mara?” she whispered, confused. Her eyesight was slowly adapting to the new conditions, to the moon as the only source of light, and she could see faint outlines of the table, the shape of an abandoned sandwich and the knife, the upright sticks of the torches and their smoke curling towards the sky, and the still empty tripod stool. Did Mara get scared and run off? Would she do that and leave Nika behind? Their car was literally here, they could’ve just jumped in and driven back home. Where the fuck was she?

The music crescendoed in her ears. In her mind’s eye, the drum was directly above her head, invisible hands beating it. Nika was rooted to the spot, unable to stand up, to speak up. She felt movement behind her, but it was somehow wrong. Then she realized. There was music. There was singing.

There were no steps. No gravel turning under walking feet.

It was what finally snapped her out of her paralysis, making her lounge towards the table, take a knife from it, just before hands fell on her on all sides.

An awful scream broke out then, primal and deep, bursting out from her lungs. She blindly hacked at her sides, left and right, at the shadowy figures circling her, phantom fingers creeping over her back, neck, hair and arms, stoking the pure panic inside of her. The knife connected with each strike, slashing skin and hitting bones, warm liquid splattering over her face and hands, but the shadows didn’t stop. Her eyes tried to focus on her attackers, tried to get a clear view of them, but it was impossible to see clearly. Obscured by nighttime, there were only hints of white trousers, woolen vests, cone-like hats melting with heads into featureless faces. They were carrying poles, drums, cymbals, and flute-like pipes, dancing, singing, falling on her knife with merry laughter, dragging her along with them. She couldn’t stop the wave of the crowd, constricting her, pushing her, carrying her on a tide towards the black walls of the fortress, that suddenly seemed simultaneously both unbroken and destroyed.

These were no ordinary folk, Nika thought, squeezed tight in the crowd smelling of sheep and grapes, a mass of limbs like a hundred tiny legs on a centipede, rather than a group of individuals with distinct shapes. This was what came before, from the true power of the night; we could only try to replicate with drunks in cheap masks.

The thought made frantic laughter bubble out from her, while she walked with the crashing sea of music and high-pitched singing, gripping at the useless knife in her blood-covered hand. If the dark fluid dripping from her was blood at all.

The group dragged her towards the fortress flickering in and out of existence, closing above her head in one moment, lighting up with hundreds of candles and oil lamps, only for it to fizzle out into the nothingness of the clear hill air in the other. How was any of this real, she thought, tears trickling down her face. There had to be a way for her to get away, to find Mara, to run away from these impossible figures.

The procession suddenly halted. The blended mass of shapes and shadows parted. Her hand fell to her side, but she was still gripping the knife hard. One of the figures in white wool disjointed from the others, but Nika was only faintly aware of its movements, her eyes on the sight set before her.

A big pyre shone a burning light on the figure in front of it, waiting for her. It was Mara, but not in her jeans and winter jacket, a knitted hat hooded over her forehead. No, she was somehow dressed in a white dress Nika had never seen before, a red silk sash circling her waist, and a golden wreath crowning her head. Her face, illuminated by red, was glowing bright, lips stretched in a welcoming smile. Her amber eyes were two orbs shining with the strength of suns.

Nika didn’t know what it meant, or what she should do, so she stood there like a fool, until the lone cone-head figure took her under its arm, almost like a father would a blushing bride. Nika’s mouth went dry and the panic was a snake constricting her lungs. The drum beat the rhythm of her shaky steps, bringing her towards her waiting girlfriend.

This was all wrong, but it didn’t look like Mara was aware of that. The faceless shadow brought Nika before her and Mara dismissed it with a shake of her hand. She was immersed in whatever dream they were sharing, but while Nika was in a nightmare, she was in blissful sleep.

“Shh, it’s alright. They’re not going to hurt us,” Mara said. She leaned in and whispered a secret in Nika’s ear. “They’re going to marry us. I’m Morana, and you’re my Jarilo. We need to do this to drive winter away and bring forth spring.”

Nika didn’t have the faintest idea what Mara was talking about, still struggling to breathe, let alone calm down enough to process whatever insanity was happening. She was faintly remembering that Morana was just a longer version of Mara’s name, a goddess, and that Jarilo was her brother and also some kind of Slavic god, because it was the sort of story that Mara liked to talk about. It was a tale of betrayal and incest, of love and murder, of spring turned to winter only for the tale to repeat itself. Over and over. From spring to winter and winter to spring. From love to death and death to love. But what did that have to do with the two of them? With the figures and the music and the terror drenching her from inside out, drowning out her reason and all thoughts?

Mara had clearly gotten the script for the play, and Nika was standing there clueless, clutching at the knife. The gathered crowd continued to sing and play its distorted music, only now they were forming a circle around them, joined at the hands. The strange words filled the air, but Nika could not focus on the syllables, could not understand what was being spoken. It sounded like something older than modern Croatian, still Slavic, but indecipherable, even if her brain could stop its spinning and just listen.

Mara put her warm arms on Nika’s head, clutching her face in a tight grip. Too harsh, but it made her look only at Mara, at the fiery red glow reflecting from her smooth face. It was somehow different, hers and not hers, ethereal and divine. Like this, she was unrecognizable to Nika, and for a moment her instinct screamed to slash at her with the knife, to cut out her heart, but the mere thought of it made her sick. She might not understand what was happening, but she could not hurt the woman she loved. So she let the knife fall to the ground with a loud clang that reverberated in her brain.

“Look at me, only at me,” Mara said. “I’m your girl, your wife-to-be, for the winter winds to die down and make room for the dawning spring, until it’s time for death to rule again.” Mara leaned and kissed Nika, and her lips were boiling hot, like the scorching summer sun. The deep kiss cut Nika at the knees like a scythe, bringing her down, and she closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids, she could see the flowers blooming, the wheat growing gold and lush. Mara’s lips and hands were all over Nika’s tense body, tearing at her clothes. The drums started beating faster, hums getting higher, following the movements of their frantic kissing.

In her feverish mind, they were making love on top of a ruined fortress with graves sticking at her back, Mara’s tongue marking paths along her exposed body, biting down hard and splitting open her skin. The blazing fire casted a red haze on the night sky, illuminating the ruined fortress in a crimson light. In a circle around them, figures of the cone-head people kept on dancing with their arms linked, and singing, high and loud, catching up to Nika’s shouts of pain and pleasure.

When the loud bang of a cymbal rang out, Mara took the knife back and slit Nika’s throat. Nika could see her own blood rushing out in a rustling stream watering the ground, and she was curiously devoid of fear. How could she be afraid when something new grew from her spilled blood, vegetation with vibrant colors, crimsons, violets and golds? When there was a lamb’s head emerging from her crimson puddle, screeching for air? Tears streamed down her face and became the morning dew. Mara continued bringing down the knife, hacking at Nika’s limbs, slicing her into smaller pieces, and then giving them away to the faceless shadows around them. With every piece of Nika given away, Mara lost more and more of her glowing youth, but even shriveled and old—with a smear of Nika’s blood on her grinning chin—she was still a goddess, beyond beautiful and divine. And forever hers.

A flare of light pierced Nika’s eyeballs, shattering the image of the blood-soaked Mara like glass. The other Mara, the one with the knitted hat and loving amber eyes, came into view instead. Nika was completely disoriented, her mind lost in a fog.

“Nika, Nika, hey, I’m here, breathe, breathe.”

Nika gasped for air, hungrily drinking it in. That searing light, that was only the headlights. She was sitting in front of her car, and there were no shadows dancing around. Nika’s hands flew towards her throat, touching it, feeling the skin intact, unbroken. There were no crops yielding from her blood and Mara was not a goddess of winter and death, stuck to repeat the seasonal cycle with Nika till the end of times.

“What, what…?” she repeated, confused.

There was no more music. No more drums, cymbals, and flutes. They were alone. They were together, in the real world, in a real place, and they were alive, they were okay.

“Shh, calm down. I’m here. Whatever happened, it passed,” Mara said and peppered her hair with kisses.

Nika closed her eyes and breathed in more of the freezing cold air, smelling sheep and wheat in Mara’s dark hair. New tears started silently slipping down her cheeks, where Mara wiped them away with her lips.

It had been real. But so was this, and she was alive and well, and in a loving embrace, and she didn’t need to be scared. Still, deep down, she somehow knew, when the time of Ash Wednesday came, two straw figures with the likeness of the two of them will burn to smithereens at the stake.

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Harbingers of Spring© 2022. Antonija Mežnarić

[EN] Antonija is a writer, editor, podcaster and cosplayer, who lives and breathes speculative fiction. She loves to write horror and urban fantasy inspired with folklore, especially South Slavic folk tales that shaped her published work like folk horror collection Mistress of Geese and her novel Od kolijevke pa do groba. In addition to writing in Croatian, she also writes in English, sharing Croatian and South Slavic folklore with a broader audience.

The story Harbingers of Spring was originally published in the fourth issues of Morina kutija magazine (December, 2022). You can download it for free from our site or Smashwords.

[HR] Antonija je spisateljica, urednica, podcasterica i cosplayerica, koja živi i diše spekulativnu fikciju. Voli pisati horor i urbanu fantastiku inspiriranu folklorom, posebice lokalnim narodnim pričama, koje su oblikovale njene dosad objavljene priče i knjige poput zbirke priča Mistress of Geese i romana Od kolijevke pa do groba. Osim na hrvatskom, piše i na engleskom jeziku, te njene priče približavaju hrvatski i južnoslavenski folklor i stranom čitateljstvu.

Priča Harbingers of Spring objavljena je u online časopisu Morina kutija, br. 4 (prosinac 2022). Časopis možete skinuti ovdje ili s platforme Smashwords.

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Urednički komentar: Što bi bilo Valentinovo bez malo krvi i poganskih običaja iz kvarnerskog zaleđa? Iz redova Uredništva stiže nam jedna nadasve romantična i smrtonosna ljubavna priča koju možemo samo poželjeti.