Devil's Deal: A Dark Fantasy Romance

3. Poppies

Nine Years Later

Thick, heavy drops of blood fall into the water and swirl, slowly dissolving. I watch the spectacle, breathing deeply as tremors run down my legs, my knuckles white from keeping myself upright.

Drip.

Another crimson bead of my blood lands in the basin, so red, it’s almost black. It spreads around, growing thinner at the edges, more translucent, until it becomes one with the water.

The water’s dark pink now. In the right light, it would look so pretty.

I squeeze my nose with one hand, bracing on the table with the other as my head pounds with vicious pain. Drip. Drip. Drip. At least it’s not gushing like minutes ago.

Darkness gathers in the corners of my cottage as the last rays of the sun dip under the horizon. Dadzbog goes to sleep after his day-long trip over the sky, and people prepare for the shortest night of the year.

There is only one small window in my cottage, and the fire went out along with the candles when I did the spell. I barely see my reflection on the surface of the bloodied water. My skin seems to have a deathly pallor, but it might be because of the bad light.

Normally, I would open the door to catch the last glow of twilight, but then people would see me from the path. And I can’t show them my weakness.

The time between the heavy drips grows longer as I breathe through my mouth. The shaking in my legs eases. Yet, it won’t stop, no matter how strongly I bid my body to harden. And time’s running out. I’ll have to walk out of here soon, and I’d rather eat dirt than show up weak and trembling.

A bout of nausea squeezes my gut when I consider the weight of all the scorn and disdain I’ll have to bear tonight.

To help myself calm down, I focus on my cottage and don’t think about anything else. I have only this one room, with an old, crumbling hearth, a threadbare rug, a few pots stacked on my old table, and a narrow bed filled with hay. Above me are old, wooden beams supporting the thatched roof. The stone walls should have been whitewashed in the spring, but I didn’t have enough to trade for the lime.

Like my mother when she was alive, I am given prices much higher than everyone else. Most villagers hope I’ll get tired of the unfair treatment and leave, but that would be certain death. There are deep forests out there, full of wolves and bears, and licho knows what else.

The worst are all the creatures Wiosna told me about that avoid human settlements but don’t mind eating a stray wanderer. Upirs, werewolves, wilas, strzygas, poludnicas, and others. Too many to count, all vengeful and deadly.

I can’t walk away even if I hate living in this village. So every time it seems I can’t bear it here any longer, I just grit my teeth and toughen up.

I am as tough as oak bark now. It’s a wonder I bleed at all.

No more blood falls into the basin. I let go of my nose and check it gently with my fingers. My headache slowly dissipates, becoming just a dull throbbing in the back of my skull. My legs almost don’t shake at all.

I grab a cloth and wash the blood off my face, careful to keep my head upright. My chaplet, the source of all this trouble, sits lush and beautiful on my braided hair, and I’d hate myself if I let it fall and get crushed after everything I suffered.

Outside, people laugh and call out to each other as they walk past my cottage on their way to the meadow. They used to grow quiet when they passed my dwelling, but not anymore. I don’t even have their fear now, just their hate.

I wash my face longer than necessary and then light a tallow candle so I can inspect my reflection in the water. The smoke stinks, oily and sticky, and the image isn’t as clear as I’d like, but at least I don’t spot any blood.

My dress is clean, too. It’s my best garment, a long linen dress that belonged to my mother. The neckline is low yet respectable, embroidered with poppies. According to Wiosna, the dress is cursed.

“Your ma wore it when Ratko came to the village. He fell in love at once. She would have saved herself so much suffering if she wore something drabber that day.”

I snort, but softly so as not to reopen the vessel that burst up my nose. Wiosna’s been dead for five years, yet her words sting as sharply as ever. Because it’s clear that I, the fruit of my mother’s and Ratko’s love, was the root of my mom’s suffering.

It hurts so much because I know it’s the truth. If not for me, my mother would be alive and happy today.

If only I hadn’t been born.

But because of me and the shadow I cast on our lives, she became sad and unhappy. Due to the high prices we got and the lack of neighborly help, everything was harder for my mom and me, until exhaustion and hunger pushed her into an illness when I was fourteen.

Neither Wiosna nor I could do anything for her. Wiosna told me quietly my mother decided to die, and so, even the most potent medicine couldn’t save her. I imagine if she had had another daughter instead of me, a daughter with dark hair and normal eyes, she would be happy and alive.

But it’s all in the past. I shouldn’t think about it, especially not tonight.

I breathe deeply to drown the painful tightness in my chest. The guilt never leaves completely, but I bury it for long periods of time. I’ve trained myself to do it, and now it comes effortlessly. A moment later, I can breathe more freely, though never fully expanding my chest.

With one last look down at the dress falling in soft lines to my bare feet, I make sure it looks presentable. I reach up to straighten my chaplet. It’s a sturdy, wild thing with a base of thin, flexible branches woven together with beautiful grasses.

But the most impressive part of it is the crown of enormous, luscious poppies blooming all over my chaplet. They are deeply red, their centers black, their fuzzy stalks strong as they bear the weight of the flowers.

I gathered the most beautiful poppies I could find around the village. I wove my chaplet, making it striking and robust, the prettiest of all. Then, before the poppies withered as they always do right after being picked, I spelled them to keep fresh.

Do not take my flowers yet,

Weles mighty, lord of death.

Take from me a little boon

And then let my flowers bloom.

Wiosna taught me that spell in great secret. She used it often to keep herbs fresh if she couldn’t brew a potion right after picking them. I saw her perform it dozens of times and never, not once, did she gush blood from her nose.

In fact, I used to think the line about Weles taking a boon was just there for the sake of the rhyme. Today, I got a big proof that the words are there for a reason. I still don’t know why it never happened to my teacher but it did to me.

Either Wiosna never paid for the power or the payment was invisible. Or maybe she was just the stronger witch of us two. Which would make sense. Whenever I did magic spells in the past, they would either fizzle out or backfire. Wiosna claimed I’d grow into my magic, but look at me.

I am twenty-one and still a hopeless witch.

It’s difficult to hold back despair as I think it. In the past two years, I tried doing magic countless times. Nine out of ten, nothing happened. In the other instances, the spells weakened me and I paid with my blood and pain.

At this rate, I’ll never become her. The woman who crossed through time and flames to save me in the forest.

I purse my lips and skim my fingers over the delicate, gorgeous flowers. It’s no good falling into despair yet. I’ll have plenty of reasons to hate my life later tonight, so I force my mouth to lift in a smile and remind myself I will be powerful one day.

If I manage to become her.

My savior told me in clear terms nothing is set in stone. If I don’t become powerful enough to go back and save myself, both me and my younger self will die.

Just thinking about it is enough to make me queasy.

“Enough wallowing,” I whisper, willing my body to move. It’s like a spell, too, one I use to rein in my mind and heart.

It’s time to go, and it will do me no good to delay it any longer.

When I open my door, I am almost calm. But then, spit lands on the path leading to my cottage. I look up just in time to see Lubka passing by my gate with her husband, three girls following in her footsteps. They don’t even spare me a look, only the youngest looking up with wary curiosity. She’s only eight, her skin scrubbed pink, her hair beautifully braided.

I helped bring her to this world when I still trained with Wiosna.

Having my attention, the girl makes a face, her tongue lolling out as she mocks me. I bare my teeth and hiss at her. She gasps, her grimace turning into real fear as I raise both hands with my fingers splayed wide, mimicking claws.

The girl runs up to her mother and grips her hand, talking rapidly. I lose sight of them as they turn a bend and disappear behind Darobor’s apple orchard.

I’m not sorry. For so long, I tried to be nice and helpful, smiling at children, telling them stories. Some even liked me enough to keep coming back until their parents found out. They taught the kids to fear me. Most villagers say behind my back that I’m cursed, not right in the head, or just evil and petty and mean. They call me a viper, and some say I’m a witch.

But quietly. Because every year on Kupala Night, I prove them wrong. Just as I will tonight.

My cottage stands on the edge of the village, barely within its bounds. A short path leads from my front door to the low gate set in a hawthorn hedge. Past my home, orchards, meadows, and fields roll in a gentle slope until the dark face of the woods.

I walk over the glob of spit by my gate and onto the path. The dusk falls slowly, the sky darkening in the west even as light purples and the last shades of pink color it in the east. We’re in for a clear, cloudless night. The big waxing moon and countless stars will light the scene.

“Move!”

A harsh male voice accompanies heavy steps right behind me on the grassy road leading to the meadow.

I don’t react to the barked order because I’m no one’s bitch to command. Swietko brushes past me, jostling me hard with his shoulder. He sneers down at my face, his yellow teeth bared in a threat.

“Out of the way, you worthless cunt,” he says, bringing his face so close, I could bite his nose off if I wasn’t too disgusted. It’s peppered with black, oily dots.

“Certainly worthless to you since you can’t get it up,” I retort, hot anger warming my bones.

Swietko’s face, already swollen from drunkenness, colors an ugly purple. He raises his hand to strike but I dance out of his reach. Voices come from higher up the path, and Swietko drops his hand, giving me a nasty look.

“I’ll remember this,” he promises. “You’ll scream when I find you later tonight, hag.”

“Oh, how I’m shaking from terror,” I mock him quietly when he turns away. “Drinking has turned your brain into a sieve. You won’t remember anything. It’s a wonder you know which way to piss.”

He tenses, but then Bogna’s voice drifts closer.

“Jaga! Wait for me!”

“Tonight,” Swietko mutters and walks swiftly down the path to the meadow just as Bogna reaches me.

She wears a gorgeous blue kerchief over her dark hair, her cheeks red from excitement. Her husband follows at a stately pace, ignoring me completely as his wife grips my hands in greeting. At twenty-four, Bogna is three years older than me. She’s my only friend.

And the only person in the village who is friendly with me in public.

“You look beautiful. You’d be the Kupala queen if you weren’t married,” I say, giving her husband a once-over to make sure he’s well subdued.

He ignores me, looking ahead with empty disinterest, and I nod to myself. The dose is right. He should be fine tonight unless he drinks way too much.

Bogna’s husband, Przemyslaw, is pumped full of calming herbs I supply her with. I’ve been doing it for two years, ever since she burst into my cottage, her face beaten black and blue, her rib broken, blood streaming down her legs.

She came to me because the whisperer who took over after Wiosna’s death turned Bogna away. There Bogna was, hurt and crying on her doorstep, and Czeslawa, the whisperer, told her to go home, back to her violent husband, because Bogna didn’t have anything to pay with. And how could she? She ran for her life and didn’t have time to grab a jar of honey or a basket of eggs when her drunk husband tried to beat her to death.

So Bogna found her way to me because she knew I trained with Wiosna. I treated her wounds, held her hand, and fed her herbs that sped up the miscarriage caused by her husband hitting her repeatedly in the stomach. When the night came, we buried her tiny, lifeless daughter behind my garden patch and Bogna cried in my arms.

We’ve been friends ever since. She often says I’m a much better whisperer than Czeslawa, who has the official title in our village.

I was supposed to take over after Wiosna died when I was sixteen. But most people here didn’t want me. They brought a whisperer from another settlement and gave her Wiosna’s cottage. And just like that, my destiny was diverted, my safety uprooted. As a whisperer, I would have had an unshakeable claim on a place in the village and among its people. Now, I can be run out of here any moment, and that would be a death sentence.

I hate being forced to live among these people who hate me so much. And yet, when I’m with Bogna, I can’t help being grateful that the fates let me stay. Because I was here when she needed help desperately, and that’s worth more than happiness.

She’s another reason why I’m determined not to piss people off too much. Bogna needs me here.

But that reminds me I should control my temper better. It was stupid to mouth off to Swietko, even if I only spoke the truth. His wife gets herbs to treat his impotence regularly, because she wants to have children.

Bogna told me.

“You should be the Kupala queen,” Bogna says, waving her hand as she gives me an appreciative look. “Those poppies are gorgeous! They look like they were plucked right in Wyraj. So pretty!”

I smile. If only she knew.