Devil's Deal: A Dark Fantasy Romance

29. Hexes

“She just left,” Wiosna says in the afternoon, interrupting my potion preparations. “You’ll have plenty of time if you go now.”

I nod and wipe my hands on my apron, heading out into the orchard neighboring my cottage. It’s owned by Darobor’s family, and the wooden fence is half-rotten and infested with woodworms. I know they plan to replace it next year, so I feel no compunction about taking some for myself.

“Go further down. There is a big, loose piece.” Wiosna directs me and I follow until I see the loose plank pockmarked with tiny holes.

I look around to make doubly sure no one’s here and pull it free with a crunch.

“Do the spell now,” Wiosna says, excited. “If you feel weak, you can just go home. No harm done. Remember, do it how I told you. Just a few words. It doesn’t have to be fancy.”

I crouch so the fence and overgrown greenery of the orchard hide me from the path. Feeling jittery, and yet excited because Woland’s blood still makes me feel powerful, I close my eyes.

“Eat and multiply,” I whisper, picturing power flowing from my palms into the dark plank.

I think about the tiny creatures living in the wood, how content they are, hidden inside, with plenty to eat. My goal is to disturb their contentment. It’s to make them greedy.

“Eat and multiply,” I whisper, frowning when my palms grow hot and sweat breaks out on my nape. “Be hungry. Be horny. Grow in numbers. Eat everything. But don’t spread. Only eat the wood you find close. Be lazy, little worms. Be hungry, and horny, and lazy.”

Something crackles, a current of energy tumbling out through my hands. I gasp, opening my eyes wide when an angry buzzing sound comes from the plank. It vibrates slightly, as if something inside is moving very fast.

A swarm.

“Go! Before they eat this plank to nothing.”

I set out down a back path that should be empty right now. The workers in the fields don’t go home for a meal, instead eating the food they brought with them in baskets and napkins. Those who are in the village are having dinner, just like Czeslawa.

I avoid the main road and make it to the back of the whisperer’s house within minutes, sweaty and out of breath from running in the heat.

My goal is the ugly wooden shed Czeslawa got shortly after she moved in. It’s in the back of her large lot, and she receives patients there, making sure their blood, illness, pain, or tears don’t pollute her home.

It’s something Wiosna complained about at length after she started speaking to me. How Czeslawa prizes her own comfort above the lives of her patients. By removing them into a separate building, she buys herself peace but also risks their wellbeing.

The whole point of being a whisperer is to have the more serious patients so close, their moans of pain will wake you up in the night so you can help. Yet, Czeslawa would rather sleep through the night.

But I am going to take her comfort away.

“Eat and multiply, little worms,” I whisper and throw the plank over the hedge. It lands in a patch of nettles against the back wall of the wooden shed, and I can just hear the faintest buzzing from where I stand, but the plank is hidden.

“Good thing I got the cottage roof permanently worm-proofed. They will only eat the shed, and good for them,”Wiosna says with satisfaction as I walk back home, my palms tingling with the power I expelled. “How are you feeling? Any weakness yet?”

“No,” I say with wonder. “It was… It was really easy. Felt natural. Like I really can do magic.”

She snorts with pity. “That was his magic. Yours is locked up tight. I think you’ll have to spend everything he gave you first so you can work on dismantling that block.”

My skin crawls when I remember the way I felt after I did my poppy spell. Dizzy, weak, with my heart stuttering in an uneven, sickly rhythm. It felt like I was dying and the agony was insurmountable.

“Maybe after my period is over,” I mutter. “It’s about to start soon, and I can only handle enough pain at once.”

“Hm.”

With that, Wiosna grows quiet long enough for me to get back to my cottage and resume working on the potions. I clean and cut the herbs, placing them into big clay bottles. Once that’s done, I pour apple cider vinegar in and cover the mouths of the bottles with clean cloth to keep the flies out. Now, the potions just need to macerate.

I don’t dare speak any spells over them in case it causes the women problems with the Kupala fire next year. The magic of the herbs and Mokosz’s blessing have to be enough.

“Time to eat,”Wiosna reminds me after I clean up. “And brew some yarrow and red clover for yourself.”

I sigh but dutifully put the dried herbs in a cup. “You know they barely work.”

My menses are excruciating, and they have been ever since I started bleeding at twelve. I know the reason and that it can’t be cured. I tried all kinds of treatments, and the only success I had was with a yarrow and clover combination. It makes the pain bearable, provided I stay in bed.

“Brew it anyway. A witch’s magic is the most potent when she bleeds, so I’m sorry, but you’ll have to at least try. This is important unless you want to rely on the devil’s blood.”

I nod, laying a fire in the hearth to make the brew. I keep thinking as I arrange the thin sticks and dry wood shavings so the fire catches fast. Something about our conversation nudges the back of my mind, and I try to bring that piece to light as I hit the blade of a steel knife against my flint stone.

When sparks fall on the wood shavings and catch, I finally have it.

“So you believe the seal broke the moment my eyes changed color?” I ask her before I blow on the fire to coax it to grow bigger.

“Yes. What about it?”

“Well, I didn’t notice it back then because I had so much on my mind, but my first period started shortly after that. I don’t know how much later, precisely, but under a month. It might have been two weeks.”

“You’re saying the seal broke the first time you were fertile,” Wiosna says. “When you became a woman.”

I sit back on my heels, trying to remember more details about that time. “Is that likely? You just said a witch’s magic is the most potent during her menses, but what about the few days when she’s fertile?”

“Hm, yes. We don’t pay much attention to that, because few women can tell with any precision when it happens. But it’s when you’re at your most creative. It’s a powerful time.”

A powerful time. Yes, probably. And yet, if that were so, wouldn’t the seal have broken every month after it did the first time? Except, that was the only time my body worked properly. I can’t help but think that since I’m not entirely whole, maybe my magic can’t function as it should.

Maybe it will stay sealed, forever. And I won’t be able to save my twelve-year-old self, after all. Unless I succumb and take the devil’s deal.

I don’t share these dark thoughts with Wiosna, and I do my best to chase them from my own head, too.

I feed the fire more sticks, and when the bigger pieces of wood catch on, I go out to get water for my cauldron. I drink the brew when it’s done and then pick currants for a currant tincture that’s good for colds. Thanks to my recent popularity, I have a nice supply of vodka, and I put it to good use.

All through the day, I keep wondering how my little worms are faring. Hopefully, they are very, very hungry.

The very next morning, Ida knocks on my door when I’m in the middle of brushing my hair. I let her in, and she eyes me with a half-open mouth, not replying when I greet her.

“Ida? Good morning,” I repeat, and she shakes herself off.

“You should get a husband,” she says, making me laugh at the randomness of it.

“A husband? Whatever for?”

She reaches out a tentative hand and takes a strand of my red hair in her fingers, stroking gently. “So he can admire this every day. Someone should,” she says, her eyes flashing in a mischievous smile. “You always wear your hair so tightly braided and pinned up. But it’s so gorgeous when you let it down.”

I wave her compliment away with a muttered thanks. My hair is one of the reasons why people feel wary about me, why they think I’m a witch. I’m not going to flaunt it.

“Enough about my hair. What brings you here?”

She claps her hands and laughs, her eyes bright.

“Czeslawa’s shed collapsed during the night. Lotta’s boy just came by our house to tell us. He said she’s livid and keeps screaming a witch cursed her, but the boy says he had a look at the shed, and the planks were completely eaten through. Janek’s mother says Czeslawa should do a better job protecting her buildings next time instead of blaming it on witches.”

I laugh, gleeful and malicious, and Wiosna joins me. Ida nods, satisfied and proud of herself for bringing me the news.

“Oh, and I told my friends about those beauty potions you’re making. Better make sure you have lots,” she says with a conspiratorial glimmer in her eye. “I have to be off now. Haven’t had my breakfast yet!”

“That one sure likes you,”Wiosna mutters after Ida leaves.

I don’t answer, just grit my teeth. I should put some distance between Ida and me, and I decide I’ll do it as soon as I give her the potion I promised in return for her help. My chest hurts at the thought, but it must be done if I am to protect her. And I want to, desperately. I don’t know how it feels to have a younger sibling, but maybe it’s similar to that protectiveness.

“Well, we might as well make hay while the sun shines,” Wiosna says briskly. “Are you up for doing a nasty little spell tonight? Let’s burn through that devil magic.”

That night, I wait for Wiosna to report back when everyone is asleep. I need to get in and out of Czeslawa’s garden unseen, and since it’s likely I might feel faint after I do the spell, we must make sure no one will see me as I stagger home. The whisperer is bound to feel paranoic, and if she gets a whiff of my nightly excursion, she’ll surely suspect me.

She already does, too. Ida came by in the afternoon to tell me Czeslawa informs everyone who will listen that I cursed her. Luckily, no one takes her seriously. Most gossipers believe she’s embarrassed about her incompetence in keeping her own home vermin-free.

And yet, that’s not enough to appease me after she tried to get me killed. I want her gone.

And to that effect, I will sacrifice a new pair of shoes, as well. I sewed them up from some soft leather and good linen today, and as I wait for Wiosna, I whisper a little spell.

“May these lead you far away,

Into countries bleak and gray.”

Giving shoes as a gift is a proven way to send someone away for good. That spell is meant to reinforce the power of this gift. I smile when my lips and fingertips tingle, letting me know the magic works.

“And may you fall into a deep hole and never crawl out,” I add in a whisper, dark giddiness filling my veins.

Czeslawa thinks I’m a witch? Let me prove her right.

When Wiosna whispers it’s time, I grab my little bag of mistletoe berries. Quiet as a shadow, I walk down the back paths to the whisperer’s cottage. The village is still, every window dark, the only movement coming from linens fluttering in the breeze on washing lines outside.

I bid the gate hinges silent when I open Czeslawa’s gate, and they listen. My body tingles, heat traveling down my back and calves, magic flowing freely. I wonder if I have enough, still. Woland said that little drop he gave me when I lay under the werewolf was a day’s worth, and I drank so much more in the river. Yet, will it be enough?

I push doubts away and walk down the path. Something prickles my sole, and I hiss, looking down. The path is littered with thorns.

“She really believes a witch is after her,” Wiosna murmurs. “This is a trap for you.”

I take the thorn out of my foot and throw it aside, shaking my head. I walk the rest of the way without trouble, stepping carefully between the thorns. Once on the porch, I tell the door hinges to be silent, and they obey. I put the pair of shoes in Czeslawa’s little ante-room, and they fit right in the long row of her slippers.

This is a bit risky, since she might notice an unfamiliar pair of shoes. And yet, I also know she has so many. What’s one more pair?

“And now, to the well.”

The well spell is Wiosna’s idea. As I go around the cottage, I notice the wreckage of the shed. In the quiet of the night, a buzzing sound drifts over the ruins, my worms devouring what’s left of the wood.

The well doesn’t have an awning, just like it didn’t have one when Wiosna lived here. When Czeslawa comes to draw water, she’ll likely look inside, which means the spell will work perfectly. I open the bag with mistletoe berries and let them fall in with a quiet, faraway splash. There isn”t enough to poison the water, and it’s not my intent. The berries are an anchor to keep the spell tied to this spot.

I close my eyes and put both hands on the sides of the well, chanting the spell Wiosna taught me.

“Each time you gaze in the deep

When Dzadzbog is high in the sky,

A new boil shall mark your cheek

Until in the well you shall dive

Or for my mercy you”ll plead.”

I repeat it three times, magic sweating out of my body in a powerful wave of heat. I shake and grit my teeth when I’m done, and even though I don’t feel completely depleted, like I did that time in the river, it’s close.

“Go home, Jagusia. Go to sleep. And we’ll do some magic tomorrow.”

Back in my cottage, I sleep well until morning, not knowing that it’s the last night I’ll spend alone and unbothered.