Devil's Deal: A Dark Fantasy Romance

30. Zmora

“It’s healing nicely,” I say, biting back a smirk when Swietko looks at me with a mixture of helpless rage and resentment. “You should be able to move about now. I’ll give you an oil to rub the scars so they don’t pull or hurt.”

He grunts in response, and I cover my vicious snicker with a cough. Swietko sits on a stool by my table, squirming in his place like a child with an ass full of worms. He hasn’t said even one word since he and Alina came in. Just like I predicted, he hates being beholden to me.

And I shamelessly enjoy his discomfort. He called me horrible names, and for what? Because he wanted to pick on someone and I was right there, the village victim. He’s paying for it now.

“Thank you so much, Jaga,” Alina says, clasping my hands. “I would be a widow without you.”

Tears of joy shine in her eyes, and I decide to give her one more reason to be merry while also making Swietko squirm.

“Will you be trying to get pregnant?” I ask.

Swietko looks up, shooting me a glare, but Alina nods enthusiastically.

“I hope so! It will be a few years before the kids can help around the house, but I think we can manage. I’ve always wanted babies and I really hope it will finally happen.”

“Mhm. And the medicine Czeslawa gave you didn’t work, is that correct? How long have you used it?”

Swietko stares daggers at me, and I send him a quelling look. He owes me his life, and I’m trying to help him and his wife. He has no room to complain, even if accepting my help humiliates him.

“Over a year,” Alina says, shaking her head. “And I was actually going to ask you for some other solution. People keep talking, you know. How her remedies don’t always work because she wants us to keep coming back.”

I give a noncommittal shrug, making sure to convey I agree with everything people say without actually agreeing. Now that Czeslawa badmouths me on every occasion, I must be above it so people see the contrast between us.

“Well, some impotence treatments actually affect the quality of male seed,” I say. “So even if the spear will rise, so to speak, it won’t hit the target.”

I’m proud of myself for this hunting analogy and glance at Swietko to gauge his reaction. A muscle jumps in his jaw, and he watches me with pure hate, but stays silent.

Good boy, I mouth.

He stands up, wobbling from the sudden movement because his balance is off, and stalks out without a backward glance. Alina gives me an apologetic look.

“He’s very fragile,” she says. “But I’d like the medicine. He wants heirs, too, just like I do. What will it cost? I can bring you more furs if that’s…”

“Keep your furs,” I interrupt her, shaking my head. “You already brought me plenty, and you’ll need to save your wealth now. I’ll serve you for free, and when you get pregnant, too. You both deserve happiness after that ordeal.”

Swietko’s discomfort is payment enough, I add in the privacy of my mind.

Alina thanks me profusely, and I wave her to the door, wondering for a moment if something is wrong with me, because making Swietko suffer brings me so much more joy than doing a good deed for Alina.

Then again, it’s not like I’m making a huge sacrifice by not having them pay. I don’t need to drive a tough bargain because my popularity surges higher than ever. Yesterday, Czeslawa told anyone who’d listen that I was the one who destroyed her patient shed, so today, people come by to hear my side of the story.

“Do you have something to protect against a poludnica?” Maja, Ida’s older sister, asks after coming in. She’s flushed, her pregnant belly big and taut. “I worked in the fields yesterday and felt faint, so today I’m home, but we need all hands hard at work. I thought it might have been a poludnica’s fault.”

“If she actually saw a poludnica, she wouldn’t have to guess. She’d know,”Wiosna says. “It’s just the heat.”

I study Maja critically, noting she must be about eight months along. Wiosna is right, of course, and that heat is deadly not just to pregnant women. Ideally, she shouldn’t be out in the fields until the weather breaks, but reality is never ideal.

Women often give birth in the fields because they work until the very last moment. It’s just how it is.

“The best protection from the heat is wearing a hat or a kerchief at all times and drinking often. But don’t drink water. Have a strong chicory brew with honey. Take small sips throughout the day, as often as you can. That will make you sweat less and feel stronger. As for the poludnica, run away if one should appear. Get indoors or in the shade. They are very powerful in the sunlight and there’s little you can do to protect yourself if you don’t hide.”

She gives me a spooked look but nods. “I have another question. How does one recognize a witch?”

Even though she wrings her hands in a nervous gesture, there’s that spark of excitement in her eyes. She looks so similar to Ida right now, her face animated, her eyes bright, though Maja’s cheeks are fuller, her posture tired due to the pregnancy.

I tell her the truth. “The easiest way to reveal a witch is the Kupala fire,” I say with a nod. “That’s why all women have to stand close to it at least once every year, you know? Sometimes I wonder why men aren’t required to do that, because a man can absolutely do foul magic spells, as well.”

Her eyes grow big with surprise. “Really? I never thought it possible!”

“Yes, men can do magic, too. So the easiest way to recognize a witch is to look for those who didn’t approach the Kupala fire. Because everyone who avoids it surely has something to hide.”

“That was rather clever,” Wiosna says after Maja goes home. “Now the entire village will be busy trying to remember who went up to the fire and who didn’t.”

“And everyone saw me do it, of course,” I say with a smile. “But I don’t think Czeslawa actually did. I never saw her near the fire, not once, and I suspect she felt too proud and untouchable to undergo the trial. Well, we’ll see what the gossip mill comes up with.”

Around dusk, I am tired and finally hungry, so I drink a few cups of goat milk and devour a thick slice of bread with honey, all courtesy to my clients. But as I reach for my pins to let my hair down before bed, Wiosna clicks her tongue in disapproval.

“Not so fast. Do a spell first.”

I groan, and she tsks at me. “This is important, Jaga. You’re up against a powerful enemy. Who knows what else he’ll try against you? You’re so defenseless, it’s pathetic.”

I clench my jaw, furious but unable to contradict her. Wiosna is right. I can’t allow Woland’s absence to lure me into a false sense of safety, and I can’t forget my two ultimate goals: to avenge my friend and save my younger self. I need magic for both.

“Fine. I’ll try to boil some water using magic.”

Wiosna grunts with disapproval. “Don’t be lazy. We shouldn’t use magic for things we can do with honest work.”

I throw up my hands in exasperation. It seems I have forgotten how nitpicky and infuriating Wiosna can be, but of course, she’s eager to remind me.

“Then maybe I should exorcise you?” I growl through clenched teeth. “That can’t be done with honest labor, can it? Unless I can sweep you out with a broom?”

I grab my broom and shake it menacingly, my body vibrating with anger. I am so grateful for Wiosna, truly, but in moments like this, I wish I could escape her for a bit. It was way easier to do when she was alive.

“Don’t get cheeky with me, girl. We both know you’re too weak to actually make me go away, and I’m having too much fun here to go. Now do as I say, because I give good advice.”

I put away the broom, taking a few deep breaths to calm myself down. I’ve been doing so well, building up my reputation, serving clients, preparing new brews… Like a true whisperer in her own right. But with Wiosna around, I often feel like an apprentice. Like I’m not capable and never will be, because no matter how hard I try, she’ll always find something new to criticize me about.

With a sigh, I give up and cast around for something that would require magic but can’t be done with the work of my own hands. My eyes fall on the tallow candle I’ll have to light soon if I want to do anything after dark.

I hate those candles. They stink like burning lard, because that’s what they are, and fill my cottage with oily, unpleasant smoke. I’d much rather use the much more expensive and better smelling beeswax candles, but I can’t afford any for now.

But what if I could have a pure, odorless, magical light? That’s not something I can make myself.

I go to my cupboard and come back with a small metal bowl. Wiosna is thankfully quiet when I close my eyes and focus, imagining a small, golden light, like the tiniest ray of the sun held captive in my bowl. I call forth the smallest shard of Dzadzbog’s shield, a miniscule bit of light that will glow just like a candle, yet give no heat or smell…

“Light,” I whisper. “Light.”

Something moves within me, my blood fizzing with power.

“Light,” I urge.

My hands holding the bowl grow hot, and the bowl heats up, the metal not yet scalding, but close. There is a pang of pain in my chest and a sensation of falling, but I push through. This is just the seal resisting me, and so I chant under my breath, “Light, light, light,” and push that power to come out and create.

Brightness filters in through my closed eyelids, a brilliant, golden light. When I open my eyes, it goes out, just a sparkling echo lingering in the air for a moment before it, too, is snuffed out.

A sudden pain pierces my chest, my heart constricting into a ball, my lungs filling with heavy darkness until I choke. The bowl slips out of my hands, and I lose my grasp on the thread of power. Everything unravels, and all I can do is lie on the floor and whimper, pain and defeat carving deep into my gut with every choking breath.

By the time I crawl to a semi-seated position on the floor, it’s completely dark out, and there is no light in my cottage, magical or not. I curse as I climb up onto the bed, needles of pain piercing every inch of my spine.

Just before I fall asleep, Wiosna whispers.

“There is always tomorrow.”

But when I wake up, it’s not tomorrow yet. I lie in the pitch blackness of my cottage, aware of a great weight resting on my chest and another breath, not my own, wheezing right above me.

When I try to move, the weight increases and the wheezing turns into a chuffing, inhuman snarl. I freeze, the memory of the werewolf pinning me to the ground vivid and horrible in my mind. I open my mouth to speak, to call out, anything, but it’s like my breath is squeezed right out of me. The thing grows heavier and heavier, and now it moves, the weight shifting on top of me.

My breasts are squished flat until they hurt, my stomach is pushed in until it’s concave, and my breath grows gasping and shallow. I’m being suffocated in my own bed. My body is numb and leaden, frozen in fear. I can’t move.

“What…” I manage to rasp out, hoarse and barely audible.

The weight bears down, my breath pushed out of me. The thing is so heavy now, I can’t take in air. My ribs bend under the pressure, making the space inside me too small. My mouth gapes open, like a fish taken out of water. I gasp and gasp for air, but it doesn’t come. It doesn’t come. It doesn’t…

Light, I think with the last of my strength as the chuffing sounds drift away, my consciousness ebbing. Light!

My chest tears open with pain just when a shocking, brilliant brightness floods the cottage. There is a shriek and a scuttle, and the weight disappears from my chest. I wheeze, my crushed lungs barely inflating, my ribs throbbing with pain. My mind reels from terror.

In that one flash of light, I saw the thing that sat on me. Sickly pale and beastly, it had a pair of spiteful, narrow eyes and a wide-open maw filled with needle-sharp teeth. It’s head was huge, way too big for its rangy body that sat on top of my chest like a cat, its clawed paws resting on my breasts, the rest of it on my stomach.

It looked small, its size completely incongruent with its weight. In the light, it glistened, as if wet with a strange, viscous afterbirth. On its bald head, there were a few tufts of black and gray hair slicked back with the wetness.

Disgusting and horrible, I don’t even know how it got in my cottage, and that alone makes me feel painfully unsafe. I shake, my body still frozen, my eyes wide open and staring into the black.

I don’t know how much time passes. My heart slowly calms down as I lie in bed, motionless and terrified the thing will come back. I listen intently, but everything is quiet. No more scuttling steps, no more chuffing noises. But the darkness makes me feel vulnerable and defenseless, and I’m scared to leave my bed.

I’ve never been violated in my own home like this. I don’t even know what kind of bies it was, though my immediate thought is that it must have come from Woland.

“Wiosna?” I whisper quietly when I have enough control over my breathing not to hyperventilate. “Where are you?”

She doesn’t reply, and a new terror seizes me. What if the thing hurt her before it started on me? I don’t know what it was, but it might very well be able to hurt a being from the afterworld. Oh, gods. I can’t bear the thought of Wiosna being gone again. I’ve barely gotten her back.

And to think that my last words to her were a stupid threat about chasing her off.

“Wiosna, please,” I say, a bit more loudly. “Please, say something.”

My chest still hurts, but it’s getting manageable. I ponder whether to get out of bed and light the fire in my hearth to at least have some light. If the monster comes back, I definitely want to see it. And yet, I’m reluctant to leave my bed, even though this is the very place where I was attacked.

“Oh, Wiosna,” I sob, weak and broken.

I can’t pretend to be strong when I’m all alone in the dark.

“Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?” comes my mentor’s irate voice. “You should be asleep, and I have fun things to do in Nawie, so... Wait. What’s that foul aura?”

For a moment, I am too stupefied to speak, and then I laugh and wheeze, overwhelmed and so relieved, I get dizzy. Wiosna grumbles, but when her half-hearted reassurances of “there, there” don’t work, she simply waits until my fit passes. Finally, I grow quiet, only a small giggle escaping here and there.

“Tell me what was in here,” she says when I’m composed enough.

I explain what happened, doing my best to stay calm even though reliving the monster’s visit makes me shiver in fright. I felt truly helpless at that moment, weak and about to die. Just like all those years ago in the woods, when a knife was in my belly and I realized I couldn’t be saved.

It seems I can’t escape that night, no matter how fast I run. It doesn’t matter I was saved in the end, because the savior is supposed to be me, and I am not enough. Too often, I fear I never will be.

Wiosna listens without interrupting until she finally laughs, completely unconcerned.

“Oh, Jagusia. That was just a zmora. They are ugly and a bit intense, but ultimately harmless. Next time it visits, you should invite it to breakfast.”

I’m about to explain with indignation that the thing almost killed me and was in no way harmless when Wiosna’s final words register.

“Wait, what did you just say? What do you mean, breakfast?”