Devil's Deal: A Dark Fantasy Romance

35. Poludnica

“Everyone who’s out in the fields should come home immediately,” I say, keeping my voice calm and firm, though it takes effort. “Those who go to call them shouldn’t be in direct sunlight. Until Dadzbog comes down from his peak, it’s still dangerous. Everyone must stay in the shade. Under a tree is good. At home or in a shed is best.”

The men nod and run out, but one stops in the threshold and turns.

“I’ll tell his wife to come here.”

I nod in thanks and look at the dead man. I know him vaguely—it’s Jacek. He moved here with his wife a few years back. They didn’t have any children and mostly led a quiet, productive life.

“It looks like you’ll be my first wake,” I mutter, sighing. I’ll have to clean him before evening and then sit by him until morning, guarding his soul so no bies snatches it away before Rod comes to take it to Nawie.

Wiosna used to say it was just a custom, and the souls were long gone by the time she even got round to washing the bodies. Now, after everything that happened, I’m not so sure. Just like the tales she told me, this custom must be rooted in truth somehow. And so I bring my iron poker from the hearth in the kitchen and have my silver knife handy on my working bench.

If any bies comes to take him, it will have to go through me.

Soon, I hear chatter of alarmed voices from the road. People come home from the fields, and right now, they are mildly scared, but also curious and excited. They talk over one another, asking those who saw the poludnica what she looked like, debating where she came from, and so on.

Despite Jacek’s death, no one sounds terribly upset or terrified, and I know why that is. Right now, avoiding a poludnica sounds simple, and it is. Just stay in the shade.

But that simplicity is deceptive.

It’s wheat-reaping season, and the linen is almost ripe, as well. To harvest all the crops, people will have to be in the fields from dawn till sundown, and a three-hour break in the middle of a workday will set everyone back. Crops will likely spoil if she’s not dealt with soon.

People will have to choose between staying in safety or harvesting their crops to have enough to eat and trade.

That’s why there will be more deaths soon. Because I don’t believe those who have big families with many mouths to feed, all depending on a good harvest, will sit at home through all midday.

A faint knock on my open door yanks me out of dire thoughts. It’s Magda, Jacek’s wife, and her eyes are red but dry. She’s a quiet, unobtrusive kind of person, and even her attire—a light-brown dress, dark-brown kerchief over brown hair—makes her look forgettable.

“Come in, dear,” I say, instantly emulating Wiosna. She was great with widowed people. “He’s right here. His soul is still with us. You can say your goodbyes.”

I put my arm around her shoulders and bring her toward the table. Magda shakes but doesn’t cry, and I stand with her, just like Wiosna always did, and hold her. It’s important to give a mourner a human connection in those first moments, otherwise, her soul might feel tempted to join his.

And so I keep her grounded in the mortal world as we both stand silent over her dead husband’s body. After ten minutes or so, Magda gently extricates herself from my hold and turns to me. Her face looks haggard. Those ten minutes made her look older by twenty years.

I wish she cried. Tears are a relief. But then, she might be one of those people who never cry in public.

“Thank you,” she says, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “Can you tell me… Because Bogdan said it was… a bies. In the fields.”

“I don’t know for certain,” I caution her. “But the men said it was a poludnica. We’ll know once the zerca listens to their accounts and confirms it. But if it really was a noon lady, that means he died quickly and without pain. Poludnicas strengthen the power of the sun, focusing it on a target. Dadzbog’s shine and heat become so great, they kill instantly.”

She stares at me, and I dearly wish for Wiosna’s guidance right now. I try to remember what she said in these circumstances, but she had to deliver the news usually after a patient died in her care following a long sickness. She would tell the widow they died in their sleep, even if that wasn’t the case. She would say they had an easy passing.

I told Magda the truth, but I wonder if I didn’t overdo it by explaining the manner of death. Thankfully, she shakes herself off and clears her throat, looking at me imploringly.

“And why did she choose him?”

And now, there is an echo of weeping in her voice. She will cry soon, I hope.

“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “A poludnica is a bies. She has no thought, no reason, just cruelty. There is no fairness to it. All I know is, he didn’t deserve to die. You didn’t deserve to lose him.”

When she starts crying, she falls into my arms and shakes, and I hold her through it as her tears wet my dress. She cries until a few men come in, Darobor among them, and clear their throats in my small ante-room.

Magda turns away and wipes her face, breathing shakily. I come out but leave the door open.

“Everyone’s back,” Darobor says quietly, Waclaw nodding by his side. “And we thought we might gather a few men and get rid of the bies, only Jarota doesn’t know how to kill a poludnica.”

Neither do I. Blast it. What I wouldn’t give to have Wiosna with me right this moment.

“I know one tale about a poludnica,” I say slowly. “In the story, she was a young maiden who died from a broken heart. Her sweetheart promised to marry her but then went with another. The rejected girl passed away and returned the next summer to haunt the fields. She kept killing men until her sweetheart came into the field one day, and she took him. That stopped her, but… We don’t know who our poludnica was when she was alive. No young woman died in the village this or last year.”

Darobor pulls at his mustache in thought. “Well, even if we knew, I don’t think we’d want to sacrifice a lad to stop her. Is there any other way?”

I look up in thought, the sun shining so brightly, it leeches the color out of the sky, making the blue washed out.

“She takes her power from Dadzbog,” I say. “That’s why she attacks around noon, when he is the highest in the sky. She won’t willingly go into shaded places. That’s why shade is the best protection.”

I look at the men, frowning as I think. “So, maybe luring her into the shade might work? Or tying her up and dragging her inside, where there is no sun? But it’s all so risky. If you go near her, she’ll kill you with a look. Or how did she kill Jacek? Did she touch him? Did you see?”

Bogdan, one of the men who brought Jacek in, comes forward. “She didn’t really touch him. More like… He came to her. When I looked up, I saw he wasn’t anywhere near me, so I looked around, and I saw him walking slowly, as if wading through water, toward a shape in white. She was far away, so I didn’t see her face. But she seemed, I don’t know… Eerie. Her dress moved even though there was no wind.”

“I see. Did you call out to him?” I ask, trying to put all the pieces together for even a hint of a clue.

“Yes. He didn’t react.”

I sigh, rubbing my forehead. “Well, we can assume she bewitched him somehow. The question is whether she can do that to more people at a time, but I wouldn’t put it to the test just yet. Please, let everyone know to stay home around noon tomorrow. I know this is the worst possible solution right now, so make it clear that anyone who stays out in the fields at midday risks losing their life, and thus depriving their family of support.”

This should do it for a day or two, I hope. But if it takes us longer to deal with the poludnica, I’ll have more bodies to watch over through the night.

The men leave to spread the news, and I stay outside, taking deep breaths. When I go in, Magda thanks me, her eyes vacant and sad, and leaves, promising a generous payment.

I line up my smudging herbs and purifying oils and get down to work.

Cleaning a body isn’t as much about removing sweat or dirt, though I do that, too, but about cleansing all mortal residues so there are no obstacles barring the soul from leaving. I wash Jacek’s body with water mixed with vinegar, thanking the Rodzanicas for the fate they gave him. Then, I smudge him, asking the smoke to take away all his mortal attachments. Finally, I anoint him with rosehip oil, asking Rod to follow the scent of the oil so it guides him to Jacek’s soul.

Magda comes in before dusk and leaves a basket filled with beeswax candles and clean clothes to dress her husband in. She doesn’t come in, just puts it in the open door of the cottage and leaves without replying to my words of thanks.

I dress Jacek, wash my hands with my strongest soap, and pick enough nettle leaves for a few jugs of a refreshing brew. It will help me stay up through the night. As dusk rolls in, Darobor comes over with Jarota. I lead them through the patient room, where they pay their silent respects to Jacek, into my kitchen, where I treat them to my wine.

We discuss possible ways of dealing with the poludnica, but neither of us has any ideas until Darobor asks, “And where does she go? Like now, when the sun is setting. Where might she be?”

Jarota looks at me, and I shake my head. “The tales I know say nothing about this. If she’s a spirit without a body, she might simply disappear until another noon. Or maybe she follows Dadzbog during his journey across the sky. If she is a bodily bies and can’t just leave, though, that will give us hope. It means she has to hide somewhere during the hours when she’s weak. If we can find her lair, we might attack her when she’s stripped of her power.”

Darobor nods once. “I’ll spy on her tomorrow.”

“No,” I say at once. “In the stories, she always takes men. Even if you stay away, she can lure you closer. I’ll go.”

“Jaga, dear, that is very risky,” Jarota says.

But I shake my head. It makes perfect sense for me to go, though I can’t tell them why. And it’s because Woland needs me alive. He won’t let the poludnica kill me. Out of all the people in the village, I am the safest.

So it’s decided. After they leave, I allow myself a small cup of my wine and then sit in the corner of my patient room on a stool, a cup of nettle brew in one hand, my knife in the other. A lone beeswax candle burns by the body, bathing Jacek’s pallid skin in golden light.

The village outside grows quiet, only the chirping of grasshoppers carrying in the night air. I sit without moving, staring at Jacek’s face until the image blurs, becomes too big, and then too small. I try to let my eyes unfocus, the way Wiosna once tried to teach me, and see the invisible.

Namely, I want to see the Rodzanicas’ mark on his forehead. But no matter how I squint or tire out my eyes, his skin remains clear. Jacek’s destiny either has been wiped upon its completion or it’s just not accessible to the likes of me.

The candle burns down slowly, its honeyed scent mixing with that of the oil and smudging herbs. The smell is so familiar and comforting, in a way. I sat with a few bodies in the past, but Wiosna was always in her bedroom, just a shout away. Even though she didn’t treat the stories about soul-stealing bies literally, she still told me to wake her if anything happened. That made me feel safer.

Now, it’s only me and the dead. A shiver crawls down my spine when the candle flickers, and I think the shadows move, but that’s only a trick of the light. I blink a few times to keep my eyes fresh.

I wonder if I will see Rod when he comes. So many strange things happened, it’s not completely out of the question. Yet, ever since Kupala, the only god or godlike creature I saw was Woland.

Or Diabel. I turn his other name on my tongue without saying it, and remember how desperate he was to hear it from my lips. How he made me say all his names.

How ancient he must be. How feared, to have so many names, every one cursed and avoided. Every name a weapon.

“He’s only the first out of many.”

I jump, almost overturning my stool, when Woland emerges from his shadows at the foot of the table. My heart, so peaceful just seconds before, hammers with shock. But it calms down instantly. He’s become so familiar, I am not even afraid.

“I’ll figure it out, just like I did the werewolf,” I say with confidence.

Woland doesn’t reply, walking slowly around the room and studying my furniture. He seems to be deep in thought, so I leave him to it, but then it occurs to me that maybe it’s him I should guard Jacek from.

“Excuse me,” I ask, gripping my knife. A load of good it will do me. “Do you dabble in soul-stealing?”

“Hm?”

He turns away from a cupboard, where he was looking through my rows of ointment pots, picking some up with interest. Now, he blinks a few times, confused, and finally shakes his head when his eyes fall on Jacek.

“I’m not a mamuna or another bies that snatches ancestral souls for power. And I am not Rod, to take souls back to Wyraj. Why should I do his job for him?” he asks with mild contempt and turns away, but then looks at me over his shoulder, his neck muscles cording with effort. “Would you consider giving in if I threatened to steal his soul?”

I lift my knife. “I would consider stabbing you.”

He smiles faintly and nods, turning back to smell a calendula ointment. “Rod will get him.”

And now we’re silent as I watch him examining my supplies. It shouldn’t be like this, but his presence brings me comfort. Now that Wiosna’s gone, it feels like he’s the only person who truly knows me. I find myself hoping he’ll stay for long hours, keeping me company through my watch. But it’s so wrong of me to want that. I shake my head, berating myself in my thoughts.

Woland catches the movement and turns to me, leaning back against my cupboard with his arms folded.

“I really wish you were more scared,” he says with a displeased frown. “A poludnica is the hardest bies to kill. You can’t shoot or wound her. Silver will do nothing, nor iron. She will keep killing until I stop her, because I’m the one who brought her here.”

I knew this, and yet, it jolts me out of my comfortable haze as I look at Jacek and realize he could be alive right now. But he’s dead—because of Woland.

He must see the change in me, because he smiles grimly. “That’s right. See how your priorities changed? With the werewolf, you tried to prevent any death from happening. Now, one is already dead, and more will be soon, yet you’re unbothered. Just three words from you, Jaga. Three words, and all these people will be safe. No bies will ever come to hurt them again.”

I clench my jaw, breathing steadily as I give him a look filled with hate—except, I can’t hate him anymore, not like I used to. I know him better now. I understand some things about him. And my zmora, all that’s evil, dark, and impulsive within me, is drawn to him with a shocking force.

This has become a game, and he’s right. My priorities changed. Because my freedom means more to me than the lives of the mortals in this village. And yet, I will still do anything in my power to protect them. Anything—but this.

“Here are your three words,” I snap, glaring at him. “I’ll. Solve. This.”

He sighs, rolls his eyes, and then falls to his knees. Right in front of me.