Chapter Three
I am dragged back into my body by the rooster's cry, its relentless insistence tearing through the morning stillness. Cold greets me first—seeping through wool and linen, clinging to my skin as if the night has followed me here. I draw a breath and feel it sting my lungs.
Then, light.
Pale morning sun slips through the narrow openings and settles across my face, gentle but blinding.
I blink against it, dreams already dissolving into something thin and unreachable.
Before thought can catch me, my hand rises to my forehead.
Then my chest. Right shoulder. Left. The sign of the cross traces itself into my skin by reflex alone, a habit carved into my limbs.
Only then do I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. I climb down carefully, my feet finding the worn rungs, the house creaking awake in its familiar sounds.
Mama is already at the hearth, coaxing life back into the embers with patient hands. Her hair is tied back loosely, a shawl drawn around her shoulders. The fire answers her, glowing, shifting, beginning its slow work of warming the room.
"Bun? diminea?a," I say quietly.
She looks up and smiles, the lines at the corners of her eyes deepened by the firelight.
"Bun? diminea?a, copil?."[11]
Her voice is clearer than last night, loosening something in me with relief.
I cross the room and gather my hair, smoothing it back and twisting it into a tight braid, winding it into order until nothing loose remains. The bucket waits for me by the door, its handle still damp from yesterday.
"I’ll fetch water."
"Don’t be long," Mama replies. "The air will turn you sick."
"I won’t."
She hums in agreement, already turning back to her tasks while I slip my shawl over my shoulders and open the door.
Outside, the village stretches and stirs, smoke rising thin and gray from chimneys. The chill holds its ground, clinging to skin and breath despite the light spreading across the roofs. Somewhere, another rooster answers the first, while doors creak open. A woman laughs, low and brief.
I step onto the path and make for the well, the handle brushing lightly against my skirt, warmth gathering at my face.
It drops with a hollow splash, swallowed by the dark below.
I let the cord unravel until it goes slack between my fingers, the cold seeping up through the fibres and into my palms. For a moment, I simply stand there, the morning slow to settle in my bones.
Then, my gaze lifts.
The woods stand beyond the last houses, as they always have.
Tall. Dense. Stirred by a light breeze that moves through them like a slow breath.
Leaves whisper in hushed tones to one another.
Nothing more, nothing less. No movement that should not be there.
No watching eyes. No shadow bent over blood.
As if last night never happened.
I stare a moment longer than I should.
Then I huff quietly through my nose and set my weight into the rope, drawing the bucket back up hand over hand, muscles warming with the effort. Water sloshes against the sides, catching the light as it rises.
I must have been too tired. Too strung thin by the dark and the running and the way fear grows teeth when you let it.
I won’t let that happen again.
When the bucket reaches the stone rim, I hook it carefully and wipe my damp hands against my skirt. The day is here now—solid and ordinary. There is work to be done. There always is.
Next time, I’ll be more careful. I won’t let the night make a fool of me. Maybe I’ll bring a candle, just a stub, enough to see better.
The thought steadies me.
The forest remains quiet behind my back as I step inside and pull the door closed, sealing it away.
On the wall, the cloths hang on their usual hook, ready for use.
The water is cold against my skin as I dip the fabric and wring it out to scrub my hands and arms in firm movements.
Dirt lifts away in thin, dark trails. Resin loosens.
A faint sting rises where the skin is broken, strong enough to make me draw a quiet breath.
Mama joins me without a word, the two of us moving in the same quiet rhythm we have shared for years. For a moment, the room is filled only with the soft sound of water and the crackle of the fire catching properly, before a gasp tears out of her, her hand closing around my wrist with brutal force.
"What happened to your hands?"
My breath stumbles as I glance down.
The marks stand out now that the dirt is gone—thin jagged lines crossing my palms and fingers, some already darkened. Too many of them. My pulse kicks hard beneath her grip.
"I—" I swallow. "I scratched myself yesterday, in the kitchen. It’s just—"
She doesn’t let me finish. Her other hand seizes my skirts and yanks them up roughly, fabric bunching at my hips, shock holding me in place as cold air hits my legs.
In an instant, Mama has dropped to her knees.
Her hands are on me again, fingers digging into muscle as she drags the cloth higher, inspecting, searching.
Her breath comes faster now—I feel it against my skin.
They are everywhere—thin cuts, thorn pricks, streaks of red where skin split and bled. Some are fresh. Some not.
For a heartbeat, the space goes utterly silent. Her hand remains fisted in my skirts, joints paling as if she has forgotten she is holding me at all. When she looks up at me, her face is different—tightened, drawn inward, something hard burning behind her eyes.
"You lie to me."
I go still.
"I—I didn’t mean—" My tongue falters. "Mama, it’s nothing, I just—"
Her grip loosens, but only enough to let the skirts fall.
"You were told," her voice cuts. "Again and again."
As if struck from above, she folds forward at my feet, her knees hitting the floor hard enough to make the crockery on the shelf rattle.
Her hands leave my legs only to clasp together, fingers white-knuckled, head bowed so low her forehead nearly touches the ground, and I recognize the words spilling from her lips before I understand them.
"Doamne, ap?r? copilul meu," she whispers. "Cur??e?te-o… nu l?sa r?ul s? se prind? de sufletul ei… nu l?sa ?ntunericul s? o ating?…"[12]
The litany tumbles over itself as her fingers trace the sign of the cross again and again over my calves, over my knees, trembling as they go. I can only gaze upon her, heart pounding so hard it makes me dizzy.
"Mama," I plead, my voice small despite myself. "It’s not the devil. It’s not—it’s just what Tata taught me—"
She moves too fast for me to finish. She is on her feet in an instant, her hand snapping closed around my wrist again, tighter this time.
"Shh!" comes the panicked hiss.
It cuts clean through me. She leans close, so close I can see the fear swimming in her eyes
"You do not speak of that," her gaze flicks toward the door, then the window, as if the walls themselves might be listening. "He did not teach you anything. Do you hear me?"
I nod without meaning to.
"He was a man. And that was another time, a foolish time. He did not know better."
A frown distorts her face, as if the words taste bitter.
"If Popa Vasile had been there—if the Church had been stronger—he could have prayed for him. He could have been saved."
Her eyes shine wetly now.
"The Lord might have spared him."
Something inside me recoils.
"We walk God’s path now," she insists, almost pleading. "We do not touch the old ways. We do not mix ourselves with pagan tricks and devilish lies. That is how evil finds its way in. That is how it stains the soul."
Her gaze searches my face desperately, as if looking for signs already written there.
"You will not go into the woods again. And you will forget those things. You will not whisper those words anymore. You will not touch those plants." Her mouth trembles, caught between command and terror. "For your sake. For mine."
I stand frozen in her grasp, my skin still burning with scratches and resin, my father’s voice echoing faint and forbidden somewhere deep inside me.
Mama pulls me into her chest then, holding me too tightly, as if she fears I might vanish if she lets go.
The cross on the wall looms in my vision, its shadow stretched long and crooked by the firelight as the incessant prayers continue, whispered against my hair until they lose shape and become only sound.
After a while, she releases her hold and cups my face between her hands, thumbs pressing hard into my cheeks as if to feel something beneath the skin that might answer her fear.
"Promise me," she says.
The word is not raised. It does not need to be.
"The woods are not for us," she goes on. "They belong to the devil and to things that wear skins not their own. Girls who wander too far into them…" Her lips tighten. "They do not come back."
A chill crawls up my spine as the memory rises—moonlight fractured through branches, the wet sound of feeding, eyes burning red as coals piercing through me. My stomach twists, my skin prickles as if the night has followed me indoors.
Mama feels it.
"You see," her grip tightens, head nodding as if the fear itself proves her right. "You feel it. That is God warning you."
I hesitate.
The right answer hangs between us, heavy as a stone. I think of the forest—the way it breathes, the way it knows me. I think of my pouch, my herbs, the quiet work of my hands. I think of the warmth easing Mama’s cough.
"I promise," I murmur at last.
The words feel thin as they leave me. Fragile. Still, they are said, and she clings to them like a lifeline.
"Say it again," she insists.
"I promise," I repeat, my voice dropping.
Only then does she release me. She crosses herself again, murmuring thanks under her breath, her hands still trembling as they fall back to her sides. She looks older in an instant, smaller, as if fear has hollowed her out from within.
I remain standing where she leaves me, arms folded around myself.