Chapter Nine #2
My voice sounds distant to my own ears.
His eyes rise to my face.
"You sought me yesterday," he says.
Heat floods through me. For a breath, I cannot form sound. My stomach drops, heart racing harder. I force my mouth into something that might resemble composure.
"I was frightened," I say, lowering my gaze. "After… everything. I thought perhaps there was still danger."
My fingers tighten around the bottle.
"But the men caught the wolf," I add quickly. "It is better now."
I feel his eyes move over my face. They rest there too long. I become aware of every inch of my skin, of the flush that still warms my cheeks, of the faint tenderness at my throat.
He knows.
The thought flares, bright and terrifying. He can see it. He can feel what I have done.
My breath shortens.
He studies me for another beat, then nods slowly.
"It is natural to seek guidance in times of fear," he says. "Your devotion honors your mother."
He releases my hand at last.
"God sees a faithful heart," he continues. "He sees your efforts to remain pure. He will guide you through temptation."
His gaze holds mine once more, softer now.
"You are a good girl, Raveena."
The praise rings hollow in my ears. Still, I bow my head.
"Thank you, Father."
My grip tightens around the bottle until the glass bites faintly into my palm.
***
I do not remember the path back. The door strikes the wall as I push it open. I slip inside and close it hard behind me, as though something might follow.
The house holds its breath.
I drop the vial onto the table and fall to my knees before the cross. Forehead to floor.
"Lord have mercy."
The words spill out before I can shape them.
"Lord have mercy. Cleanse me."
I bow again. My knees strike the earth harder this time. The sting barely registers.
His voice threads through the prayer.
You are not made to live folded.
I press my brow to the floor once more.
"I renounce—" My voice cracks. "I renounce temptation. I renounce the snares of the adversary."
You follow the birds with your eyes until your neck aches.
My shoulders tense.
"I belong to You," I whisper. "Cleanse me."
The forest rises behind my closed eyes. His hands at my waist. The weight of him. The heat spreading low and slow and unbearable.
I bow again.
The boards scrape against my skin. My knees burn.
You do not wish to be bound to him at all.
"No," I breathe, though I do not know to whom I answer.
The words tangle.
I cross myself. Once. Twice. Again. The motion grows faster. My fingers blur.
"I reject—" My breath stumbles. "I reject the lies spoken in darkness."
He would have you bent and trembling in a barn so he may ease himself before the wedding fire is lit.
My pulse jumps at the memory.
"I will marry Radu," I say quickly. "I will obey. I will—"
You want me to take you.
"No," I whisper fiercely.
My body rocks forward and back. My knees throb, raw against the floor. Sweat clings to my temples. My hair falls loose around my face.
"Cleanse me," I breathe again. "Strip it from me."
You want the tree. The height. The fall.
I bow so hard my teeth strike together.
His teeth on my throat. The bite.
My thighs press together involuntarily. Heat flares where I do not want it.
I strike my chest with my fist.
"Impure," I whisper. "Impure."
The word lands like a stone.
I bow again. I lose count.
The prayer repeats until it becomes breath, until it dissolves into sound without meaning.
"Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy."
My knees ache. Skin scrapes raw beneath the wool of my skirts. Sweat gathers at my temples and slides down my neck. My hair loosens from its braid and falls forward, clinging to my cheeks.
His hand guiding mine around the knife.
His mouth at my wrist.
You wrapped yourself in thorns. But you are sweetness through and through.
I choke on the memory.
"I am Yours," I say, louder now. "I am Yours."
My body trembles with the effort of kneeling upright. My arms shake. My breath tears in and out.
I do not need you to see what I am about to do to you.
I bow again, but the cross above the hearth only stares back in silence.
By the time my body falters, I am bent forward on shaking arms, breath tearing in and out of my chest. My skirts are twisted. My hands tremble against the floor. My knees are red and swollen where they pressed the wood.
I push myself upright, swaying. My palms are smeared with dust, my hair hangs loose and tangled around my face. The cloth at my finger has loosened and blood seeps faintly through it again.
Still, beneath the exhaustion, the words remain, pulse relentlessly inside my skull.
I close my eyes, but they do not leave.
My hands shake as I drag the basin from beneath the table and set it near the hearth. The wood scrapes loudly against the floor, the sound jarring through me. My hands move too quickly, knocking a spoon aside as I reach for the bucket. Water sloshes against the rim as I pour it in.
Cold. Good.
It should be cold.
I unstopper the vial and pour—more than I should. The holy water slips into the basin in a thin, shining thread. It disturbs the surface, sends slow rings outward. I tip the vial again, emptying what remains.
My fingers rise to my brow. My chest. My shoulders.
"In the name of the Father," I whisper. My voice cracks.
The door. I turn and slide the latch firmly into place. My coat falls first. Then my dress. My shift clings briefly to my skin before I drag it over my head and let it drop to the floor.
Air rushes over my skin, cold climbing me in a sudden sweep, making me shiver so hard my teeth almost knock together. My nipples tighten. The fire offers little warmth; the light from it lays thin bands across my stomach, my thighs. My body feels fevered and exposed. My skin remembers too much.
I kneel, the floor biting into me. The basin waits before me, dark and accusing. The first touch of the cloth in the water makes my fingers recoil. It is colder than I expected. I force my hand back in and soak it fully, wring it hard.
I press the cloth to the inside of my left wrist first.
"Lord have mercy."
The fabric drags over skin that still remembers his mouth. A tremor passes through me. I press harder.
"Cleanse me."
I move to the other wrist. Scrub. Scrub again.
My chest next.
The cloth lands over my sternum. Cold shocks through me. I drag it upward, across my collarbone, over the slope of my breast. My breath turns uneven.
"Cast out impurity."
I scrub harder, until my skin grows pink beneath the friction, until the cold becomes heat.
Between my thighs.
I I hesitate only a breath before pressing the cloth there. The cold steals the air from my lungs, but the memory answers it—heat beneath it, pulsing, alive. I press harder, as if I can scour it out.
"Strip me of desire."
I scrub.
Again.
Again.
The motion grows frantic. My thighs tremble under my own hand. The skin burns where I drag the cloth over and over. Water runs down the inside of my legs and pools on the floor.
"Lord have mercy."
My voice grows thin.
I lift the cloth again, soak it, wring it until my grip aches.
My throat.
I tilt my head and press the fabric to the bite. Pain flares instantly—a cruel sting that shoots straight down my spine. My body jerks, but I press harder, until the cloth digs into the two small marks. My skin throbs beneath it. I scrub in tight circles, breath coming ragged.
"Cast it out," I whisper. "Cast it out."
The sting deepens. My fingers tremble but do not stop. The basin water ripples violently from the force of my movements; it drips down my neck, over my chest. The firelight flickers across my damp skin.
I do not stop.
Again.
Again.
Again.
My skin glows with cold and friction. My hair clings damp against my back. My breath comes in harsh pulls, somewhere between sob and prayer.
"Forgive me," I murmur.
The room smells faintly of iron and wet wood.
I scrub until my arms weaken. Until the cloth slips from my grasp. Until the sting in my throat feels deeper than the marks themselves.
My eyes close. For a moment, there is only the sound of my own breath and the faint crackle of the hearth.
Until something crawls along the back of my neck, a thin thread pulled taut beneath my skin. The sense of something standing just beyond my reach.
Watching.
My eyes fly open, arms clutching across my chest, body folding inward. My gaze snaps toward the door. The latch holds. The walls stand still. The curtain to my mother’s alcove hangs unmoving, the icons stare down in silence.
No breath but mine. No shadow shifting.
Still the feeling lingers, pressing against my bare skin as though unseen eyes trace every inch of it. My heart slams against my ribs.
I seize my shift from the floor and drag it over my head with shaking hands. The linen sticks briefly to damp skin before settling. I pull on my skirts, my bodice, fumbling with ties that refuse my fingers.
I am alone. The thought does not comfort.
I swallow and force myself to finish dressing. My hair hangs loose down my back, cold and heavy. I twist it quickly, knotting it at my nape. I glance again toward the door. Toward the beam above. Toward the basin.
The water no longer lies clear. It has grown dull, clouded with ash and the faint smear of my touch. The surface trembles slightly from the tremor still running through my hands.
Tainted.
I seize the basin, its weight sloshing unevenly as I hurry to the door and wrench it open. The water arcs briefly in the morning light, then breaks against the ground. It splashes against my shoes and runs outward in small branching streams, seeping between stones and roots.
I watch it sink, watch the ground drink it slowly, the wet darken the dust before fading.
I stand there long after it has vanished.
My chest rises and falls too fast. My fingers dig into the rim of the empty basin.
The earth has taken it. Yet the unease remains, as though something within me was never poured out at all.
The salt still glitters pale across the threshold when I hear footsteps.
Elena is running toward me, skirts gathered in her fists. Her braid has come loose. Her cheeks are flushed deep, eyes wide in a way that makes my stomach drop before she even speaks.
"Raveena," she gasps. "Come. Quick."
"What is it?" I ask, though my feet are already moving.
She grabs my wrist and pulls, her fingers cold. "It's the sheep."
My heart gives a violent, hollow thud.
No. It rises in me like a plea. Please no.
But beneath it, something colder settles.
I let him live.
Gravel bites through my thin soles. The village is already stirring toward the pasture, doors opening, voices rising.
Men stride past us with ropes and knives at their belts.
Someone is shouting toward the fields, and I smell it before I see it.
Iron. Wet grass. A sweetness that turns my tongue thick.
When we reach the fence, I stop short.
They lie scattered across the slope—a dozen of them. White wool dulled with mud, legs twisted where they fell. Eyes open. No frenzy. No scattered flesh.
Only absence.
Flies gather in a humming veil over the bodies. The grass beneath them is dark, soaked.
My breath leaves me in a thin sound as my fingers rise toward my neck. The skin there burns as if touched by a coal. I let my hand fall before it reaches the mark.
Behind me, someone crosses himself. The men kneel beside the carcasses, turning them over, searching for tracks. One lifts his hands, slick with what little remains, and curses aloud. Another one spits into the dirt.
"This is no wolf. No beast does this."
The word hangs unspoken, but I hear it all the same.
Strigoi.
My stomach twists.
I should speak. I should tell them what I saw in the clearing. Tell them about the red eyes. About the deer. About the way my blade burned him.
The travellers knew. Tata did too. Silver. Fire. Words older than these walls.
Prayer and traps will not stop this.
But when I open my mouth, nothing comes. If I speak, I will have to explain how I know.
How I lowered the blade. How I let him—
And what if I am wrong? What if it is my own mind unraveling?
What if I brought this upon us?
My neck throbs again, intimate. My eyes land on the sheep. On the clean lines of the wounds. The hollowness.
This is real.
And yet everything inside me feels unsteady, as though the ground itself has shifted and I am the only one who can feel it.
My gaze drifts across the flock, counting without meaning to.
One. Two. Three.
Twelve. A dozen offerings laid at our feet.
The morning sun climbs higher, indifferent. Elena’s hand tightens around mine, and I realize I am trembling. I press my lips together and taste iron.
The men rise now, faces flushed, hands shaking. They are no longer looking at the sheep. They are looking at each other.
"Someone let it in," a woman mutters.
"Someone called it."
Eyes begin to shift. From carcass to neighbor. From neighbor to stranger.
That frightens me more than the bodies do.