Chapter Two
The day folds into ritual.
They wash what remains of Popa Vasile behind closed doors.
The severed hand is removed from the door and wrapped in linen without ceremony.
Buckets of water are carried in and out, cloths wrung red and then pale again.
The bells do not ring. Instead, psalms rise in low, steady voices, led by Popa Dorin from the front of the church, his words precise, measured, leaving no space for wavering.
The body is wrapped tightly in linen, face veiled.
When they bring him out, the cloth at his shoulders is already dark where it should not be. No one lingers. No one asks to see.
They lower him into the earth before the sun has climbed high.
The grave has been dug quickly, the soil damp and heavy.
Clods thud against wood with a sound that seems too final for such a hurried farewell.
Mama crosses herself repeatedly. Elena weeps softly into her sleeve.
Radu stands stiff, jaw set, as though swallowing something cutting.
Popa Dorin stands at the edge of the grave, his voice rising clear and firm as he speaks of vigilance, of watchfulness, of shepherds called home and flocks tested by fire.
He does not weep. He does not linger on Popa Vasile’s virtues.
His words press forward, toward what must be corrected, what must be guarded, what must be purified.
The villagers bow their heads. Some cry quietly.
Others stare at the open earth as though measuring their own place within it.
By the time the grave is filled, the yard already feels altered. The church doors have been scrubbed. The chest of offerings has been carried inside and shut.
The sermon stretches long into the pale afternoon. He quotes scripture without faltering, correcting a man mid-response when the line is spoken imperfectly. "It is thus," he says firmly, and the man bows his head in apology.
Near the end, his voice deepens.
"We must answer defilement with obedience. The Lord does not delight in blood, but in repentance. Yet as the innocent Lamb bore the sins of many, so we offer this creature in humility, that corruption may be driven from among us."
A stir passes through the crowd.
Men exchange glances. A murmur swells and shifts.
Before the words have fully settled, several voices speak over one another.
One offers a lamb from his own flock. Another insists his is larger, his offering more fitting.
A third steps forward with urgency, declaring that his household owes thanks for blessings received and will provide the animal.
Their voices overlap, urgent now, eager.
Only days ago, they counted losses with tight jaws and wet eyes, cursing the unseen predator that took from their fields. They stood at their fences at dawn, running hands over the torn throats of sheep, whispering prayers into wool matted with blood.
Now they press forward to give one willingly.
The image lingers against another memory: a voice in the forest, low and patient, speaking of hunger as nature’s law. Of beasts who kill because they must. Of men who do the same and call it righteousness.
They choose one at last.
It is small, its fleece still soft with youth, its ears twitching as it is led forward on a rope that jerks too tightly at its throat.
The animal resists at first, hooves scraping against packed earth, a thin bleat breaking from it that trembles in the cold air.
The sound pierces through the murmurs and leaves a silence in its wake.
Popa Dorin steps down from the church steps and approaches it. He runs his hand slowly along the lamb’s back, fingers pressing through the fleece, feeling the spine beneath.
"Without blemish," he says.
The words are simple. Final.
Two men move forward. One forces the lamb down onto its side, knee pressed into its flank, hands gripping its legs.
The other kneels beside its head, drawing a blade from his belt.
The lamb struggles then in earnest, its bleating breaking into frantic gasps.
Its eyes roll white, searching faces that refuse to meet them.
The sun is sinking low now, casting long shadows across the churchyard. The sky burns faintly where it meets the dusk, red bleeding into gold.
A knife flashes.
The cut is quick, practiced. A single, sure movement across the throat.
Blood spills in a bright rush against pale wool, then darkens as it meets the cold earth before the church, steam rising faintly where it strikes the ground.
The lamb’s cries thin into gurgling breaths.
Its body jerks beneath the man’s weight, hooves scraping against the ground, then slowing, then stilling.
No one cheers.
The crowd stands still, hands folded, heads bowed. A child begins to cry somewhere near the back, the sound small and high. Another joins, quickly smothered by a mother’s hand pressed over a mouth. The ravens circle once overhead, drawn by scent, then settle along the rooftops again, waiting.
The priest murmurs a prayer over the body, words steady and unshaken. His gaze does not falter.
The blood continues to darken the soil, pooling at the foot of the church door where another stain already lies beneath the wood. The two mingle quietly.
***
The lamb is carried into the kitchen before the blood has fully dried upon the earth.
The women gather around it in tight formation, sleeves rolled, knives laid out upon the table.
The body looks smaller without its wool, pale and fragile, ribs faintly visible beneath thin flesh.
Too slight. The legs, once trembling with life, hang limp over the edge of the board.
Doamn? Ileana works with steady movements, knife gliding along bone, separating flesh with practiced strokes. Fat curls away in thin ribbons. Someone jokes softly that at least it will be tender. The sound falls flat and is not answered.
I take a portion when it is handed to me. My fingers run along the exposed muscle, slick and warm still from the day’s sun. It is hardly enough to fill a large pot. This body will not stretch far.
My thumb presses lightly into the hollow beneath its shoulder. I lean closer without meaning to, lips barely moving. "I am sorry," I whisper, so softly that the sound dissolves into the steam. "It was not required."
The knife continues its work. Pieces are separated. Laid out. Distributed. The smell thickens in the room, iron and fat mingling with wood smoke.
By evening the barn is full again. Bowls are passed from hand to hand. The meat is divided carefully, each portion modest, each child given a piece before the adults serve themselves. Smoke gathers low near the rafters. The scent of cooked flesh clings to wool and hair.
At first there is quiet. Spoons scrape wood. Teeth tear. The only sounds are chewing and the restless shifting of bodies against benches.
But beneath the surface, something moves.
A murmur travels along one side of the barn, thin as thread.
I catch fragments without trying to listen.
A name spoken too softly to be certain. Then another, offered in response.
Someone recalls how certain people do not attend mass as often as they should.
Another wonders aloud who keeps herbs tucked above her doorway despite the priest’s warning.
A third mentions how smoke was seen at an odd hour last week, rising from a chimney when all others lay dark.
The voices never rise. They slip from mouth to mouth like breath shared in winter.
Across from me, two women lean close together, heads nearly touching. One shakes her head slowly, lips pressed thin. The other nods once, eyes flicking toward the far end of the barn where a small figure sits apart from the others.
Radu’s mother speaks in low tones with Doamn? Marica, hands folded tight in her lap. I see the way her gaze lingers on Neaga for a fraction too long before turning away. Someone mentions that grief makes people strange. Someone else suggests that certain houses seem colder than others.
The lamb’s bones pile in a small wooden bowl at the centre of the table, picked clean.
I sit with my portion untouched for a long while, the taste of it heavy on my tongue.
I want to stand. To tell them that the darkness they fear does not hover in corners or creep through doorframes.
That it has already come and gone. That their flocks will not be touched again.
That the forest does not hunger for them.
Popa Dorin sits near the front, posture straight, speaking softly with Radu’s father between bites. His head inclines, listening, nodding once, twice. He does not look toward the whispering clusters, yet his words from earlier hang over us still, shaping the air we breathe.
By the time the bowls are cleared, the barn feels smaller than it did at dawn. Eyes no longer meet freely. Conversations fracture into pairs and trios. Shoulders angle away from one another.
Outside, night gathers again beyond the doors.
When the sun sinks behind the rooftops and the last light slips from the sky, the barn has been rearranged.
The men lie along one wall, cloaks rolled beneath their heads, boots placed neatly in rows. The women are gathered opposite them, closer to the far door, blankets spread over hay. A rope has been strung across the middle, crude and unnecessary, yet obeyed without question.
Popa Dorin stood at the threshold before nightfall, hands folded within his sleeves.
He spoke quietly of modesty, of vigilance.
He said that fear loosens discipline, that proximity invites weakness.
He reminded the women that idle tongues breed sin.
A few men lowered their heads, some shifted uneasily, but no one argued.
Now we lie divided.
I stare at the rafters above, counting the dark lines where wood meets shadow.
Sleep does not come.