Chapter Four #2
Elena stands among them, her hands clasped tight before her chest, her mouth trembling, her eyes fixed somewhere near my shoulder.
Radu is beside his father, jaw set, gaze lowered now, as though he cannot bear to see what he has helped build.
Doamn? Marica presses a cloth to her lips, eyes wide, breathing shallow.
Others lean forward, intent, fearful, curious.
Ilinca and her mother are not there. A small, fragile relief settles into me.
Popa Dorin’s voice continues.
"Such darkness does not come unbidden…" The rest slips from me, words breaking apart before they can form meaning. I catch fragments. "…sin… allowed to take root… corruption… spreads…"
My eyes drift.
Mama stands at the back.
Her shoulders shake, her hands clutching at Elena’s sleeve as though she might collapse without her. Tears run freely down her face, catching in the lines of it, but she does not lift her gaze. She does not look at me.
"Mama," I try, but the word is swallowed by the cloth at my mouth.
"…we do not act in anger…" Popa Dorin's voice drones somewhere above the sound of my own pulse. "…but in the name of order… of cleansing…"
The world tilts again. I try to hold onto something solid—Mama's face, her voice, the way she had touched my cheek that morning—but it slips, just out of reach.
Radu’s father steps forward when the priest’s voice fades, his presence firm, grounding the words that have been spoken. He nods once, deliberate, his gaze sweeping over the gathered villagers.
"It will be done."
The finality of it lands heavier than anything before.
The crowd shifts. Someone crosses themselves. Another lowers their head. A child begins to cry.
I lift my eyes again, searching, hoping—still hoping—for something to break this, for someone to step forward, to say it has gone too far, that this is not right, that they remember me—
No one moves.
The sky stretches wide above, pale and indifferent.
I see it happen before it reaches me, as though the world has slowed just enough to make each movement unbearable.
The priest’s assistant steps forward, his face eager, his hands too careful as he brings the torch to life.
The flame catches slowly, then steadies, a small, trembling thing at first, no larger than a breath.
I shake my head. My body jerks against the ropes, instinct breaking through what little strength remains in me with a desperate movement that does nothing but tighten the fibres further into my skin.
My wrists burn. My shoulders scream. I twist anyway, pulling, pushing, trying to find space where there is none.
My broken leg tweaks uselessly, the iron clamped to it grinding against itself, sending flashes of pain that barely register beneath the rising terror.
No.
No, this is not—
Popa Dorin steps closer.
"May God receive… what is broken…"
"…purified…"
"…restored…"
None of it makes sense.
He takes the torch. For a moment, it hovers there, just below me, the flame trembling, alive in a way nothing else feels anymore.
Then he lowers it. There is a crackle, small at first. Almost nothing.
Mama’s cry breaks through the square, louder than anything that has come before. It tears across the air, but I cannot reach for it.
The fire catches.
It spreads quickly along the base, feeding on the dry wood, licking upward in thin, eager tongues. I feel it then, a warmth against my legs, creeping upward.
For a moment—
It is almost gentle.
A strange, unfurling heat, like the memory of sunlight on skin, like the warmth of the hearth when reaching for a pie. It does not feel like what I feared. It does not feel like—
Then it changes.
The flames rise, catch the fabric. It licks higher, finding the hem of my dress, catching there, climbing with a hunger both sudden and insistent. Fabric darkens, curls, blackens, then bursts into flame. The heat deepens, thickens, pressing closer, closer—
My leg. The wound.
The fire finds it.
The exposed flesh, the torn skin, the blood that has not yet dried—everything answers at once. The heat sears into it, raw and immediate, and the iron of the trap begins to glow beneath it, warming, heating, until it burns where it touches me.
Pain explodes.
It is not a single thing. It is everywhere. It devours, floods through me so completely that there is no space left for breath or thought or anything else. My body arches against the stake, a scream tearing free of me so violently the cloth at my mouth gives way.
I gasp, but air does not come.
Smoke fills my lungs instead, thick and choking, forcing its way down my throat, burning as it goes. My chest seizes as a cough tears from me, each breath worse than the last. My eyes sting, tears spilling freely now, blurring everything into light and shadow and flame.
It climbs higher.
I feel it on my skin, on my stomach, my chest, my arms bound tight behind me, unable to move away, unable to shield anything. The heat is no longer outside me—it is inside, tearing through nerve and muscle, turning everything into something unrecognizable.
"Mama—"
The name breaks from me, desperate.
"Mama—please—"
I cannot see her.
My voice cracks, rises, falls again, dissolving into sobs, into cries that do not belong to the woman I was but to something smaller, something stripped down to fear alone.
"Mama—Mama—"
I search for her through the blur, through the smoke, through the fire that dances and distorts everything.
Then I see them.
The children. Small shapes pressed between skirts and legs, lifted onto arms, held close not to be spared—but to see. Their faces turn toward me, wide-eyed, unblinking, their small mouths parted, their fingers clutching at sleeves as they watch.
They do not look away. One of them tilts their head, curious, as though trying to understand what I am becoming.
They brought them. They brought them to watch.
The flames climb higher. They take the fabric, my skin, my breath.
"I’m here—please—Mama—"
Through the flames, through the heat that bends the air and blurs the world, I find her.
Her face breaks through the blur of bodies, pale and wet, her mouth open around a sound I cannot quite hear. For a moment, everything else falls away. The heat, the pain, the roaring in my ears—none of it matters.
My mama is looking at me.
My body strains toward her without moving, my voice breaking again as I reach for her with nothing but sound.
"Mama—"
Her eyes lock onto mine, and for a brief instant, I am certain—she will come. She will stop this. She will push through them, tear me free, pull me out of the fire like she has pulled me from every fear since I was small.
"My child…" she whispers, though I barely hear it over the crackle of the fire. Her lips tremble, each word pulled from her as though it costs her something to speak. "This… this is for your good."
The words do not make sense.
I shake my head, my chest convulsing as I try to breathe.
Her hands clasp tighter before her, body folding inward as though she cannot hold herself upright. Still, she looks at me.
"You must be made clean," she cries, tears spilling freely now. "This will purify what has been… corrupted." Her voice falters, then steadies again, forcing itself forward. "So your soul may be received. So you may still—"
Her breath falters.
"—meet the Father."
The world shrinks on itself.
"No—" The plea tears out of me. "No—Mama—please—"
"She must be silenced!"
Petru’s wife's voice rises somewhere near, laced with panic.
"Cover her mouth. Do you not hear her? She will call it. She will bring it here."
Hands move again at the edge of my vision, uncertain, wavering.
"We cannot reach her—" someone says. "The fire—"
"Then cover her face," she snaps, urgency tightening her tone. "Muffle it. Do you wish to invite it upon us as well?"
A murmur ripples through the crowd.
"We cannot—"
"That would bind her spirit—"
"Her soul will not be able to—"
Their voices clash, uncertain, frightened.
But Petru’s wife turns on them, her voice rising above theirs all. "Her soul is not yours to guard," she says. "God will judge what is left of it."
Through the smoke, his cassock appears again.
Popa Dorin stands still, watching, his expression drawn tight, doubt flickering there—
For a moment, everything hangs.
Then—
A single nod.
"No—" I scream, the sound tearing from me. "No—please—"
Hands push forward.
They reach through the heat, through the rising flames, cloth clutched tight between them. I twist, I thrash, what little strength I have left giving out in a final, desperate struggle. My body arches, strains against the rope, against the fire itself.
"Stop—please—please—"
The cloth comes down over my face. It presses against my mouth, my nose, my eyes, stealing what little air remains, trapping the heat against my skin. Hands force it into place, binding it tight around my head, sealing it there. My scream dies inside it, trapped, turned inward.
The fire roars louder in the dark. The air disappears. And I am alone inside it.
I cry until the sound no longer belongs to me.
It tears out of me again and again, each sob breaking against the cloth, swallowed before it can reach the air. My throat shreds beneath it, the sound turning raw, then hoarse, then something smaller, thinner, until even that begins to fail me. Still I try. Still I call.
Mama.
No answer ever comes.
Only the fire.
It crackles and feeds and moves, a living thing that does not pause, does not listen, does not care.
My skin tightens, splits, peels where it meets the flame, unbearable bursts that tear through whatever remains of me, then vanish again into something numb and distant.
It climbs higher, closer, wrapping itself around what remains of me, pressing in with a heat that once was pain. Now it dulls.
My thoughts slip. They come in fragments, breaking apart before they can form, drifting away like ash carried upward into something I can no longer see.