The Goat Man
Undrea hit our doors with the first snow. The large snowflakes fell fast, the snow layer making it harder for my horse to gallop.
Ana insisted on collecting the ninth soul on the first day of winter. A symbol of some sort. Therefore, she glided her fingers on her Mirror for the perfect soul. Once she found it, she ran outside, where Eugen and I were trying to build snowmen. If only the horse wouldn’t eat their heads.
“Shoo, horsey!” Eugen yelled, with his cheeks already pink.
“Let him be,” I said, gesturing around us, “there’s plenty of snow, and we can try again.”
I was already walking towards a new spot when Ana came to me. My eyes tracked the stomping of the woman who captured my mind, and my lips spread into a smile.
“I found him,” she announced, her gaze travelling to Eugen, who was collecting some branches meant to be the hands of the snowmen army.
“Where?” I asked, catching her waist.
Her hands flew to my neck, pulling me closer to her. As soon as our lips met, my pulse quickened, as it did every time I held Ana in my arms.
Only if the child wasn’t watching with disgust. “You two, please!”
Laughing, Ana broke the kiss and extracted her hands. “S?pan?a, Maramure?,” she breathed, her eyes staying on my lips.
“Do you want to travel alone?” I asked, preparing one large ball of snow for the base of a snowman.
She pondered for a bit until Eugen was out of earshot. “Yes,” she stated, placing her hands in the apron’s pockets. “I would like that.”
I nodded, watching the child. “So be it. When do you leave?”
“This afternoon.”
I turned to her. She kept her eyes closed to hide her true feelings. My Ana by no means would speak so lightly about taking a soul. “Is something the matter?”
She shook her head, but the tremor in her hands told me otherwise. I let her be. I didn’t want to pressure her into giving me information that she didn’t want to share.
“Alright then,” I said, kissing her cheek.
“Tiberius.” Her voice shook, and it broke my soul. “We will be fine, right?” She swallowed, tears forming in her eyes. My hands grabbed her waist and gathered her to my chest.
“We will be more than fine. One more soul and we will take down the Elk,” I whispered in her midnight hair. My hands tightened around her because there were no words of comfort when the threat of dying was around us.
“Where are you going, Mr Goat Man?”
Whirling around from my dresser, my eyes fell on the boy munching on some jum?ri. My stomach recoiled immediately.
“You should eat some bread with those,” I suggested, picking up my cloak.
“It’s not done baking yet… but these are warm and freshly cut. Want some?” the child asked, coming inside the chamber. He stretched his hand and offered me a piece.
It was the time of the Ignat. When everybody cut their pigs and prepared the meat for the winter. Andrei made no exception, following each tradition even in death. I had no idea where he procured our meat from; he had his ways.
“No,” I shook my head and draped the cloak over my shoulders.
“Are you going after Ana?” Eugen asked, popping another piece in his mouth, the crunch of the fat making me jump.
“Yes, I am. Why?” I arched one eyebrow at him.
“Don’t you want her to deal alone with her ripping?”
I wanted that. But her demeanour from early morning placed many doubts in my head. As if something ominous was brewing. My hands stilled on my scythe.
“I want to come too.”
“No.” There was no other option. What if something happened and I couldn’t concentrate? What if the child were traumatised by Ana ripping a soul? She was already in a dubious place after taking so many lives.
Without a single word, I travelled myself to Maramure?. But as my body was circling in the air, my cloak got pulled.
“Ah!”
In that moment, a darkness took hold of me. I could have ended the child’s life, then my own. Eugen lay limp on the stone, holding the jum?ri for dear life. I ran to him, checking his pulse. Luckily, he landed in a pile of snow, but he could have fallen in the freshly dug grave next to it.
“Child! Have you gone mad?” I spoke in a harsh whisper, roaming my eyes over his body.
He opened his eyes. “I was bored! And shouting won’t change a thing!”
My fists clenched, and I looked around us.
Dozens of colourful gravestones stood in the famous Cemetery of S?pan?a, known as The Merry Cemetery.
Bright colours from blue to yellow tinted the tombstones.
On them were painted the people buried under, with cheerful expressions.
It was the only cemetery which celebrated death.
In contrast with every other cemetery in Romania, Merry Cemetery’s luminosity brought the idea that the afterlife was a joy and not pain.
I helped the child get up; his hands clutched the piece of food. He looked around, his light eyebrows going up. “Oh my...” he breathed, examining a tombstone.
My eyes searched the cemetery for a woman wearing her long, ebony hair down with a bright, wool cloak with twisted chain stitches on the edges and her scythe, which would cut anyone’s skin. But in the sea of cheerful graves, I didn't notice anyone.
I took a step towards the exit of the cemetery when a glimmer caught my attention.
“Eugen,” I whispered, turning to him. The boy was trying to read who was laid to rest under a red painted cross. There were jokes written on it, and the boy tilted his head to read. “Stay down,” I warned, crouching next to him.
He listened, but his eyes were still focused on the cross.
The snow crunched under thick boots, and he walked towards the middle of the cemetery. A man who had an axe and a shovel advanced to the largest of the tombstones. Leaving his tools aside, he rubbed his hands and smiled. The man took off his sheepskin hat and his cojoc, throwing them in the snow.
His hands grabbed his shovel and started digging the dirt covered in snow. The man did not notice the woman who had her scythe ready to strike.
“Are you robbing graves, sir?” she asked, her head hidden by the cloak.
My pulse stilled as I took her in. She was out of this world, her purity shining from inside and out.
I almost didn’t notice the man turning and trying to hit her with the shovel. My hands twitched, trying not to jump to her aid. Eugen yelped next to me but bit his tongue. He clenched his fingers around my wrist, his eyes fixing on Ana.
She stopped the shovel with her scythe, her hood falling off her eyes. Surprised by what was hidden behind the fabric, the man fell to his knees.
“I’m sorry!” he whined, trying to touch Ana. She took a step behind, placing the scythe over his head. “I just wanted to sell their jewellery for money! For my family!”
“Liar! I know you do not have one,” Ana’s whisper travelled to us. “You gamble and throw money on carnal pleasures.”
She was about to decapitate the man when her body stilled.
At her hesitation, the man scurried away, leaving everything behind.
Just as another scythe appeared in the air, I travelled between her and the blade. Its wielder was not skilled and missed my chest, grazing my hand instead. With my mind, I sent the one who wore a deer skull to the grave before us. It thrashed when Ana passed her scythe right between its skull.
She came next to me, watching as the body of the member of the Order vanished. “Your brother sent him, didn’t he?” she asked, gripping my hand.
“Most likely.”
Small steps pushing the snow away made us turn our heads. Eugen was still eating those damned jum?ri as his eyes strayed from us to the grave. “It looks like you need another soul.”
Before, I might have choked him in fury; now, I only wished to let the winter swallow his words.
“He is trying to stop us,” Ana observed, watching me. “If he wants you to be human, why would he stop me?”
My hand found hers, and I intertwined our fingers. “Perhaps he wants to jest with us.”
“To make us desperate,” she whispered. Her eyes moved to Eugen. “You should have brought at least some bread with you, sweetheart.” A warm smile spread over her lips, and love for the boy was written in her eyes.
“That is what Tiberius said too, but it was not done yet.” Eugen shrugged, shoving the last piece of fat in his mouth.
“Sure, but if your stomach hurts, we need to call for that old woman from my village.” Ana winked, knowing that Eugen did not like the old crone.
“It’s time to return,” I said, holding both in my arms.
Ana looked me in the eyes as she wrapped her hand around my waist, a single tear falling on her cheek. With her free hand, she grabbed the boy’s shoulder.
Once we arrived at the lair, the smell of fresh bread reached my nostrils, pulling Eugen towards the kitchen, his hunger not satiated.
I followed Ana to her room. In the past weeks, she slept in my bed, leaving her old chamber for Eugen.
“Why were you worried this morning?” I asked, taking off my coat.
She turned to me, her ie dampened from sweat. “About happenings like this,” Ana sighed, and braided her hair in quick moves. “I have the feeling that the next soul I choose will be either hard to take or the Elk will pull a stunt like today.”
“Are you afraid that you cannot take it?”
“Yes. But mostly, I would like to delay it,” she whispered. At my raised eyebrows, she stepped closer to me. “If I take the remaining soul, we won’t have time to spend together. We will need to act fast.”
I tilted my head. “Ana, I assume we can sleep before our impending death,” I joked, but there was no humour left in my voice.
Turning around, her eyes were shimmering. “Promise me that we won’t die, Tiberius! Now that I have my own family, I would like to raise it.”
“I promise, inim?. I will stand before all of you and shelter you from my brother's wrath.”
“I found him,” Ana gasped, the steam from the bath I drew her diminished my vision of the Mirror.
“Who is it?” I asked, wiping her back with a cloth.
Heavy silence fell between us. Her head moved closer to the Mirror, its gold frame shining from the candlelight.
Taking a deep breath, she finally whispered her answer. “My father…” Her head turned to me, questions in her eyes.
I took the Mirror from her hands, seeing the man I was supposed to rip. In the image, he was using his remaining hand to beat Ana’s mother, ripping her clothes off.
Ana darted out of the bath, water dripping in her wake, running to her chamber.
Once I reached her room, she was already gone.
Besides her gold embroidered cloak, her skull was missing, too. Her scythe was nowhere to be seen either.
“What is happening, Tibi?” the child asked, rubbing his eyes from sleep.
His izmene were too baggy for him, and his shirt was making him look like a stuffed sack with feet.
“Go back to sleep, child!” I demanded, taking my skull with me and leaving through my chamber’s hole.
“Tibi!” he yelled after me, halting from mounting my stallion.
I turned to both the ghost and Eugen, watching me with worry, their faces pulled in similar frowns.
“Will she return to us?” the child asked, his voice small.
“I don’t know,” I said back, a lump in my neck.
I saw no light at the end of this tunnel for Ana.
The same yard I watched months ago stood before my eyes. The livestock was already asleep as I stepped into the vegetable garden, covered by thick snow and dirt.
In the months since I had met Ana, her family’s house turned into shambles, piss and dirt everywhere. The rooftop had holes in it, and the stables were almost falling on the animals that slept soundly in them.
There were broken windows here and there, the beauty of the house long gone.
From what I’ve gathered from my Mirror, Ana’s sister was still living with her parents, the wedding with her betrothed, Gavril, delayed by her family’s situation. He did try to take Angelica and her mother away, but Anghel, Ana’s father, threatened to burn every crop Gavril’s family owned.
“I saved him for nothing,” Ana whispered, standing in front of the main door, her muscles clenched and her tears melting the snow at her feet.
The dress she was wearing was wet at the seams, the dark cherry blossoms that decorated it hidden.
Her words haunted the space and my mind. My lungs stretched at the realisation that her sacrifice could be in vain.
“His blood runs through my veins, Tiberius! How can I take him?”
I knew that the moment she said who the ninth soul was.
“We will find another one, Ana! I missed some souls, too. There will be others to claim,” I tried to reassure her, but to no effect.
“We are running out of time, Tiberius! If we do not have the ninth soul by the middle of Undrea, then we won’t have time to get the last one…”
I knew that. But also, I was aware that she could not rip her father’s soul.
“Ana, let’s go home,” I pleaded, touching her arm lightly.
“Whenever I looked in the Mirror, I saw them smiling. My father was nowhere to be seen. Why is that?”
Her voice broke.
“I have no clear answer, inim?. It is possible that you did not see their smiles faltering, or tears falling on their cheeks?”
She shook her head. “I wanted to believe that I did them a service. I sacrificed myself because he was the only one who could support them with money, and in our country, there is not much a woman can do in these times.”
Ana took a few steps towards the stables, her shoulders shaking.
“Ana… you are bargaining with yourself now,” I whispered.
She whirled around, her cheeks sparkling from tears. I rushed to her, kissing her face, nose, eyes, and mouth, and pulled her into an embrace.
“I will be here if you need me, inim?.” I turned her around, her cloak brushing the snow at our feet. I just hoped she had the strength in her to do it.