The Legend of Baba Dokia

PROLOGUE

There is something intrinsically morbid about the mioritic[1] autumn. The way the vegetal decay enchants us, the rebirth looming under the forests’ death.

And that something in our fear of seeing things for what they are, even when they terrify us.

            In a hamlet overlooked by all the maps no one had ever heard of in any corner of the world, at the end of a muddy pathway, stood shyly an adobe house, cracked to the very bone. The howling collarless dogs, the curious weeds growing like scattered hair strands, the yellowed tiles thrown around the tiny yard, burned by the frosts and time and times, mirrored their master.

For at the core of all this, on a carved log vaguely resembling a stool, sat a crone. Half deaf and half blind, with a cane as tall as an oak tree, she’d been knocking on the ground since the beginning of time. Or so it was said.

Only she knew what she knocked for. Some called her Dokia[2], for they feared her like the Devil himself, and when she knocked the wooden cane harder, the living fires would swell, the dirt roads would crack and a son would leave his home for the wilderness of the mountain forests, never to be seen again.

Others came to her as to a holy icon, for they thought the crone’s enchantments to be miracles, and they bowed before her as a faded iconostasis.

The crone remained silent. No one could remember her voice, for the few that had heard it were now long dust and bones. But she watched with her mind and listened - with her fingers wrinkled by the cane’s ceaseless tremor - across the lands. She knew all, from the ravens and the poison ivy, from the frost winds and the lead clouds which she summoned and dismissed as once the solomonars[3] used to. Who was to say, perhaps she had been one of them herself.

But as she stood silent, so the crone laughed to herself at the people’s minds and, closing her heavy eyelids over the words they threw, silencing them, she could feel him again. The black eyes, the young lips, the freckled cheeks and curly hair. And she let them all poison her.

CHAPTER ONE

Miss Evie Stoica had learned in her twenty-three years of life that she despised three things: small talk, boredom and old men - the latter almost always requiring putting up with the first two. But there were some advantages when these were one’s main problems in life, for it usually meant they were well-off enough for people to be curious about them.

Now that she thought about it, maybe there was a fourth thing she despised, above all else: being irrelevant.

            And that was exactly how she now felt, seated in the middle of an audience fascinated by the words coming out of her husband’s mouth. Her words.

            What was even worse was that she knew she had no right to feel this way, betrayed and… well, envious. It had been her that begged him to take her work and read it in the weekly Cenacle as his own, worried that were she the one presenting it, the assessing criteria would be considerably different; for a woman.

She hadn’t been wrong, as there had been a few times people inquired about her husband’s writing style, his way of delving deeper into his character’s emotional turmoil. Such sensitive approach to the human soul you have, mister Stoica they told him, and it had been fine, for she bore the same name too and she didn’t need their pats on the back to know her work was good enough.

            In fact, she didn’t really know what she wanted to do with it.

What do you think you’ll find there? The voice of her aunt still lingered in her head sometimes. After her parents’ death, it was either coming here, to the capital, or going to the monastery in the neighbouring village and becoming a nun.

She was too young to be a nun. And too smart to throw her youth away.

There hadn’t been much planning to do before she left her home behind. With the money she had inherited, Evie paid for her spot in university. As the daughter of a priest, she had the privilege of a better early education than most children raised in the mud and dust of the village.

It had been her final year when she met John, a disoriented law student who ended up in the wrong lecture hall. Luckly enough for Evie, it had taken the boy the whole two hours and a half to figure out he was in the wrong room, enough time for her to work her charms. Before she knew it, he accompanied her every day on her way home, carried her bag in between classes, taken her out for tea. Exactly like she’d hoped he would.

Evie was no foolish dreamer. She came to the capital with one goal in mind, the only thing that could make her relevant: marriage.

Even with a Literature diploma to her name, her options were limited; maybe a tutor for a higher-class family’s spoiled brat if she were lucky. Not enough for the comfortable lifestyle she sought for herself. Marriage was necessary, University was a fine place to look for suitors, and judging by John Stoica’s leather briefcase, his patent leather shoes and his shiny tiering, he came from the type of family she was eager to join.

But other things happened too, when they met. It had been fool’s luck, really. Being his wife alone was a blessing, as everyone kept reminding her. But it wasn’t that aspect she thought was most fortunate. No, the true blessing was that, without even noticing, she fell for him truly; that she now loved this man with all her heart, and he happened to love her back. That was something she had never dreamed of having.

And that was why she could be here now, listening to this speech – her speech – coming out of his mouth with such convincing ardour she wondered if those were indeed her words to begin with.

Evie closed her eyes.

“The readers keep reading out of a certain desire to be validated. They want to see if the theories they develop after the first few pages of their read turn out to be true. They assess characters and predict behaviours from the very first lines and, as writers, our greatest mistake is giving into those predictions - flattening our characters by making them do the first logical thing. Yet, our duty should be breaking those expectations completely.”

Hurried scribbling and interested hums vibrated around her, both students and professors listening to the lecture the Stoicas had rehearsed together the night before.

Smothered by the buzz, Evie remembered the first envelope they’ve ever gotten, sealed with crimson wax – an invitation to a convention of the new voices in literature. She remembered how they’d laughed at the pretentious title, how they’d kissed and hugged and giggled around their bedroom in disbelief. She kept going down the memory lane, when she’d first asked her husband to go to the most prestigious writing Cenacle in the capital, run by the rector of the Literature faculty, a stoic old man who only agreed to women joining as long as they kept to their seats. How eager John had been to help her, to make her happy again when the routine of city life took its toll and dulled his wife’s spirits. Mister Stoica would come home reporting in detail every word, every gasp and breath her writings elicited. How the professors and writers and students debated what she meant, how her husband recited what she’d told him to, all the meticulously picked details and meanings.

Now, the envelopes kept getting more colourful, the seals more intricate as the Stoica family was invited to bigger, flashier events. Writers, journalists and historians from across Europe gathered to exchange ideas, animated by the new wind of change the ending of the 19^th century brought. Evie wondered how long it would be until that wind would bring about more chairs for women like her.

Mister Stoica received his applause, gathered his papers and stepped down from the stage. He shook hands and accepted compliments on his ideas, his spirit and his pretty wife.

She owed him everything.

Miss Stoica opened her eyes and smiled brightly as her husband sat beside her and kissed her cheek.

“How did I do, my love?”

“Perfect, as usual.”

“You must be so proud”, an elderly man whispered from the seat to the right. “Such a bright man.”

And she was proud. It wasn’t just him that gained notoriety, but her as well, by extension. Every trace of her modest origins had now been forgotten. Highest society welcomed her as one of their own. She wore the newest fashions and jewellery she had only seen in magazines. And her husband, shy and hesitant at first, was now brimming with a new light, demanding attention, capturing every stare.

After the speeches were over, everyone moved to the hall were the drinking and dancing would take place. The first couple of conventions, mister Stoica had taken her hand, kissed her temple and told her he didn’t want to stay for the afterparties. She’d smiled to him, caressed his curls and thanked him, for everything.

After a while, however, the other gentlemen asked him to stay for a cigar. Then a cigar and a drink. Then two drinks and a debate which would take place at one of their mansions.

Tonight was one of those nights. After they politely attended the main gathering, Mister Stoica told her he would remain a bit longer and paid a carriage to take her home.

Alone in their bedroom, Evie did what she knew best: contemplated. Sleep refused to relieve her of the thoughts flooding in, a cacophony of doubts and worries.

She couldn’t really put her finger on the reason. She trusted her husband and he did an amazing job pretending to be the author, delivering all those ideas as if they were his.

Almost too good of a job, an annoying voice kept creeping in her head. And he is out there now because of you. He is nothing without you.

“Piss off”, she whispered as she sat up. If she couldn’t sleep, she could at least try and be productive. The next literary gathering would take place in two weeks’ time and she was still to figure out what she will present. What he will present.

Draping her night gown on the moonlit floor, miss Stoica entered her study and sat at her messy oaken desk.

An hour passed; no ink spent. Her fountain pen didn’t touch the paper in the following hour either. It was as if her mind stopped caring about the shapes and hues and depths she wanted to write about, utterly consumed by a silly question. Where the hell was John?

Yet this wasn’t the first time he was running late, and she knew it was unlikely to be the last. She could almost picture him, surrounded by men in tailored suits, sipping champagne, inquiring about his speech and ideas, his next literary moves. In the past few months, he had ditched his stammering, the polite smiles he offered whenever an unpredicted question came his way and he ran short of rehearsed answers. He grew bold, confident, never really leaving the convention stage. He wore her work like it was his, and God, it suited him.

Her husband had never failed her in any way, never made her feel any dread at the thought of him alone, surrounded by all the temptations money could buy. Yet Evie couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before he decided indulging in the luxuries of the capital’s extravagant parties was just another necessary part of his act.

How long before he himself believed he wrote all the pieces that brought him his fame.

Evie dropped the fountain pen on her desk as her head began to pound. Her eyes played tricks on her, her vision becoming blurrier and blurrier. She looked at the metal clock on her desk. Three in the morning. A razor-sharp migraine cut through her, squeezing her eyes shut.

She shouldn’t.

But it hurts- 

She sat up from her desk and laid on the creaking floor, the gentle breeze ruffling the curtains like veils of weeping widows. The sleepless nights had become routine, but the head-splitting pain was new, the heavy breathing. The tiny beads of sweat dampening her hairline glistened into the moonlight like tears. Defeated, she reached for the pocket of her night robe and fished out the pill. She swallowed it without water, choking slightly. Eyes still closed, she let it do its thing, kneading away her pain like the loving embrace of a mother.

She didn’t know how long it’d been before she started seeing her again. Her mother. And a tiny version of herself, playing in a muddy puddle in their backyard, waving around sticks and rocks.

“So shall the mighty Rock King fall, before the Queen of Sticks, unassuming, but sly as a fox!” the little girl declared.

The light steps of her mother hurried towards her, her voice already scolding.

“Evdokia! That was a new dress!”

“Let her be”, her father said from the porch, forever unbothered.

“People grow fishtails when they’re born in puddles”, he used to tell her. Little girls like you, thriving in the muddy water, grow fins and tails and swim through the world, their ripple shaking everyone in its wake. This is why you must go away. When you’ll grow, you must swim away, to clear waters.

The girl sat up from the puddle, her clothes a brown wet mess.

“Come here, child, sit.”

Her father patted his thigh, not caring about the mud dripping right over his clerical robes.

“Tell me, what story were you making up this time?”

The little girl went on and on about the kingdom from the puddle, the worlds she’d built from mud and childlike imagination.

In those times, she used to live more in her head than in her life, switching personalities, going around the village as heiress to a non-existent throne one day and nomad wizard the other. The people of the village joined in her play, bowing before her or asking her for herbs and magic cures.

When she was older and went to the lyceum in a nearby town, she started playing around with the gossip she heard, making up rumours.

Once, she’d convinced herself she fell for a blacksmith’s son just so she could get her heart broken and write a lachrymatory poem about it. Other time, she had told her classmates she was the granddaughter of a witch, and when the time would come, she’d have to step in and take her powers as her own, continuing her legacy.

Some laughed at her, some feared her, some only deemed her an odd kid and let her be. Yet she was having the time of her life pretending to be anything else than what she was, an ordinary girl with nothing to her name, nothing promising to her future.

Until the fire happened and the most terrifying night of her life woke her up to her senses.

“It’s just us now”, her aunt told her while they watched the two coffins going into the ground, the entire village sobbing by her side. Every bad thing that had ever happened to her she had turned into a poem, a story, a cluster of words on paper she could tear and burn whenever she felt like it.

But her parents had already burned to ash, leaving her behind.

She couldn’t stand that plotline. That twist of fate. So, she wrote another.

The story of miss Evie Stoica, the well-behaved country girl, venturing to study literature in the capital and find her way into the world, married young with the heir of one of the most successful lawyers in town.

Maybe it’s never really been about writing, but the narratives she could build through it. The life she could paint for herself.

She had no other talents. She knew words, and the words knew her and welcomed her as one of their own, always at her service.

And there were words now dancing inside her eyelids, like little couples waltzing amongst the colourful patterns. She saw them morphing into blurred faces, frowning, smiling. They grew impatient for her to do something, free them from her mind, give them purpose with her quills and ink. Her heartbeat picked up, cold fright pooling in her chest like water on cobblestone.

Please, she begged. Please, I need more time.

The figures were displeased. Accusing. They wanted a place on a stage she could only let her husband have.

The figures morphed again, as they always did, taking the form of her parent’s faces. Her mother’s piercing green eyes shone with an inner fire Evie’s only seen in her own, a dreadful heirloom. Her father’s bearded face was marred by the quiet furrow of his eyebrows. Pitiful.

Then the pill finally kicked in, and it all went quiet. The migraine sizzled like water in hot oil, cooling away with a war cry. Air flooded her lungs again, almost choking her.

“Daaarling” the voice of her husband drawled from the antre. “Where is my little poet?”

Numbed by the pill, Evie vaguely heard the front door close, the call of her husband finally home.

“What h-have you written for me, love? Something good?”

The wooden floor vibrated under Evie’s body as her husband stumbled and knocked something down, shattering it. Intoxicated, he entered the study, dancing with an imaginary partner. Unphased by his wife lying on the floor, mister Stoica began rambling about the party, the people there.

“You should have seen that place. Decadent, utterly d-decadent! Floating d-dancers and…”, he gestured vaguely with his hands in the air, waving them around like the hesitant wings of a freshly hatched bird.

Mister Stoica reached for the pocket inside his jacket and pulled out a golden envelope as he leaned over the limp body of his wife.

“Guess what, love. We got invited to another one! Another speech, c-can you b-believe?”, he erupted into a shrill laughter as he danced away out of the study.

Evie knew how much of a coward she was for taking the drug. For wishing she had never asked her husband to go to the Cenacle in her stead. For wishing she could be the girl from the puddle again, writing brave heroes and silly love tales.

She now wrote so she could close her eyes at night without them burning. She wrote, so the characters she made up would feel her pain for her, share it with her; hoping the verses and stanzas would vibrate in the right rhythm to soothe her temples, quiet them.

But tonight, for a few cursed hours, not a worry survived the opium in her brain as she sat up from the floor and left the study.

CHAPTER TWO

Mister Stoica must have somehow managed to get into bed after whatever entertainment he had survived the night before. His intoxicated breath woke Evie up more than the sunlight could, her husband’s face mere inches from her own as they laid in silence in their bedroom. A groan left her husband’s lips as he stirred awake as well, their glazed eyes meeting.

“Morning, love”, he whispered sweetly, kissing Evie’s forehead.

She gave him a small smile and closed her eyes again.

Her husband smiled at her stubbornness, gently lifting his body on his elbows and sitting on the edge of the bed. He grabbed the glass of water Evie had placed for him on his nightstand the night before.

The quiet room filled with the sound of breaking shards as the glass hit the floor. Evie had no time to grasp what happened as a loud thud soon followed and mister Stoica collapsed to the ground, his body convulsing violently. Her mind went blank as she stood up and stumbled to the floor, gripping her husband by the shoulders, trying to keep him from shaking. Her breath matched the rhythm of his convulsions and she screamed.

Then his body went limp.

Her vision blurred and twisted until two pairs of hands appeared before her, reaching from menacing flames. Even with their faces and bodies completely swallowed by the fire, Evie knew those were her parents, begging on their knees to be spared. Now death was looming again like a forgotten debt, waiting to lunge from behind her shoulders and take away the only family she had left. And her frozen body could do nothing.

Evie could only watch as the housekeeper finally arrived, alerted by her screams. The middle-aged woman kneeled and checked for a pulse, then rushed away from the room. Evie had no idea how much time passed before a doctor arrived and took her husband away. Her lower body had gone numb under his weight, a cool breeze replacing his warmth.

She felt hands grabbing her gently, then sitting her on the armchair in the corner. She was handed a glass of what must have been water and drank, vaguely aware she was spilling half of it.

“He’s fine, you’re fine, madam, fine”, the housekeeper chanted.

But he wasn’t. A few hours passed and the doctor finally left. Evie had no idea what he had done to her husband, what pills and tonics he’d given him.

By the end of the day, she could only remember the final words the doctor said to her, rolling over and over in her head like a curse. He’s ill, we don’t know why. We don’t know when he will wake up.

But she knew he meant if.

***

            “Madam?”, the housekeeper knocked on the doorframe of the bedroom, not daring to enter. A week later and mister Stoica still hadn’t woken up. Evie never left his side, trying to give him water and take his medicine. Soon enough, the week of sleepless nights and opium brought Evie in a state similar to her husband’s. She barely ate, worries flickering in her mind like dying lightbulbs.

            “The mailman arrived”, the housekeeper tried again, managing to grab Evie’s attention.

            “Leave them on the table.”

            The housekeeper placed the two letters in her lap. Evie raised her eyebrows, inquiring.

            “They seem important.”

The room fell silent again, the soft light of dawn finally creeping through the window. It had been an unusually cold autumn, the leaves barely having the time to fall on the streets before the first frost glued them to the branches. The long nights seemed even longer when spent on the chair by the bed, taking in every feature of her husband’s face, softened in his slumber.

            Evie blinked a few times to cast away her tears, swallowed and opened the first letter.

Draga mea,[4]

I fear the torment of social life might have severed you from your family duties. As I hope you are aware, seven years have passed since your parents’ death, which calls for the customary arrangements to be put in order. Unfortunately, this time I am unable to return home.

As their daughter, it is your duty to honour your late parents. I am not expecting you to organize their parastas[5], I have arranged matters with the church and neighbours, but the least you can do is attend.

In hope your current engagements are not too demanding to prevent you from returning home.

Aunt Elena

The signature at the end of the letter was utterly useless. No one could have been so politely cruel but her aunt Elena. It seemed she was yet to understand Evie’s decision of coming to the capital, but her own exodus – after a convenient marriage abroad – was much more pardonable.

With a sigh, Evie took the second letter. An unfamiliar golden wax seal adorned it, but no signature at its bottom.

Miss Stoica,

I must confess there had been a long time I have admired your grace, the light you shine upon your husband at every gathering you accompany him.

I was yet to discover the bright mind underneath. The sly mind.

I know the Stoica that recites the speech isn’t the same that inks it on paper. I know, and I will tell.

Unless you decide to find in me a new ambassador for your ideas. I assure you my oratory is equally, if not more skilful than your husband’s. It is for the best you consider my offer, before the Cenacle considers your husband a plagiarist.

I am looking forward to next week’s gathering.

The back of the letter instructed where and when Evie was to leave her manuscript before the next Cenacle meeting.

Evie neatly folded the letter and put it back in its envelope. She stood up, took the candle on the nightstand and lit the corner of the paper on fire. She let the flame burn the words until it reached her fingers. She felt no burn as she threw the remains in the hearth.

She turned her head to her husband again, his nightstand full of herbs and tonics. The vials and bottles seemed so similar to the ones the witches and fortune tellers used back in her home village. She remembered the worried men and women that would ask them for rain for their crops, for love and health for their families. Health…

Was she that desperate?

She should go back home anyway, with her parents’ parastas approaching. Why not kill to birds with one stone?

A shy ray of sun pierced the thick clouds and fell on her cheek. Evie closed her eyes and pretended the warmth was that of her husband’s hand, caressing her.

Evie turned in her spot.

That night, she’d kiss her husband and promise she’d return soon. She’d quickly pack a light bag and by the next dawn, she’d already be boarding the train that would take her back home.

CHAPTER THREE

When the cold smell of morning dew and smoke filled her nose, Evie knew she was home. She had barely stepped on the platform and the scented air filled her lungs like a claw grabbing fistfuls of her guts. It stinged, but it was home as she left it, utterly unchanged.

The platform was almost empty, apart from a couple of commuters and the old signalman Evie could have sworn was around 140 years old. Somewhere in the distance, tiny brass bells dangled softly as a herd of sheep passed by, unbothered by the railway.

Evie clutched her bag harder. The small train station laid right at the entrance of her hamlet like a dusty guardian. There wasn’t much to guard, though. As she entered the main dirt road, the green satin of her shoes absorbed the mud in blossoming stains. The wind whispered of the warm meals cooking slowly in the adobe houses. The houses on either side of the road laid slightly under its level, each fence equipped with the mandatory gossiping bench by the gate. And indeed, compact clusters of elderly kept close watch on everything that moved in the God forgotten place.

“Whose are you, girl?”

“Father’s Traian.”

The cluster gathered again, whispering. It had been a long time since the name of her father had been mentioned around there.

People talked now as they’ve always had since the first nail had been hammered to the cross. The priest’s and his wife’s deaths were bad omens. Their yard hadn’t been visited since; the church never welcomed a new priest.

And as Evie had finally reached the house at the end of the road and entered the front yard, she thought that, maybe, the people have had their reasons to keep their distance.

The white walls were still smoked black, the flowers around the porch still scorched as if the flame had just been put out. No animals remained in the stables in the back as if they could sense the smothering stench of death still lingering.

Evie swallowed once. Twice. She knew there were no tears left to hold back, but she sniffed anyway. Grabbing her bag again, she turned around and headed for her aunt’s house where she would stay for the next three days, until everything was settled. Just down the street to the left, her aunt’s house still stood out from the neat row of cottages. Sparkling white and clean, red geraniums hanged by every window. An intricate cornice surrounded the house just underneath the rooftop, one or two empty swallow nests surviving the early frosts.

She climbed the few stairs and opened the unlocked door. She took her coat off, the warmth dripping from her shoulders, yet she would light no fire tonight.

Evie found the note her aunt left her on the dining table and read the instructions. The memorial service would take place tomorrow at dawn, in the small cemetery at the end of the hamlet. The priest from the nearby village would come for the service. Her aunt left a list of all the people she asked for help and Evie made a mental note to thank them all again. Sticky, greasy guilt seeped through at the thought of all these people helping despite how unnerving everything still must have been to them. Nothing had ever happened here until that tragedy, nothing ever since.

Evie didn’t touch anything else, taking every doily, every painting and photo frame in as if it were a museum relic.

Behind the glass doors of a nearby cupboard stood a two silver frames. Inked in black and brown, the round face of her father smiled at her, right by her mother’s slightly frowny expression -  never the type to smile without substantial reason. In the next frame, an unfamiliar old woman was holding a chubby baby version of Evie in her arms. She had never seen that woman before, but were she honest, no family inquired about her after the fire, except form her aunt. As much as Evie couldn’t stand her, she had been the only one reaching her hand out. Her only family. Until John.

Another wave of guilt flooded her gut. She wasn’t here for her parents, not really. She was here for her husband because, apparently, she desperate enough to believe in witchcraft.

A loud creak broke the silence and Evie’s head snapped to the entrance as the front door opened. A hunched woman entered the main room, her arms filled with firewood. Her heavy coats swept the floor, her scarf hiding her eyes. The woman went directly for the tile stove and discarded the wood like Evie wasn’t even there.

“Good morning”, Evie tried to draw her attention.

The woman turned around as if triggered by a mechanism.

“I won’t bother you, sweetheart, I’m just taking care of the house”, the woman answered, her voice like shredded glass.

For some reason, Evie had the weird feeling the woman in front of her was some sort of puppet, faithfully following scripted lines.

“It’s you, isn’t it?”

The woman smiled, revealing her almost bare gums.

Evie hadn’t come here on chance. The so-called witch in the alley reminded her of the old tales and rumours, back when her father used to be this hamlet’s most trusted authority. When they’d ask him to protect them from the heathens and the Devil, the dark forces of the world.

The people had always been hypocrites. They’d come to the church and pray, then they’d hang garlic on their windows to chase away the evil spirits that were said to roam in the autumn nights. They trusted God, but not enough to ditch the garlic. So they pretended God told them to use it, as they pretended the spirits of the rain and the forest, the living fires across the hill they’ve been worshipping since the dawn of time were His as well, so they could keep their customs.

The Devil was frightful, but nothing was worse than change.

The woman blinked at Evie. Then blinked again. It was almost like she was shedding some invisible mask, reawakening some dormant beast. The third time she reopened her eyes Evie could spot their green, shining with a familiar inner fire.

“I know why you’ve come, child”, the woman finally spoke.

“My parents-“

“No.”

Evie stared at the woman as if she’d slapped her.

Evie remembered how the women of the hamlet would go visit the crone, ask her about their fortunes, the next years’ crops or their husbands’ mistresses. Some even asked her to call for their lost loved ones, search their souls in the afterlife with her sharp sight.

The village madwoman.

And, conveniently, her grandmother.

Evie had hoped she would find her and ask for guidance herself, but now that the witch was here before her, she wondered if she’d gone utterly insane. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d seen her.

“I can’t help one that does not believe, child”, the crone spoke again.

Evie had the eerie feeling she could see right through her every thought and doubt. But she was desperate enough to let her.

“I believe whatever you want me to. I just want to fix him.”

“Did you break him?”, the crone raised her eyebrows.

“What?”

The crone turned around and headed to the table in the main room. The floor screeched terribly as she dragged one of the chairs and sat down, gesturing Evie to do the same. Then she reached for a pocket sewed inside her cloak and grabbed a handful of beans, dried flower stems and a match. She grabbed the silver ashtray placed in the middle of the table and gathered the stems together like a miniature fireplace. With a flick of her hand, she lit the match and started the fire, the gentle heat denting the air. The flames felt unnatural here, as if her family’s old home was the only place they belonged in.

“Fire cleanses. It cleansed you from temptation once, but you defied it. Now it might be trying to clean you again.”

The woman closed her eyes and traced her fingers over the flame like she could read its shape, mold it. No scars marred her wrinkled skin, no burn marks. Quiet rage started stinging Evie’s throat.

“What temptation are you talking about?”

“Your husband’s body is melting from inside”, the crone kept going. “His mind is smothered by the smoke of his burning heart. He lost his way. He might not survive the cleansing. And you might join him.”

Sweat dampened the hair strands fallen from Evie’s braid. The crone retracted her hand and reached for her pocket again. Murmuring something under her breath, she sprinkled a grey powder in the fire, the flames growing like a feisty beast. The slim wisp of smoke twisted graciously as it changed colour, turning a dark shade of green.

“But there are pathways out of every arson.”

Evie finally took her eyes away from the flames. Maybe she insane for staying here and listening to this nonsense. But there was nothing to lose.

“What do I have to do?”

The crone fixed her burning eyes on hers.

“Bring some water. Drink the ashes of this flame and go to bed. By tomorrow dawn, after your parents’ parastas, everything shall take it’s fated path.

“I drink it?”

“Your husband is but a lamb amongst wolves. He is like this because of you. The cure must be drunk by you”, the crone pointed at Evie with a gnarly finger.

“Thank you-“

“This is not a gift.”

The crone stood up and covered the fire with her palms, the flame hissing like a cat before vanishing under her touch. Evie watched closely, trying to read the woman, to figure out her price.

“You said my husband’s heart is burning. What does that mean?”

“Smart girl.” The crone closed her cloak around her and headed for the door. “Your husband is a weak man. He was not made for the life you’ve given him. He cannot bear the light you burdened him with. And he will break again if you let him.”

“But he’s never betrayed me-“

“Hasn’t he?”

Evie swallowed her reply before she realised she didn’t really have one.

“It is not me asking for a price, but the cure itself. Love cannot flourish in a burning heart. It is not his place to speak your words. He must stop. You must stop. Do that, and when you go back, your husband will greet you on his feet. Don’t, and the illness shall return.”

“I don’t-“

But the crone was gone.

CHAPTER FOUR

The sheets were cold, but the pillow seemed on fire as Evie thrashed on the bed. The moon rays filtered through the slightly open window, scraping at her eyes like claws. She couldn’t sleep.

She had done everything the witch told her to.

This was completely mental. How on earth would her drinking ash help her dying husband get better? Why was she here, wasting time away from him, chasing the wind? Her head vibrated with the questions, guilt humming along with the headache. Fuck this.

Evie got up from the bed and reached for the small pouch she left on the nightstand out of habit, despite promising herself she wouldn’t come to need it. Her hands trembling, she untied the string and fished out the pill. She felt it slide down her tongue, poking her throat as she swallowed. Evie closed her eyes again and laid down.

He is like this because of you.

Because she needed that stupid applause, because she begged him to take it in her stead. But did that really have such a devastating effect on him? Was his body now breaking because of that pressure?

Evie waited for the memories to pour down on her, but no screaming faces took shape behind her eyelids.

Evie almost didn’t recognize the young face forming in front of her. The child’s eyes shone green as she looked up, her features strikingly familiar.

Her mother; tugging at the skirt of an older woman Evie recognized as a younger version of her grandmother.

“It is you who will take my place, child”, the woman spoke, but her mouth didn’t even open. It was like Evie could hear their thoughts whispering to her before the words formed on their lips.

Tears slid down the little girl’s cheeks, but the woman didn’t heed her, dragging her along a dusty country road. At the very end of the road, astray from the rest of the village stood an adobe house, cracked to the very bone. The pathway down to it had no dentures, no footprints, as if no one had dared to enter in a long time. The crone dragged the girl into the house and closed the door, shutting Evie out too. But the voices kept echoing.

“This is our home now. You shall learn until you are ready.”

But the girl never was.

The house dissolved, the clay turning to dust. The woman was still standing in the middle of the mud pile, the little girl gone. With long strides, she came forward, stepping on the debris. The wood and dried clay snapped under her feet like bones.

The woman now stared, her broken grin icing the blood in Evie’s veins.

“I knew you would come home one day”, she said, her mouth still frozen in that eerie smile.

“What have you done?”

“I merely show. I do not change. I do not mare.”

With a flick of her hand, the scene around them changed. Soft grass tickled Evie’s feet, the sweet smell of jasmine caressing her nostrils. A bigger, cleaner house stood at the back of the perfumed yard, bathed in moonlight. Hurried steps echoed in the night as a girl passed right between Evie and her grandmother, running towards the house. Trembling, she knocked at the door, someone inside cracking it opened and letting her in.

“She thought I didn’t know”, her grandmother’s voice interrupted the quiet night. “After they cast us away from our home, I brought her here. A place so small and dusty, even God had forgotten it, I thought. No one to bother us. To throw rocks at our windows and burn the flowers in our garden. But I didn’t know they had just moved in as well; the priest and his son. Your mother used to sneak around and come here. After a few months she said she loved him. As if our kind could ever know such thing.”

She angled her head like she could see through the walls, look down on the girl behind them.

 “But the die was cast. I told her she could have taken any man, have her way with whomever, but not him. Not a priest. She knew what she had been made for. Someone must take the cane; it must always knock. She paid no heed to her ancestral call.”

The woman now looked at Evie.

“No devil could love a man of God. Your mother could no longer be my heir”, she caressed Evie’s cheek. “But she had given me you.”

A blast of light blinded Evie, her feet giving in. Her hands braced her when she hit the ground, cold mud trickling through her fingers. She tried to crawl, her vision still blurry, her ears ringing painfully. Evie clawed at the ground, but the more she moved, the deeper her knees sank. The woman was nowhere to be seen, but as her vision focused again, Evie could distinguish the shapes of a small group of people somewhere far in the distance. The people gathered closely together, looking down at something.

“Your father wanted you to leave your motherland. To seek better places”, the crone’s voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere. “But you are clay and blood, Evdokia, and that is what you shall become again.”

Evie had no thoughts to cling to, no energy to figure out what all this meant.

Evdokia. No one beside her mother had ever called her that. It was her birthname, a forgotten name. One too old and pagan for its origin to be remembered.

“I raised you well, but you still left. Though I knew you would crave your land again. I just had to wait until you’d know it too.”

Evie dragged her body forward, looking for something to cling to, anything. As if reading her mind, a stone fountain appeared somewhere to her left, close enough she could lift her body and lean on the cold stone. Her foggy eyes could barely stay open as she tilted her head down and started at the black water.

Evie had never really known her grandmother, her mother avoiding even talking about her. To Evie, she was nothing more than the local harca[6]. But the question left her lips before she could think it through.

“What are you?”

The water in the fountain rippled, then the face of her grandmother appeared on its surface, old and wrinkled again. The face morphed grotesquely, looking more and more like that of...

“Aunt Elena? But she’s away-“

“She’s never been at all. She doesn’t exist. It was I who raised you, child.”

The water hissed as the face morphed again, taking the shape of her mother’s. Then, Evie stared at herself, her green eyes burning from within.

She fell to the ground, the mud splashing her face, the stone scratching her fingers. The skyline turned yellow as the sun rose. Evie wished she could scream, call for help, but her lungs were as stiff as her frozen hands.

The people where still somewhere far in the distance, their faces lit up with a soft glow as their hands were now holding thin candles. Some stepped aside from the gathering, revealing two grey tombstones.

“No.”

The people placed their candles on the ground and left one by one, led by a black silhouette.

“No!”, the word scratched Evie’s throat.

She knew what she was witnessing. The parastas of her parents that she was supposed to attend at dawn. The people, mourning them in her stead, honouring them like she never could.

“You may have missed the chance to save your parents, but you can still save him”, that shredded glass voice slithered again. “As long as you stop.”

“What have I done?”, the question came out like a squeak.

“When we speak, it is not the people that listen, girl. It is the fire, and the earth and the birds that fly above it. The mountains’ fog and the foam of the tides. You shall not waste that wisdom. You shall not feed on leftover applause. Your purpose lies elsewhere. As does his heart.”

Evie’s heart stopped beating.

“Tell me, do you believe it is the heat of the spotlight that’s warmer, of that of a woman’s flesh?”, the crone croaked.

Evie shook her head, trying to get rid of the voice in her head.

“Come home”, the voice whispered, and it all went dark.

***

Evie’s first deep breath hit her lungs like a fist. Her chest heaved, rising and falling like living beast. The cold hit her like a million needles poking her face. She grimaced, but her face cracked. Her finger brushed past her cheek only to find it covered in a layer of hardened mud. Her hands trembled violently as she lifted herself up and looked around. The empty field was covered in a thick layer of morning fog. Morning.

She had sleepwalked before, lulled by the hallucinations the opium caused, blurring the line between dream and reality. She must have done it again and ended up in this field, then passed out.

Evie turned around, searching for the church’s bell tower. The bells were quiet, the sun too far up in the sky. She missed it. The parastas.

Evie grabbed her skirt and started running back to the main road. Her feet stumbled in the thick trenches, her hands barely keeping her from plunging face first into the ground. As certain as she was everything had been a fucked up dream, she still felt like she had to leave that place as fast as possible.

By the time the sun settled, Evie was already on the train home, her fingernails digging into her palms as if afraid she would once again lose grip on reality.

CHAPTER FIVE

“May I know when were you going to tell me about this?”, John Stoica arched a brow, waving a piece of paper.

“John?”, Evie didn’t even get to close the door when her husband’s voice echoed from the main room. “You’re awake…”

Evie dropped her bag and rushed to her husband, cupping his cheeks.

“Why are you standing here, you should be resting. How are you feeling?”

“Where have you been?”

Something about his tone made Evie flinch, retracting her hands.

“I was looking for a cure. To make you better.”

“As you can see, I’m fine.”

“But how? When?”

“Well, it seems that in the week you were away, the doctor’s medicine did its job better than he’d expected.”

“Week? I’ve been away for two days. I left on Monday-”

“Evie, it’s Sunday. What on earth have you been doing that you don’t even remember what day it is?”

John puffed and gave Evie the piece of paper.

“And when were you going to mention you are being blackmailed? Or should I say, promoted?”

“Promoted?”

“Well, this gentleman right here seems to offer you a fairly decent job. Writing for him, getting yourself a better spokesman...”

 “My love, you were sick. My priorities-“

“Your priorities are here. In front of you. Yet you chose to leave.” Her husband turned around, sighing. “Do you know the Cenacle asked me to come as soon as I stood up from the bed?” He started pacing, the floor creaking under his feet. “I knew this would happen. I knew one day I will no longer suffice your desires.”

“John, you are tired.”

“How do you know? Huh? You haven’t seen me in six days. I had no idea where you went. What if they wanted me to-”

“I see… Tell me, was it me you missed, or your little poet?

“What?”

“That’s how you called me, you know? The last time you came home drunk, your hair dishevelled.” Evie took a step closer, now looking him in the eyes. “Everything is fine as long as your little poet stays home, waiting for you to come back from parties. My parties.”

John flinched, but the dam that had held her feelings at bay all this time, so well, she barely even knew them herself, was already blown to smithereens.

“What are you without me?”

“Measure your words.”

“You wouldn’t even swipe the floors of those party mansions were it not for my words.”

John gritted his teeth. She’s never seen his anger so bare on his face. And it seemed he noticed it too, as he squared his shoulders and urged his features into a more composed expression.

“Either way, it’s done. The man that sent you the letter is no longer a threat.”

Evie was so dumbfounded she barely registered the words.

“He was part of the Cenacle. I told the members of the leadership he tried to steal my notes and use them to get my spot while I was ill. Turned out my word weighted a bit more than the bastard thought it would.”

“So he’s-“

“Out of the picture.”

Evie closed her eyes, hoping her husband would not spot the hint of regret that shone there. Hoping she was only imagining the disappointment that was choking her at the thought their trick would remain unexposed. For that meant even more days of comfortable captivity.

John brought his face mere inches from Evie’s, his breath hot on her skin, yet she could feel no warmth from him.

“My chair in that meeting room is nailed to the ground. I am very much capable of scribbling prettily enough they wouldn’t even notice the difference. But you…”, he tucked a hair strand behind her ear and leaned in, his eyes warm and lit by an unsettling gentleness. “The only word that’s ever going to bring you any value, dearest, is my family name. I suggest you keep it.”

He moved away so quickly Evie almost tripped.

Trapped. She was trapped again, fuelling his success, seating in the audience.

He grabbed his coat and turned around, one hand on the nob.

“Next meeting’s Tuesday. I expect you’ll deliver.”

Two months later, John Stoica had no more words to say, his lifeless body stiff in its coffin as the gravedigger covered it with dirt.

                                                                        ***

“There is no greater tragedy than wasted potential”, the rector of the Literature faculty would state as he’d stay behind the reading desk in the middle of the gathering.

            Evie could almost hear his thundering voice in the Cenacle meeting room. She’s only been there once, the week after John’s death, to hand the rector her eulogy.

            “I may not be a writer, but I knew him. Maybe this way you will know him better too”, she’d told the rector, and he agreed to read her short speech at the gathering they would hold in his memory.

            The gathering Evie would not take part in.

            Her steps sank in the thick mud as she walked on the field towards the fountain. Her long skirt and satin shoes were now dirty enough to no longer stand out in this place, but rather belong, like dead flowers in a graveyard. The wind and the earth under her feet were no longer frozen, but gentle and warm.

            They recognized her now and welcomed her as one of their own.

“We mourn today the loss of an exceptional man we had too little time to understand.”

            A few of the attendees would chuckle, remembering the young man fondly.

            “This is why I have decided it would be most adequate to read a more intimate eulogy in the memory of our colleague. That written by his widowed wife.”

            The rector would unfold the piece of paper and place it on the desk, clearing his voice.

Not even the fountain felt cold under Evie’s fingertips as she braced her hand on its cracked edge.       There was no better place for a hybrid like her. As much as she had hoped she could keep the darkness at bay, her very nature had already acted for her. Picked a side.

            The only thing left to do was humour it.

            Evie peeked into the fountain, but the water took no shape. No ghost of the past haunted her anymore, for she was dead herself.

            The mud behind her splattered as small steps swam through it. The familiar sound no longer evoked childhood memories of kingdoms made of rocks and sticks. This wasn’t that moulding clay she used to build stories of, but the rancid debris of everything that has ever decayed in the ground under her feet.

“Let us honour her husband in her name.”

            The rector would finally open the eulogy and clear his throat a bit louder than necessary.

Beloved husband,

I shall write this to you, for I know you hear me from beyond the grave as well as you’ve always had. This is not a eulogy, but a letter. One of confession.

Know that I loved you until the end, more than I ever liked you.

Know that I know you have loved me too, and I shall never blame you for the humane weakness  that has clouded your mind and corrupted your soul. Maybe that had been your true illness.

I do not blame you, as I do not blame myself for killing you.

The crone’s steps had finally reached the fountain, stopping right behind Evie.

            “I knew you’d be back, child. Is it done, then?”

            “I did it, but I didn’t know.”

            “You cannot deny your nature. You did it, and your instincts knew it, you soul had no say in it.”

            “Do we have souls?”, Evie asked before she could decide if she really wanted an answer.

            “Of course we do. They’re our greatest enemy.” The crone came beside her, caressing the side of her face. “Your mother could not overcome it. But something tells me it hadn’t been that hard for you. Tell me, child, when did you start seeing the monster in your mirror?”

            She didn’t know why, but the memory of her reflection on the mud puddle she used to play in appeared in her mind.

            “I wanted to save him.”

            “I told you he could only be saved if you stopped.”

            “I couldn’t. He wanted me to write for him for the next gathering. I couldn’t just stop.”

            “So you wrote for the next, and the next. Fed him. Where did that get you?”

            Evie’s hands started trembling, but not from the cold.

            “I haven’t left the house in weeks. I was barely sleeping. One night, the headaches were so terrible I thought my head was splitting. I searched the pills, but there weren’t any.” Evie swallowed hard. “I was running out faster than I should have. Then John stopped coming home at night for a week, and the pills sufficed again. I thought about how fast he got better while I was away. That’s when I figured it out.”

            “You were drugging him.”

            “I was drugged myself. I didn’t know. I could never remember what happened to me after I took the pills, that’s why I tried to stop. I had no control over myself.”

            “But other things did. Other, primal things.”

            Evie took a steadying breath.

“I must have slipped a bit more than the usual dose that last time”, Evie whimpered.

Evie could almost hear the audience’s gasps.

Maybe I have killed you long before, when I first spoke to you in that classroom. Maybe your death was destined to find you earlier than you expected.

I ‘ve never envisioned you growing old. Your boyish charm, fading away. That would have been an even greater tragedy.

It took me a long trip down memory lane and a painful return to my birthplace to finally understand. It had been me, all along. Every night you came home late and I was laying on the floor, drugged out of my mind, my innermost desires took over, and I had no power over them.

Every glass of water you have found on your nightstand the following mornings contained a large dose of the same drug I ‘ve learned to welcome in my body.

But you were weak.

Evie still didn’t dare to meet the crone’s gaze.

            “It is not your first time, is it, child?”

            There were many reasons why Evie had never returned home. Why she couldn’t light a fire by herself.

            She had lit one before.

            “I’ve always known. I remember every second. How my mother was mad at me, how angry I felt after she yelled. I told her I didn’t want to see her again.” The water in the fountain started rippling, luring Evie like a siren song. “That night, I played by the hearth. I reached for the wood my father had thrown in before they went to bed. It didn’t burn.”

            “Fire does not burn fire. Death does not kill death.”

            “But I did kill them”, Evie sniffed.

            This was the first time she’d ever said it out loud.

            That night, when everything she had ever known and love burned down, the part of her that kept the darkness at bay burned as well. And ever since, her aunt – or the crone now standing by her side – nurtured it, polished it until it became the knife she pressed against the throat of everything good in her life.

            “I placed the wood on the carpet. I had no second thoughts. The anger from before washed away, and I was cold to my veins. I didn’t want to be cold anymore. So I burned it down.”

            Evie knew now what the crone meant by cleansing. The purifying fire that turned to dust everything that would have made Evie drift away. Deny her true nature, fall in love foolishly, leave her home and her purpose. Her husband trapping Evie, reducing her to a provider sealed his sentence before he’d even realised his mistake. Fire, an internal, sinful fire, burned his soul down. Her life was straight again, no distractions, no crossroads to take wrong turns in.

Evie finally turned towards the crone, her hands grabbing her arms and squeezing hard enough to bruise.

            “I am not cold anymore.”

            Before the crone could blink, Evie lifted her brittle body off the ground and threw her in the fountain, the water ripples attacking her flesh like starving snakes. The fountain fizzed and the crone went under, her eyes staring into Evie’s until the very end.

I have no memory of poisoning you, as you don’t have any memory of my suffering. Were you awake, you might have glimpsed my fall.  

Therefore, my only memories will remain the good ones.

I miss you. For the years I have left, however many, I will look for you in every corner of what is left of my soul. Your soul is welcome to join mine among the dead.

Evdokia

 EPILOGUE

There is something intrinsically morbid about the mioritic autumn. The way the vegetal decay enchants us, the rebirth looming under the forests’ death.

And that something in our fear of seeing things for what they are, even when they terrify us.

“But as she stood silent, so the crone laughed to herself at the people’s minds and, closing her heavy eyelids over the words they threw, silencing them, she could feel him again. The black eyes, the young lips, the freckled cheeks and curly hair. And she let them all poison her.”, the young man read as the gathering listened, wide eyed. “Why her cane kept beating, why her stare was blind, no one knew. Maybe her kind had just been cursed, their eyesight taken away, for they could see so much more, in so many other ways. The crone’s eyes shone with fire, however, and as her silk cladded feet tapped the ground, some said she whispered a name, over and over like a chant. Her charms called the ravens, asked them to be her eyes across the lands, search for her the soul of the young man she had once deeply cared for.”

The gathering remained quiet, young men and women entranced in the story.

As the Cenacle expanded, young people, old people, poor, rich, girls and boys sat on the floor when the chairs could not suffice.

It was a miracle the Cenacle was still bristling with life, a hundred years after its foundation. Maybe it was because the curious minds would always prove to crave such places. Maybe the terrible scandal of plagiarism, fraud and some said even murder had painted an almost mythical aura around the place; some going as far as calling it a cult. But it was nothing more than a room where anyone was welcome to share their take on the world.

            “The legends claim the crone hoped he could join her in the afterlife. But it seemed the young man’s death had been unnatural, his restless soul refusing to answer. And so the crone refused to die. A hundred and twenty-three years later, her heart keeps beating, nevertheless empty of life. She sleeps not, she eats not, nor water can she drink. Fountains drain when she approaches them. This is how she spends her days, forever alive and yet dying, little by little, her soul a tenebrous lair of ancient hatred, damned to eternal solitude.”

            “Damn”, a student cut the heavy silence that had settled after the story ended. “Where’d you even found that?”

            “I don’t know, laying around. It’s not signed.”

            “You think it might be true?”, a girl asked from her spot on the floor.

            “It’s a legend. Of course it’s not real.”

            “But that name… Evdokia, was it? Isn’t that the name of that murderer?”

            “The writer’s wife?”

            “Don’t tell me you actually believe that fairytale. That story is nothing more than tryhard promotion for the Cenacle.”

            “They’ve never found her, though. It was said she fled the city and no one had ever heard of her again. Maybe she did take the crone’s place.”

            “Or maybe everything in that story was the mere result of opium hallucinations.”

            “Maybe...”, the girl hummed.

A crow took off the windowsill, croaking so loudly it made the whole room flinch. Its wings flapped in the afternoon sun, defying the winds.

Its flight would be a long one, the village it had to return to so far and dusty, even God had forgotten it.

[1] Originating from the Romanian word “mioara”, meaning young sheep, it refers to something tied to the pastoral way of living and has the usual meaning of “endemic”, “traditional”, “ancient”

[2] Mythological character oftentimes described as a crone that either helped or confused the hero of traditional folktales; sometimes associated with Saint Paraschiva or “Saint Friday”

[3] Mythological characters oftentimes described as redhaired and bearded nomad men that had the ability to control the weather, bring or chase away storms and frosts and predict the future; the solomonars still exist in the Romanian region of Bucovina, where it is said to be their academy. Not morally defined, the solomonars helped those who were kind to them, lived alone in the forests and, some claimed, had power over fearsome creatures like wyverns.

[4] My dear (tr. from Romanian)

[5] Orthodox Christian memorial service, held to pray for the soul of the deceased.

[6] Mythical being imagined as an old, wicked witch.

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