Where the Devil Says Goodnight (Folk Lore 1)

He hadn’t told Adam yet, but he’d decided to sell the house to have the financial cushion for a good start in the big city. The thought of permanently parting from the mountains awoke a deep longing inside of him, but none of that mattered in the face of what could be.

He was thirty. It was about time for him to do something radical. To change his life. To stop hoping for miracles, and take destiny into his own hands.

Maybe once Adam served his penance in Dybukowo, once he put the fear of demons behind him, he would be able to open up sexually as well. Because there wasn’t a day when Emil didn’t dream of pinning Adam’s gorgeous ass to the mattress. Or being the one to take cock, for that matter. Either way worked for him as long as Adam was in his arms, panting, and whispering love confessions.

In terms of intimacy, they were still in that innocent teenage stage, but he assumed that might change. Losing control over one’s body would have been a traumatic experience for anyone, so Emil decided he’d be patient.

Neither had declared their feelings out loud, but Adam surely understood the depth of Emil’s emotions, because why else would he have come up with the idea of them both moving together?

Emil stirred the fresh elderflower infusion one last time and started pouring it into bottles when Adam emerged from Grandfather’s old bedroom all pale and moving stiffly, as if he’d been left in the cold for too long. “I found something weird.”

“What is it?” Emil cocked his head and put down the precious bottle. He hadn’t changed anything in that room since it had been vacated, but, like Grandma’s chest upstairs, it contained items that might seem strange to someone unfamiliar with local folklore.

Adam licked his lips and joined Emil by the kitchen table, but when he opened his hand, Emil’s face fell, because he had no explanation for the item in Adam’s palm. In his palm lay a small figurine with a lock of black hair woven through a hole in the torso. The wood it was made of had gone dark from age, but the horns on its head, and the simplified lines that made up the face were clear as day.

It was a devil, or one of the many folklore creatures associated with him.

Emil’s face flushed with heat as he silently scolded himself for leaving the damn figurine where he’d found it in Grandpa’s things a few weeks back, when he’d finally chosen to look through the old man’s things in preparation for the upcoming move. Adam felt at home in his house, so of course he’d act like it too and open drawers when searching for something.

“There were some notes too,” Adam said, and when his hand shook, he made a point of putting the figurine on the table and stepping back. A couple seconds later, he walked up to the sink and washed his hands, as if he were afraid the thing carried a disease.

Emil groaned. Yes. Notes. His grandmother’s notes on the best ways for attracting Chort, which ranged from placing bowls of food in four corners of the house to human sacrifice, but the latter was such a freaky thing to be written down by his lovely grandma that he chose not to mention it to anyone ever. He could only hope Adam hadn’t read any of it yet.

“I didn’t want you to be scared. It must have been my grandma’s.” Emil took the little sculpture into his hand and stared into the red smudges it had for eyes.

Adam exhaled and placed his hands on the table top, for a moment so still it seemed like he wasn’t all there. “I just… it’s such a weird thing to have in the house. And that hair— It’s like yours,” he added in a lower voice.

Emil pulled on one of his waves and compared it to the lock attached to the figurine. “Maybe. But my grandma’s hair was like this too. She’d worn it long all her life, and it never turned gray.”

Adam took a deep breath. “You can tell me if it is yours.”

“What? Why would it be mine?” Emil stared back at him, strangely cold in the cozy space heated by the big tiled stove.

“I don’t know… tradition? Like those offerings?” Adam asked but was already grabbing Emil’s hand.

“I’m telling you it’s not mine. But I think it’s used to attract Chort.”

Adam’s eyes went wide. “And you keep it in the house?!”

“It’s just a trinket.”

He knew he’d made a mistake by saying that when Adam went ghastly pale within seconds. “A trinket? It’s been here this whole time. What if this… this thing was what caused my possession?” Adam asked in a voice that rose in pitch with each syllable. He stepped toward the door, as if the figurine were a bomb on the verge of exploding.