“Here in the mountains… shadows are longer in the winter, and the old gods, they like to play tricks on good Catholic people.”
“That’s why you leave out offerings in the corners?” Adam asked, watching her with a heat spreading through his body. He couldn’t confide in Father Marek without consequence, regardless of how laid back the pastor was about most things. But maybe Mrs. Janina would offer him some insight into what was going on here?
She nodded. “Keeps the devil at bay.”
“What if the devil is already here?” Adam whispered, and the chair seemed to suck him in, immobilizing his arms and legs.
Mrs. Janina didn’t laugh, didn’t chastise him for what he said. She only gave him a curious glance. “How so? Have you seen something?”
Relief was a flood through Adam’s chest, and he clutched at the armrests, watching her with his breath held back. “You need to promise you won’t tell anyone.”
“Anything you say, Father, will be confidential.” For once, she looked concerned, not just curious.
Adam stalled, not sure whether he should trust her, but for all her usual grumpiness, Mrs. Janina had never treated him unfairly. There was a good heart behind a face wrinkled from frequent scowling, and he so, so desperately needed advice.
“Strange things started happening when I arrived here,” he said in the end, keeping her gaze to spot the moment she showed signs of displeasure. “The sound of hooves would follow me at night. I’d sleepwalk and wake up in the middle of the woods. I even had—” The final words were trapped in his throat, and he swallowed, shaking his head.
“You felt a presence inside you?” Mrs. Janina asked, and her question made Adam’s body hair bristle. He blinked, unsure if the person saying such outrageous things was really Mrs. Janina, the humble housekeeper at the parsonage. But it was her. She was listening. And she wasn’t surprised by anything he’d said.
He slumped forward, as his lungs released all the air they were holding. “Yes.”
“These things happen.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Especially with the kind of company you’ve been keeping, Father. I mean it in the nicest possible way. I know I’ve often said unkind things about Emil, but his grandmother was a Whisperer Woman. I believe he carries it in his bloodline. He might have brought a curse upon you. Even unknowingly.”
Nausea rose in Adam’s throat, and he put back the half-eaten cookie. “Oh, God…”
There it was. The hard truth about the happiest summer of his life. He’d decided to follow temptation instead of keeping to his chosen path, and he’d been punished for it.
Mrs. Janina held on to his hand a bit more tightly. “There are things one can do to get rid of Chort. Things Father Marek wouldn’t approve of. On Forefathers’ Eve the world of spirits is close, but that also means tonight is the time to act.”
Adam laughed, but her face was as serious as ever, and his stomach sank. As Adam’s gaze gravitated to the cross on the wall, his mind fought the sense that by following Mrs. Janina’s advice he would be somehow adding legitimacy to pagan rituals, and even to the creature taunting him. He had two choices.
The most obvious one was to be frank with Father Marek and face the painful consequences. But the other, while tempting, might put more distance between him and the truths he’d been taught since childhood. Granted, he’d never been as much of a zealot as his mother was. Perhaps his faith was too weak to carry the burden of priesthood, but if Mrs. Janina was right, if this monster could be lured back into the dark woods it came from, then he’d be free of both its presence and the scrutiny of the Church.
He would leave this godforsaken place with a pure soul even if with a broken heart as well.
Adam took a deep breath. “What do I need to do?”
Chapter 23 - Emil
Of course it was raining. That was just Emil’s luck. But what was getting soaked when his had house burned down along with the infusions he’d been making for months? What did those even matter now? The one reason for all that investment and hard work had been to earn money for a move to Warsaw, but that plan made no sense anymore, since Adam didn’t want him there.
Didn’t want him at all.
The clear sky had disappeared behind the thick bed of clouds, and the downpour transformed everything around Emil into thick gray walls he couldn’t see through. Trees were reduced to blurry silhouettes emerging from the thickening fog, and the bitterly cold air stabbed Emil’s soaked flesh with invisible spikes.
Still, he nudged Jinx with his heels, intent on not wasting any more time on the village and people who had only brought him misery. Adam had been a ray of hope, the outsider who had no prejudice against him, but for all the joy his presence had given Emil, the fallout from their relationship left him empty.