Those hands. Those same hands—
A shudder moves through me that has nothing to do with the cold.
The mist presses low over the square. The morning feels muffled, as though the world itself is holding its breath. No birds sing. No dogs bark. The horror is no longer a whisper in the woods.
It hangs before us, nailed to wood.
Chapter Twelve
The day unravels as though beneath water.
We gather in the barn as we were told, moving in a silence so complete it feels deliberate, as though speech itself might summon something we dare not name. Popa Vasile's assistant has said he would ride to the diocese, that he would return with instruction by morning, that we were to pray and remain within God’s protection until then. Radu’s father took up the charge, calling us together, ordering the barn cleared, no one left alone, no door unguarded. And so we obey.
The great doors stand open to receive us, the smell of hay and old wood thick in the air. Men clear space where animals had been kept, dragging aside troughs, spreading straw across the packed earth so the women and children may sit. No one laughs. No one raises their voice. The silence is never full—it hums constantly with whispered invocations, beads sliding through restless fingers, the steady drone ofKyrie eleisonbreathed again and again until it loses shape and becomes only sound.
My hands fold blankets. They pass water cups. They guide an old woman to sit, performing what is required without asking counsel of my mind. I bow my head when others bow. I cross myself when they cross themselves. My body remembers its duties even as my thoughts drift somewhere just beyond reach.
The barn grows crowded quickly. Bodies press close, warmth mingling with the damp chill that seeps in through the wooden slats. Somewhere, a man recites a psalm too loudly, as if to drown out whatever might be listening outside.
Time loosens, passes without measure. The light filtering through the cracks in the walls shifts slowly from pale grey to a dimmer, heavier hue. Faces blur. Voices blend into a single, unbroken thread of prayer that presses against my skull. It swells and recedes but never breaks. Occasionally, a voice cracks with fatigue. Another takes its place. The sound continues.
Neaga sits near the far wall, her back supported by stacked sacks of grain. Her dress has dried stiff where the baptismal water soaked it. The skin beneath her eyes is grey with exhaustion. Ilinca sits pressed close against her side, small hands folded tightly in her lap.
No one sits near them.
A space has formed around them, subtle but unmistakable, as though caution still lingers despite the priest’s decree. A subtle gap where others have chosen to settle elsewhere. A careful distance maintained beneath lowered eyes.
Still, they are here. They have not been turned away.
Neaga looks thinner in this light. The fever has not left her fully; I can see it in the faint sheen along her temples, in the way her breath lifts her chest unevenly. Yet when her gaze finds mine across the barn, she nods in recognition. Something shared that does not need to be named.
I watch my hands rest in my lap. They look like my hands. They tremble faintly, though I do not feel the tremor.
Every so often, someone begins to weep softly and is pressed into silence. A child whimpers and is pressed against a breast. Outside, the wind brushes the barn walls in long, low strokes, while the church stands unseen beyond the fog, its doors sealed, its altar bearing what remains.
Night comes reluctantly, as though even the sun hesitates to abandon us.
When darkness finally settles, candles are lit, small, trembling flames set in clay holders along the beams and upon overturned crates. The shadows they cast are longer than the bodies that make them, stretching up the wooden walls like reaching hands. Faces glow and recede, eyes hollowed by the flicker.
No one lies down. No one closes their eyes.
The prayers braid together until they become a single murmur, rising like smoke toward the rafters. The candles flicker again, wax spilling slowly down their sides like pale tears. Somewhere outside, the wind moves through the trees in long, sighing strokes. The barn doors shudder faintly now and then, as if something brushes past them without stopping.
Mama’s fingers clutch her beads so tightly her fingers blanch white. Elena’s head is bowed, lips moving in earnest repetition. The yellow ribbon glows softly in the candlelight, an unthinking brightness against the gloom. I kneel too. My hands fold. My back bends. My lips move, the words distant to my own ears.
I know.
The knowledge sits inside me like a stone too heavy to lift
I see again the pasture scattered with white bodies. I see the church doors stained dark. I see Popa Vasile’s empty eyes. And beneath all of it, beneath the blood and the horror and the prayers, I see myself standing in the forest.
I lifted the blade and did not strike.
I let his hands touch me.
I opened my mouth and did not scream.
If there is rot, it began with me.
