I sit with my portion untouched for a long while, the taste of it heavy on my tongue. I want to stand. To tell them that the darkness they fear does not hover in corners or creep through doorframes. That it has already come and gone. That their flocks will not be touched again. That the forest does not hunger for them.
Popa Dorin sits near the front, posture straight, speaking softly with Radu’s father between bites. His head inclines, listening, nodding once, twice. He does not look toward the whispering clusters, yet his words from earlier hang over us still, shaping the air we breathe.
By the time the bowls are cleared, the barn feels smaller than it did at dawn. Eyes no longer meet freely. Conversations fracture into pairs and trios. Shoulders angle away from one another.
Outside, night gathers again beyond the doors.
When the sun sinks behind the rooftops and the last light slips from the sky, the barn has been rearranged.
The men lie along one wall, cloaks rolled beneath their heads, boots placed neatly in rows. The women are gathered opposite them, closer to the far door, blankets spread over hay. A rope has been strung across the middle, crude and unnecessary, yet obeyed without question.
Popa Dorin stood at the threshold before nightfall, hands folded within his sleeves. He spoke quietly of modesty, of vigilance. He said that fear loosens discipline, that proximity invites weakness. He reminded the women that idle tongues breed sin. A few men lowered their heads, some shifted uneasily, but no one argued.
Now we lie divided.
I stare at the rafters above, counting the dark lines where wood meets shadow.
Sleep does not come.
The mark at my throat pulses faintly, answering something beyond the walls. My chest feels tight beneath the weight of the day—of soil thrown over a coffin, of blood soaking into earth, of eyes turning toward me in expectation. The memory of his mouth against my skin returns with merciless clarity. My body answers it, heat rising in places that should not burn in a shed full of women murmuring piety. It remembers what it felt like to move without watching eyes, to breathe beneath open branches, to let my hair fall loose down my back without being told to bind it.
Beside me, Mama shifts in her sleep and mutters half a prayer. On my other side, Elena breathes steadily, her braid resting against her cheek. I watch the rise and fall of her shoulders and feel the distance between us widen without sound.
The thought of tomorrow presses down on me.
The altar. The vows. Radu’s hand closing around mine. Popa Dorin’s eyes, cold and measuring. A house where windows face away from the forest. Days measured by obedience. Children taught to fear what lives beyond the last fence post.
Moving from kitchen to well to field and back again under the watchful eye of a husband who thinks he knows the shape of my desire. Sharing a bed from which there is no silent ladder to climb, no door I can ease open without waking another body beside mine. The woods shrinking behind the line of fields, further each season.
My fingers curl into the straw.
I think of the woods at dusk, the way the light lingers between trunks, the way it opens without asking me to shrink. I think of the lake and the willow, of bare feet on moss. I think of the lamb’s eye fixed on the sky while men called it cleansing.
The shed feels smaller with every breath.
I turn onto my side and close my eyes, but the darkness inside is crowded with faces and words and hands. My pulse beats loud in my ears. I feel the walls pressing inward, the roof lowering, the air thinning.
I cannot remain here.
I feel it the way I feel my own blood moving—steady, certain. A pull, low and insistent, drawing me toward it. The darkness beyond the barn walls is no longer empty, it is alive with him. He is there. I know it without sight. He is waiting for me.
He will take me with him this time.
If I stay, the rope will tighten. The vows will be spoken. The door will close.
I lift my head slightly. Across the barn, the faint outline of the entrance shows against the dark. A figure rises from the men’s side. Old Mircea shuffles toward the door, muttering under his breath as he fumbles with the latch. The wood creaks softly, cool air spilling in before he steps outside.
Now.
I push myself upright. The straw rustles beneath my weight, but no one stirs. My heartbeat thuds so loudly I am certain it will wake them all. I move again, one careful step after another, keeping my skirts lifted slightly to avoid brushing against the others.
The door remains open only a moment, but I am farther than I was last night. The women have been pushed to the back, away from the entrance, away from easy escape. I am still several paces away when Mircea reenters, pulling it closed with a dull thud. The latch falls into place.
I freeze.
The darkness presses in again as though nothing had shifted at all. Mircea shuffles back to his place. A low snore resumes.
I stand there for a breath longer, the distance between me and the door stretching wide as a field. Then I turn back, lowering myself onto my blanket. I lie on my back, eyes open, watching the faint outline of the roof beams. My pulse refuses to slow.
