"Satanic," another voice adds, trembling with conviction. "They want to curse us."
My ears ring. I stand there, stunned. Because the things the man spoke did not sound like devilry to me. They sounded like fragments of something I had once known—something my father had taught me without ever calling it sacred. Yet the people around me recoil as if they have heard blasphemy itself.
Faces twist with anger. Hands clutch tighter around crosses and rosaries. Bodies press closer together, as though the travellers’ very presence might stain them.
The circle tightens, bodies pressing closer together, their people too near now, their bright cloths too loud against the gray of our fear.
"You think us fools?" Petru surges forward, anger twisting his face into something almost feral. "You come with death on your heels and call it help?"
The traveller opens his mouth, but Radu’s father is already stepping forward. His voice cuts through the noise, carrying the weight of command.
"Enough."
The shouting falters, drawn toward him instinctively. He stands tall now, shoulders squared, jaw set. His eyes do not leave the travellers as he speaks.
"You will leave," he says. "This moment."
A ripple of approval runs through the crowd.
The traveller’s leader stiffens. "You make mistake," he says urgently. "Night comes again. Storm comes back." He gestures to the sky, then to the far reaches of the fields. "You need shelter. All of us."
"Out," someone yells.
"Go curse another village!"
"We don’t want your satanic filth here!"
The words rain down on them, cruel and unchecked now. Curses follow—old ones, spat with conviction. Someone throws a clod of dirt. It lands short, but the intent is clear.
Radu’s father points to the road, unwavering.
"Go," he says. "Before we make you."
The traveller’s jaw tightens. He opens his mouth again, then closes it, his hand lowering in defeat. Then, one by one, his people begin to retreat, gathering their things under glares and whispered prayers. The sheep lie forgotten between us, their marks hidden once more by wool and shadow.
I remain frozen at the edge of the pasture, breath shallow, watching the travellers gather themselves and turn away. Cloth is tied down quickly, practiced hands working without panic. Dogs circle and settle. Horses stamp, then lean forward, muscles bunching as the reins are gathered. The carts creak as they are turned back toward the road, wheels biting into dirt, painted patterns flashing one last time in the dull light before slipping into motion.
Their voices rise again in that flowing language that seems to carry its own rhythm. It spills out around them as they move, words catching and breaking like water over stones.
Colour recedes from the edge of the village, red, blue, gold.
I watch it from far away, until it blurs into motion and distance, until it becomes only movement against the pale road.
For a moment, my eyes are drawn up.
She stands at the back of the last cart; the woman in red. Her lined gaze finds me with frightening ease, as if it had been looking for me all along. Her eyes do not flicker or soften or look away. They hold me where I stand, pinning something inside me that I cannot name. There is no warning in her mouth now—no words at all—but the meaning of her stare presses into me all the same.
A shiver runs through me, raising the fine hairs along my arms. For a heartbeat, nothing else exists.
Then someone brushes past me, hard enough to jolt my shoulder. Voices swell again. A hand claps loudly somewhere near my ear. The last cart lurches forward, breaking the line of sight, and the woman is gone—swallowed by movement, by cloth and wood and dust.
The road takes them; I remain.
Sound rushes back in uneven pieces. Feet shift. People begin to talk over one another, voices thick with excitement and fear. Someone laughs too loudly; someone else cries. I feel myself being carried with the movement, guided without thinking, my steps falling into place beside others as the crowd turns and flows away from the pasture.
The ground changes beneath my feet. Dirt gives way to wood. The air cools. The noise thins, reshapes itself into murmurs that echo strangely, until I find myself standing in the church.
Bodies pack the space tightly now, shoulders brushing, breath warm and shared, the familiar press of it closing in around me. Popa Vasile stands before the altar. The doors are shut, and now, the outside world feels very far away.
