The air is cooler here. Light seeps in through a narrow slit in the wall and settles in a pale strip across the floor. The chest sits beneath it, lid scarred from years of use. I kneel and lift it open, its hinges groaning in protest. The smell of linen rises, untouched by the iron tang from the other room.
My fingers are already sorting through folded cloth when something brushes my arm.
Ilinca stands behind me.
She has come without sound. Her hair falls loose around her shoulders. Her eyes search my face, as if asking a question she cannot shape.
"Are you well?" I whisper.
She does not answer. Instead, her hands gather the edge of her skirt and lifts it just enough for me to see.
The fabric beneath is darkened through. Dark red has spread across the linen, blooming outward in uneven shapes, damp at the centre.
I reach forward and press her skirt back down, my heart tightening. "Not here," I murmur, glancing toward the doorway where the voices drifts in and out like breath.
Her fingers clutch the wool at her hips. She watches me closely.
"I am sorry," I say softly. "Just a little longer. I will bring clean ones to you later."
Her shoulders loosen, her head nods. A small smile touches her mouth before she raises her index finger and presses it gently to her lips. Silence.
The gesture is solemn, almost proud. I cannot help the smile that answers it. I cup her cheek in my palm, brushing my thumb lightly against her skin.
"You did well."
She leans into my hand for a moment, then steps back, her gaze steady on mine as the dim light pools quietly around us. I watch her small back disappear through the curtain, the murmur of prayer swallow her whole.
My brows tighten. Is she too young for this?
The thought lingers only a breath before another rises in its place. I was not much older.
Our house. The main table cleared. My father laid where bread once cooled.
His body had seemed both vast and distant. I remember standing on my toes to see him better, watching the stillness of his chest as though it might change if I waited long enough. His skin had gone pale beneath the winter light, the fever having burned everything bright from him. The room smelled of boiled herbs and smoke.
Mama’s voice had filled the walls the days before he passed, gripping his arm, her voice breaking as she begged him to pray louder, to pray properly, to repent of whatever pride had kept God from sparing him.
He had smiled faintly at that.
A few hours before the end, he had called me closer. I remember the weight of his hand at the back of my head, pulling me down so his breath brushed my ear. It came thin and warm, carrying the scent of thyme and sweat.
"Do not be afraid," he had whispered. "Do not be angry."
His fingers had tightened slightly around mine.
"The woods gave me more days than I was owed."
His fingers brushed my cheek.
"Remember that."
After he was gone, I stood beside him until they took him away. His hands rested crossed over his chest, fingers I knew better than my own. I remember staring at them for hours. Waiting for them to move. I traced the lines of his knuckles. I studied the hollows beneath his eyes. I searched for him in that stillness and could not find him.
The body on the table was my father’s shape, his hands, his beard. But the thing that laughed, that walked into the forest with me, that pressed green leaves into my palms and poultices to fevered brows—
He had been there. And then not.
The house had felt different after. Smaller. Quieter. Mama’s prayers grew louder in the weeks that followed, pressing into every corner. The bundles of herbs disappeared one by one from their hooks.
