It hisses against the damp earth, shrivels, turns to fragile ash.
The last thread of smoke thins into the evening air, and Popa Vasile lowers the torch, his face lit gold by the dying flame. The crowd watches him as though he has already delivered them from something terrible.
"We will now proceed to the sacrament," he says, as if the fire had been only a necessary prelude. "Bring the water."
His assistant steps forward, cradling a large wooden basin against his chest. The water inside trembles with each careful step, catching the sinking light in fractured glints. He lifts it high before the priest, arms straining slightly beneath its weight, presenting it like an offering laid at an altar.
The murmuring dies. The yard grows still again.
Popa Vasile dips his fingers into the basin. The surface breaks soundlessly around his skin, small ripples widening outward. He lifts his wet hand and traces the sign of the cross above the water, droplets falling back into it in small beads. "In the name of the Father," he murmurs. His fingers return to the basin. "And of the Son." He removes the small metalcross from his chest and lowers it, submerging it fully before lifting it again, shining and slick. "And of the Holy Spirit."
The words settle over us like a veil drawn carefully into place.
The assistant’s arms tremble but he does not lower the basin, while the priest turns at last toward Neaga. He does not speak. He simply looks at her and waits.
For a brief moment, confusion flickers across Neaga’s face. She remains standing, the faintest crease forming between her brows, as if unsure what is required of her. No one instructs her. No one gestures. The priest stands before her, eyes fixed, expectant.
The crowd leans forward without meaning to. The weight of that expectation gathers, invisible but undeniable.
Neaga inhales. Then, carefully, she bends.
The motion is more measured than graceful, as if she must consider each inch before surrendering it. Her knees do not fold easily. I see the brief tightening of her jaw, the flicker of pain she tries to swallow before it reaches her face.
She lowers herself further, the dirt waiting beneath her.
One knee touches first. She falters there—just for a heartbeat—her body wavering as though unsure whether it can bear the descent.
Ilinca reaches forward instinctively, small fingers clutching at her sleeve, but Neaga steadies herself before the child can do more than brush the fabric.
Then the second knee sinks into the earth.
A faint, strained exhale escapes her. It might be mistaken for breath, or prayer.
But I see the way her hands tremble as they settle on her thighs. I know how much her body aches on good days. I have seen her struggle simply to rise from her bed, her fingers whitening around the edge of the table for support. I have seen the tremor in her legs when she stands too long.
A murmur ripples through the crowd, almost reverent.
"See," someone whispers. "She submits."
"She returns."
Something twists inside me.
When Mama brought me to be baptized, after Tata died and fear pressed against the walls of our house, it had been done quickly. I remember the smell of wax and damp stone, the way her fingers gripped my shoulders to keep me still while water touched my hair. I had been small. Confused. Held upright.
I had not knelt. Not like this. I have never seen anyone kneel like this to be baptized.
The sight unsettles me. The angle of her bowed head, the dirt staining the hem of her dress, the way she appears smaller now beneath him—it feels heavier than I expect. As though something is being pressed down, not lifted up.
The priest towers above her, the basin steady in his hands, and the yard watches as if witnessing something solemn and ancient. Heat flares in my chest.
Perhaps I misremember. Perhaps it is different when one returns as an adult. Perhaps I simply do not understand the proper order of things. I press my palms together, willing my thoughts into stillness.
This is holy, I tell myself. It must be.
Ilinca stands just behind her mother, small fingers knotted into the fabric at Neaga’s back. Her eyes move from the basin to the priest to the crowd, wide and uncomprehending. She cannot hear the murmurs, but she feels the stillness, the way every body leans inward.
Popa Vasile raises his voice, and the words of the sacrament unfurl over the yard, measured and sonorous. He speaks of sin and cleansing, of death and rebirth, of the old self laid down and the new raised up in Christ. The cadence is steady, practiced, filling the spaces between breath and heartbeat until the yard itself seems to pulse with it. "The servant of God," he says, naming Neaga in full, the syllables ringing clear in the cooling air. "Comes to be washed of sin and reborn in Christ."
