Past the church doors, still stained and darkened. Past the horse’s shifting flank. My gaze drifts to the tree line beyond the houses. The forest waits there, quiet, its branches tangled and deep. Even in daylight it seems deeper now, less forgiving. My pulse shifts when I look at it. The memory of moonlight against bark, of breath against my skin, rises with such claritythat the village sounds dim around me. I feel him still in my skin, in the hollow beneath my throat, in the steady warmth that coils through my chest. The morning light does not wash it away.
A crow lifts from the treeline and disappears into the pale sky.
"Where is the body?" Popa Dorin asks.
The question lands like an order.
Radu’s father gestures toward the church. "Within, Father. We covered him until your arrival."
Popa Dorin’s jaw tightens. He steps forward without waiting for further explanation, his boots darkening with dew as he crosses the yard, the assistant clinging to him.
The crowd parts to let him pass, whispers thinning into silence as they move toward the church, breath rising in pale clouds that drift and vanish. No one speaks loudly. Even the children keep close to their mothers’ skirts, sensing the weight pressing down over the yard. The bell rope sways in the thin morning wind, knocking softly against the wood as if it too does not dare ring.
The hand is still there.
Nailed high against the church door, fingers stiff and darkened, the skin drawn tight where iron pierces through. The flesh has begun to turn, swollen and wrong. Ravens cling to the doorframe and the beam above, their black wings hunched close against their bodies as they peck and tear with small, efficient movements. One lifts its head as we approach, a thread of something pale caught in its beak. Another flutters down, claws scraping wood as it joins the feast.
A murmur ripples through the villagers like a cold wind through dry leaves, the sound of the birds’ beaks striking flesh carrying coldly in the stillness.
I feel the recoil in my stomach, the instinctive tightening at the sight of it. Yet, beneath the discomfort, something else stirs. I remember the eyes that lingered when I knelt, leaning closer, askingwhere exactly, how exactly, did you want it. I remember the basin by the hearth, the sense of being watched, the memory no longer uncertain.
The ravens tear at what once pressed a rosary to my lips.
Beside me, Elena steps closer. The yellow ribbon is still tied in her hair, neat against the dark fall of it, bright against the muted morning. Mythoughts brush against the memory of the bundle I burned at the edge of the forest, the cloth tucked inside Doamna Irina’s drawer. A faint blue thread woven into linen.
Did she know?
The question flickers and fades before it can fully form. Elena turns suddenly, and, as though feeling my stare, her eyes find mine in a heartbeat. Without a word, she steps closer and slips her hand into mine, squeezing tightly.
The pressure of her fingers is familiar, a grounding tether to the years we have shared. I squeeze back, because I always have, because I love her as I have always loved her. Yet, if the warmth of her touch reaches me, it does not settle the way it once did.
The ravens scatter suddenly as Popa Dorin steps forward. His jaw tightens at the sight, though he does not recoil. Radu’s father and the assistant move with him, clearing space before the doors. Without ceremony, without lingering, the new priest mounts the steps and pushes the heavy wood inward. The hinges groan as the church opens to receive him, and he disappears inside with the men, leaving the rest of us in the yard beneath the silent, watchful sky.
We wait.
The doors remain closed for longer than feels natural. The crowd shifts in the yard, boots grinding frost into slush, breath rising and fading, but no one dares step closer than the threshold. A few men edge closer, peering into the dim interior, but the nave is swallowed in shadow. Nothing moves inside that we can see. Even the ravens keep their distance now, perched along the rooftops in watchful silence.
Mama’s fingers worry the edge of her shawl. Elena’s hand has slipped from mine, though she stands close enough that our sleeves still brush. No one speaks above a murmur.
When Popa Dorin emerges at last, his face looks paler than before, though his spine remains straight. He pauses on the top step, hands folded within the sleeves of his dark robes, gaze lowered as if measuring his breath. Then he lifts his eyes.
The crowd stills.
"All that has transpired," he begins, his voice clear and carrying in the cold air, "did not happen without cause."
A few heads bow. Others stiffen.
"There is no wound upon consecrated ground that is not first opened in the spirit," he continues. "If evil has crossed this threshold, it is because vigilance has faltered."
A murmur trembles through the villagers, faint as wind through dry leaves. I feel Mama’s fingers tighten around her rosary beside me.
Popa Dorin’s gaze moves across us slowly, not accusing, yet unyielding. "Sin invites what it believes it can hide," he says. "Corruption does not descend unbidden. It is made room for."
The words press against my skin. I glance at the faces around me—at lowered eyes, at lips moving in hurried prayers, at shoulders drawing inward as though shrinking from an unseen gaze.
His attention shifts to the doorway behind him. Two men carry out a small chest and set it down at the foot of the steps—the offerings given over months and years. Coins. Small pieces of gold. Tokens pressed into Popa Vasile’s keeping.
Popa Dorin rests his hand atop the lid.
