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“You understandthat this is for your own good?”
Father Borodin’s voice seemed to come from hundreds of miles away, filtering through pain to reach my ears.
He brought the birch branch down across my back. I bit down hard on the wooden gag between my teeth, sucking in a breath through my nose.
Warmth trickled over my sides and lower back, my blood soaking into the dress draped around my hips. He’d brought me to the basement, where no one would hear me scream, gag notwithstanding.
Both wrists were bound with ropes between two wooden posts driven deep into the earth floor. This was where many of my punishments had taken place over the years; it had been a long time since I’d misbehaved badly enough to be brought down here.
“I don’t know how many times I must drill this into your silly little head.” Father Borodin paced around me, contemplatively slapping the branch across his open palm as he watched me pant for breath. The tip of the branch was already stained a deep red. “The Vessel has responsibilities to the village. You do not live to serve your own desires; you live to serve the people. You werepermittedto live, filth though you are, to keep the rest of us safe from the Beasts.”
He paused in front of me, gently slapping the branch against his palm again. Worse than the pain was the exposure, my breasts exposed to his wandering eyes. He looked at me the way a man might examine a prized sheep, not a fellow human.
“Your mother had the same willful streak, and look what became of her.” He curled his lip in a sneer. “Do you wish for a pyre as well? Once you have bred the next Vessel, I would happily scatter your ashes at the nearest crossroads.”
The threat was not an idle one. We all knew that those who had been burned at the stake and had their ashes scattered would never reach Heaven. Those poor souls would wander as restless spirits, until the Wood trapped them and twisted them into hungry, malevolent spirits.
My mother had been burned at the stake as a witch for forsaking her duties as a Vessel. She had been allowed to live long enough to bear me—without naming a father, despite the torture they put her through—and once I’d been delivered into the Church’s hands, she was put to the torch.
I knew this lesson well; it was not one Father Borodin allowed me to forget.
Because I was fatherless, I was impure. Even my status as a Vessel could not protect me from the fate of all bastard children.
No matter what I did in this lifetime, whether I sacrificed every last drop of myself for the sake of the village or not, I would never attain true purity.
Sometimes, deep in my heart, I wondered if I should care at all. Why should I care about the Church if I was already damned?
The Father seemed to read that thought in my eyes. He quickly circled me, delivering another blow between my shoulder blades. Fire lanced through my spine and ribs, and bitter acid rose in the back of my throat.
I swallowed it down, afraid to throw up with the gag between my teeth. I wasn’t entirely sure the Father would save me from drowning in my own vomit.
The Beast’s words came back to me with every blow. Why did I not break free?
Why, indeed?the creature inside me whispered, flexing her claws.
Because I was dangerous. I was as monstrous as the Beasts, the heart of the Wood given human form.
But it was so hard to look into Father Borodin’s eyes, gleaming and heated, as he brought the branch down with pleasure, and not want to unleash that savage thing inside me.
He knelt in front of me, examining my face. He traced the line of my cheek with the bloodied end of the branch. “You must do better. You must try harder, or the death of all of Vostok will be on your hands.”
I shook my head, wanting to deny it, and the branch tapped my cheek harder.
“Every man, every woman, every child… the infants in their cradles… they all live to see another sunrise because of you. The Beasts skinned a deer alive and left it for us. Imagine it being our little ones.” The branch was just under my eye, gouging into the flesh. “Imagine it being your fault.”
When I shook my head again, he took the branch away. He knew he had won, satisfaction written in every line of his body as he rose.
I could not allow them to die like that. Itwouldbe my fault.
He tossed aside the branch and cupped my chin, lifting my head. He looked so kind and warm, it was almost impossible to believe that a moment ago he had been whipping the skin from my back. “There will be no flames for you if you try harder,” he said gently. “I will always be here to guide you.”
That was what frightened me most of all.
* * *
Even if Ihad been given permission to sleep, I wouldn’t have been able to with the pain in my back, fresh wounds atop barely healed ones; which meant I was awake and in the kitchen when a teenage boy arrived, panting and sweating, with news for the Father.
I looked up from behind my veil, the book of hymns open on my lap, as he stumbled into the church kitchen.
