“I don’t want to be in his company or caw,” Adam said, reluctantly pulling away his palm. This whole thing was too much to process.
Emil got up too and gave him a hug. “We’ll work it out. In the meantime, let’s just keep him happy.”
Adam rubbed his nose as he watched Emil pull on a T-shirt. “Are you telling me, a priest, to become a devil worshipper?”
“Not ‘worshipper’. Let’s say… friend—no, reluctant ally? I’ll go see if breakfast is ready.”
Adam wasn’t hungry, but he could barely hear his thoughts while Emil was at his side, so he nodded and offered him a faint smile.
He got another brief kiss before Emil unlocked the door and left Adam with a profound sense of confusion. Hadn’t Emil seen what happened last night? Wasn’t he concerned that the demon made Adam walk around naked, wound himself and smear his blood over a weird rock in the woods? Why was he so content all of a sudden? Especially after his house burned down just yesterday.
Adam was getting a nasty itch he couldn’t explain. Something in this room wasn’t as it should be, and he looked around, unable to identify anything out of place. Well, except for the bowl of fruit, but while strange, it wasn’t the source of his discomfort.
His mouth dried with the need to go outside and have a drink of something cold, but he kept on watching the walls, which appeared distorted, their lines the tiniest bit crooked, as if they were alive and might slam into him at any second.
He was not going crazy. He was not.
The floor called out to him, the patterns of the raw wood inviting his touch, so he slid to his knees and faced the bed, slowly tuning to what the space was trying to tell him. A strange scent pulled at his nose and his gaze followed a line of sunlight pointing into the shadow under the very spot where he’d slept since arriving in Dybukowo. He moved his hand along that elusive arrow all the way under the bed where his fingers met something that shouldn’t have been there.
He didn’t want to look at it, but as he picked up the small wooden figurine with a lock of hair pulled through the chest, his thumb found its face, and then the horns on the tiny head.
“No.”
Just when Adam allowed himself to believe he’d found peace, his world collapsed onto itself once more. Emil had told him he’d burned the figurine. Adam could swear he’d seen it alight and smelled the burning hair, yet here it was, staring at him with the red smudges it had for eyes.
A sense of absolute dread set root in Adam’s flesh when he spotted a long strand of dark hair on the uncovered sheet. It was as if the universe was pushing the answer at him. The one answer he wanted to ignore no matter how much it made sense.
Emil seemed awfully happy for someone who’d lost everything less than twenty-four hours ago, but it was his relaxed attitude about the fact that Adam sleepwalked all the way to the Devil’s Rock and made a blood sacrifice that should have set off alarms. And it would have, if Adam wasn’t so devoted to him. So hopelessly, stupidly bewitched by a man who was manipulating him with promises of love.
If Emil really cared for Adam’s feelings and sanity, he would have done everything in his power to help him leave first thing in the morning, take him away from the clutches of a power neither of them understood. Instead, he entangled Adam in a false sense of security and clouded his judgment until staying seemed like a viable choice.
A terrifying thought shot through Adam like lightning, charring love and trust. Could Emil have put the figurine under the bed? Could the loving face obscure a side of him that wanted to keep Adam tied to this place, forever a slave to the devilish forces that overpowered Adam’s will with such ease? Could he have caused the possession in the first place?
Adam had always despised the way some villagers gossiped about Emil being a Satanist just because he wasn’t like other people his age, but what if there was a grain of truth to it that went beyond Emil’s band T-shirts and long hair? Emil could be Adam’s greatest blind spot since Adam was so desperate to believe him. If he ignored his own hunch and it then turned out to be true, he’d be the greatest fool in history. Even if not the first to suffer because of ill-placed love.
When Emil came back in, Adam was still on the floor, but he squeezed the figurine in his hand to hide it. He didn’t want to believe what his mind suggested, but if, possibly-maybe, Emil dabbled in black magic, Adam couldn’t let him know his suspicions yet.
Emil smiled at him and put two mugs of tea on the side table, irresistible with the dark hair cascading down his chest. Adam didn’t want to believe the smiles and loving touch, or the endless patience he’d offered had been only a front, but the fact that he so desperately didn’t want something to be true didn’t mean it wasn’t.
“Mrs. Luty’s in a weird mood,” Emil said.
“Weird?” Adam uttered.
“Yeah. I kind of expected her to be angry over us oversleeping, but she was all charm. Maybe that grandson of hers just got engaged or something? Are you okay? You’re pale. You should eat, let’s go.”
“Am I?” Adam asked and dragged himself up, glad that the walls and floor were back to normal.
He wondered whether he shouldn’t take a shower first but decided against it when his stomach rumbled, and the scent of the cut apple teased his mouth into salivating. He put on a T-shirt and nodded, leading the way to the dining room.
“Father Adam!” Mrs. Janina had the widest smile for him, and she hurried past him, pulling out the chair as if he were incapable of doing it himself. “How kind of you to take Emil in for the time being. The moment you arrived in Dybukowo I could feel we had a good one on our hands.”
Had she used the wrong berries in her jam and was now tripping? “Oh. Well… I just did what was right. Everyone needs a helping hand once in a while,” Adam said and sat, discreetly watching Emil wink at him from behind the housekeeper’s back.
“Do you want anything hot? Scrambled eggs? Pancakes?” she asked, as if the feast laid out on the table weren’t extravagant enough. She even popped open a fresh jar of her homemade mustard. “And you, Emil? You must be feeling terrible after what happened last night. For as long as I live, there will always be a meal and a bed for you here.”
Emil sat next to Adam, and despite Mrs. Janina’s presence, the whole scene felt weirdly domestic. As if having meals together each morning might become a new routine. “Thank you, it means a lot, Mrs. Luty.”
She smiled, resting her hands on her hips. When both of them insisted they would settle on what had already been prepared, Mrs. Janina remembered she had a cake—Adam’s favorite plum sponge at that—in the oven, and walked off, leaving them in stunned silence.
“What is going on?” Adam asked, glancing at Emil, who already helped himself to some cold cuts of meat, as if this wasn’t the strangest morning in living memory.
Emil rolled his eyes. “Maybe she woke up to what a pity party I am. You won’t see me complaining.”
Adam watched Emil’s every move as he put a hard-boiled egg in a cup and used the spoon to crack the shell at the top. There couldn’t have been a more ordinary sight yet Adam’s thoughts ran wild with worry that maybe Emil somehow managed to bewitch Mrs. Janina as well, because why else would her attitude change so suddenly?