Emil was going to be sick. His life hadn’t been his own for years. He’d been watched, assessed, and condemned for failing at something he hadn’t known he was meant to do. Dybukowo would keep him as one of its own, because he couldn’t bear sacrificing Adam to be free of this valley. He should have listened to Grandma’s letter and left long ago.
Ice cold vapor filled his chest when he realized that maybe Adam’s affection hadn’t even been real. Maybe it had only been an expression of Chort’s need for the body he’d been meant to own, and had nothing to do with choice or love. But if all this had been caused by Grandma’s magic, then it was up to Emil to complete the cycle. Adam deserved to be free, just like he so desperately wished. He would go back to Warsaw, rid of the burden, and never have to look back.
Emil took a deep breath. “What do I need to do?”
Chapter 24 - Adam
Adam couldn’t believe he’d agreed to take yet another step away from the faith he’d held on to all his life. He was a priest, the last person who should be straying from God’s path, but the teachings he’d received when he was still young resonated at the back of his head, treacherously assuring him that the Church offered no way to deal with the danger to his body and soul.
God will not help you if you don’t put in the effort, was something he’d heard often during religious classes when he was still a boy. God would not help you get better if you didn’t seek help from a doctor. He wouldn’t pass an exam for you if you didn’t study. And as unorthodox as Mrs. Janina’s method seemed, maybe Adam couldn’t be helped if he didn’t try out all the options on offer?
A part of him knew it was sacrilege, but if this being wasn’t Satan or one of his demons—if it was something different, a creature lost to time—then maybe he could walk out of Dybukowo unharmed.
Unable to keep calm in his room, which seemed so cold and unfriendly since Emil’s departure, he’d spent the evening with Father Marek, who was blissfully unaware of the two snakes living under his roof. With the weight of the upcoming night on his shoulders, Adam felt lonelier than ever as he sat in the chair while the pastor watched an old TV show, too engrossed in his sentimental trip to ask Adam and Mrs. Janina where they were going once she announced they were off.
Adam had half-expected her to wear black robes, or one of those linen dresses neo pagans liked to photograph themselves in, but she looked deceptively normal in the fitted jacket trimmed with golden thread and a dark purple dress, the same outfit he’d seen her don for a family wedding two months prior. There was nothing even remotely menacing about her appearance, and that put his heart at ease, no matter how much he feared what was to happen.
The storm has passed by the time they left the parsonage and walked past the church in the sparse moonlight coming from between the thick clouds still lingering in the sky. To Adam’s surprise, a car waited for them by the gate, and he recognized it as Mrs. Golonko’s.
His heart sank at the thought of one more person knowing about his plight, but he should have known Mrs. Janina wouldn’t keep her tongue from wagging.
“Does someone else know?” he whispered, but Mrs. Golonko opened the door, and he could no longer attempt to align his story with Mrs. Janina’s.
“Hurry! I don’t have all night,” Mrs. Golonko said with her usual grace. At least this time, she actually did offer him a lift.
Mrs. Janina took the passenger seat, which left Adam to sit in the back. The vehicle moved before he could have buckled his seatbelt, and an annoying beep resonated after only two seconds. “It’s you, Father,” Mrs. Golonko said, but he didn’t comment and just did what was expected of him.
“Does anyone else know?” he asked once again as the car sped down the muddy road between two fields, leaving the safety of the church behind.
Mrs. Janina glanced over her shoulder. “There’s four of us believers. But don’t worry, we’ll keep your secret, Father.”
Adam didn’t trust either of them to keep the gossip to themselves, but was now too far down this rabbit hole to protest, and watched Mrs. Golonko drive him off somewhere where all three of them would participate in a pagan ritual. With her big-brand bags, expensive clothes, and practical nature, she was the last person he’d have expected to be dabbling in the occult, yet here they all were.
As the SUV trembled on the uneven road, penetrating darkness with the sickly glow of its high-beam lights, Adam recognized faces and hands in the twisted shapes of branches ahead. He considered calling the whole thing off, but a shiver went down his spine as if an invisible finger traced his back when he inhaled to voice his thoughts.
“Can’t wait for all this to be over,” Mrs. Golonko said as if she were reading Adam’s mind.
Mrs. Janina scoffed. “It’s always the same with you. Maybe Chort grants you more patience when he’s back with us.”
Adam’s breath caught when he heard the demon’s name again. “The thing we’re supposed to do… what does it involve, exactly?”
He saw Mrs. Golonko’s eyes roll in the rear view mirror. “It’s better seen than described. But it has to happen tonight. It’s Fore—”
“I already told him.” Mrs. Janina complained. “It will be okay, Father Adam. We will get him out of you in no time.”
Adam swallowed hard, his palms sweating when he spotted the glimmer of water in the distance. The car slowed down and continued along the little lake where the Kupala Night celebrations had taken place. The glow of the headlights penetrated the line of the forest, slithering through the lattice of trunks and branches. Shadows crept behind the trees, faceless strangers eager to welcome Adam within their midst.
“Is this something that happens often? My mother… she told me she’d seen strange things when she visited here many years ago.”
Mrs. Janina shook her head. “Dybukowo is a perfectly normal village.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Mrs. Golonko mumbled.
“All I’m saying is that you’re safe, Father, as long as you follow instructions.”
That didn’t answer any of Adam’s questions, but he remained silent until the car came to a halt at the edge of the woods.
He took a deep breath, too stiff to move even when Mrs. Janina left the vehicle, deserting him to the company of Mrs. Golonko, who switched on the ceiling light and applied a fresh layer of lipstick. In her knee-length dress and a fur coat, she looked ready for a date, not to perform an ancient ritual in the woods.
He finally moved when she pulled off a pair of high heels with red bottoms and replaced them with black rubber boots. He found out why the moment his shoe sank into mud.
Mrs. Janina didn’t offer him any more time to think things through. As soon as the car locked with a beep, she switched on a large flashlight and led the way into the woods.
The forest whispered to Adam, but he remained mute to its call, hating every second of their trek. Each hooting owl, each snapping branch under his feet, made his insides twist with anticipation. The beam of the flashlight lengthened all shadows and made them crawl on the edges of Adam’s vision while an insistent scratching resonated inside his body, as if something writhed on the underside of his skin, awaiting the right moment to rip itself free.