Page 40 of Devil's Deal

The naked youths freeze, their jaws hanging open. None of them expected the shouting match to turn violent. I’m the only one who knows what will happen now, and I’m helpless to stop it.

“No,” I whisper when a black, jagged stone flashes in Przemyslaw’s fist, bloody in the firelight.

“Yes,” Woland replies right as Przemyslaw’s hand falls.

It lands on Bogna’s head with a wet crunch. She blinks, as if dazed, and breathes out. He tears the stone out of her head and drops it again with a shout of pure rage.

I can’t breathe. My breath is frozen, my body locked, and I see with unnatural sharpness the blood and skin in Bogna’s wound mixing with pieces of shattered bone from her skull. Her eyes are open and glassy, staring up at the sky, until the stone falls again, smashing in her forehead.

I am limp and still in Woland’s hold, my mouth wide open in a soundless scream, my eyes stuck to the scene of my only friend’s ugly death. The maidens weep and the boys shout, all the naked bodies tangled in a chaos of terror and shock.

Bogna’s face turns into a massacred pulp.

That’s when the music dies. Przemyslaw freezes with his bloody fist held high over his head. The screams and sobbing stop, and for one blessed moment, the world plunges into silence.

It swells bigger and bigger, ready to burst, until finally, it does. Przemyslaw throws his head back and releases an anguished, horrible howl of grief. All around me, the world erupts into a cacophony of screams. Woland laughs quietly, right in my ear, and lets me go. I land on my hands and knees in the grass, retching.

Bogna’s body is right there, just outside the circle. All through her death, she was just two steps away from me, and yet, I couldn’t reach her. I was helpless to stop it.

I don’t know how long it takes for the chaos to be wrangled back into a semblance of order. I take everything in with a sort of numb detachment, the hole of grief and guilt in my chest so big, it swallows my heart and breath. I can’t move or speak.

All I do is stare at the red mess of Bogna’s face, the gore burning into my mind. It makes no difference whether my eyes are open or closed. I see her all the same.

Przemyslaw is tied up with ropes, but all he does is weep like a child. His bloody hands are tied together in front of his body, and he keeps them raised to his face, his tears and snot mixing with his wife’s blood. His suffering seems grotesque and out of place, but it’s so human.

After all, he’s not really the villain here. Like everyone else, he was under the devil’s spell. I don’t feel sorry for him, though. He’s evil all the same, yet his evil is so small and mundane compared to Woland’s.

Przemyslaw weeps seeing the consequences of his actions.

Woland laughed.

When Bogna is covered with a sheet, I still see her as she is underneath. I see the blood congealing, the shards of bone like white pebbles in a pool of red. Then I blink, heavy and exhausted, and she’s gone, her body carried away. And yet, her butchered face is still right there as I blink again, the image seared onto my eyelids.

She’s taken away to be prepared for her funeral in the morning, and Przemyslaw is dragged away, too, his body limp from grief. People leave the meadow one by one, men removing the benches, women cleaning up cups and food.

Soon, all that’s left from the Kupala celebrations are the dying fires, sizzling and sputtering as cold dew covers the grass.

When the first ray of the morning sun falls on the river, making it glitter gold like Woland’s eyes, I realize the circle is empty, the holy fires extinguished, gray smoke trailing over their charred remains.

The gods are gone. It’s over.

Chapter fourteen

Yarrow

I sit in front of my cottage, shelling peas into a pot. It’s early evening, the only time when I dare to sit outside. At this late hour, barely anyone walks down the path by my house, and so I can soak up the rays of the dying sun without being assaulted by scornful looks.

It’s been over four weeks since Kupala Night. The hole in my chest is even bigger than it was then.

“I know what you’re thinking, girl, and you’re wrong. It’s not really your fault.”

Wiosna’s voice floats over the lush mint growing in the herb patch in front of my cottage. It’s not the first time I hear her since Kupala, and I do my best to ignore it. To react would be to admit there’s something wrong with me.

Hearing voices isn’t normal.

“Remember, Jaga, you only see one facet of the truth. There is more to it, like there always is. Maybe what happened was a blessing. Maybe the devil did her a favor.”

“Ouch,” I hiss when the blade slips, cutting my finger.

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