Where the Devil Says Goodnight

by K. A. Merikan

  Adam frowned. It wasn’t impossible for a nun to get pregnant, but he doubted there were any who’d choose to be out and about in their robes once their condition became obvious. But he listened, watching Mom turn the rosary ring on her finger, as if she were praying.

  “I didn’t want to be insensitive and pretended I didn’t see her bump, but as she joined me and collected fruit herself, she started the topic of babies. It was a strange experience, but I told her about our problems with conceiving. She touched my abdomen and told me I’d surely have a son of my own very soon. And then… she just turned and made her way down the path leading deeper into the forest. I called out after her, and when she looked back, her stomach was completely flat, as if I’d imagined her baby bump. And a month later, I found out I was pregnant with you,” she said, voice trembling.

  Adam’s head was full of chaotic thoughts when he met her reddened gaze. She was mentally sound, even if her zeal sometimes skirted the line between religious devotion and fantasy. But he also realized that this wasn’t the first time she advised him not to travel to that remote region of the country.

  “Is this why you didn't let me go on a school trip to the Bieszczady? Look, Mom, I don’t want to say you didn’t see what you saw, but maybe there’s a logical explanation for it? You and Dad ate wild berries. Maybe some of those weren’t what you thought they were?” he offered, trying his best to not sound accusatory, because Mother despised any and all drugs.

  She grasped Adam’s fingers in her own sweaty hand. “I am not crazy. I beg you not to go. Nothing good awaits you there. We will never find out how you really came to be, but it’s for the better. Let’s leave it behind and trust the Lord protects you.”

  Heat turned Adam’s head into a pressure cooker. Did his own mother just suggest he’d been some kind of devil baby that needed special protection in order to stay on the righteous path? Was this why she’d been so insistent on keeping him close to the Church since he could remember?

  “Mom, you probably just got pregnant because you and Dad relaxed—”

  “No! Adam, listen to me. Dad was tested when we tried for a second child, and he… is incapable of having children.”

  That made Adam frown. “I’m a miracle child then. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “You were born with a tail!”

  Adam stilled, staring at her with his insides churning, and the scar on his tailbone itched. “What?”

  Dad chose this moment to come back with the jar of fruit. “Here we go. Dessert.”

  “Dad! Mom just told me I was born with a tail! What? Is that true?”

  Adam expected Father to laugh it off, so he froze to the chair when that didn’t happen. What in all hells were his parents hiding? Why had they never told him any of this?

  Father’s frown was deep and contemplative. “Hm. Well… yes, but it was really small. The doctors told us it happens more often than people think.”

  Mom’s voice got a higher pitch. “It was not! It was the length of his entire body!”

  Father put the large jar of compote in the middle of the table before opening the tableware cabinet and pulling out Mother’s most precious china bowls. “Honey, you were panicking, and unwell. I’m telling you it wasn’t nearly as long as his body.”

  “I can’t believe this. And that time he sleepwalked all the way to the train station? And managed to sneak on board a train to Sanok? Where do you think the devil was leading our Adam, if not back there? I’m going to be sick,” she said with tears in her eyes, and rushed out of the room before slamming the bedroom shut.

  Adam wanted to follow her, but Father grabbed his arm. “She’ll be okay. It’s just a very sensitive topic. For the record—because I’m sure she told you this story—I saw no pregnant nuns. There’s no convents in the area either. If you ask me, I think it was hallucinations. We participated in the Ivan Kupala night festivities and drank a mushroom broth offered by the local wise woman. We didn’t think and just had a whole cup each. It’s embarrassing, but if that drink somehow made it easier for us to create you, then that’s all that matters.” He smiled and patted Adam’s shoulder. “I hate that you’ll be so far away, but… maybe this break from the hustle and bustle of the city will be good for you? A time to soul-search a little. See for yourself if this is the life you want.”

  “What else would I want?” Adam asked, shocked that his closest family still questioned his calling.

  Father must have sensed the accusation in his tone, because he wouldn’t look into Adam’s eyes. “We always felt you were… different. Not because you were born with a tail, but because you’re a very sensitive young man, and I worry that… the path you chose might be a way to stay in your comfort zone. Sometimes, embracing who we are instead of fighting it is the only way to happiness.”

  A cold shiver ran down Adam’s spine. Was Father using euphemisms to suggest he thought Adam was homosexual? Was that also why Mother had encouraged him to pick up priesthood since Adam had entered his teens? The possibilities made his head thud, and he backed away, grabbing the jar.

  “I… thank you. Can I take this with me? I don’t think Mom’s up for dessert anymore,” he said, itching for a change of topic. Dybukowo now felt like the perfect place to escape this conversation. And maybe the archbishop had been right? Maybe a simple life away from the possibility of temptation would finally heal Adam’s sinful obsession?

  If there was one thing Adam was sure of, it was that there would be no gay men in Dybukowo.

  Chapter 2 - Adam

  It was so dark Adam could barely see anything beyond the streaks of water drizzling down the windows of the old bus. The trip from Warsaw, which had been supposed to take seven hours, had extended into eleven already, and the serpentine mountain roads made no promises of cutting Adam’s misery short. At one point Adam and a few other men, had to push the bus through a deep mud puddle in the punishing downpour, and now he was stuck behind an elderly lady eating an egg sandwich, his teeth clattering from the icy touch of his clothing.

  None of this would have happened if the pastor, or someone else from the village, had come to collect him up from the train station in Sanok. But since nobody was picking up the phone at the Dybukowo parish, getting on the last bus of the day had been his only option.

  It was almost eleven p.m. when the vehicle came to a halt, and the driver looked down the aisle running through the middle of the bus. “Anyone getting off at Dybukowo?”

  Adam swallowed a curse and shot to his feet. He swiftly put on his light black jacket, hauled the backpack over his shoulder and picked up the heavy duffel bag that contained most of his belongings.

  “Come on, other passengers have places to be,” the driver urged, shaking his head as Adam walked past him.

  Adam chose to ignore the man’s rudeness but scowled when the first droplets of water fell on his exposed head. While rain was bad, the wind that blew icy needles under Adam’s open jacket was so much worse. The rapid gusts tried to rip the bag from his hand, so he ran straight into the small roofed shelter, relieved to feel cold instead of freezing. The unmistakable smell of urine stabbed his nose, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  Adam faced away from some obscene graffiti and love declarations just as the bus rolled forward, revealing a small blocky building with windows full of food-related posters.

  His heart couldn’t have been warmer the moment he realized it was a store, and that the lights inside were still on.

  He pulled the hood of his jacket over his head, took a deep breath for courage, and ran across the empty road. Water burst into his shoes when he stepped into a deep puddle, but he reached the sheet metal roofing over the front of the store by the time a woman stepped out of the building.

  She spun to face Adam, holding a large bundle of keys like a weapon as she scrutinized him in perfect silence. Shame sank into Adam’s muscles when he realized he must have scared her. His first day in Dybukowo, and he’d already managed to make a bad impression
.

  He dropped the bag and raised his hands before pushing back the hood, because he knew his face was the picture of innocence and often got him brownie points from the get-go. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to startle you. I’m looking for the church.”

  The store owner’s eyes narrowed, and she put the keys into the pocket of the pink pants she wore with a matching blazer. The small lamp above the entrance softened the lines of her face, but it was impossible not to notice that even though she carried herself in a way that suggested middle age, her face was devoid of wrinkles under the thick makeup. It was the appearance Adam associated with socialites in Warsaw, not small-town businesswomen, but she still looked normal. No pentagrams. No runes. And unless her smooth features were the result of sorcery, not Botox, Mother’s stories about Dybukowo were grossly exaggerated.

  When she didn’t respond right away, Adam cleared his throat. “My name’s Adam. I’m the new priest to assist Pastor Marek,” he said, eyeing the modern black SUV parked by the store. In weather as bad as this, she’d surely offer to drive him to his destination. It only made sense to honor a new shepherd and welcome him with more warmth than the pastor had so far.

  She frowned and pushed back the short curls on top of her head. “I thought you were supposed to arrive on Saturday. I guess timetables aren’t as important in Warsaw.”

  So she did know about him. That was a good thing. The negative comment about his big city background—not so much. He’d expected some pushback from his new parishioners, but getting slapped in the face with it at night, while a storm raged in the sky, hurt him more than it should have.

  “Oh. It’s probably a misunderstanding. I guess I better arrive at the parsonage as soon as possible.” He let the words hang in the air, but when the woman hadn’t taken the bait, he offered her a wide smile. “Would you mind giving me a ride?”

  Her brows lowered. “I’m sorry, but I am already late to pick up my grandson. You need to go straight down the road until you reach the church. You can’t miss it,” she said and opened an umbrella, leaving him stunned as she jogged to the car.

  Where was the famous countryside hospitality? Maybe he’d need to address this issue in his first sermon? Then again, since he was an outsider, locals would surely see that as an insult. He could choose a different route—making a grand passive-aggressive thank you that just one person would understand.

  He scolded himself for both ideas. That wasn’t him at all. He was friendly and didn’t hold grudges, even against a lady who drove an expensive-looking car and refused to help him out in this horrible weather. He stood still, watching her back lights disappear from sight in the darkness only lit by the windows of homes scattered over the landscape as scarcely as morsels of meat in a thin soup.

  The sky was an asphalt-gray above two chunky hills ahead, but that was where the woman had told him to go, so he pulled on his hood, closed the jacket, and started walking, hoping the way was as straightforward as she’d claimed. His cell phone had lost signal way before the bus had rolled into Dybukowo, so there would be no help from Google Maps.

  With shoes full of water—and he’d worn the nicest ones to make a good impression on his hosts—he trudged down the narrow road, taking in the wooden houses on either side. Some had barns or sheds attached, but there were no rustic decorations, fake wells, nor elaborate flower gardens in sight. This was real countryside, too far away from ‘civilization’ to become some city’s bedroom community, and still inhabited by native highlanders.

  Water splashed in twin ditches running on either side of the asphalt, but Adam’s ears picked up on the eerie quiet despite the hiss of the storm. A man briefly appeared from behind a curtain when his dog alarmed him of someone passing through the village so late at night, but he left Adam to his thoughts as soon as he saw him.

  Fair enough. Nobody was obliged to ask a traveler whether they needed any help, even if said traveler was soaked to the bone.

  Adam kept up a fast pace, and realized he was about to leave the village behind only a couple of minutes into the trek. He stopped by the local notice board, looking back at the collection of buildings that constituted Dybukowo, but when wind pushed him forward, he decided a local woman couldn’t have been wrong about the directions to the church she surely attended every Sunday.

  He needed to calm down, grit his teeth, and continue until he reached his destination. What other choice did he have? At this point, his clothes dripped with water anyway, and he was glad he’d invested in a waterproof laptop cover. The pastor wouldn’t be impressed with Adam coming a day early, but maybe the box of chocolates he’d brought as a gift could sweeten the deal.

  As the wind tossed the rain under Adam’s hood, slapping his face again and again, the hope for a warm bed was the one thing that kept him going. He was at the very end of the hellish journey, so he might as well hurry up and put an end to his misery.

  The two rows of poplars standing on either side of the road like soldiers shouted above his head with their creaking trunks and swishing leaves, but the storm was so overpowering in its force Adam decided to ignore everything around him and focused on moving his feet.

  The road climbed toward one of the hills once it reached the edge of a dense conifer forest. The trees formed a long tunnel, but as he entered the passage between the walls of wood and leaves, a shiver hurried down his spine. And it was the kind of shiver that had nothing to do with Adam’s soaked clothes.

  Something was watching Adam. Something hiding beyond the first row of trees, in the tar-black abyss of the shapeless growth his eyes couldn’t see in the dark. It could only be imagination playing tricks on him in those unfamiliar surroundings, but as he picked up his pace, eager to pass through the woodland and reach the church, the darkness came alive, speaking in creaks and whistles as wind blasted into Adam’s back and made the tree tops high above bow to him. He barely kept himself on his feet but broke into a run, struggling each time the duffel bag swung and sawed its fabric handle into the flesh of Adam’s icy palm.

  The pines, larches, firs, and spruces united in an angry shriek and thrashed high above, urging him to leave their domain. He was about to toss the duffel bag over his shoulder and jog toward the clearing ahead when lightning ripped the sky into pieces and transformed night into day.

  Adam dropped his luggage with a shriek when the rumble made his ears buzz, but just as he picked it back up, shuddering from the cold and wondering whether walking in this kind of weather was even safe, the sense of being watched returned.

  And then, in the repose following thunder, he heard hoof beats.

  Adam froze. Arms tightly locked around the drenched duffel bag, he fought the irrational sense that someone had followed him here all the way from the village. He wanted to turn and make sure it was just some cow that had sneaked out of its pen, yet his whole body stiffened, screaming at him not to look back, too afraid of what he might see.

  So he took a step forward, then another, until he settled into a brisk walk that would eventually take him out of the darkness he feared for the first time since childhood. The clearing was ever closer, but the unknown animal stayed back, never trying to pass Adam, as if its one goal was to escort him into the open.

  The storm moved on, its growls softened, and as the road dipped toward the open fields beyond the woodland, Adam dove into fog so thick the falling rain had no effect on its presence. It lay on the asphalt like a layer of whipped cream over coffee and spread between the trees, creating a pallid background for their crooked forms.

  But the rhythmic clop behind him wouldn’t die down and picked up its pace when the edge of the forest was only a brief jog away.

  Adam bit his cheek and moved to the side of the road, trying to keep his body language casual, but when the road led him between two slopes where the air was thick with white swirls of fog, his heart sped up.

  And so did the hoof beats.

  He spun around, ready to defend himself, but the road was empty, as i
f he’d imagined it all.

  Adam’s shoulders sagged. This was all his mother’s fault. She’d been the one to bombard him with strange stories about his new placement when Dybukowo was a village like any other, and he’d have never gotten so paranoid if he’d arrived in daytime.

  Groaning with displeasure when the hood of his jacket rolled back and exposed his face to the elements, he faced the dark gray expanse beyond the trees, but as soon as he put one foot in front of the other, a black shape parted the fog as if the air were frozen water and the creature—an ice breaker. Adam expected horns on the demon’s head, but as the beast pounded its hooves against the asphalt, dashing straight at him, Adam realized it was a horse.

  Tall as a van, bulky, with a long mane, and hair around its hoofs, the draft horse whinnied in warning, and Adam rushed off the road just before the animal could have smashed into him. He let out a strangled cry when his shoe slipped, and he rolled into a ditch filled with moss and wet ferns. But at least he was safe.

  Adam’s teeth clattered when he dragged himself out of the mud, but he stopped breathing when, against the perfect blackness of the trees, he saw the horse make a U-turn, as if it no longer charged into some imaginary war it was fighting with the fog. Lightning cracked the sky again, at a distance this time, but its white glow painted the perfect gothic picture when it illuminated the massive steed as it reared uncomfortably close to Adam.

  He took air in sharp gasps, watching the animal return its front legs to the asphalt. Its beady eyes focused on Adam as if it took him for a predator to be cautious of, but it wasn’t running. It just watched.

  The weather didn’t seem to have much effect on the giant, though when the wind blew from behind it, the water clinging to the equine’s mane sprinkled Adam’s face.