Where the Devil Says Goodnight

by K. A. Merikan

  The morning revealed the far-off mountains in their full glory, with fog still lingering among the poplars in a way that had Emil melancholic even though he’d watched this spectacle of nature his whole life. Jinx was especially frisky today, and so eager to gallop Emil decided to relax and let him.

  Emil’s life was full of unlucky incidents and surprises that made his blood freeze, so he didn’t want to plan too far into the future. Details of what to do with his horse or house wouldn’t matter until he had the money to do anything about them, so for now, he enjoyed the cool, fresh air that smelled of dew, and rode Jinx toward the parsonage.

  He passed two local guys, who’d called him a Satanist throughout high school, just because he wore black and listened to heavy metal. Fortunately for Emil, now that they were in their thirties, the bullying attempts from their teenage years had become harmless running jokes.

  “You sure you don’t wanna buy the black one?” laughed Dawid, pointing at one of the sheep in the flock he was leading. It was an allusion to Emil being the black sheep of the village, but Emil took it in stride.

  “Careful, or I’ll send my crows after you,” he shouted back before riding off, all the way to the cast iron fence surrounding the church grounds.

  Emil tied Jinx to one of the tall poplar trees planted around the perimeter and entered the cobbled yard. There was only one service on weekdays, so the large open space was empty with the exception of magpies and sparrows, which congregated around pieces of bread Mrs. Luty must have scattered for them.

  The weather was still mild, so Emil chose a bench in the sun and sat behind the church, waiting for Father Marek. The man had been Dybukowo’s pastor for over a decade now, and despite not being a believer himself, Emil knew the priest’s routines. Father Marek was like clockwork, and he’d be leaving the parsonage around nine. Of course, Emil could have just knocked, but there was the ‘tiny’ issue of Mrs. Luty, the housekeeper who hated his guts. He’d rather not cause a scene.

  “Shoo!” he yelled in frustration when a huge crow descended on the back of the bench and narrowly missed his head with its wing. He was beginning to consider changing his cologne in the future, because he’d become catnip for the damn birds in the past few weeks, and couldn’t work out why.

  “Emil?” The pastor appeared out of nowhere, startling Emil into rising to his feet, as if he intended to salute.

  “Praise be Jesus Christ.” He forced a smile. He wasn’t into talking about God, but desperate times called for desperate measures. “You got a minute, Father?”

  The pastor nodded with a self-satisfied smile that still appeared a little greasy from his breakfast. He was round—both in the face and body—soft at the edges and pleasant, yet plain like a sugar-glazed donut with no filling. Father Marek was the kind of priest who stuck to the most standard of sermons and didn’t bother to jump on the bandwagon of controversy by criticizing ‘LGBT ideology’ and all the other ‘enemies’ of the modern Catholic Church. And while Emil didn’t much like complacency, he was glad of the pastor’s unwillingness to stir the pot, especially in a place like Dybukowo, which already had so little understanding for otherness.

  Then again, who would have the energy to fight heretics on a steady diet of Mrs. Luty’s amazing food and when the bed invited post-breakfast and afternoon naps instead?

  Emil still remembered the time before his granddad died, back when he didn’t have to fend for himself. As his late grandma’s old friend, Mrs. Luty had always treated both him and Granddad to lunch, and then sent them home with plastic boxes filled with food for supper. If she was in the mood, she’d add dessert, and even if there was no love left anymore between him and Mrs. Luty, he had to admit her cakes were divine.

  He followed Pastor Marek to the small church filled with benches and the scent of stale holy water. It was a small structure, built almost entirely of dark wood, and its floor creaked, begging for renovation. A single chandelier made of antlers hung above the altar, which, while small, looked impressive in the cozy space. But the sight of its elegant stonework, trims of gold paint and flowers would not fill Emil’s stomach.

  “I know it’s much to ask, but I was wondering if there was a possibility for a loan,” he said, deciding to face the issue head-on instead of starting with the buttering up.

  The pastor faced him, his flushed face full of compassion. “Is it the roof again?”

  “Yes. And no.” Emil hated having to ask for help. He despised it, but with Radek gone, he was getting desperate for a chance to breathe.

  The pastor sat in one of the benches and patted the wood next to him. “What is actually the matter, Emil? You know you can talk to me.”

  No, he couldn’t. Nor did he want to. He didn’t want to talk to the pastor about one of his few friends leaving for a big city, nor that he felt lonely in an old house that held so many fond memories yet had become a museum of a happier time long gone.

  Emil smiled and pulled the bottles out of his backpack to detract from the pastor’s serious tone. “I wanted to show you these, Father. They’re made with Grandad’s recipes.”

  The glint of interest in pastor Marek’s eyes was the relief he’d craved.

  “I can’t make more without a little investment, and we’re almost in strawberry season.”

  “Oh. You know, everyone’s so tight-fisted nowadays. The church struggles as it is. I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t make any promises,” the pastor said, but he didn’t hesitate and took both bottles out of Emil’s hands.

  If only Emil had been willing to offer Father Marek a sob story, cry, roll over to show his wounded belly, maybe he would have gotten what he’d come for, but when he thought of sharing the reality of his situation, nausea clutched at his throat like a noose. And he said nothing, letting Father Marek take the fruits of his labor, as if they were a gift, not an obvious bargaining chip.

  But he said nothing, bound by pride he couldn’t afford.

  When the pastor left to attend to his duties, Emil felt stupid that he hadn’t even remembered to ask about the tourist staying at the parsonage. He left the church with sagging shoulders, certain he’d achieved nothing, but when he walked out into the yard, Adam was right there, with a broom in hand.

  And dressed in a cassock.

  Emil stared at the handsome priest with blood pounding in his head. If Emil had had moral boundaries, he would have walked away, embarrassed that he’d flirted with a man of the cloth last night.

  But as someone who didn’t believe in religion, he didn’t have any objections when it came to fucking priests. When their eyes met across the yard, his head immediately filled with filthy images of Adam bent over the nearby well, glancing over his shoulder as he pulled up the thick black cassock to uncover shapely legs and a round ass. In the real world, Adam most likely wore pants under all that fabric, but Emil was the master of his fantasies.

  In the sunlight, Adam’s eyes were as bright as the blue sky above, his hair—the color of wheat at the peak of summer. He sported a light tan, and was far too handsome to be wearing a priest’s collar, but there was also something else about him that drew Emil closer. Something he couldn’t pinpoint, something beyond wanting to suck on the long fingers or finding out what Adam’s cock looked like.

  As if Adam held secrets not only under the cassock but also beyond his smooth features. He wore a mask Emil couldn’t wait to take off him.

  Chapter 4 - Adam

  Adam woke up sweatier than he’d been during his last run-in with the flu. He’d appreciated the heavy down comforter when he slipped under it at night, but once the air temperature had gone up, so did the heat trapped around his body.

  But he wasn’t in bed. His bare feet cooled from the hardwood floor, and he stood in the middle of the small room, unable to come up with a logical reason why he wasn’t still sweating into the soft mattress or why there was a sharp aftertaste on his tongue. He smacked his lips, trying to work out what the flavor was, only to come to the conclu
sion it reminded him of radishes. Had he sleepwalked to the kitchen and eaten some?

  It had been a while since this had last happened, but perhaps the uncomfortable bed and the stress of the previous few days had strained him more than he thought.

  He approached the small window in hope for weather better than yesterday, and the sun peeking through the thin checked curtains brought a small smile to his face. The past week had been a nightmare, but he could start afresh here and spend the entire summer in a beautiful corner of the country. What was the worst that could happen?

  He parted the curtains and yelped when something dark swung straight at him and hit the glass. Surprise turned into ice-cold dread when he realized it was a dead magpie someone had hung from the eaves right in front of his window.

  Adam’s heart beat fast, as if he were on the verge of a panic attack. “What. The. Fuck,” he whispered, staring at the poor thing, which couldn’t even name its killer. Adam’s lips dried when he focused on the sun rays seeping through the long feathers on the tail and wings, but as the bird kept swaying, like a pendulum on a red string, Adam’s gaze captured the golden glow beyond it.

  The window opened into a lush meadow speckled with red, blue, and violet flowers. Two slopes covered with thick woodland descended in the distance to create an uneven ‘V’-shape. There seemed to be two narrow entryways into the valley, and at their highest points, the tall hills on either side were reminiscent of walls erected by some ancient being to protect its domain.

  The waters of a lake glistened in the distance and the shimmer caused a profound sense of déjà vu. Adam had no recollection of anyone mentioning the meadow to him, but he couldn’t help feeling as if he’d walked through this very grass in the past, that the flowers and fat heads of grain had caressed his palms, and that he had taken a dip in the cool water overshadowed by trees far more ancient than the walls of the parsonage.

  He took a deep breath, glancing at the sun, but before its glow could have stabbed his eyes, the magpie slapped against the glass again, tearing Adam out of the trance. It presented a grim image, but at the end of the day it was just a dead animal, probably left by a cruel child.

  Adam’s first instinct was to ask the housekeeper for some gloves, and remove the bird, but one look at the dark spots where his gray T-shirt stuck to his chest made him head for the bathroom instead.

  Once he was clean, dressed, shaved, and had put his hair in order, he checked his cell phone, only to find out there was no reception. Oh well, that was why landlines still existed.

  Despite the sorry state of the packaging, Adam decided to proceed with his original plan and offer the chocolates to the pastor, so he took them with him as he ventured beyond his room in search of the man himself.

  The sound of plates clinking down the corridor gave him pause the moment he remembered how angry Mrs. Janina had been last night, but he couldn’t creep around the parsonage forever. Because he belonged here now, and wouldn’t flee from her view like a cockroach.

  He was about to enter the kitchen through a white door with matte glass panels in the upper half when a loud ringing cut through the air. The rapid clatter of metal utensils made him freeze, and he pressed himself flat to the wall when someone passed through the room, dragging their feet, and picked up the phone.

  “This is the parsonage in Dybukowo. Janina Luty speaking.”

  The earlier confidence dwindled inside Adam. He could have made use of her distraction, but after the bad start they’d had last night, he didn’t want to disturb Mrs. Janina’s conversation either, so he stayed still in hope she’d call over the pastor.

  “Oh, oh, my sweet boy! How are they treating you there?” Mrs. Janina exclaimed, putting a definitive end to Adam’s hopes. He shouldn’t be listening to private conversations, but if he moved, the old wooden floor might creak, revealing that he’d already eavesdropped, which left him in a conundrum of his own making.

  Even hearing one side of the conversation, Adam managed to gather a lot of information on Mrs. Janina. Her grandson’s name was Patryk, and he’d recently moved abroad to study. That alone wasn’t all that surprising, but when Mrs. Janina and Patryk went on to discuss money, Adam felt he really should have announced his presence.

  “So it’ll be five thousand American dollars, right? I’ll go to the post office and transfer it all to your mother. I can’t deal with international payments well. Their bank accounts don’t even have the right number of digits,” she stated before laughing in the sweetest way possible. “Oh, don’t worry. You know I want for nothing. I could never spend everything I have, and I can’t let my only grandchild feel like a pauper.”

  There was nothing odd about a grandmother offering money to the apple of her eye, but how in seven hells did a pastor’s housekeeper in Dybukowo, a place that didn’t get cell phone reception, have five thousand USD to spare?

  It was none of his business… but how?

  Adam waited through the rest of the conversation, but once Mrs. Janina returned to her tasks, he was glad to shake off the icy dust his body had collected and made some noise before entering the kitchen.

  The housekeeper glanced up from the sink. She looked much more put-together in an apron and with her hair pulled back by a blue scarf, which rested on a bun at the back of her head, keeping it out of sight. In daylight, her wrinkled skin seemed delicate, almost translucent, but the set of her lips was as firm as it had been when Adam had last seen her.

  “Is it customary for people in Warsaw to sleep until so late?” she asked, drying her hands on a towel. “I serve breakfast at 7.30 sharp.”

  “Is that my new protégé?” came a low yet friendly sounding voice from a door on the other side of the old-fashioned yet tidy kitchen.

  Mrs. Janina took a deep breath and met Adam’s gaze. “The pastor’s awake now. You may join him,” she said in a way that suggested she was the one calling the shots at the parsonage. But who was Adam to change the status quo, if he was staying for only six months?

  He cleared his throat and entered a dining room decorated in a style reminiscent of his grandparents’ home in the countryside. Simple, with whitened walls, a thin carpet in the middle of a wooden floor and a cheap metal chandelier as the centerpiece. A framed tapestry of the crucifixion hung across the room from a window with sheer curtains, but he spotted plenty of other framed images. Not all were religious in nature, and Adam noticed that group photos from various events were a prominent presence on one of the walls. He didn’t get to look at details when his gaze focused on the pastor smiling at him from behind a large oak table in the middle.

  “Adam Kwiatkowski, right?” he asked, awkwardly pushing the chair away from the table before rising to his feet.

  Whatever worries Adam might have harbored, died the moment Father Marek squeezed his hand. The man was the embodiment of a spoiled yet kind village priest, with a round face that might have had more wrinkles if he were slimmer, and a large pot belly pushing at the front of his cassock. But, most importantly of all, he seemed glad to have company. No wonder, if he shared the house with a tyrant like Mrs. Janina.

  “I am so sorry about this mix up—”

  The pastor waved his hand. “You shouldn’t be. I checked the letter, and turns out I was the one to make a mistake. I hope you got here without too much trouble?”

  Adam’s shoulders relaxed, and he presented the chocolates to Father Marek. “This was really the only thing that suffered throughout my journey. It was meant as a gift for you, so I hope that they at least still taste good,” he said, glad to see the pastor’s smile widen.

  “It’s the thought that counts, but I won’t lie. When it comes to dessert, I am a bit of a connoisseur. And you will be too, once you taste Mrs. Janina’s famous home baking.”

  “You won’t get into my good graces with exaggerated compliments, Father,” she said, entering the kitchen with a tray containing two steaming cups of tea and large tomatoes cut into slices and dusted with salt and pepper. It was
yet another addition to the wealth of foods already on the table, but Adam wasn’t one to complain about being overly indulged on his first day in the new parish.

  The selection on offer was mind-boggling. Soft boiled eggs were laid out inside a bowl disguised as a meticulously crafted wicker hen. Three types of bread and buns tempted Adam with their crispy exteriors, while cheese and ham whispered for him to try every kind on offer. Lettuce, radishes, cucumbers and spring onion were all cut up and added color to the table, while honey and jam promised the perfect end to the meal.

  Maybe staying here for half a year wouldn’t be so bad after all? He could definitely see how Father Marek got his round belly, but Adam would be fine if he stuck to his running regime and sampled everything in moderation. And if he gained a few pounds? What the hell, he only lived once.

  “How are you enjoying our village so far? I’m sure you’ll find the peace and quiet restful after living in the big city,” the pastor said.

  Adam smiled, politely pacing himself with the food, even though he knew he’d eat a great many tiny portions before leaving the table. “I wanted to send a message to my parents, but my cell phone doesn’t pick up the signal.”

  “Yes. We’re in a valley. There’s reception on top of the church tower.” Father Marek had some tea and pulled one of the squashed chocolates out of the cardboard box before placing it on his tongue.

  “And what’s your Wi-Fi password?” Adam asked, preparing a huge open-faced sandwich on sourdough bread.

  The pastor frowned, watching Adam as if he’d grown a second head.

  Mrs. Janina sighed. “Vi-fi, Pastor. Internet without cables. My son has it in his home.”

  “Yes, but that’s all the way in Sanok. I suppose we could access the Internet through the landline, but there was never any need for it.”

  Adam blinked a few times, too focused on keeping his expression neutral to say anything.

  Mrs. Janina nodded, and joined them at the table, though she didn’t bring a plate for herself. “So many bad things on the Internet…”