by Ricky Fry
“Could it be?” The priest still spoke in a hushed tone.
Spring was supposed to be a time of life, a time of blooming flowers and full plates and work to be done in the fields. But for Bogdan and the people of the village, spring had brought the sickly smell of death. If the woman had indeed seen a pair of red eyes glowing through the dark, it could only mean he wasn’t alone in being haunted by the evil spirit. “Tell me, priest, what of your miracles now?”
The old man raised the hood of his cloak to shield himself from the rain. “Who could say why God allows such beasts to roam the earth?”
Svyatoslav drew a long, deep breath through his pipe and exhaled a thick line of smoke. “What does he want?”
Bogdan took the pipe and drew his own deep breath. He knew then his own survival had left the spirit in need of the very thing which sustained it. “He’s hungry, and he wants revenge.”
THIRTEEN
She’d had to settle for an old dress, a cheap, off-the-rack number she’d last worn years ago to the funeral of her husband’s aunt. It was a tired shade of black and made her shoulders look uneven, but the lawyer had told her not to wear anything flashy. Besides, she couldn’t risk her credit cards being declined at another boutique. In the days since Byron’s arrest, she’d gone so far as to withdraw cash from her personal savings account, and was going around with a stack of bills in her purse like the wife of a drug lord.
He’d come by the house earlier, the lawyer, to pick up a suit for Mr. Hardaway to wear in court. She’d suggested a single-button ensemble her husband had custom tailored during a ski trip to Northern Italy, but the lawyer selected another cheap, off-the-rack special.
“It’s best not to appear rich,” he’d said.
“And what about the credit cards?” She was eager to resume her normal spending habits.
“There’s a bank freeze. It’s only temporary. Hold tight until things settle down.”
Nancy didn’t want to hold tight—whatever that meant. The ladies were already talking, and the only way to set them straight would be a public display of spending. If only she could walk into some well-trafficked boutique and make a large purchase, or better yet, give a substantial donation to a fashionable charity, at least the rumors about any financial difficulties would be silenced.
As for her husband’s arrest, she hoped with enough time they’d grow bored of speaking about it. She knew no better way to make a comeback than to be seen wining and dining around town.
She was strangely optimistic as she put the final touches on her makeup. The hearing would take place in one hour, and she imagined it was possible the whole matter might be settled. Mr. Bennett, despite whatever distaste she had for him, really was one of the finest lawyers in Boston, and he’d gone to great lengths to convince her it was all just a huge misunderstanding.
Inez, ready as always, was waiting in her usual position at the bottom of the stairs. “The driver called,” she said. “He should be here any moment. Don’t worry about Nora. I’ll keep an eye on things while you’re away.”
They were joined by the old Ukrainian. “No need. Baby Nora is quite safe in my care.”
Inez flashed the nanny a suspicious glance. They’d been on cordial terms since Iryna had moved in with nothing more than her small bag, but the growing distance between them had not gone unnoticed by Nancy. Indeed, they’d hardly said a word to each other beyond the expected formalities.
Nancy had more pressing things to concern herself with than the staff playing nice. Should all go well at the courthouse, she’d be returning with her husband in tow. She’d kept her decision to employ the nanny a secret and would accept no protest from her husband. It was he who owed her an explanation, she’d decided, not the other way around.
Either way, she’d held up her end of the bargain and performed well under pressure. A smile formed on her tight lips as she recalled the rush of feeding her husband’s documents into the shredder—the only solid evidence of any wrongdoing. Her father had been wrong all those years, she could handle herself when the going got tough.
Mr. Bennett greeted her at the courthouse—he was all smiles and reassurances as he ushered her into one of the courtrooms. He helped her to a row of long benches before taking his own seat at a desk in the front of the room.
She was relieved to see her husband wearing the boring suit the lawyer had retrieved as a pair of officers escorted him into position beside Mr. Bennett. She’d decided after her first visit to jail that the orange jumpsuit was not a flattering look. Those romance novels, she thought, had been full of shit. Her husband smiled and gave a tiny nod in her direction as he passed. It was his way of telling her not worry, that everything would be okay.
The officers called the room to order and an old judge appeared from a side door. He was dressed in the customary black robe and wore a stern look on his face. Nancy felt a pang of doubt when she caught site of the old man’s expression. He hardly seemed one for easy resolutions.
Whatever resolutions she’d hoped for hadn’t come. It was as the high-priced lawyer had said, just a preliminary hearing. The charges were even more serious than she’d imagined. Felony tax evasion. Felony embezzlement. Felony bank fraud. Her husband pleaded not guilty and the grizzled old judge set bail at $500,000. With a quick bang of the gavel, it was over as quickly as it had begun.
“Nancy? Nancy Hardaway?”
She turned toward whoever had called her name, and saw a somewhat younger woman whose face she vaguely recognized. “Yes,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“Do you remember me?”
She tried to recall the woman’s name and drew a blank. Perhaps she’d been at one of the many charity events she’d attended over the years. “I’m sorry, dear. I’ve been rather preoccupied lately. Was it the war veteran’s fundraiser?”
The younger woman’s face twisted up as though she was holding back frustration. “No, it wasn’t the veteran’s fundraiser. Maybe you remember my husband, Carter Reynolds?”
“Oh, yes! How could I forget Carter?” She had no idea who the woman was talking about. “How is he?”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry to hear that.” There was something about the woman that said this was more than just a friendly chat, a moment of spontaneous recognition in an otherwise faceless crowd. Nancy started toward the door, where her husband’s lawyer already waited. “Excuse me, dear. I hate to be rude, but I don’t have time to catch up.”
“Aren’t you just the least bit curious?” The woman’s voice was bitter. Hostile. “Aren’t you curious about how he died?”
“No, that’s a personal matter and I wouldn’t dare intrude. Now if you’ll please excuse me—the lawyer is quite costly and he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
The younger woman scoffed. “Oh, please. It’s not like you don’t have the money. You and your husband have been stealing from people for a long time.”
Who was this woman to accuse her of such things? She wasn’t about to wait around to find out. Mr. Bennett stepped out into the marble-lined hallway and Nancy joined him. The woman followed close on her heels and didn’t seem likely to give up.
The lawyer, for his part, sensed the tension between them and tried his best to intervene on Nancy’s behalf. “I’m Anthony Bennett,” he said, as he held out a hand. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”
“Save it,” said the young Mrs. Reynolds. “You should know you’re defending a murderer.”
Nancy couldn’t stomach it any longer. Byron might be a cheater and a liar, but she could be sure he’d never killed anyone. Besides, he was never the type to get his hands dirty. “How dare you?” The blood rose up from her chest and choked the words in her throat. She took a moment to compose herself before continuing. “Look, I’m sorry about whatever happened to your husband, but I think you might be confused. I was only being polite. I’ve never seen you before in all my life.”
It was a lie.
Now that she’d had a good look at the angry young woman, she remembered her from a debutante ball at one of the hotels near the Theater District. It was a rather tired affair, but Byron had pressed her to come along. One of his many business partners, a heavyset man with a funny name she couldn’t recall, had an equally plump daughter who was making her debut to Boston society.
“Don’t play games, Nancy. You were quite friendly the night we met. You even insisted on introducing my poor Carter to your scoundrel husband. He was always one to trust too easily, my sweet man.” The woman’s eyes filled with shiny tears. “He invested our life savings into one of your husband’s can’t-fail opportunities—even took out a second mortgage on the house.”
Mr. Bennett, with his expensive Italian suit and designer briefcase, positioned himself between the two of them and took Nancy by the arm. “Please,” he said. “This really isn’t the place.”
Nancy didn’t like where the conservation was going and made no protest as he led her toward the exit.
But the woman was relentless in her pursuit. Her voice rose above the crowd milling about in the busy hallway. “We lost everything to your husband’s scam. Everything.”
They’d almost made it to the car when the woman caught up with them in the parking lot.
“He killed himself, Nancy.”
They climbed into the backseat of the hired sedan and locked the door. The woman pounded on the side of the car, screaming and running beside them as the driver backed out and pulled away.
“He’s dead,” she wailed. “He’s dead!”
Inez, sensing her discomfort, had been thoughtful enough to draw a hot bath and light her favorite scented candles. Not even the familiar scent of lavender could clear the image of the young woman from her head. She closed her eyes and sunk deeper into the water, as if she might wash the whole thing away. But all she could see was the woman running beside the car, crying out in anger and despair.
People lose money all the time, she told herself. It was part of the game. Those without the stomach for it shouldn’t play. How could she or her husband be responsible for someone else’s bad luck? Byron would be home soon. He’d explain everything and clear up this awful mess.
She’d almost found some comfort in the thought when she heard a commotion outside the house. She slipped a robe over her shoulders and peered through the bathroom window, half expecting to see more government agents gathering for another raid. What she saw was even worse.
Just outside the front door, on the street she’d called home for the last eight years, a line of news vans and their respective camera crews assembled.
FOURTEEN
Panic spread like wildfire through the village. Anxious mothers stayed awake at night to stand watch over their children, rousting them at even the smallest sign of a bad dream. They were exhausted, with little time to tend the fields. Life had all but come to a complete stop in their tiny corner of the world.
Bogdan’s back ached, but he made no complaints. Svyatoslav worked beside him, their shovels alternating in somber rhythm. It was the seventh grave they’d dug in as many weeks.
The morning had begun like so many others, with the shrill scream of a mother or wife waking to find a child or husband dead. That particular morning, it had been Volodymyr, the village’s faithful blacksmith, who was found, drained of life, by the woman who’d been his wife for thirty-two years.
The priest, though reluctant to abandon them, had left some days before for a nearby village. “We should know,” he’d said, “if it’s happening to the others.”
His absence meant there would be no one to say the final prayer over Volodymyr’s grave, but the funeral would have to continue without him. Summer had arrived, and it was too hot to leave the body until he returned. Death lingered over everything, and they were reminded well enough without the smell of a rotting corpse.
When the hole had been dug, they wiped the dirt from their brows and sipped water from wooden cups. Svyatoslav was the first to speak. “It should be you who leads the prayers for the departed. The people are tired, yet still they look to you for strength in these darkest of days.”
Bogdan shrugged. His most loyal of friends was only being generous. The village was small, and he’d heard rumors of the people’s whisperings. “They blame me.”
Svyatoslav took another sip and poured cool water over his dirt-stained face. “They’re weak, Bogdan. And afraid. They want answers.”
The big man always spoke the truth. It was the rarest of traits among men.
“Who am I to give the answers they seek? A year ago, I was just a boy.” He motioned to the nearby tree where he’d been bound and left to die.
“A boy who lived.”
Yes, he thought. They never hesitated to remind him. But as the days and months dragged on, his miraculous survival had revealed itself for what it really was—a terrible curse. “If only she was still here,” he said, “she’d know what to do.”
“She was always stronger than you.” Svyatoslav’s eyes fell upon the place where Yekaterina rested. Fresh grass covered the dirt above her grave. “What would become of men without the strength of women?”
It was the women who suffered the most, he thought. If it wasn’t the evil spirit’s insatiable thirst which took their men and children, it would be hunger, disease, and war.
His friend held out a calloused hand. “Come and rest now. We’ve done enough digging for one day.”
But he was too angry for rest. How could he, Bogdan the Great, rest his bones while those around him died? No, he thought, a chair had served little use while Yekaterina bled dry on the bed beside him. He raised the shovel high in the air and took another stab at the earth.
Svyatoslav shrugged his shoulders and fell back into place beside him, the alternating rhythm of their shovels marking a burial hymn for one who had not yet come to pass. “How many more will we dig?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “How many more souls remain in our village?”
They were vigilant now. Torches were lit, their dancing flames ringed the village and cast bouncing shadows upon the trees at the edge of the forest. Outside every door, an able-bodied man stood guard, or in the absence of a man, one of the older boys—tired and frightened looks on their slender faces. Svyatoslav went among them with his pipe, slapping them across their slumping backs and feeding them smoke to keep them awake. Inside, the women gathered and drank tea and hovered nervously over sleeping babes. This night, they had resolved themselves, would not claim the life of another.
Bogdan strode back and forth before a large bonfire at the center of the village. The priest, who’d only just returned from his journey to the neighboring settlements, followed closely at his side. Black robes swished and spun in the orange glow of the fire as the older man struggled to keep pace.
“Tell me,” said Bogdan, “what has become of the others? Have they, too, fallen victim to that most evil curse which comes in the night?”
The priest stroked his beard. It had become a familiar sight to Bogdan, and could only mean something weighed heavily on the pious man’s mind. “Yes,” said the priest. “Some of them have, but not all.”
“Only some?”
“The people mustn’t know, Bogdan.” He gathered his black robes and held them tightly around his chest. “There are some things in life, some secrets, which they are not meant to understand.”
He struggled to make sense of what the old priest had said. People were dying. It was not the time for keeping secrets. “And what of me? Am I not meant to understand?”
“You, my dearest boy, are the only one who can.”
He stopped pacing and lifted his eyes to meet the old man’s weary gaze. He said nothing, choosing to wait in silence as if it might urge the priest’s words to fill the empty space between them.
It was some time before the priest finally spoke. “You’ve buried many fine men these days.”
“Some men,” he said. “Some boys.”
/> “I’m sorry, my son. Do you remember the story of Jesus?”
“How could I forget? I lost many a fine summer afternoon of playing in the woods while you recited endlessly the story of our Lord and Savior.”
“Then I’ve served you well, Bogdan the Great.” The old man’s tired face shifted into the weakest of smiles, which vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “And what of the other story—that of the beast who was once only a man, and who haunts us now in our sleep?”
“Yes, priest. I remember.” He’d spent his whole life beneath the shadow of that story. And while he’d been spared from his own early end, it was only to watch those around him fall one after another. He’d passed many a late hour wondering if it would have been better to die a simple death, as so many others had done before him.
“Good,” said the old man. “For hundreds of years, the men of my faith have sent young boys to die a martyr’s death. But unlike our Lord Jesus, there is no resurrection, no triumphant return. We loathe it. It goes against all that we believe, you see, to satisfy the desires of the Devil. Yet like men so often do, we went along with such wickedness, if only so that others might have lived.”
The priest placed a hand on Bogdan’s shoulders. Despite the summer heat and the roar of the nearby bonfire, his fingers were cold and stiff. Bogdan longed for Yekaterina’s soft touch.
“It was a task passed from one generation to another, men of the cloth working in secret. The Church, for all its worldly knowledge and wisdom, turned a blind eye. It was a local matter, they declared in closed meetings behind heavy doors. But then one fateful day, there was a boy who gave himself up to death and returned, as our Lord and Savior returned.”
“Me?”
“Yes, my son.”
“I’m no savior, father.”
“No, my son. There can be only one Savior, and his name is Jesus Christ. But you became something else—something the people prayed for each night as they put themselves down for bed. My dear sweet Bogdan, you gave them, for the first time in more than a century, that most important thing—hope.”
