Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy

by Stephen Morris

  A coal still glowed in the midst of the ashes that her stirring and blowing had dislodged! Burning brightly, it was the last ember of the fire that had been so carefully banked by her mother and grandmother. She touched the kindling in her hand to the ember and heaved a sigh of relief as smoke curled up from the straw and then a bright flame appeared. She added more kindling and then another handful before she began to add the larger twigs and sticks from the woodpile beside the fireplace. The flames danced brightly and grew stronger. She dared to place a log in the fire, hoping that the weight of the wood would not extinguish the delicate fire she was nursing back to life.

  The log caught fire and the flames danced along one edge of the bark, which crackled and shriveled, sending sparks into the room. Nadezda sat back and wiped her hand across her sweaty face. Soot and ash streaked her face and stained her apron but she gave no thought of the scrubbing it would cost her to clean the apron or her dress. She was just glad the fire had not gone cold and there had still been an ember deep in the heart of the fireplace to revive.

  She pushed herself to her feet. “Is it not enough that I have to deal with Fen’ka and Svetovit?” She shook her head. “I have to make more work for myself by letting the fire go out?” She chuckled, going to rouse her family to begin the day.

  Eight days later, in the midafternoon, a boy came running down the lane with a message for Nadezda. She was called to Alena’s house, he announced, as Alena had gone into labor and was soon to give birth. “Labor? Now?” No matter how prepared she was, no matter that she had been expecting this news, it still was a shock when one of Nadezda’s friends went into labor after months of waiting.

  Having come so close to letting the fire go out this morning, Nadezda was not about to let Vavrinec let the fire go out in her absence. She could be gone for several hours or even a day or more. This was Alena’s first birth and it was anyone’s guess how quickly it would go. Nevertheless, Nadezda took the time to bank the fire and prepare the coals to survive her absence from the house. Then she packed up Milos so that he could come with her and nurse when he was hungry. Ready, she stepped out of the house and closed the door behind her, locking it. She sent one of the neighbor boys to tell Vavrinec and Petr that she would be at Alena’s and that a stew simmered in a pot on the edge of the hearth. A light snow was falling as she walked to join the midwife and other women who would keep Alena company during the birth.

  It was shortly after midnight when Alena’s daughter was born and began to cry, her lusty wails bringing a smile to Alena’s face. Exhausted and drenched with sweat, Alena reached out to take her daughter, hold her close, and guide her tiny mouth to Alena’s breast to nurse. Then all the women who had gathered sat around the room and took turns holding the baby, passing her from arm to arm. When Nadezda took her, she squirmed and smiled and looked straight into Nadezda’s eyes. Godmother and goddaughter beamed at each other and the midwife clapped her hands. With great reluctance, Nadezda relinquished her new goddaughter and allowed the midwife to return the baby to Alena’s arms.

  One by one, the women found chairs or corners of the room where they could curl and nap. The time for the night’s second sleep to begin had come some while before and dawn was less than two hours away.

  Nadezda looked about her. Milos was restless, half-asleep and whimpering. There was no place in the house where she would be able comfortably nurse Milos or lay her own exhausted body down and rest briefly. She peered out the door. The snow had stopped hours ago and only a light dusting of snow remained on the cobblestones. The winter night was dark and cold—what thieves might be abroad? though the cold reduced the likelihood of thieves—but Nadezda resolved to face the dangers of the streets and return to her own home, where she could nurse Milos in her own chair and sleep in her own bed. Alena could spare her for a few hours.

  Nadezda bundled up Milos and kissed the new mother and baby. Alena was half-asleep and murmured her own “g’night, Nadezda,” without opening her eyes. The midwife let Nadezda out of the house and closed the door behind her.

  Nadezda stepped quickly down the dark streets running along the wall that divided the Old and New Towns, the light snowfall crunching under her feet the only sound to be heard apart from Milos’ even breathing, as the rhythm of her walking had rocked him to sleep. A gust of wind whistled between the chimneys. Very soon she was at her own door. Fumbling in the purse that hung from one wrist, she found the key and unlocked the door. She slipped inside and bolted the door shut. She turned and looked about the room.

  Everything seemed in order. A dim, faint glow from the fireplace illuminated the room, casting shadows on the walls that danced with each gust of wind finding its way down the chimney or under the locked door. Petr lay on his cot, his back turned to the wall and his face nuzzled into his pillow. One arm was flung over his head. She could hear the even snoring of Vavrinec in their bed in the other room. She blessed God for giving her the family she had to care for.

  Hanging her cloak on the peg near the door, Nadezda thought it best to not disturb Vavrinec, who would need a full night’s sleep to work safely in the bakery later that day. She settled herself on a large pillow on the floor next to Petr’s cot and, wrapped in a blanket, propped her elbow on the edge of the cot to support Milos while he nursed. Milos, who was stirring again now that the walk through the streets had ceased, whimpered but found Nadezda’s breast and was soon happily sucking and half-asleep again. Nadezda, drowsy and warm, felt herself slipping into a much-needed sleep. Her head gradually slumped to one side.

  Nadezda jerked up with a start. What had wakened her? Something was wrong. But what? Her eyes darted around the dark room, the shadows flickering in the faint light from the coals in the fireplace that penetrated their protective coverlet of ashes. Her eyes adjusted to the very dim and flickering light. A dark, ominous shadow loomed across the room, reaching a clawed hand toward Milos in her arms. She gasped and struggled to her feet. A scream formed in the back of her throat.

  Suddenly a brighter light flared in the corner of the room near the icon, as the wick—which Nadezda had forgotten and Vavrinec had ignored—in the oil lamp, which had been burning so low as to be invisible in its votive glass, flared for an instant and then was gone. The last thread of the wick had burnt itself out. The prayer light hissed as the last ash of the wick sank into the oil.

  The fleeting, momentary blaze of the oil lamp startled the shadow across the room. It turned its head toward the icon and an angry, hateful hiss escaped its lips. Evidently the shadow had not realized the icon was there. The scream at the back of Nadezda’s throat burst from her lips and the shadow fled the house, slipping under the door and out onto the street.

  Vavrinec stumbled out of the bed and into the principal room of their little house. Petr sat bolt upright, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, looking about frantically. Milos burst into tears. Nadezda pushed herself and Milos up from the floor and into Vavrinec’s arms and the four of them huddled together on a bench at the table. Vavrinec, unsure of what had happened, attempted to calm and reassure his family. Nadezda closed her eyes tightly, trying to shut out the memory of the shadow that had been reaching for Milos. She shook her head and pressed Milos tightly to her. There were no words adequate to describe what she had seen or the terror that had pierced her in the dark. She trembled in Vavrinec’s arms until dawn, fear of the shadow they had so narrowly escaped slow to subside.

  It was only in the full light of day, with the fire stirred and also burning brightly, that Nadezda was able to describe to Vavrinec what she had seen coming towards Milos in her arms. “I am certain it meant to take him from me,” she insisted. He listened and then sat in silence after she had finished.

  “Are you certain it was not simply a nightmare that woke you?” he asked.

  “No, that shadow was no nightmare,” she insisted. “It was a shadow with weight and substance and will. That shadow was as real as you or I.”

  Vavrinec sat and thought a moment
.

  “I brought this on us, did I not?” he said quietly. “Curse their wives and children, Fen’ka said. ‘Curse their wives and children’ and I was there in the Old Town Square. Because of me, you and Milos have been caught up in this wicked madness and I nearly lost you.” He seemed on the verge of sobbing. He bent over, cradling his forehead in his open palms.

  “Nearly, yes. But not yet.” Nadezda reached over to take both his hands and he raised his head. She looked into his eyes. “We are a part of this, Vavrinec, whether we will it or no. I suspect we would be caught up in it whether you had been in the Old Town Square or not. I must discover what that shadow was and devise a way to combat it, drive it from our home and leave us in peace.”

  Vavrinec bit his lower lip and slowly nodded in agreement. “If doing that unlocks the curse and saves Prague as a result, so be it,” he added wryly.

  Nadezda made her way back to Alena’s home later that morning. The midwife was still there, as were most of the other women present at the birth. Many others had begun to visit and the house was a hub of female activity. Alena’s husband had gone to a neighbor’s once the midwife had arrived and would be invited to see his daughter that afternoon.

  Nadezda set Milos down with another of the women, who had a son about the same age. The two boys crowed with delight and sat on her lap as she leaned back against the foot of Alena’s bed. Alena was dozing against the pillows with her baby nestled in her arms. Nadezda approached the midwife, who was sitting at the table in the other room. She sipped from a steaming cup of an herbal tea, sitting apart from the crowd against and atop the bed with Alena and the baby.

  “Well met, Nadezda,” the midwife Ryba greeted her. “I see you made it home in the dark and got the sleep you wanted.” She leaned towards Nadezda’s ear to whisper conspiratorially, “I warrant that you were the only one to get much sleep after the birth, except Alena herself! Would that I had been able to join you!” The two women laughed and exchanged kisses on their cheeks. Nadezda sat on the bench across from Ryba.

  Ryba was an older woman, much experienced in childbirthing and the health of women and children. She was the one they turned to in this district of the Old Town when they first suspected they might be pregnant or were approaching childbirth or were having difficulty afterwards. She knew the herbs that could ease a woman’s labor pains and she knew which could make birthing more difficult. She knew how to properly care for newborns and how to safely dispose of the afterbirth so it could not be used for any nefarious purposes. She knew how to read the signs in the stars that might portend the fate of a child she delivered and she could interpret the meaning of the occasional birth of monsters, such as children with multiple limbs and contorted torsos or disfigured faces.

  Her face was deeply lined and careworn from worry for her charges but kind and generous. Colorful bandanas always covered her silver hair—she wore a fresh golden yellow one today that she must have brought to use after mopping her brow with the red one she had worn yesterday. She held the cup in both hands and allowed the steam to rise and caress her face.

  “Would you like tea, Nadezda?” she asked, indicating the mugs on the shelf near the stove and the still-steaming kettle on the wood-burning stove.

  “No, thank you, Ryba.” Nadezda was unsure how to begin this conversation and so she decided to simply begin. “Ryba, after I returned home last night, Milos was attacked.”

  Ryba’s eyes shot through the door into the other room, where she could see the boy playing. “Attacked? By whom?”

  “We were home and I was half-asleep. He had been nursing and was asleep, half in my arms and half on Petr’s cot.” Ryba nodded to indicate she understood the arrangement, her eyes never leaving Milos in the other room. Nadezda continued.

  “Something woke me. I still do not know what. But something woke me and I sat up with a fright. It was dark and difficult to see, but then the oil lamp in front of my image of the Mother of God flared up as the wick gave out, and I saw it.” Nadezda licked her dry lips.

  Ryba turned her attention to Nadezda. “Saw what?”

  “I do not know for certain, Ryba. It was a shadow. A shadow with heft and substance. It reached a clawed hand towards Milos but was startled by the flaring wick. It hissed and spat at the icon as I screamed. It fled, whether because of the icon or the sound of my screaming, I do not know. But I fear—no, I am certain—that it will return.” Nadezda turned to look at Milos and the other young children in the room. She could see the top of Alena’s new baby’s head. She turned back to Ryba. “What could it have been, Ryba? What shadow would stalk a baby such as Milos?”

  Ryba gazed into her cup. She sighed and looked up into Nadezda’s eyes. “Have you seen a shadow such as this in your home before, Nadezda?” she asked quietly.

  Nadezda shook her head. “Never. Not in my worst nightmare.”

  “Then we have time.” Ryba looked back into her cup and took another sip of tea. Nadezda waited for Ryba to continue and the midwife resumed her words even as her eyes never left the steaming contents of her mug.

  “There are shadows that stalk about, hoping to scare children or seduce their fathers. Some even attempt to seduce the mothers. It might have been a succubus or an incubus wandering in the night. But it is rare that they ever assume such a shape to attack a child. Are you certain the shadow was reaching for Milos and not you, my dear?”

  “I am certain, Ryba.” Nadezda could see the shadow’s claw reaching for little Milos even now in her mind’s eye.

  “Then the only other shadow it could have been was Lilith,” Ryba announced. She met Nadezda’s eyes. “I am certain that your grandmother must have told you of Lilith, my dear. Do you recall anything she might have said?”

  Lilith! The she-demon’s name was familiar, but Nadezda shook her head. She knew the name and that the creature sought to kill children, but more than that she could not recall. “Who is she, Ryba?”

  “Lilith was the first wife of our father Adam.” Ryba told the tale as if she had told it many times before, the words falling from her tongue in measured rhythms like poetry or song. “She was lovely, more lovely than the rising sun and more graceful than the moon and stars. She had long, flowing hair and eyes as deep as wells. She was given to our father Adam by the Lord our God as a helpmeet, to be his wife in Paradise, for it was not good for Adam to dwell alone in the Garden. This was before Eve was created. Lilith was formed from the earth, like Adam, and Eve was only formed later, from his rib.”

  Nadezda nodded. Ryba’s tale continued.

  “Lilith, made from the same soil as our father Adam, thought herself the equal of her husband. She refused to walk behind him or to serve him in any way. She would not cook unless he scrubbed the pot after they ate. She even demanded that in knowing her husband she have as much an opportunity to sit astride him as he to mount her.” Ryba, her hands shaking gently, lifted her mug to her lips and touched the steaming liquid to her lips before continuing.

  “As much as he desired her, as much as he yearned for her, he was also furious with her. Adam fought with her and argued, refusing to scrub the pot or to walk beside her or to lie beneath her. In her rage, Lilith fled the Garden and refused to have anything more to do with him.”

  The noises of the children growing restless and hungry in the other room intruded and interrupted Ryba’s recounting of Lilith’s history. Nadezda fetched Milos, who happily sat on her lap and nursed, his gaze switching from his mother to Ryba and back again. As he settled down, Ryba resumed her tale.

  “Our father Adam complained to the Lord our God that the woman he had been given for company and to be a helpmeet was a disturbance to the Garden. Her insistence on absolute equality between them was driving our father Adam mad. Adam insisted that God rebuke Lilith and provide another, more docile helpmeet for him. So the Lord God took a rib from our father Adam and fashioned Eve from it, giving her to be Adam’s wife and helpmeet. Adam warned her that if she were disobedient, she could be dr
iven away just as Lilith had been, but he lied to make Eve think Lilith had been driven out rather than that Lilith had rejected Adam.”

  Ryba sighed and sipped her tea again. Nadezda adjusted Milos in the crook of her elbow. Ryba took a deep breath and went on.

  “The Lord God sent three angels to chastise Lilith for her disobedience, but she hid from them in the wilderness outside Eden. Her hair grew longer and more tangled and matted. Her nails grew long and sharp, as did her teeth. What had been beauty became hideous and ugly, though she retained her power to assume her former beauty for a few moments, should she find it necessary. Furious at Adam and jealous of Eve, hunted by the angels and rejected by God who had formed her, she came to hate all of God’s creation, but especially the children of Adam and Eve, as she considered that rightly those ought to have been her children, had Adam not been so stubborn and insisted on her subservience.” Ryba shuddered.

  “Lilith began to attack the children of Adam and Eve and then, in the next generation, to attack and kill their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Having left Paradise of her own accord, rather than being driven out in punishment as Adam and our mother Eve were driven out later, Lilith retained her immortality and the marvelous powers that were common to the inhabitants of Paradise, such as the ability to come and go as she pleased. Lurking in the desert and the wilderness that became the haunts of devils and fallen angels, she also learned the dark and magical arts, which she taught, in turn, to the witches of the Earth.”

  Nadezda held Milos close to her. She felt a sharp chill in the air, as if Lilith or one of the fallen angels were passing by as Ryba told her tale. Milos fell asleep, and his lips fell away from his mother’s breast and his head rolled back. The hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth as some happy memory replayed itself in his dreams.

  Ryba studied Milos’ face and then looked into Nadezda’s eyes. “It is said that Lilith hates all the children of the human race and will stop at nothing to slay those she can. But her hatred is especially strong for the children of the Jews, and it is their children that she attacks and kills most often.”