The woman was several years older than Maria's mother, and she wore a dark gray skirt and jacket that had to have come from her own Soviet-era closet. Her iron gray hair was drawn into the same severe bun from Paul's photos. She walked as if she were marching before a review stand in a military parade.
Maria met the young man at a table on the sidewalk, already set with her double espresso and a steaming mug of black tea. Her hands shook when she put her notebook and pen down beside the tiny white porcelain cup. He didn't seem to notice. If Paul's sources and contacts had done their jobs correctly, neither he nor anyone else at the faux village would think she was anything more than a writer researching Cold War lifestyles and choices for women.
"Just let me know if you need anything, Mrs. Mullins," Erick said.
Every new acceptance of her identity reassured her tremendously, and the inside joke with Paul eased her nerves a tiny bit. Erick's Romanian was perfect with only a hint of a German accent. He pulled out Maria's tastefully aged wrought iron chair along with a matching one with a bright floral cushion for the guest of honor.
"And don't be surprised if she thinks you're her sister," he said softly as Magda arrived. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Schmidt. You have company."
"I'm quite certain I know who this is, Erick," she said, glancing at his discreet name tag as he walked around to help her sit. "Thank you for the tea. Do you think I don't recognize my own sister?"
"Of course not," Erick said. He looked into Maria's eyes, and she smiled. "It's wonderful that she wants to write a book about you, isn't it? Just let me know if either of you need anything and enjoy your visit."
"Did he say you're writing a book, Dorina?" Magda said.
The older woman sipped her tea, glancing at Erick. Maria's heart sank at the confused look and need for help even though she'd gotten her sister's name. Maria's chance to learn anything from this woman may have already passed.
"I told Dorina you'd be perfect for her book," the young man said without missing a beat. "No one knows more about women's lives under Communism than you."
"Indeed I do," she said, nodding once. "We had many difficult choices to make, but in a way, we had more freedom than women do even now."
As Erick smiled and walked away, Maria's nearly constant doubts surged all around her. Maybe she should write this book after all, follow her fascination with the piles of research Paul had reluctantly supplied.
That at least would make a hell of a lot more sense than sinking deeper into this obsession that already felt far too much like addiction. Maybe her next appointment should be with a shrink instead of another fertility specialist or another relic of Romania's past.
"What did you want to ask me, Dorina?" Magda said. "Is there a problem with my grandchildren?"
Maria didn't detect anything like sisterly warmth, but she'd take any help she could get. She took a deep breath and flashed her best reassuring in the face of a difficult situation smile.
"All the children are fine, Magda. I'd like to hear more about those choices you mentioned, the ways you had more freedom before the USSR fell."
Mrs. Schmidt talked for a few minutes about greater equality in jobs and pay between men and women. Greater struggles for food and survival. The increasing drain on Romania when the massive Parliament went up in Bucharest. Her words trailed off, and she stared out into the busy street. She turned back to Maria with the same confused look she'd shown Erick.
"I'm sorry, Dorina. I can't seem to remember what you wanted to ask me? Was it about the children?"
"That's quite all right," Maria said. "All of this has been about children in one way or another. I'm curious about how women were able to make choices under Communism, maybe differently from afterwards."
After two more perfectly clear conversations followed by bewildered pauses when Mrs. Schmidt lost the thread and her place in time, Maria had just about decided to give up on this lead, no matter how promising it seemed in the beginning. She might never find another of Igor's counterparts so far away from Romania, isolated and willing to talk. But this poor woman barely seemed able to focus for more than a few minutes at a time.
She glanced down at her notes, hoping for a miracle even as she planned her graceful exit. Paul had supplied background and suggestions as detailed as Maria did for her own cases. His Eastern Europe connections had proven invaluable, but he'd gone deeper than that. The answer jumped out from the top of a section called "Interviewing Dementia Patients."
Risky as it felt, she had to get specific.
"Magda, let me ask you about something else. I do wonder about women's choices when it came to having children. And I've always been fascinated with the burial rituals in Transylvania, especially in the more remote mountain villages. Can you tell me about your work in these areas?"
Maria kept a firm grip on her best courtroom blank expression as Mrs. Schmidt's confused, pleasant demeanor vanished in an instant. She focused like a laser, face firm, eyes slightly narrowed. The strict Communist Party leader had returned, just like Paul suspected she would with the right prompt.
The game was finally on.
Chapter 12
"That is a strange topic to bring up, Dorina," Magda Schmidt said, taking a deep breath and leaning back in her chair. "I wonder why you would turn to that now."
"This is one of the reasons I'm returning to Romania," Maria said, in full attorney calm mode even though her heart was pounding. "A problem is developing, you see. A problem that had never been there until now. I must be certain the sort of trouble you worked so hard to prevent doesn't gain a foothold in future generations."
Mrs. Schmidt stared at Maria for several seconds without moving. She abruptly turned toward the coffee shop, beckoning Erick over with a sharp gesture.
He smiled indulgently at Maria and started toward them, ready to humor whatever the odd request might be. Maria knew every scrap of humor had vanished. Her throat was too dry to swallow, her mind lost in her parents' tales of the past, certain the KGB were about to drag her away. She'd be locked up forever in a prison cell every bit as authentic as the cheerful boulevard was fake.
"Yes, Mrs. Schmidt?"
"Please bring each of us a refill right away, Erick," Mrs. Schmidt said, her voice clear and steady. "My sister and I will be taking a walk to continue our conversation."
Erick raised his eyebrows and looked at Maria, as if she had any sort of authority or choice in this matter. She nodded, smiling and hoping Mrs. Schmidt didn't notice.
"Right away, Mrs. Schmidt."
The older woman leaned toward Maria, one carefully drawn-on eyebrow raised.
"Perhaps you should tell me who you really are," she said in Romanian, her eyes flashing. "And how you knew to ask me or anyone else about this."
Maria switched to the language of her birth as well.
"I don't mean to offend you or make you uncomfortable, Mrs. Schmidt."
"The only thing that would offend me is if you try to lie to me again," she said with a ghost of a smile. "I know I'm confused sometimes. I know you're not Dorina now. I have time yet before I forget everything about who I am or what I've done. And if we're to talk about such things, I insist you tell me your real name. I won't blow your cover if you're being sincere."
Magda looked away when Erick returned with two small cups, and Maria was relieved to have a break from that intense gaze. Any doubts she had about talking to the wrong person were fading away. Early dementia or not, Mrs. Schmidt had the same penetrating stare as Igor back in her mother's village. She'd always felt undressed, violated somehow, when that man looked at her.
"Enjoy your walk," Erick said. "Just let us know if you need anything, Mrs. Schmidt."
Magda nodded as she got to her feet as smoothly as if she were in her twenties instead of her seventies. She stared down at Maria, her lips pressed together.
"My name is Maria," she said. Sweat trickled down her back under the itchy wool. "Maria Mullins, but I was born Inesceu."
Magda nodded sharply before she walked away. Maria jumped to her feet, nearly knocking the table over in her rush to catch up.
"Erick thinks I'll forget about this clever little buzzer of theirs," Magda said, brushing her fingers across her necklace. It looked like a large ruby surrounded by sapphires. "If I live long enough, I certainly will. For now, though, you have something you need to explain to me."
Maria sipped the too-hot espresso, her mind racing. This window of clarity might not last long. Even more importantly, she didn't want to offend Magda or convince her to report back to Erick or Igor or someone else. She'd read enough tales and seen enough photos to at least put on a convincing act.
"I've just come from a visit to my family's village," she said. "They'd held a funeral right before I arrived, and everyone was upset about how the grave looked. I'd never heard of such things. I started asking questions."
"How did it look, Maria?"
"Like something tunneled its way out," Maria said, still disturbed by the images Paul found. "Like it erupted out of the ground."
Magda walked several steps before she spoke again.
"Do you know if the problem was dealt with?"
"The man I spoke to said they sent it to the second death," Maria said. "I wasn't sure what he meant, but he's growing too old and frail to protect anyone. We need young people to understand, don't we?"
"That has always been the worry," Magda said. They walked down the middle of the broad sidewalk, staying away from everyone else. "We had such a problem under Ceaușescu, with so many dying. We hoped one day to end this plague, to never have to explain it to another generation."
"Maybe we can be the last," Maria said.
"Did the one you spoke to tell you how they dealt with the strigoi?" Magda said.
Maria closed her eyes, chills as painful as burns racing across her flesh. Every time she read or heard that, cold sank deeper into her bones. Maybe she herself was the last.
She picked the first method she'd read about.
"They tracked it to the house it was sheltering in," she said. "Where it was born, I believe. They burned it down."
"Very good," Magda said. "If they poisoned the grave when they saw what happened, that would have been the next place it went. One reason we haven't told your generation much is we don't want to warn the beasts. If one dies ignorant and becomes strigoi despite our best efforts, it will be far easier to catch and put to the second death."
"Where can they shelter?" Maria said. "I was surprised it could go anywhere besides back to the grave."
"The grave is strongest," Magda said. "The safest place to end it is in the earth, after it is poisoned. But the clever ones know anywhere the living person held sacred gives some protection." She raised the hand not holding her tea for a second, as if to cross herself. "Except in a church. Older power holds sway there."
Maria composed herself, drawing upon calm she needed for hostile cross-examinations. She was an expert at hiding how much she knew in order to learn more. Her guilt at taking advantage of a woman with impaired judgment was no match for her desperate need to know why her mother had maimed her body so long ago.
Or why people kept telling her about the undead.
"I hope to keep my village safe, Magda, perhaps bring this plague to an end. I don't want your years of hard work to be in vain. Would you help me? Explain this to me and tell me what to do?"
"I wish we'd spoken when I was younger," she said, touching Maria's arm through the itchy fabric. "I'm more clear today than most, but I fear I'll leave vital things out. Do you have others you can turn to?"
"I do." Maria could only see Paul's face, and Leo's. She hoped neither would ever know what she was doing. "A few people my age are seeking out the remaining ones who know how to fight the strigoi."
"Then I will do my best," Magda said. She stopped and took Maria's free hand. "I will tell you everything I remember, if you promise you will lead the way in ending our horrible curse forever."
"I promise you I'll do everything I can to honor what you tell me today."
Chapter 13
Four years ago
Maria dropped her bag on the sparkling black granite kitchen counter and stood still, listening to their empty house ticking and shifting around her as the air conditioner kicked on.
Leo always kept the place too damned cold, and she'd given up asking him to adjust the thermostat when he went out. With him left to his own devices for two days while she was away, the room was cold enough that her hands and feet ached with the chill.
The last resort Chicago doctor's words still echoed inside her head, chasing her thoughts into muddled storm clouds.
Third surrogate pregnancy failed. All options exhausted.
Further attempts a waste of money and time unless you consider an egg donor. Otherwise, focus on something else. Move on and let it go.
Let it go.
The Gypsy woman, the only one to see and understand what was wrong, had refused to help. Maria's curse, whatever it was, was a part of her. The curse was her.
Poor addled Magda never refused to talk to Maria, somehow remembering their conversations even when she thought Maria was her sister. Nothing she'd learned about how to kill a strigoi was going to help her.
Paul was right. She'd made a terrible mistake contacting the old woman.
She wiped a stray tear from her face, her fingertips already numb. Maria's eternally empty stomach growled, the breakfast skipped out of anxiety calling. She opened the right-hand door of the stainless steel refrigerator and grabbed a cup of yogurt, filling her mental grocery list as she scanned the shelves. She leaned down to check the bottom and flinched back, dropping the cup on the white tile floor.
There.
Back in a lost corner of the cavernous fridge, where bottles and jars disappeared for weeks and sometimes months at a time despite their best efforts. The familiar clear glass bottle with black lettering.
Her favorite tonic water. Maria took a step back, shaking her head.
No, she hadn't left one. Not a single one. She hadn't touched one or looked at that part of the store for ten years. Hell, she hadn't had tonic water since before they'd bought this house with room for children who would never exist.
Leo must have bought that while she was gone, thoughtlessly leaving it for her to find on this exact day. Maria let the door swing closed and sat on one of the black leather barstools, gripping the bar that matched the black counters and turning the chair so she could look out the window and try to distract herself.
Her mouth watered and her jaw ached, her nose somehow driving the craving more than any other part of her.
He tried, he always had, but Leo never truly understood her cravings. Not just for booze, either. He'd quit drinking when she did, at least around her. So easy for him, without any kind of struggle. She appreciated that, and many of her AA buddies were envious of support they rarely got from their partners.
But somewhere deep down, Maria wondered if he quit just to show her how easy it was. For him. And that tiny part of her resented him even though it didn't make a damned bit of sense to her sober, rational mind. She kept that part to herself.
He'd never understood her desire for a baby either. One she made with him, not one they adopted. Maria kept her reasons, her true reasons, for that need to herself as well. She pressed her palms flat against the ice-cold granite.
Leo would never understand the awkwardness of other little girls playing with dolls, innocently asking how many children she wanted to have before they'd ever started kindergarten here in the US.
Maria only once said her Mommy told her she couldn't have any. The confusion and even fear in the other girls was too much.
Well-meaning teachers in health and sex ed classes talked about ways to prevent an accidental pregnancy, but never said a word about what to do if you grew up knowing you would never have that worry. Or that choice.
Their friends and even Leo's family were always polite but
relentless in the beginning, asking when they were going to add to the grandchildren and cousins. He must have talked to them eventually, after he caught the pained look she couldn't hide any longer.
The questions stopped from people they knew over the years. Even now, strangers never tired of such a hurtful invasion of her privacy. She'd never decided if smugly saying she'd change her mind when she got older was better or worse than a disapproving head shake, or saying she'd regret it eventually.
A few times, though she knew she was angry at the wrong person, Maria said she already regretted it. She said she regretted it every single day, and thanked them so much for reminding her of the option she'd never had.
At least that ended the endless stream of questions and unsolicited advice.
"I'll just go do the shopping," she said, wiping at her cheeks as she got to her feet. "I'll go out, do the shopping, walk around a little bit and get warm. By the time I get back, Leo will be home."
She pulled her phone out and opened their shared grocery list. If Leo happened to be looking at his phone, he'd see the changes. Maybe he'd even realize she was back a day early. Maybe he'd come home in time.
Maria didn't stop long enough to ask herself what he'd come home in time for. Or why she hadn't bothered to let her husband know she was home a day early.
The freezer and all of the cabinets were as well-stocked as the refrigerator, but Maria kept looking. She opened the narrow door of an awkward pantry neither of them ever bothered using, not much more than an excuse to add it to the real estate listing.
The space was out of the way beyond the washer and dryer, and so narrow she had to turn her shoulders sideways to get into it. Even tiny shelves wedged into the long room didn't make this a useful space. Especially not with one dusty light bulb barely reaching a few feet in.
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