Where the Dark Stands Still

by A.B. Poranek

Look towards the light, she reminds herself, then you will not see the shadow behind you.

She watches a burgundy sunset drip over the Driada like spilled blood and lets her anger vanish with the sun.

‘I am the only one you can trust here. Remember that.’ Something about his words makes her skin prickle. Like the surface of a tranquil lake hiding a treacherous undercurrent, there is both threat and enigma within, hidden depths best left untouched. Liska cannot help but wonder what they hide.

His is a treacherous beauty, a rusałka’s beauty – enthralling and deceitful, good for nothing but tragedy.

‘A garden,’ she decides. ‘With fruits and vegetables and herbs, enough to last the winter.’ ‘A garden …’ He rubs his temples. ‘Of course. What did I expect? Something befitting an all-powerful demon? No, of course not. I have razed battlefields and summoned storms and created wonders from magic alone, but she wants me to grow cabbages.’

The Leszy’s world has become a never-ending wheel of mysteries. Demons and magic and doors and hounds and on and on it goes, a clock face with peculiarities instead of numbers. Tick, tick, and the arms point to one puzzle. Tick, tick, and another.

‘Oh. I thought you would sleep longer.’ Liska rubs the back of her neck. ‘Yes, well …’ She is suddenly very conscious of her messy, undone curls, and sweeps them back hastily. ‘I … you … ah,’ she says stupidly. ‘Yes,’ he replies, also stupidly. ‘Thank you.’ ‘Mm.’

teeheeeee

At dusk, the Driada turns violescent, hues of lavender and plum saturating the trees. From the dimming sky, moonlight seeps through the windows, shadows spilling like ink across the halls.

Beautiful

They are not similar at all, Liska and the Leszy, but they share two things: magic and grief.

‘I underestimated you,’ the Leszy remarks, ‘when I met you on Kupała night. I expected you to be a harmless thing, staying away and doing as you were told. Imagine my surprise when you led my manor and my house-spirit into what I can only call a mutiny.’ ‘I didn’t mean to –’ Liska starts, but he shakes his head. ‘I’m complimenting you. I chose the field of battle, and you disarmed me nonetheless. You do that frequently, I find. It’s actually quite annoying.’

🤭

There is a shrill cold in the air when they return to the marketplace, and Liska can almost see the shears of fall snipping off summer’s threads earlier than usual.

The events of that day … she has never spoken them aloud. She fears what will happen if she lets them leave her memory. Her sins are demons that demand blood sacrifice, and she knows that to summon them she must bleed herself dry.

‘There is a thing we do,’ the Leszy says, ‘where we rearrange ourselves, cutting off pieces here and there to fit a mould that was never meant for us. I –’ he tosses the berry, catches it – ‘I know something of that. But becoming the Driada’s warden taught me one thing: if the world has not prepared a place for you, you must take up a hammer and chisel and carve one out for yourself.’

‘I just asked it politely,’ she says, wiping her hands on her skirt. ‘She asked it politely.’ The demon makes a sound that is half laugh, half wheeze. ‘I resent you, you absolute madwoman.’

The clearing is far lovelier than she expected, almost suspiciously so. Overhead, the sky is wreathed by slender birches, their branches parting like theatre curtains to show a concert of stars. A few of their golden leaves scatter across the ground, bumping into soft ferns and tall, wide-brimmed toadstools. A waterfall dominates the clearing: a slender, humming entity sparkling beneath a shaft of moonlight, tumbling into a deep pool before thinning into a stream. The pool is lined with stones held together by the roots of a weeping willow, speckled with moss and five-petalled flowers that glitter as if painted in starlight.

Wtf that’s the most beautiful description I have ever read

Liska watches over her shoulder as he turns away briefly. When he looks back, he is holding something in the palm of his hand: a twinkling flower from the rock face, moonlight slipping off its velveteen petals. He tucks it behind Liska’s ear. ‘I must tell you, my enchanting fox,’ he murmurs, ‘that you deserve someone far better than me. And yet –’ his fingers brush the tip of her ear, linger there – ‘and yet, and yet and yet, I am a selfish creature, and I do not want to let you go.’

🤭

In losing one thing, she has gained another. She has chosen the House Under the Rowan Tree over Stodoła, and though she grieves what she has given up, she does not regret it. She wonders if a sculptor feels this way when he chisels stone into statue, knowing it can never return to its previous form.

She looks at each one of her companions, filled with the most peculiar fondness. How did this happen? A czarownik with a tree for a heart, a meddling house-spirit, a rusałka with a newfound conscience, and Liska herself, a mere village girl, all living under the same semi-sentient roof. Each more unlikely than the last, yet they have been strung together like a necklace of rowan berries, threaded by fate or God’s will or something even wilder.

He pulls her close, into the safety of his arms. He smells of pine sap and pouring rain and ancient things, of the manor’s dusty corridors and of old books and of magic. He smells of home.

🥹