Where the Dark Stands Still

by A.B. Poranek

Look toward the light, she reminds herself. Then you will not see the shadow behind you.

He grimaces. “I preferred you when you were quiet.” “And I preferred you when you were a deer.”

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

Well, I remember finding the Leszy an infuriating old toad.

“You utterly mad, impetuous thing,” he breathes. “You did it. You freed your magic.”

“If I look like a monster,” he says roughly, “then no one will be surprised when I do monstrous things.”

“Not on the outside, maybe. But in here”—Kazimiera taps her chest, just over her heart—“you are more powerful than you could ever fathom.”

“But nothing is ever equal with humans, really—we give and we take, the scales ever tipping. That’s just the way of it. I am what he has, and he is what I have—there’s no point keeping score.”

if the world has not prepared a place for you, you must take up a hammer and chisel and carve one out for yourself.”

You are sunlight, and you breathe life into everything you touch.”

“I must tell you, my dear fox,” says the Leszy, “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.”

“Do not go back to that village, Liska.” He holds her gaze, steadfast. “Stay here with me. Stay, and you can have all the power and magic you desire. Stay, and you can be anyone you want.”

But you seem happy when you’re with him, and for that he has been awarded my unenthusiastic tolerance.

(Of women, he’s heard it said: “She will be the end of me,” or “She will be my undoing.” None of that is true for Liska Radost. She is not the end of anything, but the beginning of everything. He has been dead a long time, and she is his resurrection.)

Grief is a bit like a chronic ache, I think—it’s always there, but sometimes you notice it more and sometimes less, and sometimes it’s unbearable and sometimes you think it might be gone for good.”