It’s funny; when I introduced myself to y’all last year, I considered myself a bit of an introvert. I don’t know if it’s the whole “bearing a child”-aspect of my current situation, but I’ve been soaking up affection like a sponge recently. It’s rather a different side of me, and I feel like Jacek especially is affected. He came home earlier today after texting me, and I was waiting by the door for him like a sad puppy. He just kind of laughed and gave me a kiss. “Hey, gorgeous. How’s Anton?”
“Asleep, thankfully,” I said, spreading my arms. “Hold me.”
“Let me take a shower first.” He shrugged off his jacket. “Got cold woodsmoke stench all over me. I smell like a rodent died in my boxers.”
“I don’t mind,” I assured him.
“But I do.”
“Why woodsmoke, anyway? Did you build a campfire? I thought you were saving some super important guy.”
“That was the plan.” Jacek patted down his dirty crimson sweater and scratched the back of his neck, pausing to remove a tiny leaf from his collar. “It didn’t go all that smoothly— we had to evacuate his property because his household staff was compromised. Ugh… complicated. Anyhow, that’s why we had to sleep outside for a couple days.”
“Did everything go well in the end?”
“Sure it did. He’s fine. He’s keeping on the downlow at the moment, but he’s gonna be back for his next campaign soon.”
“Who is he?”
“I can’t tell you that,” he laughed, poking me in the side. “As you should know.”
“Just curious. So, is the campaign gonna be worth all that hassle?”
“Hell no, it’s complete bullshit.” He sighed as he walked past me into the direction of the hallway. “They all are.”
I was waiting for him in the bedroom when he came out of the shower, hoping for cuddles and a nap. Jacek, upon joining me, took note of the stack of books on the nightstand. “Where’d all that come from?”
“Attic. They were mom’s. Or… mine, I guess.” I scooted closer to him as he sat down beside me, draping my body over his. “I’ve been reading them to Tosha.”
“Huh. Let me see.”
I reluctantly disentangled myself from him to grab some of the books. I dropped them in his lap, then got comfortable again, eliciting an amused snort. “I like clingy Fiona,” he said, stroking my back with one hand as he leafed through the pages of one of the slimmer little magazines with the other. “But she is awfully selfish. I feel like a body pillow.”
“Wait until I’ve recovered, I’ll show you,” I murmured, hiding my face in his t-shirt.
He chuckled, and I heard him pick up a slightly heavier book. “This is Krabat. Ania read you Krabat?”
“Yeah. I loved it. I read it by myself, like, ten times over after I learned how.”
“And then you hit on me.” He tapped the back of my head with a finger. “What am I to infer from that?”
“Please, my obsession with that book stopped at thirteen. We only met six years later.” I craned my neck to peer up at him. “I hit on you because you were the hottest, most terrifying person I’d ever seen.”
“Terrifying?”
“Yes, but in a hot way, like I said.”
He snorted, then opened the book. Several extra pages fell out. Jacek picked them up so we could look at them. I recognized the thin, long pencil strokes. These were more drawings done by my mother. However this time, they all depicted a human. A gaunt-faced, dark-eyed man with a crooked nose and receding chin. Shaggy hair fell down to his shoulders and I couldn’t help but glance over at Jacek.
“He looks a lot like you.”
“I should think so. That’s my father.”
“What?” I did a double take of the image. “Is it an accurate likeness?”
“Eerily accurate.”
“I guess it’s not that shocking,” I said. “They did know each other really well, didn’t they?”
“Oh yeah. Ania came over a lot when I was small. In secret, of course, because of your father. Dad was always very happy to see her.”
“Was your mother still in the picture then?” I paused. “What exactly happened with her, anyway? You never talk about her.”
“Not much to say.” Jacek gathered the drawings of his father into a tidy stack. “My father was… weird. I guess in hindsight, a lot of things he said confused me? A lot of what he taught me, too. I hated him, although… well, he was important enough to me that I avenged his death ten years ago. But Mom…”
I reached out to brush a strand of jet-black hair behind his ear. He’d grown it out again, but never straightened it anymore, so now it framed his stubbly face in unruly curls. He looked almost exactly like when I’d first met him, only less skinny and with the addition of cute little wrinkles around his eyes. “But Mom?” I prompted.
“I have her nose. She was… hm.” He tipped his head back, staring at the bedroom ceiling as though at a painting. “She was tiny. I think that’s why I never got any taller. And she had freckles. I remember, she used to push her forehead up against mine and I’d just see the freckles all over her cheeks everywhere.”
“What was her name?”
“Lidia.”
“And your Dad? I don’t believe you’ve ever said.”
“Rafal.” Jacek ran a hand over his forehead. “I-I don’t think I ever loved him, not in a real way. I mean, of course I loved him, of course I loved my father, but I didn’t love him, you know?”
“Did he… do anything to you?”
“Most of the time, I just had to work. Back then, the mill was still going and I was hauling sacks of grain all day. Started when I could just about walk right. My arms weren’t long enough— uh, actually, my entire me wasn’t long enough so when I had to carry large bags they’d always drag on the floor. They weren’t supposed to. My father would always cuss me out when I dropped something, and that happened a lot because… I was a kid?” He let out a soft groan and wiped his moist palms on his joggers. “Mom used to stop him before he could go too far, but when she was gone, there was… no buffer.”
“You never told me any of that ten years ago,” I remarked, not reproachfully.
“Of course not.” Jacek shrugged. “I mean, I do think I mentioned their names to you before— I don’t blame you for not remembering. But I didn’t tell you anything else because I didn’t want you to think I was whiny.”
“I wouldn’t have—”
“You sure? I love you, always have; but you were kinda… uh…”
“Cold?”
“I suppose you could put it that way,” he replied carefully.
“I’m sorry.” I reached out and started stroking his back. “I swear I want you to tell me those things. If you’re okay with it.”
“I am. I guess.”
“That’s not really something you should have to guess about.”
“Yeah, well; it’s long over. No need to be precious about it.” Jacek’s fingers were drawing shaky patterns on his thighs. “I don’t really know what happened with Mom. She was just gone all of a sudden. At first, Dad told me she’d left us. Then he said she’d probably died. Then he changed the story again and said she’d just disappeared. To this day, I’m not sure where she is… if she is. But no matter. I was really little, too, like… eleven years, maybe? I might be mixing things up in my head.” He chewed on his lip a moment, then repeated, “No matter.”
“Sounds like it does matter.”
“Let’s just get some sleep in before Anton wakes up, okay?”
I relented, figuring I ought not to press him on this. So we cuddled up and I quickly fell asleep— really no difficulties with that as of late. The troubles started when I began to dream.
I’m no stranger to nightmares, mind. Be they cosmically horrifying, grief-born or sexually confusing, I’ve pretty much had them all. And yes, I have dreamt of my mother before, but… not like this.
I knew from the start that I was dreaming. I could hardly delude myself into believing that Ania Novak was truly standing before me, leaning against the handrail of our own front porch, the snow-covered meadow behind her. One can certainly still enjoy a dream, even if one knows it’s not real, so I walked up to her and opened my arms for a greeting embrace. She hugged me, lingering for only a moment before pulling away. Her sharp eyes gleamed and a smile played round her shapely lips, deepening the fine wrinkles in her cheeks. “Hello, sweetie.”
“What are we doing outside, Mom?”
“I’m not sure, you know.” She paused to think, and I couldn’t help but note that this dream seemed somehow improvised. “How about your baby?”
“What’s there to say about him?”
“I never saw you as the type to become a parent, is all.” Mom tilted her head, and a breeze ruffled her short, shaggy hair. “To think. My daughter— a mother. Mother to a half-breed bastard no less. What were you thinking, bedding a forest-demon?”
“I bedded a regular infernal demon and you didn’t seem to mind.”
“Jacek’s not a demon, baby. He’s just a confused little human boy.”
Something about that statement struck me as even stranger. There was venom behind it. Thinly veiled disgust. “Since when do you not like Jacek?” I asked.
“The Devil’s bootlicker?” Mom crossed her arms, then loosened up again and broke into a laugh. “Oh, it’s not that I don’t like him. I like him just fine… in a pitying, luke-warm kind of way. It’s more so that I don’t respect him. How could anyone? How can you?”
“I— uh…” I swallowed, stroking my shoulder.
My mother, taking note of my discomfort, took a tiny step back. Her smile grew softer, milder. “Sorry, honey. I shouldn’t judge my daughter’s taste in men, considering the wretch who fathered you.”
“Yeah… Dad. What did you see in him?” I watched her features rearrange into a pensive expression, trying to find out what it was that rubbed me the wrong way about them.
“Oh, I don’t know.” This thing wasn’t even trying to present me with a convincing impression of my mother anymore. And yet, the game went on. I wasn’t sure if they knew I knew— wasn’t sure if I wanted them to know, so it was all I could do to keep up this careful conversational dance. “Did you respect him? Dad, I mean?”
“Ha, not one bit.” Ania waved an indulgent hand. “Maxwell was… well, you’re the only good thing that man ever got off the ground, I don’t mind telling you. And I still did most of the work there. It’s good that he’s dead. I trust he’s not missed?”
“Not really. I feel… weird about him. But not sad.” I tilted my head. “I wonder who killed him, though. And if I might thank them in person.”
Mom’s eyes narrowed, and when she next spoke, her voice was not hers. The words slipped from her lips in a smooth, pearly male baritone. “You do catch on awfully quickly.”
The sudden change sent a shiver down my spine, and my gut churned with fear when I realized that, indeed, the apparition was not my mother. And this was not a dream.
Ania’s face hardened, a dirty smile twisting her lips. “You have a charming little mind, Fiona.”
“Get out of my head.”
“What’s the rush? Didn’t you want to thank me?”
“Who are you?” I couldn’t help but take a step back. “How are you doing this?”
“Well, it’s hard to explain to someone who’s unfamiliar with the Hells. Jacek has his flames, and me… I have this.” She pointed between herself and me.
“Who are you?” I repeated. “Show yourself.”
“I’d rather not.” Ania regarded me with bright eyes. “I’m not here to talk, Novak.”
“Then what are you here for?”
“To find out who I’m working with… and what I’m up against.”
“And?”
My “mother” let out a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, I think I’ll be just fine.” With that she lunged forward, wrapped a bony pale hand around my hair and pulled it up hard. She was suddenly towering over me, dwarfing me in sheer height, and it was all I could do to stare into her cold, ice blue eyes— my mother’s eyes used to be gray— in utter shock. I knew this was all somehow only happening in my head, but the pulling on my scalp was nothing short of painful and my heart was pounding in my chest like a sledgehammer.
“Listen here,” she said in that same, deep voice, “you don’t want me as an enemy. Sure, you somehow managed to put Nick in his place, but he blundered by attacking you on your own land. I’m not as easily blinded by rage. Keep that bloodhound Jacek off my case and don’t try anything stupid, and I might refrain from showing you the full portfolio of my talents.”
My first instinct was to kick her in the crotch, but when I attempted to do so, my knee met with… nothing. The thing laughed, let go of me and backed off. “Charming. You are as advertised. Though I guess that’s a ‘no’ then about the not trying anything stupid-part.”
“Fuck off,” I pressed out through clenched teeth. “Leave me the hell alone or I swear I’ll—”
“No, no, no, Fiona. I swear. I swear I’ll be waiting for you every night you fall asleep, and when you get that skinny ass out of your hallowed woods one day, you can bet I’ll be there, too.” Ania grinned, baring uncannily white, perfect teeth. “Think it over. If you test me, I’ll make you wish you were unborn.”
“You’re not even really here,” I hissed. “You’re just fucking with my head.”
“I can do more than enough even so.” Ania smiled wider still, then lifted a hand to idly regard her fingernails. “Time to wake up now, Fiona. Your baby’s hungry.”
I shot up in bed, my chest heaving. Anton.
A primal fear overtook me as I struggled to orientate myself in the pitch-black bedroom. Jacek was snoring softly beside me; the sound helped slow my heart rate. As soon as I could breathe again, I jumped out of bed and made a run for the nursery. The hallway was completely silent, safe for the slapping of my naked feet on the wooden floor. I threw open the door to my son’s room which was right beside ours and breathed a massive sigh of relief when I found Anton sleeping soundly in his crib. I crept over to him on my tiptoes and turned on the tiny, dim lamp on the changing table.
For a minute or two, I stood and stared down at Tosha. I was just about to turn around and go back to bed when his eyes blinked open, his little face scrunched up and he started crying.
I lifted him out of his crib and he went right for my boob. He really was hungry. How the fuck had that thing known about my son? How had it known Tosha would be hungry?
I jumped when the door creaked behind me.
“Woah.” Jacek’s gravelly, soothing whisper made my shoulders slump as my tension faded a bit. “You good?”
“No. Something happened.”
He wiped the sleep from his eyes, trying hard to stay attentive through his grogginess. “So tell me.”
I honestly had some difficulties putting everything into words. The whole experience had been so terrifying and bizarre; it didn’t make complete sense to me. It seemed to do to Jacek, though. With a low groan, my boyfriend sank into the armchair next to the crib and ran his hands through his hair. “So it’s on,” he muttered. “We need to think about where to go from here.”
“That bastard is ready to go on the offensive with whatever the fuck they think they’re doing.”
“He. He used to be… I wouldn’t call him a friend, I suppose, but we were about as close as you can get to that in the Hells. Until I basically stole his job.”
“You did what?”
“He used to be Nick’s right hand before I came along. I kissed our great Lord’s ass though, and so I came into favor more and more, and eventually, Nick simply replaced him with me.” Jacek shrugged. “Don’t look at me like that. I was good at my job. And I wasn’t half as precious as him. I didn’t mind getting my hands dirty, meanwhile he’d cramp up everytime he chipped a nail. That vain little pissstain.”
“Wait, does that mean… the whole Angel-act he pulled on my father, everything that happened with the wannabe cryptid hunters; he incited all of that because you clawed your way into his position?”
Jacek stared at me with gradually widening eyes. “Um… I guess I—”
“I almost died! Several times!” I instantly lowered my voice when Tosha started squirming uncomfortably.
“Fiona, I’m— I’m sorry! What do you want me to say? Ambition is everything downstairs. I was ‘a lowly human’, all I had was my unremarkable black magician father to show for. I wanted to carve a name for myself, and that’s what I did. How was I supposed to know any of that would fall back on you? It was only ever my own life I risked.”
“Sounds like something you should have kept under control,” I whisper-shouted. “Got any more mortal enemies that might want to come after me? Come after my child?”
“I mean, the Angel’s probably the worst, but… sure, there are some others. But I doubt they’re smart enough to use you as leverage against me.”
My heart sank. “How the fuck are you so blasé about this?”
“Why are you freaking out about it? Shit, I didn’t become Nick’s favorite for nothing. Just because I like it when you stomp on me doesn’t mean I can’t turn some fuckers into mush if I choose to. I’m not defenseless, and neither are you— far from it. You’re stronger than that, so put your head back on and we can strategize.”
“Stronger? Do you have any idea how much this pregnancy sucked for me? I have the worst headaches, my birthing nightmares won’t stop, and I still need to pee every hour!”
Jacek raised his hands. “Okay, yes, I’m sorry! I’m sorry. Of course you’re right to be concerned, but maybe not… quite that concerned? I really only wanted to calm you down, but it went shitty. I love you.”
So anyways, I started crying. I’m not sure why, but it lasted for about an hour, and because Tosha always cries when I do, we didn’t get any more sleep that night. Jacek assured me he’d see us through this, but then, he wasn’t the one who’s mind got assaulted by the pretender angel. I’m almost as stressed as I was last time around. This isn’t going well.