ptice ne mogu da pevaju
Three little birds, born dead, sat on the stone fence beside her. He had sighed in time with her, and held her by the small of her back.
“I will bury them.”
“Why does it matter, djevojka.” He whispered into her hair, and she sighed again, as if she was knowing he wouldn’t ever have understood.
“I’d like to pick out one grave in my life.” She said, and fawn colored hair bled into his fingers and he kissed her until she couldn’t breath.
vuk i vještica
“Oh, I’ll have you for tea.” The woman said, and her smile was wolfish and lusty.
“That sounds nice. I’d like tea.”
She laughed like it was a joke, booming like a bell. Larissa’s voice was like wind chimes. He tried to laugh along with her, but it just came out halfway between a cough and a scream. He cleared his throat and tried again, and it was somewhat near a howl.
“My grandmother told me your grandfather hunted wolves. That he had so many pelts, that he could’ve been a wolf.” She kicked her legs as she sat on the fence, her long skirt pulled up to her thighs. A basket sat on her lap, half empty.
“You think I have the ability to hunt a wolf?” She smiled and passed him a bloody red apple from the tree grounded by rocks in her front yard.
“I think, zenskar, you are a wolf.” She looked at his hand like claws would grow, and then his hand bore down on her skull to waft away a fly. She exhaled, and he wished he had a claw or two for her throat.
to je u drveću. to je u prljavštini i vazduhu i kiši.
He was trying to plant parsnips, which eluded him even still. The well turned sour, and the dirt had little bones in it. Animal bones, he thought, and pressed the femur into the ground. There would be rain soon, he hoped, because the well water tastes like copper and mud and bloody. The kind older couple down the dirt path had allowed him to use their well for the time being.
“Nothing seems to be wrong, son.” The old man said thoughtfully, scratching his head. “Sometimes wells just go bad. Might be a dead animal nearby sinking into the groundwater. We can look tomorrow.”
“But the water would still be sour.” He said, and the man shrugged, as if it was the way of the world to drink a sip of water and for it to taste violent and foul.
“Would you rather know why or wait for years until it gets better?”
He didn’t know how to answer, and just gave him a jar of preserves from the plum tree. “For your wife. Bless her a thousand times.”
“Thank you son. When will your wife come?”
“When the soil is good and the well is clear. And once I chase that wolf away.”
“You need a gun for that thing.” The old man said, as he walked away into the night. He shook his head. He needed his skin, to feed the soil with blood, and to hang the bones to ward away other wolves. Like his grandfather did, and his father before him.
breskve i šljive i vodu i krv
There was a woman in the treelines. By his plums and peaches. He shouldn’t have even been able to grow them at the same time of year. But she waved, and wandered over. Her hair was wrapped in a bandana that was long and trailed down to her legs.
She leaned on his well, shouting hallo from the sky. He had already been staring, even before she appeared. He sliced his thumb carving a snake into the chair, and sucked the blood into his mouth, cursing.
“Neighbor, may I have some water?” She asked, and held the ladle to the bucket. “I’m wandering and got lost!” She’s barefoot and her legs are bloody from the burs in the long grass. She’s lovely, and beautiful, and she dips her finger into the bucket, wiping it on her lips.
“Of course.” He falls over himself. “Please, djevojka. Have as much as you’d like.”
“Thank you.” She almost whispered, and drank like she had never had water before in her life. He felt such a primal want that shocked him, forcing him to step back. She stared at him with sky blue eyes and smiled over the ladle.
poljubio ju je krvavo
“You must let me confess a few things.” She said, and she wore a simple white nightgown. “Your wolfskin is handsome, may I kiss you?” And he allowed her, biting her lips and tongue until she choked on blood.
She wiped her mouth, spat it out onto the ground. He flared with anger, and tried to force her head down to lick it. She did not smile, but she chuckled good naturedly. “You’ll have enough of that soon. May I confess now?” He growled and nuzzled at her neck, biting the dainty flesh. Larissa’s neck was thick, unflattering, horrifying. He hated it so he bit her harder.
“I wish I had learned to read.” She proceeded sweetly. “And I wish I had said more to my daughter. And I lost our child, though that does not concern you. I didn’t mind it. My mother will take care of my daughter until your son becomes of age. And I am not a witch, your great grandfather cursed any woman of my bloodline to suffer, and we treat it as a blessing because we have not much else in this world.”
He pressed a hand over her mouth and she proceeded to speak, even as he tore away her dress and began to rage and destroy her home. She sat with that same placid smile, those sky blue eyes, and did not fight or protest.
The next day, while he sat by a cold body, he felt lively and bold and brave enough to lift it and cart it to his farm. The rain that had poured for over a week had ceased, and he spat chunks of her into the earth, licked her bones clean, and placed them into the well. The water had tasted sweeter than it had in weeks.
svijeće, svijeće, svijeće
He had arrived at a dusty cabin filled with thick motes of dust and brutal heat trapped inside. White cloth covered the mirrors and the radio had seemingly been left on, buzzing for a new channel. There was no light switch. A trio of half burnt candles sat on the fireplace and the wax melted onto a pile of coins and feathers.
The room filled with light one by one, and the shadow of men and wolves and moons and witches danced on the wall. There were paw prints outside, bigger than his hand, bigger than his boot.
A candle couldn’t keep that away.
nasleđe
“I will tell you a story, grandson.” He sat in his grandfather’s lap in that great old chair he was not allowed to sit in.
“Please, djed.”
“There once was a boy, who was just like you. He was handsome and smart, and he was kind. He would never be cruel. The boy had grown up and fell in love with a girl.”
“Ew.” He said, and his grandfather wrapped an arm around his stomach, locking him in. He shifted and grandfather scoffed at his fidgeting, but with a look like he still wished to be a young boy.
“Fell in love with a girl. And she was very pretty, and very kind, and very smart. But she was very cruel. She rejected the boy, and claimed she would never take a husband. But this boy had land, and an inheritance, and he had memorized the Holy Book.”
The boy made a cooing noise, at the simple feat of remembering such a long text, with so many pages and so many words.
“When he had the girl over to his family’s house for tea, a wolf had stalked his home, again and again.. He soon married another girl from the village, but she was drab and dull and only loved him for his things. But her bread was fine and she could sew a shirt in minutes, so he loved her too. The wolf continued to stalk his home.”
“Did he kill him?”
“Shush, boy. The wolf kept going round and round. One day, the boy had turned into a man, and his wife went to see her mother’s cousin to pay respects for a funeral. The man had too much work to do, so he stayed home. And that girl, the one who he had for tea, appeared in his garden. She was naked as the day she was born, and she had bewitched him.”
“Did she kill him? With her spells?”
“Shush. Or the story will end. She was too useless to kill anyone, and so she seduced him with her body and bore a daughter. And he had not told anyone, and neither had she. His dull wife had a son shortly after. Later in life, the man’s son came home with his secret daughter.”
“Oh.. What did he do? Did he tell his wife?”
“No. No, he couldn’t. So in the night, he went to the witch’s home and saw the wolf that had stalked him for years. And so he killed it, slit its throat, and skinned it. For days, he cured that skin, brushed it out. And then, he wore the skin and went back to the witch’s home. And she was foolish, and she let him in.”
“Oh, what else happened grandfather?”
His grandfather smiled like he was remembering a moment fondly. “Boy, you’ll know that feeling one day. Not like your father. Pansy ass. Now, let’s get you to bed for your mother.”
“But what else happened!” The boy whined, and his grandfather yanked his nose. The boy yelped in pain and his grandfather laughed.
“Something like that, that makes fruit trees prosper and the bluebells sing.”
koliba i planina i devojka
“You’ve come to my home.” She said simply, and stepped aside to allow him in. There was a loft she slept in, and a big earthen pot on the fire, and flowers that grew out of the cracks in the floor. There was a rug, a basket of blueberries, and a million candles littered every available surface. “I can’t stand a shadow, or the dark.” She said, and lit up another.
“Shadows sing, shadows dance.” He said, and she kept her back turned to him, and he felt that urge to come up behind her, to rip her apart, to take back what’s his and what will always have been his.
“I’ve made chorbe. If you’d like some.” She turned and smiled, and he hid his wolf teeth, and ate five bowls, imagining her flesh in broth. When she went to serve him another, he grabbed her wrist and grinned. She dipped her head down and he claimed her as his and only his.
vučja koža
There was a thunderstorm and the wolf sat on his front porch, looking at him expectantly. Perhaps it was time. He withdrew his knife, and lunged. The wolf fought very bravely, and he snarled like a human as he strained against him. A pittance, he thinks, the wolf cannot live.
The wolf made a guttural noise as he wrestled him into the rain, growling like him, and he brought the knife down into his neck over and over. The wolf had bitten him, had scratched down his eye, blinding him with blood and dirt. It tasted bitter as he licked as much as he could off his fingers and face.
He skinned the creature in the rain. The woman had appeared with a thunder strike, and her eyes smiled deviously. The carcass steamed, radiating an unbelievable heat. She had followed the scent of blood, he reasoned. There was a swell to her stomach too, and she held it and looked so at ease.
“Oh, let me cook it for you. The skin will take days to cure in this weather.”
He struck her with his hands and she laughed.
“You made me unfaithful.”
“I’ve made you nothing that you already weren’t, cousin. You will feed this earth with my blood soon, and then you may curse my name while you lay with my corpse.” Her voice was simple, teasing, steady, and he roared with a rage he has never felt, and fucked her into the muddy ground.
rođaci, ti i ja
“I’ve a daughter for your son, cousin.” She whispers into his ear, and kisses his neck, and his blood runs cold. “A daughter, and then a granddaughter. Cousin, it does not matter what we want.”
She slinked up his body. “Bring me a wolf skin, cousin. To keep me warm.” He rested his hands on her waist and she purred with excitement. “I wish I was the wolf.”
“You can be.” And he left with burning marks in his back and a bleeding neck. And satisfaction stinging in the tears of his eyes. And he had believed he must be insane, for he cared not that they were cousins, only considering when he’d taste her bones and lick her skull clean.
ona se smeje i smeje se i smeje
Larissa wouldn’t have gone as far to proclaim she loved him. Not in any way that matters. In the way you love an object, love an idea. Become enamored with a color, like a child with something shiny and tingling and bright.
She threw a leg over him in her sleep and he felt suffocation bearing down on him. He got off the bed and sat at the window, watching the moon. He must have slept there, because she awoke him in the morning laughing with the sun.
“You watched the moon?”
“Yes.” He said, and she kissed his face and he felt bile. The curve of that stomach, heavy and swelled with a child, made him kiss the stomach and then pace the room. This was no place for a child, and she was in no physical condition to be a mother. Not yet, not until they could have sweet country air and flowers stuffed into their mattress.
grobovi i grobovi
“How did your grandmother speak of my grandfather?”
“How did she?” She parroted, and laid back invitingly into her bed, a sheet covering half her body. Her hair spilled over her shoulder and he groaned internally. “With her mouth.”
“She died before you were born.”
“Did she, now? Come to bed.” She pouted. “What does it matter of the dead?” He could not escape that feeling that he should not have went to the graveyard, that he should have not seeked out the grave of his father. When he found it, he had thrown up on the dirt and did not apologize, only spat out more bile on his hands and knees.
“How do you know what she said?”
She laughs. “How does a mouse know what a human would say? They imagine it.” Her smile was placid but curved like a knife. “A mouse can think like a mouse, but it can’t think like anything else. A human can assume things about other humans. Your grandfather wasn’t ready for her until his 20th wolf. He delayed the natural order of it all.”
“You don’t make sense.” And she beckoned him over with her finger and he followed because there was nothing else he was able to do.
dolazi okolo kao zmija
“It’s where your great grandfather went and cursed us. A witch!”
“Grandmother.” He said, and poured her tea from a silver pot. “I just need a break from work, and Larissa wants to move to the country. I really do too. And you always told me it was nice, and there’s that cabin, I could fix it up.” He wanted to work with his hands, but not his fingers on a keyboard. He wanted to build a life, he wanted to fix his wife, to give his son something that he could have and call his own one day.
“You’ll be cursed, boy. Like your grandfather and his father before him. That witch.” She murmured, and he soothed her with a handful of sugared almonds and she fell back into that typical trance, where she was young and her father was always just a day away from home.
moj ljubavnik, moja žena
“I love it here.” Larissa said, and their son ran amok in the open field. “And I love you. This will be good for us. A new start.” She looked prettier in this lighting, the well water had cleared her skin and the fresh air made her mind sharper. She slimmed down with the diet they now had. He was happy. He just had to wait, his dull wife turned beautiful.
It was easier here. His mind was clearer, and his body thrummed with some newfound power. And there were no more bones in the dirt, besides those of little birds that his wife would bury when she found them. He thinks he knew a girl who would have done that once.
“I love you.” He said. His son ran into his arms and he scooped him up.
“Papa, may I have a story?”
“Yes maleni. Once upon a time, there was a boy, who was just like you. He was handsome and smart, and he was kind. He would never be cruel. The boy had grown up and fell in love with a girl..”
The sun began to set on their farm, and there were no more wolves howling. The world was quiet, and the wolfskin warmed them on cold nights.