Babayaga

returning to his chapel again for his evening service. No, there was no reason to be worried, birds stopped singing for a myriad of reasons. She slipped out from under the blanket and picked up her clothes. Besides, she thought, if a car had pulled into the driveway she would have heard it, unless it was someone who knew how not to be heard. They could have parked up the road and crossed the flat wheat field on foot. She fastened her bra and slipped into her underwear. She looked down at sleeping Will. She had never pulled anyone in so close to the truth before, but then, she had never felt as vulnerable. She buttoned up her blouse. The silence was so complete, even the evening crickets were silent. Still, probably nothing to worry about. She pulled up her skirt and fastened it.
    A bird chirped. She exhaled, surprised at how nervous her instinct had been. I am too jumpy, she thought, I must relax. When the bird chirped again she noticed it wasn’t the chirp of an evening songbird, a finch or a bunting, it was the cluck of a nearby chicken. Then a thought struck her with the dead weight of certainty, with the sureness of a nail hammered into soft wood: the old priest did not keep chickens, but Elga’s little friend did.
    She touched Will and he stretched beside her and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Hi,” he said and grinned. She kicked him hard, a sudden blow to the side of the head that knocked him flying, over the edge of the loft and down to the barn floor, safely out of the way, as the door burst open and the guns started firing.
    XVI

    As he began the benediction, Andrei was relieved to be wrapping up the evening service so efficiently. His two frail parishioners, both well into their nineties, had enormous patience for long ceremonies. The ancient benefactress was blind with glaucoma and wheelchair-bound. Her husband could still walk, but only with the aid of his two silver-handled canes. But they both chanted and sang with full voices, the purity of their lives giving strength to their hymns. The two were always ready to sing.
    Andrei was both diligent and modest in his dealings with them. Unlike their maid, who was always leaning in as they sipped their soup to ask what benefice they planned for her in their will, he was respectful. He knew if they both died tomorrow, perhaps perishing hand-in-hand in their sleep, there was a great probability that he would be left poor as a cockroach. He believed this would be fine, a righteous punishment for so devotedly serving a God he did not quite believe in. On the other hand, if they bequeathed him even a small fraction of their wealth, it would only prove to Andrei that if God did exist, he was as indulgent as a drunk uncle at Christmas, throwing out candies and treats to the scattering children, regardless of who was good or bad. Not exactly the spirit you want to build a theology around. But it did not matter, God could do what he wanted to do, the priest would not beg a sou from these two souls who had already piously provided him steady refuge from the world. While they were strict in their rituals and demanding of his time, both of them were kind, and in exchange for a small stipend he delivered a modest service at every sunrise and sunset, along with longer, more elaborate sermons for saint’s days and Sunday masses. Clearly these two did not need his spiritual guidance, theirs were spotless souls, and there was scant wisdom he could offer in his homilies that they had not already gleaned from a lifetime’s experience. In fact, it was painfully obvious to Andrei that what they enjoyed most about their rituals at this point in their lives was simply how the duties of religious observation filled up their empty days.
    At that moment his blessing of their bowed heads was disturbed by loud, concussive thunder booming close-by. It sounded as it was coming from over beyond the east side of their property line.
    “Is it a rainstorm?” asked the old woman.
    “No,” said Andrei, through guesswork measuring the direction and distance of the noises as the thundering continued to boom. “I do not think it is a rainstorm.”
    “So what is it?” asked the old man, cupping a palm behind his good ear.
    Andrei paused, listening to the rumbling as it grew. Rising, falling, shaking, and vibrating in its timbre with occasional loud cracks, it sounded more metallic than thunderous, and more organic than the gears of any farm machinery. Finishing his rough