Mora

Just a couple of minutes before she drove the Rusalki back, Milena grappled with her own problems in her sleep.

Even though her body, along with Svarog’s whole house, was covered in countless moths, her consciousness was in a completely different place.

But where was it? She couldn’t tell.

At first, Milena ran through a deep forest. A giant snake chased her.

Then, she found herself in the middle of an ocean. A shark swam under her.

All of a sudden, she was at the highest peak of a mountain. Her eyelashes were freezing.

She walked in a dry desert. A group of scorpions crawled over her body.

Then she was surrounded by nothing but darkness. A rotten smell followed her everywhere.

But every single time, she breathed calmly.

“Do you know who I am?” A female voice echoed around her.

“You’re Mora, right?”

“Is there anything you are afraid of, at all?”

“It’s strange, huh? These are all my childhood fears. But I am not afraid of them anymore.” Milena turned her head and perked up her ears as if trying to locate the voice.

“It must be because I don’t sense it within you.”

“What are you referring to?”

“A weakness.”

“Then it must have been a good deal.”

“It’s not like I have the power to look inside of you. I just try to conjure the worst nightmares possible for any human being.”

The voice sounded like it was coming closer.

“A nightmare? So this is a dream?”

“Yes, and no.” Mora appeared right in front of Milena. “Do you know who I am?”

Mora’s skin on her face was covered by moths like a second layer. The only parts of her head that looked even slightly human were her glassy, transparent eyes. Her mouth and nose were fused and elongated, resembling a mosquito’s proboscis.

There was a scar on her neck stretching from the left side all the way to the right.

The moths made up her entire body. Even the unnatural wings on her back, shaped like moth’s, were made of them.

“Well… You look like a mother of moths.”

Mora sighed. “This isn’t a nightmare anymore. So I have to turn it into one.”

Milena lost her balance as the ground beneath her opened up and sucked her in. She hit the bottom hard.

“Ouch!” Her voice was higher pitched than usual.

Her hair was much shorter. And her eyes were more innocent.

“What a cute girl you were.” Mora’s voice echoed around her again.

Milena looked different. But she was still herself. For she had turned into a child, her younger self.

It looked as though she was lost in the middle of a field.

But someone was keeping her company.

Poludnica.

“And what do you do with the crops afterwards?” the spirit asked, holding her golden sickle at Milena’s neck.

“We thresh them… and then make flour?” Milena gently grabbed the handle of the sickle and lowered it. “I win.”

Poludnica’s trial ended and she was about to leave.

“Hey! Can we be friends? And maybe do this again some time?” Milena called out.

The air around the field cracked. Black moths swarmed the sky.

Poludnica’s expression was void of any emotions, but she nodded in a silent agreement. And then, the whirlwind of the soil and dust carried her away.

Milena looked at the sky, as if looking for Mora. “Is this supposed to be your idea of a nightmare?”

Thousands of moths all laughed at the same time in Mora’s voice.

“It’s true I can’t see into your heart. But this is my world. And my world is built on humans’ fears. Just look around you! The world is breaking!”

“So? It just means I defeated that fear.” Milena exaggeratedly flexed her arm. “Now you can get me out!”

“Wrong. The world is rejecting your childhood memory. Because it’s false.”

“What?” Milena frowned. The image of her childhood self broke and she was an adult again.

“That’s not how this played out.”

Milena’s voice trembled. “W-what do you mean?”

“Look. The world around you is repairing.” The cracks in the air slowly reconstructed and the moths flew away. “Now show me how it really went. And what happened prior to that.”

“Milena! Milena, where are you?!”

Somebody called out from the distance.

The sun was at its highest and the air was dry.

Milena shed a tear. She recognized that voice. “M-mom…?”

The woman calling out was the spitting image of adult Milena, only with a couple more wrinkles and grey hair.

“Milena!”

Her mother ran towards her but Milena froze in place. When she was finally close enough, Milena extended her hand, hoping to touch her. But her mother went right through her as if she was a ghost.

When Milena turned around, she found her mother hugging Milena’s younger self.

“Milena!” She found her daughter playing in the field. “It’s high noon, you can’t be here!”

Milena held a small hoe, digging it into the soil, making little gutters.

“No, mom, forget about me and run!” The adult Milena shouted, but the woman was unable to hear her.

Mora giggled. “I understand now.”

As little Milena played with the hoe, Poludnica appeared right behind her.

And she asked a question.

Her mother stood terrified. But then she quickly dashed toward her, snatching the hoe out of her hands, as she started digging frantically. “Leave her alone! She was just playing! I’m working, see?”

Poludnica hovered over little Milena and stopped inches from her mother’s face, the golden sickle already at her throat.

And then she started her trial.

“Your mother is about to die. Because unlike your father or you… she doesn’t know much about crops… or baking. She’s a mere potter.”

Milena turned her gaze away, because she knew what would be coming.

A single slash.

And the mother’s body lay on the soil, blood spilling from her throat.

“Mom!” The little Milena cried out. She took up her hoe and pretended to dig holes for seeds. “Mommy…! Mom…!” She sobbed.

Poludnica then approached her. And asked questions.

“While your mother was away at the market, selling her pottery, you learnt from your father,” Mora whispered in adult Milena’s ear, her proboscis-like face rubbing against her cheek. “So you knew how to survive the full forbidden hour.”

The little Milena knelt over the defeated Poludnica, slashing her left and right with the spirit’s own golden sickle.

“But it wasn’t enough for you,” Mora’s moths started to uncover her skin, one by one.

“Die, die, die, die!” little Milena cried out in wrath. “Don’t you ever come back again! I hate you! Curse you and your dusha!”

The young girl then crawled to her mother’s side, holding her lifeless body tightly. But Poludnica stood up. And took the mother’s body away.

“And so, that Poludnica never terrorized the fields around your village again. But at what cost? It was your fault. You couldn’t even hold a proper Slavic funeral for your mother.”

Milena’s tears flooded her face.

“Your fear is leaking out. Your true fear isn’t Poludnica. Or a dangerous animal. Or venomous scorpion. It’s your past. You fear facing yourself. And you fear… that this monstrous version of you… would ever come out again.”

The moths had completely cleared Mora’s face.

But Milena didn’t want to open her eyes, both literally and figuratively.

“I ask you again…” Mora’s voice was gentle. “Do you know who I am?!” Then it grew aggressive.

“Don’t…!” As Milena opened her eyes, it was as though she looked into the mirror where a deformed version of her stared back.

But it wasn’t a reflection. It was the face of her own mother, now transformed into a vengeful spirit.

“Don’t torment me… mom!”

Milena woke up, all sweaty. She breathed heavily. Most of the moths were already gone. And they left behind nothing but Svarog’s bones.

But some remained and flew around Milena. From the swarm, Milena’s mother’s face emerged. “It’s your fault I’m dead.” And then she disappeared from the house and from sight completely.

Milena huffed. Her eyes bloodshot. “M-mom…”

But then she heard female voices from the cracked windows. “He noticed. Yeah, he noticed.” The voices repeated.

“Zduhach!” Milena called out.

Her eyes wandered through the room, looking for anything helpful.

Somebody’s battle-axe was leaning against the wall.

Now armed with it, she ran outside to help her friend.

Chapter 29: END