“So, you’re the daughter of my helper. Pretty and hardworking,” he said, but then he looked at me with those pale eyes and added, “But you two never met at the festival, did you? ”
I froze. How could he say that?
We had danced. He had held my hands and whispered words only I should have known. But his face showed nothing, and for a moment, I thought I had imagined that night at the church festival. My name is Nadia, and this is the story of how my life was stolen from me, piece by piece, by a family that buried the living alongside the dead.
I was barely nine when we moved into the house behind the cemetery wall. My father, Jan, said the rent was cheap and we could save for our own home. My mother, Katarina, agreed without enthusiasm. But my grandmother, Dorota, crossed herself and said, “Jan, this place is not right.
The place of the living is with the living. ”
The house was simple, made of wood darkened by time. It had two small rooms: one for my parents, and one where I slept with my siblings and grandmother. In the backyard, a tall, white-painted cemetery wall loomed, always damp at the bottom.
The first day, a full woman with gray hair pulled into a bun introduced herself as Ruzena, our neighbor. “Mrs. Katarina, you are brave to live here,” she said. “They say at night you can hear strange sounds from the cemetery.
”
“Nonsense,” my father laughed. “The dead don’t make noise. And if they do, too bad for them that they can’t rest. ”
My mother, very devout, did not laugh.
She prayed the rosary every evening and taught us to do the same. That evening, as we ate chicken soup, we heard footsteps on the gravel. A tall, thin man with very white skin and gray hair appeared. He held his worn hat in his hands, and his fingernails had dirt under them.
“Good evening. David Fojtik, cemetery caretaker,” he introduced himself. “I came to welcome the new neighbors. ”
His eyes were so light blue they looked almost transparent.
When he looked at me, a chill ran down my back. My father introduced us all: his wife Katarina, his mother-in-law Dorota, and his children—Nadia, the oldest, Michal, and little Lucia. David said the house had been empty for a long time and offered to help repair the wall. When he left, my grandmother muttered, “I don’t like people who deal with the dead all day.
They soak up the smell of death, like a fishmonger always smells of fish. ”
That first night, I couldn’t sleep. From the bedroom window, I saw the white cemetery wall lit by the moon. I could have sworn I heard whispers and footsteps from the other side.
It wasn’t a week before my mother realized we needed more money. My father traveled selling goods and only came home on weekends. “Nadia, I will have to work too,” my mother told me. She had brought her Singer sewing machine, a treasured heirloom.
She planned to offer her sewing services around the village. The next day, we went into town. People looked at us with curiosity. “Those are the new ones from the house by the cemetery,” they whispered.
On the way back, we passed the caretaker’s house. He was weeding his garden. When he heard my mother sewed, his pale eyes lit up. “That’s a coincidence.
I need someone. Can I come by later and speak with you? ”
After lunch, David appeared with a package wrapped in brown paper. He asked my mother directly, “Mrs.
Katarina, can you sew burial shrouds? ”
My grandmother, who was peeling potatoes, stopped. “Sewing for the dead isn’t good, daughter. It brings bad luck.
”
David laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “Nonsense, Mrs. Dorota. The dead can’t hurt anyone.
It’s the living you should fear. ”
The measurements were for a small burial shroud. “It must be for a child,” my mother murmured sadly. That afternoon, she began to sew on her Singer, and I sat beside her, fascinated.
“Do you want to learn, Nadia? ” she asked. “Yes,” I answered, though I was a little afraid of the machine. She taught me how to place the fabric, how to turn the wheel, and how to use the pedal with my feet.
When we finished, the shroud was white, immaculate, waiting to dress someone who would never rise again. The next morning, David came for the shroud. He paid more than my mother expected. “With this, we have enough for food for the whole week,” she said with satisfaction.
In the following days, more sewing orders came. But the shrouds were the most frequent and paid the best. One afternoon, when my mother was out buying thread, David appeared with a new order. “It’s for a child from a farm far away,” he said when I asked who had died.
After he left, I opened the package out of curiosity. The measurements were very small, even smaller than the clothes Lucia wore. A tiny baby, I thought sadly. When my mother came home and saw the package, she grew serious.
“It’s the third child’s burial shroud this month,” she said. That night, while my mother worked on the shroud under the dim light, Michal had a severe asthma attack. My grandmother blamed the house, the closeness of the cemetery. “It’s not good for children to breathe this air,” she grumbled.
The next morning, David came for the shroud. My mother explained she couldn’t finish it because of Michal’s crisis. “I understand, Mrs. Katarina,” he said, but his voice was tense.
“It was urgent. Could you finish it today? ” The funeral was at noon. When he returned, he paid and then looked at me.
“Are you learning your mother’s craft, girl? ”
“Yes,” I answered, a chill running down my spine. “Good. It’s good to pass knowledge from mother to daughter.
”
Two years passed. I studied and helped at home and with the sewing. One Friday afternoon, my father came home without any gifts for us. His face had an expression I had never seen before.
He looked like he had aged ten years. “Katarina, it’s over,” he said, dropping his suitcase on the floor. “The factory in the city suddenly closed. They fired everyone.
”
That very night, David appeared, holding a bottle of whiskey. He had already heard the news. “Maybe it’s fate,” he said. “I need a helper at the cemetery.
The job isn’t hard. The town council pays decently. ”
I saw my father swallow hard. He had always been a cheerful, talkative man who loved telling jokes.
Being a gravedigger didn’t suit him at all. “Think of your family, man,” the caretaker urged, pouring whiskey into a glass my mother reluctantly brought. That night, I heard my parents talking in the kitchen. My mother was crying quietly.
My father was trying to comfort her, saying it would be temporary. In two weeks, my father, who had once been a traveling salesman full of dreams, became the cemetery caretaker’s assistant. It wasn’t just a job change. It was as if David had gained power over our entire family.
Over the years, my father withered like a plant without water. He no longer told jokes, no longer sang. With every grave he dug, he seemed to bury a part of himself. I was fifteen when I first saw Alex.
It was at the church festival. I had convinced my mother to let me go with Eliska, our neighbor’s daughter. My grandmother had sewn me a special floral dress with a red ribbon at the waist. I felt beautiful that night.
I was standing by a stall, watching the dancers, when I felt something strange. The air suddenly grew heavy and cold, and all sounds seemed to fade. I saw him on the other side of the square: a tall boy with very white skin, almost glowing in the moonlight. He wore dark clothes, different from what the village boys wore.
But what struck me most were his eyes. Even from a distance, I could see they were so light blue, so intense, they seemed almost transparent. And they were fixed on me. He began walking toward me, and people seemed to move out of his way without realizing it.
When he approached, he said, “Nadia. Finally, I found you. ”
His voice was soft, with an accent I didn’t recognize. “Who are you?
” I managed to ask, my voice almost a whisper. “Someone who has been watching you for a long time,” he answered with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Someone who came from far away for you. ”
He asked me to dance.
His touch sent a hot chill down my back. He knew things he shouldn’t have known—about my fears, my dreams, the whispers I heard at night from the other side of the wall. “Who are you? ” I asked again, more urgently.
“Someone who can take you away from here,” he replied. “Someone who can show you the world beyond this wall. ”
Then he let go of my hands. “I have to go now,” he said.
“But I will come back soon, and when I do, you will have to choose. ” Choose what, I asked. “Whether you stay or come with me. ”
He disappeared into the darkness.
The world returned to normal, and I wondered if I had dreamed it all. Three days later, I was hanging laundry when I heard the gate creak. David, the caretaker, was coming with a young man. My heart almost stopped when I recognized him—the same pale skin, the same light blue eyes.
“Mrs. Katarina,” David said, “I came to introduce my grandson, Alex. He has come from the city to live with me. ”
To my astonishment, Alex pretended not to know me.
“I didn’t have the pleasure,” he said when David asked if we had met at the festival. He looked at me with a slight smile. When we were alone for a moment, he whispered, “Do you know why I did it? Pretending we never met?
Because what happened between us isn’t for others to see or understand. It’s only ours. ”
My grandmother, always suspicious, watched him with eagle eyes. “I know this type of man, Nadia,” she said the next morning.
“Too handsome, too polite. And those eyes. I’ve only seen eyes like that once in my life, when a man appeared at my father’s farm. He charmed everyone except my grandmother, who said he had a mark.
A pact. ”
“A pact with whom? ” I asked, though I already knew the answer. “With the one whose name cannot be spoken,” she whispered, crossing herself three times.
I thought she was exaggerating with her old superstitions. But then Ruzena’s grandmother, old Anezka, told me a story that chilled me. “When I was young, a man appeared at the dances, a handsome boy with pale skin and very light blue eyes. He would ask girls to dance and whisper things to them.
Some girls fell ill, grew pale and weak, as if they had lost blood. Others disappeared. They said they went with him. My cousin Ana was one of them.
”
I didn’t want to believe it. Alex must have heard the legends when he arrived and used them to impress naive girls like me. I decided I wouldn’t let myself be fooled again. But when he smiled, my resolve melted.
We began meeting in secret. He told me I was special, different from other girls here. No one had ever spoken to me like that. At home, I was just another mouth to feed.
But in Alex’s eyes, I was exceptional. My mother warned me. “He has the same blood as David. Your father changed after he started working with him.
” My grandmother agreed: “A city-boy educated in New York wants only one thing from village girls, and when he gets it, he’ll disappear. ”
But at fifteen, who listens to such advice? The prohibition only increased my desire to see him. We met secretly, always avoiding being seen.
One day, behind the cemetery tombstones, he kissed me. It was my first kiss. After that, I could think of nothing else. We met more and more often, always hiding.
He always wanted more, and I fought between desire and fear, remembering my grandmother’s words. I always stopped him. What was under my dress, I told him, he would only see after marriage. “What do you want from me?
” I asked him one day. “Everything,” he answered, so directly it took my breath away. “I want to know every part of you. I want you to decide to come with me when the time comes.
”
He always spoke of choice, of plans, of taking me far away, of how happy we would be. And he always kissed me until I was out of breath. When I was seventeen, everything changed. Alex appeared one Sunday afternoon, dressed in a stiff white shirt, and asked to speak with my father alone.
It was a formal courtship request. At home, it was a scandal. My mother cried that I was too young. My grandmother said I was throwing my life away.
But I was determined. At that age, one thinks one knows everything. We married when I was barely eighteen. My mother sewed my dress, and my grandmother embroidered it.
It was a simple ceremony. My parents came to the wedding from the city. David was there, watching everything with his pale eyes. We moved into a small house near the center, rented by Alex.
He found work at Pavel’s fabric shop. I continued to help my mother with sewing. Life was simple, but we had love. Alex taught me things I had never imagined, about love between man and woman.
In those early days, we could barely wait for night to fall. Alex was a good husband. He always came home on time, helped around the house, talked to me about everything. At night, he told me stories about New York, about all the places he wanted to show me.
“Once we save enough money, we’ll leave here,” he would say. “I’ll take you to the ocean. ”
We dreamed of children, of a bigger house with a garden. Everything seemed so perfect it sometimes frightened me.
Then I became pregnant. When I told Alex, he lifted me and spun me around, happier than I had ever seen him. We were going to have a child. The birth was difficult.
It started at night during a heavy rainstorm. Alex ran to fetch the midwife, Marie. It took almost twenty hours of pain. My mother, my grandmother, and Ruzena were with me.
When Matej was finally born, I barely had strength to celebrate. I had lost a lot of blood. For three days, I hovered between life and death with a high fever. Alex sold his father’s watch to pay for the doctor in the city.
Matej was healthy, but my milk never came. No matter what I tried, nothing worked. My mother taught me to make formula from cow’s milk. The health center distributed dried milk, but you had to wait in line from dawn.
I was still weak, so my sister Lucia began coming to help. She was twelve then, a pretty girl with long brown hair. She adored her nephew, spending hours holding him and singing to him. After the birth, I was never the same.
I always felt pain in my belly when the weather changed. The doctor said I might not be able to have more children. Alex didn’t complain. He said Matej was blessing enough.
When I became pregnant again, two years later, the doctor warned that it was risky. But we were happy. Lucia, now fourteen and very pretty, was always at our house. And my husband—I began to notice—seemed very interested in her.
At first, I thought it was sweet. He asked her about school, brought her books to read, told her stories about the city. I was naive. When I got pregnant with my second child, I was so tired that I didn’t notice what was happening right under my nose.
One afternoon, I was so exhausted that I decided to take a nap. A strange noise from the living room woke me. I went to look. What I saw terrified me.
Lucia was lifting her dress to show her leg—her bare thigh—and my husband was looking at her with the same predatory expression he had when we were alone. I slapped him without thinking. Lucia started crying, claiming she had scratched herself on a fence. But I wasn’t stupid.
There was no scratch. And his look hadn’t been one of care. It was full of desire. “Get out of my house,” I screamed.
“Get out and never come back. ”
That night, we had our worst fight. He said I was crazy, that I was seeing things because I was pregnant. For a moment, I almost believed him.
But then I remembered his eyes. No, I hadn’t imagined it. From that day, everything changed. He slept facing the wall.
He came home late, ate in silence, and went to bed. I kept the secret to myself, ashamed to tell anyone. In those days, when a marriage went wrong, the blame always fell on the woman. I finally confided in Elena, my childhood friend.
She was shocked and told me to think of my children. Then one Saturday afternoon, I was pushing Matej’s stroller to my mother’s house when I saw Lucia leaving the cemetery. She was rushing, her face flushed. My sister, who always crossed the street to avoid the cemetery, was coming out of it.
I decided to go in. I told myself I wanted to talk to my father, but deep down, I knew I was looking for something else. As I approached the caretaker’s house, I saw the door open. I hid behind a grave.
And then I saw my husband, Alex, coming out of David’s house. He was tucking his shirt into his pants, running his hand through his hair to fix it. I knew those gestures well. I understood everything in that moment.
This was where he met Lucia. Old David, who had changed my father, who had brought Alex into our lives, who knew all our secrets, had been pulling the strings of every misfortune in my family. I was paralyzed, unable to move. When I could move again, my legs were shaking so badly I had to sit on the ground.
Matej began to cry, maybe feeling my anxiety. Tears ran down my face, and I couldn’t control them. That night, I waited for Alex in the dark. When he came in, I said, “I know everything, Alex.
I know that you and Lucia meet at Mr. David’s house. ”
He went pale. He stammered, denying everything, blaming my pregnancy again.
But this time I was sure. “Don’t lie to me anymore,” I said. “I’m leaving. ”
Alex stared at me for a moment.
Then something in his face changed. “It will be me who leaves if you keep accusing me. ” He turned his back and went to take a bath. After that night, I realized I had been foolish to reveal what I had seen.
Now he would go somewhere else, be more careful. I was so broken, but I didn’t imagine that this horror story had even worse chapters. I needed to confide in someone before I exploded. I decided to go to Elena, the only person who knew my suspicions.
A few days later, my grandmother came to prepare a special porridge for me. I asked her to watch Matej while I went to the market. On my way back, I decided to stop by Elena’s. I walked in as I always did, without knocking—we had that custom between close friends.
As soon as I entered the yard, I heard voices. It seemed strange that my friend wasn’t alone. But then I recognized a voice. It was my husband’s voice.
What was Alex doing there at that hour? He should be at work. My heart pounded. I went to the house and tried the door, but it was locked from the inside.
Then I peeked through a side window. The wooden boards were loose. Through them, I could spy inside. And there, I saw the most horrifying scene of my life.
Something that would change my existence forever. The first part of my story ends here.
