I first saw him on the southern path, just before dusk's final breath. He was hunched against the wind, a figure of fur and frost, leading a mule burdened with bundles of cloth and jars wrapped in leather. He walked like a man who had traveled farther than his boots were meant for.
"Zdravo," he said, raising one gloved hand. He has a thick Slavic accent. I felt something familiar stir, something I could not name.
"Welcome to Steinbruck," I replied, though I could not say I meant it. Few newcomers ever came this deep into the valley. Fewer still left again.
He gave his name simply: Yuri Vladimovich Patsov. From the north-east, near the Carpathian crest. Said he was a trader and herbalist by craft, though I noticed no potions among his goods, only preserved roots, carved icons, and a dagger with strange carving I did not recognize. He asked for shelter, not coin, and I offered him Brunhalt Kolgerson's barn, knowing the boy would agree. Brunhalt was always too eager to please.
The villagers met Yuri with the cautiousness and politeness they gave to strangers. Helmrich Siegenthaler invited him to the hearth briefly, asking polite questions over black bread. Hildegard smiled and blessed the girl but Ulrich did not. He circled the man like a hound sniffing for poison.
I watched them from the chapel steps. Something about Yuri unsettled me, though he spoke gently, laughed softly, and never once looked toward the forest with the fear the others had begun to show.
But the first night, God forgive me, that is when it began.
Brunhalt's Farmstead at Midnight
Yuri lay beneath the rafters of the Kolgerson barn, wrapped in wool and the scent of hay. The fire in the stone hearth had dimmed to an orange eye, barely blinking. Snow tapped against the shutters like skeletal fingers. He had just begun to drift into the hollow sleep of the travel-weary when he heard it
"Yura…"
The voice.
His eyes opened. Stillness. The kind that held its breath. He knew that voice.
"Yura, darling. Yura, it's me… come home. The snow is too deep for the little one…"
The voice of his wife. Not the woman he left behind in Volkovac a decade ago, crying as he rode for Krakow, but the wife long dead. Five winters ago, devoured by fever. Along with their daughter.
He bolted upright, with watery eyes.
"Come see her, Yura. Come see Anichka."
No footsteps. No door creaked. Yet the voice, that voice, slid through the seams of the barn like breath through cracked lips.
He stepped outside.
The snow was untouched, pristine. But in the distance, beneath the treeline, he saw a light. Flickering. Moving.
A lantern?
And beside it, the smallest shape. A girl. Pale and barefoot in the snow. Holding a doll he thought long rotted in the grave beside his wife.
"Tata," the little girl said, "why did you let me drown?"
He staggered. She turned and ran into the trees.
Yuri followed.
I awoke before Matins with dread clutching my chest like something unpleasant might happen. Something had pulled me from my dreams, not with sound but with absence. A coldness that felt like a wound.
I lit no lamp. I simply dressed and went out into the snow, knowing exactly where I would find it.
The treeline.
Near the old boundary stone the one with the rune carved into its base, long since weathered smooth by wind and moss.
Yuri was there. Unconscious, half-buried in snow. His hands curled inward like a child's in fear.
I brought him back to the chapel. Washed the blood from his brow. It wasn't until the water turned red that I saw it.
The mark.
A scar, carve not by knife or flame, but by something older. A symbol burned into his flesh just above his brow, like it had chosen him.
It was the Vermis Dei sigil. Twisted Latin. Worm of God. A forbidden brand in old demonological texts. No priest uses it. Not even the heretical monks of Krain.
And yet… it was there.
He awoke screaming.
"I heard her, Father," Yuri whispered. "My Mila. And Anichka. She had her doll. The one with the green ribbon. I buried it with her, I did."
I nodded but said nothing.
"She ran into the woods. She… she blamed me. She said I let her drown."
"And did you?" I asked.
He wept. "I wasn't fast enough. The river took her before I reached the bank."
His fingers clawed at the bandages on his brow.
"What is this?" he asked.
"A scar," I said. "Best not to pick at it."
"Did you mark me?"
"No," I said quietly. "But something did."
The forest has grown bolder. It does not just call now it touches. Brands. Marks. I fear Yuri's presence was not a chance, but an invitation. Something ancient watches the borders of Steinbruck.
I have prayed, but the silence grows heavier.
If you see a light in the trees, do not follow it.
If you hear a voice like someone you love, do not answer.
It is not them.
It is never them.
And if you wake with a mark on your head,
then it is already too late.