Death Essence

There had been rumors of a strange alien creature come to the little outlying fishing and farming village of Yenka, one that was slowly picking off villagers one by one. It had started with some livestock in the country around the little town. And little it was. Yenka was a small village in the country of Russia, one which was just large enough to have a small farmer’s market at least once every few weeks in the late spring to the early fall, a fisherman’s market coming whenever there was fish to be sold. It was an old-fashioned town, most of the people still believing in the ancient sage that lived in the house next to the church on the border of the square. Every time someone passing through the town looked at it, they called it a hermit’s hut, and it might as well have been; Melor the sage rarely came out of his hut, if at all.

It was a peaceful day to start with, the sun peeking through the clouds for once over the coast, turning the normally black waters of the sea into a shimmering writhing mass of greens and blues so clear, one could almost see the bottom in the deeper parts. It was a relatively cool day, though an air of fear and caution still hung over the town; four more bodies had been found on the road out of town five miles to the west. They were as all the other bodies previously found had been; torn apart and mostly eaten. A gruesome find indeed, and suspicions were mounting around a strange newcomer from the far southwest who had come to visit; he had come to Yenka and shortly afterwards was when the killings began.

Despite the tensions mounting in the village and everything west of it, anyone living close to the coast seemed to be safe. Therefore, the Telikov family and all their neighbors had virtually remained untouched by the evil that was setting over the nearby town as not even one chicken had gone missing from all eight of the farms that lined the coast.

It was on this particularly peaceful day that Vidanya, the youngest Telikov child of the five born to Ivan and Tanya, had come to notice the storehouse was almost completely empty and their crops had not yielded much that year. With winter on the way, it was best to stock up while they could and prepare for what would likely be a long harsh winter, as was typical, no matter what part of Russia people lived. And a good storehouse and plenty of wood for the fireplace in a home could determine who lived throughout the winter, something Vida was determined to see her own family do.

The little Russian might have been ignorant, but she was far from stupid. Especially when such things concerned her family. And now, her family was her main concern. Her adoring chocolate eyes, ever bright and curious, turned to her elder sister, Miska.

Miska was the family oddity; six months before Vidanya had been born, she had been sent off to buy a line of fish from the market. She never made it there; the villagers confirmed it and her father feared for her safety and prayed every day and evening that God would deliver his daughter back to him. After three months had passed with no sign of his dear Miska, Ivan Telikov accepted the worst. There had been a service set up, an empty coffin lowered into a hole in the ground in front of a tombstone whose epitaph read:

Here lies Miska
Precious daughter and loving sister
Sleep in peace forever more

It was not until another two months had passed that a familiar figure had come weaving up the road back toward the farm. Theodore, the youngest at the time, had spotted her first and alerted the family to this development. Miska had come home.

But it was not the Miska they remembered. At least, not on the outside. What had once been pale lovely flesh was now a startling marble white that held unnatural porcelain sheen. Rich chocolate brown hair had been exchanged for soft raven black, and enchanting brown eyes had been replaced with searing pools of the most brilliant shade of red anyone in the family had ever seen. Her personality remained, but Ivan never saw that in this new creature that took his daughter from him. However, he put up with her presence among the family once more.

It was not until a month later that suddenly Miska became a full-fledged enemy to her father; Tanya fell into a complicated labor with her final child, one that killed her as soon as the little girl was fully expelled from her body. Ivan snapped then, turning on his changed daughter, putting the blame on her return as an omen. The gods above and below only knew what had made him think the way he did, perhaps believing he could expel the demon what had his daughter captive and, therefore, he resorted to severe abuse of the thing that had come in Miska’s place. Naturally, he only did such deeds without the other children around, particularly his eldest, Christoph. A marvel to any Russian, Christoph was amazingly tall at six feet and one inch … and Miska was his favorite baby sister.

Slowly, Ivan lost more and more of his mind, beginning to ignore the cries of the infant that had been the real cause of death to his precious wife, who had lovingly been buried next to her elder daughter’s empty plot. And so, the unnamed infant was taken into the care of her elder siblings. It was out of a sick joke that the babe was to be named ‘Vidanya’; Theodore, the second youngest, had said something about the Russian phrase for ‘Good Bye’ – dosvidania -- and the last part of the phrase stuck. A swift change of a letter and the name ‘Vidanya’ came into being, bestowed upon the motherless infant.

Considering the children’s burden, they all passed it along quite well and Vidanya grew into a very wise young child. Until she turned about eight years of age. It was then that she and Theodore got into a particularly nasty fight about something no doubt irrelevant (the fight itself was never disclosed). Theodore, in a fit of rage akin to a child of his age of ten and without complete thought of the consequences, told her what had happened to their mother with a typical ‘Yeah? Well, you killed Mommy!’-type response. This had not bode well at all for the children; Vida fell into complete silence for almost a month, never saying a word as though horrified she had been the reason their mother was no longer with them. After her silent spell, she fell into something that wrenched Miska’s heart out and stomped on it. A crying bout for almost an entire two weeks pertaining to why she was never aware of the developments, why she was the one that killed their mother, and just the general shock of it all. Her elder sister did all she could to comfort the girl, even resorting to singing the lullaby Tanya had sung for all the children she had raised and had, in turn, been sung to Vida when she was an infant. The silence returned after that for about another week … and then something strange happened.

She became suddenly happy. Not her usual self, either; this was a ‘blond’ kind of happy, the sort of happy you expected from an airhead than someone like Vidanya used to be. And she stayed that way, was that way now. There were still the intelligent under-tones, but her attitude was far too … sunny to really be considered as such any more. Theodore, on the other hand, had felt awful for saying such a thing and had dedicated himself to her since then. He protected her, guided her, and calmed her down when she needed to be calmed. Such was his life, his burden. And that was where the family was in that moment; a strange physical transformation with the eldest daughter and a youngest daughter who refused to acknowledge anything about killing their mother or why her father did not like her elder sister.

Miska was out in the garden, weeding a flowerbed that would be dead and gone in a month or two anyway. Vidanya never understood her elder sister, really. Only that now, she had this impulse to clean. Especially at the weirdest hours of the night. Like … at four in the morning, Miska would randomly get up, walk down the stairs, and start to clean the living room. Even if it looked spotless to the rest of the family, it apparently was not to her.

“Miska!”

The elegantly chiseled head of the elder looked up, casting her red gaze toward the one who had called her name. Her hair was pulled up and wrapped around itself in such spirals and loops that the knee-length tresses looked almost non-existent, a red bandana tied over them to keep the shorter hairs about her face … well, out of it. “Da?”

“Get up and vhashed, Miska.” the younger practically whined. “Vhe have to go to market. Dhe storehouse is almost empty. I have already gotten on Christoph’s case about dhe firevhood…”

Vidanya was always the one who had to push her elders about. That was the only way anything got done around the farm. Or at least she thought so.

Miska looked to the flowers and then the rose bushes. She let her gaze linger on those the longest. She always had been more partial to roses… “But … what about dhe flowers? Dhey will die if not weeded and watered properly.”

It was strange to hear Miska speak; her accent was not as thick as the others, even if she herself spoke the language still.

Vidanya sighed and moved forward to grab her sister’s right wrist and pull her up to stand. “Dhey vhill die in a few months anyvhay. So dhe attempt to keep dhem alive now is futile.”

Those words stunned the elder right then. Since when did Vidanya, of all people, start putting things so … so … “Well. Dhat was blunt…” she muttered, but allowed herself to be grasped and hauled to her feet.

“Blunt or not, it’s dhe truth.” Vida answered, pulling her along to the outdoor faucet and turning it on. “Now vhash your hands.”

Miska eyed the water suspiciously with a raised brow. “It might be cold…” she said more … apathetically than usual.

“Cold is just as good as vharm.” Vida pointed to the water then. “Vhash.”

The elder sighed. Why was she taking orders from her younger sister? Because otherwise, Vida would be … a hassle. Miska bent before the faucet, running one hand under the stream of water. Amazingly, it was not as cold as she first feared. It was actually quite warm. How … strange… she thought, her brow furrowing lightly.

The other hand joined its twin, rubbed together under the water until even the two-inch long claw-like nails were cleaned, over and under, and not a speck of dirt or mud remained. The elder sister turned the water off, standing up and pulling her bandana off her head, drying her hands with that.

When her hands had been sufficiently dried, her right one rose to pull the one pin that held her hair up. Just one. The woman was incredibly skillful with her hands and had found a way to bind her hair up in such a fashion that only one accessory was needed to hold it in its place. Once that pin was pulled, the cascade of hair fell from its resting place to her knees, the ends curling just slightly outward. The hair around her face and ‘spotted’ throughout the rest of her mane ended in beads, which in turn ended in tiny bells.

Truly beautiful it was, hair that would make a wig-maker faint at the sight of it. Raven black, a color of hair that was rightfully named, closely resembling the hues and sheens of a raven’s feather. The shadows were a deep enigmatic black, but the highlights shone in muted tones of blue, purple, and green. On Miska, it contrasted her so well against the unblemished white skin that covered her body and her brilliant engaging red eyes. On Vida, it would not look right and she knew it. Secretly, the younger was jealous of her older sister’s ability to make heads turn. Even if most people shied away from her, she still made them look at her without even really trying.

She was very pretty anyway, her slender willowy body clad in a vintage black suede Victorian corset and an ankle length skirt made of silver silk, something Vida always liked to rub her head on in the evenings for comfort when Miska sat before the fireplace reading. That was in the evenings, though; if Vidanya tried that now, she would most likely scratch her face. Over the top of the skirt, she wore a netting made of the same hand-carved and –painted wooden beads as were in her hair, the set ending at mid-calf and tipped at the bottom with those same little bells that were in her hair (Miska had said that in places across the sea, the bells were used to ward away bad spirits and that was why she wore them). Her lower legs were clad in scuffed woman’s boots made of black leather, the heels raised about two inches. Her face was still the angled Russian face, her upper eyelids dusted in pale lavender with silver to draw attention to her eyes and her lips painted in the same shade as her eyes so that they would not disappear into her face. Her ears were pointed at the tops and curled just a little ways out, able to amplify sounds so she could hear them a lot better than others. Her left ear was pierced twice – one was a gold hoop, the other a silver stud – and had an ear cuff on it that was made of white gold in the design of a spider web, a small silver chain attaching it to the stud at the bottom of the lobe. Other than the piercings, she had no other visible jewelry on her, unless the beads and bells decorating her hair could be considered jewelry.

Vida felt plain next to her, shorter and with a slightly stockier build than her sister. Compared to some other Russian women, however, she was slender and appealing to the eye even if she did not believe it herself. She herself had honey-brown hair and chocolate colored eyes with pale skin, a pleasant contrast in itself alongside her angelically innocent face. Her body was covered in a white cotton blouse with a pastel pink cotton skirt that fell to her ankles, her own feet covered in a pair of well-shined brown leather boots with flat soles. While she had no jewelry like pierced ears or necklaces or pretty bracelets, she was still in possession of a lovely set of hair ornaments Theodore had found for her at the market for her birthday three years ago. They were crafted from precious metals of all kind, a lovely merging of four of them molded into elegant Victorian scrolls. They clipped to her hair and rested stable on her ears, held together at the very tips by delicate but sturdily linked chains of gold over the back of her head and neck. And for good reason; they held palm-sized charms of gold-trimmed jewel-toned enamel lotuses, roses, and lilies.

The chime of small bells snapped Vida from her trance as her elder sister held her hand out to her. “You wanted to go to market…” she said, her lips twitching into a small smirk at one corner.

Vida nodded, taking her offered hand in her own. “Da.”

They entered the house first; there were ominous clouds hanging not too far from their destination and it would be cold later. Vidanya grabbed her cover first and wrapped it around her neck, leaving a bit for a hood which she pulled up after. Miska went for hers after she saw her sister’s set properly, her hair tucked comfortably into the hood and the pin with the family’s emblem set to the front of the wrap. She coiled hers about her neck and left it at that, with most of the wrap still flying behind her. It gave her the appearance of wings, the way it flew behind her when she walked. Ivan had taken her emblem, a sign he had technically disowned her as a Telikov. Properly set with bags and the correct amount of money they would need, plus a few things to barter with should they not have enough, the sisters set out.

When they left their farm that day, traveling down the road to the village of Yenka, neither knew just how much their lives could change in so short a time. They were halfway to Yenka when a loud rumbling sound greeted their ears. Miska turned her head to see a fairly large cloud of dirt coming toward them from the unpaved road behind them. She pulled Vidanya off to the shallow run-off ditch on one side of the road. Cars were common in the bigger cities, but out here in the country, you were lucky to have even heard of them. Wherever Miska had been taken before, she must have seen cars since she knew how to avoid them.

The elder waited until she saw the first car, the second one coming up over the crest in a nearby hill, before she pulled the hood of her wrap up over her head. They were black cars that appeared like they would look better as hearses than commercial vehicles. Only one particular department had those cars. And Vida knew them.

“Is dhat dhe Secret Police?” she inquired, watching the cars drive closer still before shuddering.

Miska looked over her shoulder at the approaching vehicles, a sneer crossing her lips and a glare given from her eyes at them. “Even dheir transportation looks like it is going to eat your soul … Vi. Come to my left.”

The younger shuddered again, but did as she was told, putting Miska between her and the road. “Vhat do dhey vhant in Yenka?” she wondered aloud. “I hope dhey are only passing dhrough…”

Miska shook her head. “Dhey were probably sent to destroy dhe demon.” she answered. As much as she did not want to believe there was such a creature running around the village in front of them, it could not be avoided either.

If Vida said anything more, it was lost in the loud sound of engines running and loose dirt and gravel being kicked up as the first car passed by them, shortly followed by the second. The wraps the girls wore fluttered in the wake left behind by the two cars as they passed, their skirts and Miska’s net and hair flying up as well. The song heard from the bells seemed to be telling of things to come; they jingled with a sense of foreboding. When everything settled, the girls got back on the road and continued on.

Vida shuddered a little as they went before looking up at her sister. Miska had pulled her hood down for the moment, something Vida did not understand; she had actually hid her face from the agents and the like being transported so as not to have to cause trouble with her appearance. After all, those that were in Yenka now probably had no idea what or who they were looking for.

“Miska?” The voice was timid, the sound of a scared little girl. Miska glanced at her sister briefly to tell her without words that she was listening. “Vhill dhey be done and gone before vhe get to dhe market?”

The elder gave a nod single nod of her head. “Dhey should be. If not, avoid dhem as much as possible. I have heard dhey are not dhe … most honorable of men dhese days…”

Vidanya nodded. She did not like the sounds of that, and proved it by clinging to her sister’s hand and moving closer to her. The pair traveled in silence from then on, evidence showing on Vida’s face that she hoped her sister was right in that the agents would be gone before they arrived in Yenka.