Sarah England - Baba Lenka - Pure Occult Horror

“I thought you said you were from Romania.”

“Your grandmother gave birth to me there and stayed awhile. The rest of the family settled around her, as they would. It is where the family is at this point in time.” She poured them each another cup of mead. “But now your grandma is dying, and so we must go there; this is what I am trying to say. You especially must be there at the end, so she can tell you what you need to know.”

“But that will take days, weeks!” Thoughts of Oskar filled her mind, and her eyes widened, the words catching in her throat as the implication set in. “No, I want to stay here. I don’t need to know these things, and I don’t want to go all that way—”

“Enough. You will go. There are matters that must be directly passed on – this is real, and—”

“I know it’s real, Mutter, and I am not the least bit afraid of it, either.”

“You know nothing.”

“So you keep saying.”

“Ach, you cannot imagine how important this is. What you are about to inherit is thousands and thousands of years old, from a force older than human time. At the very least you need to be informed and prepared because the very power of it could kill you if you don’t control it. Lenka, I cannot stress enough—”

“I’m not frightened of this. I speak to demons all the time and get them to do stuff for me. I have the boy I want, I have beauty, and I have power already. I do not need to see my grandma – this woman I have never met. It will take days to get to Romania, and I do not want to go.” She stood up.

Clara’s voice rose. “Sit down at once. I have not finished. Listen to me! You do not know everything; you are just sixteen, and we are talking about your heritage, your own grandmother. Have respect!”

Reluctantly, Lenka sat down, twiddling her empty cup around and around.

“I shall start again. Your grandmother did not use the powers she was given, and, as such, her body has been unable to withstand the dark energy. She has suffered disease from the age of a child and is tormented day and night. It is not good to be around her. I could tell you things, terrible things, of her tearing out her own hair, shouting at invisible demons day and night, vomiting back all her food, writhing on the floor in terrible agony, and sometimes I would find her, when I was a small child, Lenka, so imagine this… I would find my mother crumpled in a corner, clutching her head and screaming with the pain, covered in running sores, just begging the demons to leave her alone. She said there were not just dozens of them but hundreds around her, waiting for commands she would not give. The pressure would mount and mount, until the family had to hide her for fear she would be locked away in a hospital for the insane.”

“This will not happen to me. No, I will not go.”

“If you do not go, then the same fate awaits you without doubt. You have to know what you are dealing with. You need the information so you can make your choice. Lenka, I do not know how to help you because, whether you like it or not, this is coming your way.”

Lenka hardened her jaw and turned away from her mother’s pleading stare.

“How come it missed you out? You see things, you hear things, you have the house filled with herbs, and I see you making spells—”

“Yes, we have second sight, all of us. But the legacy I am talking about is a sorcery of the darkest kind. Sometimes it will be passed on, or received if requested, from a dying sorceress. But the most powerful sorceress is the one who is born with it, a Bluthexe. As soon as a sorceress in the bloodline is dead, the full power must be transferred along with all the demonic servants allocated for her bidding – or it will follow her into the afterlife. You know other realms exist; you know it well. But what we have in our family is a direct channel to the force behind the darkest entity of all.”

“Why is this in our family? What is this caravan of people who never settled? We are gypsies, then, yes?”

“Not originally. I believe, from the elders and from my mother, we come from Russia, but that is far back in time. Since then, we have travelled through all of Europe, and now here you and I are in Bohemia. From here I feel we will eventually move west. Yes, much further west—”

“Always on the move, why?”

“Because… because we have to…”

Lenka frowned. “I do not understand. And what is the purpose of these demons that are not invoked? What do they want with us, apart from to torment us to death if we don’t work for them?”

“No, it is not to work for them . It is they who work for you . You are the one who lives – a mighty sorceress with a powerful channel from the dark source directly to humans, to God’s creation.”

“So what do they want from me?”

“To destroy God’s creation, Lenka. That is your fate. To dull the spirit of mankind or, better still, destroy it. This is hatred of God Himself, do you not understand? Evil beyond anything most people could ever comprehend or wish to. Which does not mean it doesn’t exist, of course.”

Lenka’s eyes widened as they sat there in what had felt, until moments ago, like an ordinary day – the farmhouse kitchen scented with wood smoke and the door open to the fragrance of falling fruit.

“So now you see, don’t you?” Clara said. “How important it is that you visit your grandma on her deathbed. Why you must know what to do. Or do you choose illness, madness and a lifetime of torment that will surely follow you into the hereafter?”

It was as if the sun had been eclipsed.

“You should not have had children, Mutter.”

“And you will see there is no choice in the matter of children. You will see.”

“I do not believe this. I tell demons what to do, I tell them to come to me and do my bidding, and then I banish them back to their place in hell. You will see. You will see on this one, Mutter.”

“This is about far more than demons. Who do you think is their master?”

Tears pricked the back of her eyes as the horrible task loomed ahead. Thoughts of Oskar with his lithe, tanned and muscular body flitted across her mind… an image of him wading out of the lake, shaking diamond droplets of water from sleek black hair, long lashes sparkling, deep brown eyes bright with desire… So many nights spent fitful and sleepless, dreaming of their limbs entwined beneath a canopy of shimmering leaves…

“Well, I will not go. I will not. It is too far—”

“Pack your things. We will leave tomorrow.”

Lenka shoved back her chair. Eyes ablaze, she leaned over the table and snarled at the woman before her, the woman whose every word she had obeyed until now. “I will not go to Romania. Ever. I’m staying here.”

And then she was running from the house towards the lake exactly as planned. Her boots pounded through the misty woodland as she tore along the path. They could not make her go; the thought was unbearable – to be without him now! He filled her mind, her heart, every waking moment. The journey to Romania would take days if not weeks – it would be winter before she returned. This was terrible, the worst thing that had ever happened. None of what her mother had said was true, it just couldn’t be.

She and Oskar were destined to be together – the whole thing had been like magic from the very first moment. Out looking for herbs that day, she’d been caught by surprise at the sight of him, and she’d dipped behind a tree to watch. After a while, with the dying light of the afternoon behind her, she plucked up courage to peer around the trunk. Which was when he glanced up. Her hair was like fire, he said later, as if she’d been set alight, the cool regard of her slanted eyes and sculpted cheekbones startlingly glacial by comparison.