2

 woke up just before nine, sore and tired from the uncomfortable position. I washed my face in the tiny bathroom adjacent to my bedroom and went downstairs for breakfast.

The kitchen, bathed in the morning sun, smelled of fried bacon and good coffee. Piotr sat at the table, eating scrambled eggs. Ewa was pouring espresso coffee into a travel thermos.

"I have to go to Warsaw for a few days," she said. "The hospital called. The patient I operated on had a seizure last night."

I nodded, indicating I'd accepted the message. Such situations were not negotiable.

"Have a good trip," I replied.

"Thank you." Ewa kissed Piotr on the cheek and waved goodbye. "Take care, guys. And remember: no orgies. This is a decent house."

She left the house. A moment later, we heard the roar of her BMW's engine.

We were alone.

I poured myself a cup of coffee. I didn't feel like doing anything else. My friend looked at my empty plate in surprise.

"I'm not hungry," I explained.

"Is something wrong?

" "No, nothing," I lied.

Piotr put his plate in the sink.

"So what are we planning for today?" he asked. "Here's a unique opportunity for two middle-aged men to embark on an adventure that reeks of perversion."

"Speak for yourself, old man. I'm still a priest with milk under my nose."

"Soon. Rumor has it they're preparing quite a parish for you.

" "May you prove to be a herald of good news, Brother Piotr. The Holy Spirit often speaks through the mouths of God-fearing elders. "

Piotr looked offended.

"Blessed elders? I'm not a bishop, Father Tomasz. I milk bishops who enjoy luxury cars!"

I laughed at his joke.

"I feel like I'm missing out on this opportunity for some serious debauchery," I returned to the topic. "As the Lord Jesus says, 'The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.' I'm going to lounge on the couch with a beer in my hand.

" "Let's get to it!" Piotrek shouted, opening the door. "Ladies and cassocks

first." "Altar boys first, then the celebrant," I retorted. "Besides, go alone. I have to say matins. I'll join you in a few minutes."

I reluctantly thought of returning to the stuffy room and the dead boy who lived there. "

Servants not best men," I groaned inwardly and left the kitchen.

*

"Whose photograph is hanging in my room?" I asked Piotrek as we basked by the lakeside.

"What?

" "The big one, of a little boy." "

That's Ferdynand, my great-grandfather's twin brother. He was three when he died of pneumonia."

Yet I was right. The child was photographed just before his death.

"Tell me about him."

Piotr sat down. He didn't seem thrilled by my request. Suddenly, I regretted bringing it up. "

If you don't want to..."

"No, fine. No problem. In my family, children are especially desired and loved. They are considered a sign of God's blessing. For generations, we have cared for their health and upbringing, striving to create for them, for the first dozen or so years of life, a true paradise on earth. Thanks to this, our family has always been united and strong in all circumstances.

Unfortunately, even the greatest love is helpless against illnesses for which there is no cure. Ferdinand, my great-grandfather's beloved brother, was the first and, to date, only member of our family to die as a child.

I realized my tactlessness, and a flush of shame spread like boiling water across my face. Although several years had passed since their wedding, Piotr and Ewa were unable to have children. Now, because of my curiosity, my friend was opening up his wounds that would never heal.

"There's a legend," he continued, "that when Ferdinand died, Szymon, his father, buried him in the garden. He planted an oak tree on his grave. On his fortieth birthday, my great-grandfather cut down the massive tree that had been feeding on his brother's flesh and built this house from it. Whenever we're in it, we feel Ferdinand's closeness, protecting us from misfortune. On the other hand, the child doesn't feel lonely six feet underground because we keep him company. Romantic, isn't it?" "

So he can hear us now?" The thought sent shivers down my spine.

"You live and then you rot," the child in the photo said yesterday.

"I don't know if he hears. He definitely sees. Haven't you noticed that in every room of this house there's a picture of Ferdinand?"

"No."

"This is his house, Tomek. A body inhabited by the immortal soul of a small child

The day passed, as planned, in laziness. For lunch, we ate tasteless pizza heated in the microwave. For dinner, we drank three beers each—we didn't feel like eating more.

Even though we talked practically nonstop, my thoughts drifted to the story I'd heard that morning. If it weren't for the experiences of the past 24 hours, the legend of a house haunted by a three-year-old would have been laughable to me. Yet I couldn't dismiss the vividness of the vision from the pier, much less forget the feeling that I was mentally conversing with a being emanating evil. A three-year-old can't be evil unless possessed, I told myself. Nothing in Piotr's story suggests that. On the contrary, it's full of love and suffering over the loss of a child.

Yet deep in my subconscious, I preferred dealing with an evil spirit, as it would prove I wasn't mentally ill.

Around ten o'clock, I said goodbye to Piotr and went to my room. I turned on the light, opened the window, and began the Liturgy of the Hours. All the while, I was careful not to look at Ferdinand's picture. As I recited the psalms, I imagined the child in the picture smiling contemptuously, baring his wolfish fangs. His dark eyes swelled red, hot, bloody tears streamed down his cheeks, and when they touched his thin lips, a forked, serpentine tongue emerged from between them and greedily licked the crimson drops, in a sudden surge of thirst... "

From the depths, I cry to You, O Lord. Lord, incline Your ear to the voice of my supplication!" I recited, clinging to the words of the psalm as if it were a lifeline. God, free me from this fear! God, save me from madness! Mother of Jesus, save me!

"Look at me."

What?

"Look!"

I obediently raised my head and looked at the photograph. A five-year-old child smiled fondly at me.

"Calm down!" I commanded myself. "A thirty-three-year-old man shouldn't be acting like a brat after watching 'Dracula.' What's gotten into you?!

I put down my breviary without finishing my prayer. For the next few minutes, I tormented myself with the most inventive insults. Finally, panic slowly gave way to anger born of humiliation.

I raised my head, looked at the photo, and smiled venomously.

"What the fuck is going on here?" I asked in a whisper. "Ghosts, corpses, and God knows what else won't turn me into a freak. This world is in the hands of providence, which I serve. I'm a shitty Jedi knight, fighting on the right side of the force. I don't have to be afraid of a kid whose little soul plays football with angels in heavenly pastures."

I rose from my chair and approached the photograph. The child's eyes, hidden in the shadows, were roughly level with mine.

"You're not answering?" I sneered. "Ferdynand, I'm talking to you. Answer me or leave me alone once and for all!"

I felt much better. Anger worked like the best medicine. A pinch of vulgarity improved its flavor. I thought with embarrassment of my recent panic attacks. I imagined a bald psychiatrist with the obligatory long beard, sans mustache, talking to a colleague on whom he had an unrequited crush. "You know, Zofia (I think that was the right name for a mental health doctor), I'm dealing with an exceptionally interesting case of neurosis. A priest experiences anxiety attacks when he sees a photo of a young child. He imagines that the photo emanates pure evil, the source of which is Satan himself." Zofia replies, stirring the tea she'd just sweetened with a teaspoon of sugar in an ugly, battered mug: "But Zbigniew (I hate that name!), this is perfect material for an article in one of those medical journals..." "

I won't give up," I muttered.

I lay down on the bed and stared at the hated photograph. For the first time in my life, I experienced a panic attack of such intensity. My heart was racing, sweat clinging to my heated body like a disgusting jumpsuit. The air tasted like ashes from a extinguished fire.

I tried to gather my thoughts. The idea that a small child could be possessed had been exploited quite well in "The Exorcist." Oscar Wilde described the living image in "The Picture of Dorian Gray." These were works of human imagination. I didn't think it appropriate to produce a third: some Hollywood-style blend of the two. The little boy had died of pneumonia many years ago. Its evocative image impacts my subconscious, provoking states of anxiety. End of story. And yet, as a priest, I was accustomed to dealing with death in all its stages: from agony to funerals and occasional masses for the deceased.

No matter how hard I tried to rationalize my experiences, I couldn't shake the feeling of evil emanating from the photograph. It filled the room like car exhaust—it was impossible to breathe without feeling its suffocating presence.

It's not true, I told myself. It's not true.

Suddenly, a solution so simple occurred to me that I laughed. If the child's photograph was the catalyst for my fears, why the hell don't I remove it from the room? It didn't matter that it would be a failure of sorts. I'll put this thing in another, distant room and be done with it.

I got out of bed and approached the photograph again. Little Ferdynand was looking at me defiantly.

"You wouldn't dare."

And it was.

With a decisive gesture, I grabbed the wooden frames and yanked them toward me.

What happened in the next few seconds nearly killed me.

The portrait didn't even move, and I realized it was permanently affixed to the wall. At that same moment, my mind was filled with bloody images.

A tall man, clad in dark robes, clutches a broad-bladed axe in his hand...

A young boy lies naked on a stone block. His arms and legs, spread wide, are tied to metal hoops at the four corners of this primitive altar...

With horror, I recognize the victim—it's Ferdinand!

The child is intoxicated by something: he smiles stupidly at his executioner. His lips whisper words, drowned out by the monotonous, somber chant that fills the dark dungeon with its ominous melody...

As if in a trance, I watch Ferdinand's mouth. I try to understand what he's saying. For some reason, it seems incredibly important. The executioner draws closer. He leans slightly over the child and speaks to him. The boy smiles and responds. Finally, I manage to make out one word...

"Daddy..."

The singing fades. The hooded man raises the axe high above his head. I hear the whistle of metal cutting through the air. The blade plunges into the child's body, slicing it from the crown to the diaphragm.

The murderer pulls the axe from the twitching body of his victim. The blade rises again, scattering droplets of blood and pieces of brain like a ghostly stoup.

Another blow cleaves Ferdinand in two. Hands grasp the ropes and pull the two halves of the tiny corpse apart a few dozen centimeters.

The air fills with the smell of blood and excrement.

The executioner climbs onto the altar between the legs of the murdered boy. His hands, knees, and feet are sloshing in congealing blood. The man, kneeling, extends his hands in a pleading gesture to someone unseen on the other side of the altar.

The darkness in that place thickens, taking on a homogenous form.

An invisible choir resumes its somber chant, enriched with a note of triumph.

Suddenly, the torches fade, and the dungeon is plunged into utter darkness.

The somber song ends halfway.

The only sound I hear is the munching of food, accompanying the hurried feast...

The vision ended. I dropped the cursed photograph and took a step back. I trembled as if during a final attack of malaria. The scenes of ritual murder that had haunted my mind were still there in all their horror. But it was not so much the sight of the dismembered corpse that terrified me, but rather the mysterious figure that emerged from the darkness.

It was Satan, I thought. The ruler of hell. A fallen angel. A liar and a killer. The father of all evil.

What I saw was a covenant rite. A criminal parody of Abraham's sacrifice to God. The patriarch, as the Bible tells us, cut the sacrificial animals in two and then walked between them. He then encountered the Lord, who promised that his numerous descendants would populate the promised land.

I took the pocket edition of the Millennium Bible from my backpack, which I never parted with. I easily found Genesis, chapter 15, verse 9:

"Then the Lord said, 'Choose for me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.'" When he had chosen all these, Abraham cut them in half lengthwise and placed the halves opposite each other. (...) And when the sun had set and it was pitch dark, there appeared smoke like the rising of a furnace and fire like a flaming torch, and they passed between the halves. It was then that the Lord made a covenant with Abraham..."

In the ritual, in which I was a passive participant, Ferdinand's father went further and accomplished what Abraham had been unable to do—he sacrificed his son to summon Lucifer.

I finally understood the connection between Ferdinand's photograph and my recent experiences. The child had become Satan's property, his contact with the real world, with his followers.

"You're cursed!" I shouted. I threw the Bible at the portrait like a stone.

Despite the considerable force I exerted, the volume bounced off the glass covering the picture, harmlessly, as if it were a stone wall.

"Damn," I muttered in disappointment, picking up my breviary from the ground. I hit Ferdinand in the right eye, and for a moment I idiotically hoped I'd poked it out. Somewhere outside the window ,

the plaintive cry of an awakened bird echoed. I went down to the living room. Despite the late hour, I hoped to find my friend there. I was right. Piotr sat with his back to me in a deep armchair and seemed to be contemplating the forest landscape stretching out beyond the window, bathed in moonlight. Shadows, brought to life by the faint light of a few candles on a round, stylish table in the center of the room, crept across the stern faces of the ancestors whose portraits adorned the white-painted walls. Among them, the painted image of Ferdinand stood out for its size and beauty. "Why?" I asked, stopping at a safe distance. "Why did you lie to me?" Piotr turned slowly toward me. The right side of his pale face was obscured by a huge bandage, tinged red at eye level. "Jesus of Nazareth," I groaned inwardly. His right eye... " "I'm sorry." His tone was as pleasant and friendly as ever. "The story I told you wasn't far from the truth.