October 23, 1772, continued

I gazed down at the strange old woman; smoke from the fire warped her face. Though she lacked Abigail’s beguiling beauty, her dark eyes and her fanaticism reminded me of that odious young woman who was now my stepmother. I didn’t like Abigail’s expectations of me. Even my real mother had envisioned me growing up to be a man who put God above all else and who would combine preaching with medicine—not an unusual combination at the time. Father tried to push me into the same mold but chipped away at my medical ambitions. And according to the church elder Nathan, little was left of my life at all. What about what I wanted? Did anyone care about that? What if the creature this woman was babbling about really existed? Could I become one and avoid the death Nathan prophesied for me and the condemnation that would follow? I had to do something… starting now!

I had been pressed down too long. I had to burst free. “I may not have chosen the day of my birth,” I said, “but I can choose my future!”

“You think you can keep from being a vrykolakas?” the old woman said. “’Tis possible it might be stopped if your feet are burned—”

“Burned? You want to punish me further for who I am? My father burned my future in a bonfire in the name of God, and you want to burn my feet?”

“In my homeland, we singe their toenails in infancy, so I don’t know if at your age you can be saved—”

“Saved? You sound like my maniac father. God never gave me a chance for salvation, and I wouldn’t take it if He offered it. It wasn’t just the trick about my birthday. He also took my mother—who loved me, or who I thought loved me—when she was bearing the last of my brothers. That brother will never be worthy of her sacrifice. He’s an utter fool. Since Mother’s death, Father has been a distant tyrant. Then he was seduced by a woman working for circuit-riding Calvinists, into such self-denial that he laid me on the altar of his new-found religion. He threw away my dream of travel and success, sold me into servitude, and recruited me to help with those hideous revivals!”

The woman just stared back at me, eyes frozen in terror, reflecting the firelight like some wild beast.

“I thought perhaps you could become a friend—the only one I could confide in!” My eyes narrowed. “But even you—a miserable outsider close to death’s door—even you despise me. I could never submit to your torments. I would rather be that thing, that… vrykolakas.”

“How can you say that?” Moira cried.

“I don’t accept any destiny thrust upon me. I choose my own! No death, no Hell—and revenge against the God who cheated me of my birthday, my parents, my place. I will be respected. If what you speak is true—I resolve to become that creature!”

If anyone heard the things I had told this woman, I would be shunned by everyone. She mustn’t breathe a word. I looked down at her.

“Luke Fleeland,” she said. “God knows you are afraid. You flee from God!”

“Enough!”

She pushed me toward the fire. Feeling its heat singe my face, I pulled myself back from the pit. “You would burn me?” I said. Looking at her, I saw everyone who had harmed me all my life up to then. “This is my fire pit and you deserve to burn in it!”

I grabbed her and pushed her down into the blaze.

The flames leapt up around her. She struggled to escape, overturning her pot of carrots. Her screams filled my ears. Thinking someone else might hear, I drove the long, blazing branch into her open mouth. With lips burned black and tongue melded to her checks, she could neither reproach nor reveal me.

My knees shook, betraying me. I mustn’t balk! My plans would never succeed if I reacted like a coward. I straightened my legs and stood rigid, staring as the woman’s coat blazed and her limbs flailed uselessly. Layers of clothing gave way to bare flesh. She convulsed. Finally, she lay still, an arm and a leg sticking out over the stones along the pit’s edge. I stirred the fire, making certain the body charred beyond recognition.

No one would suspect me. Everyone thought I was just another obedient son. And after I became the eldest, I would inherit what was left of my father’s estate and, adding the money I got from any means I could manage, gain the respect of the community.

As the reek of burning hair and skin filled my nostrils, the shining, bloody flesh below me turned black and the bones appeared. The sight reminded me of the thing she had called me. I wondered again whether it existed. Could I escape death and Hell? Becoming the strange, destructive creature she thought me would be the ultimate rebellion against my cruel Creator. I swore I would find out if this vrykolakas really existed—and, if so, how to become one.

My lips curled back in a snarl as I thought of the woman’s final words: You are afraid. You flee from God! The words burned into my soul like the fire burning into the charred corpse before me. Could I ever escape the name I was born with? Was I always destined to flee—to fear?

I stood tall and bunched my fists toward the sky. “I don’t want to flee You!” I shouted. “I will fight You! All my days!”

A wind stirred. Sparks from the woman’s blackened arm blew out onto the ground, alighting dry leaves. The flames spread, leaping up tree trunks.

I tried to stifle the flames with my coat. Suddenly a wall of hellish fire burned my face and singed my eyebrows. I screamed. Choking on black smoke, terrified that my body would be the next corpse reduced to ash in these woods and my soul the next one thrown into the flames eternal, I rolled on the ground, upwind, until the air was just breathable. Then I stumbled to my feet and ran.

The forest was so dark and my lungs so sore, I soon slowed to a walk and blindly felt my way toward home, cursing the Creator and the day I was born.