"I call upon you, God of mad passions: add to my thought bat wings that, clothed in black, with the favor of darkness, reach my beloved one and, penetrated her thought, touch her heart, possess her body." (inf. Miron Zmerea)

Somewhere in a remote village in the Carpathian Mountains in Romania—year 1899.

"I can't take it..." complained the woman lying on a makeshift bed made of hay and covered with a rough woolen knoll. "Pull it out, please..." she cried, wriggling and kicking. "Pull it out, or I die," she screamed again at the top of her lungs.

The man standing next to her tried to plug her mouth, but she beat down on his hand.

"Shut up, woman!" he hissed menacingly and hit her with a slap. "Damn you and your womb!" he continued, and the sound of another slap anticipated the woman's sobs of weeping. "Should it be another female, consider yourself dead... Both of you," he muttered as he walked out, slamming the lopsided door made of wooden planks.

The woman curled in on herself, hands clutching her swollen womb, biting her lips in excruciating pain. She couldn't have been more than about thirty years old, yet her dry face and hollow eyes contoured by deep wrinkles gave her the appearance of an old woman who had already lived her life.

"Come on, turn around, push hard and get it out," croaked the midwife lifting her poor, patched petticoat and opening her legs. "Pray it's a boy, arms are needed for work, your husband will treat him better than he treats you and your daughters. A boy, Ileana, otherwise he won't let you live. You married an animal, after all." The woman spit into her hands, then pressed hard on the womb of her wretched charge.

Ileana arched her back and cried out in pain, then, within a matter of seconds, a tiny pink-skinned being with purplish highlights slid onto that poor bed next to her. The midwife cut the umbilical cord with a penknife, quickly handled the newborn, removing the placenta, freeing the little nose and mouth and helping the baby to breathe. She dried the small warm body with the woman's slip and wrapped it tightly in a piece of clean cloth, prepared especially for that moment, then held the newborn close to the mother's face. The midwife made the sign of the cross while mumbling something that sounded like prayer.

"Our mother in heaven..." she whispered in a hushed voice, "it's a girl, Ileana, you have another girl," she said disconsolately as if being a woman was a curse and perhaps, in some ways, it really was.

The newborn rebelled against the bony hand pinning her little legs. At first, she emitted a sluggish wail that she soon let out in a cry.

"Shhh, don't cry. He'll hear you, he mustn't hear you. Shhh." Ileana mixed the words with tears and blood, trembling with shivers but had the strength to attach her daughter to her breast. "You are as beautiful as your sisters and maybe even more," she whispered, touching her with his dry and chapped lips. She put all her remaining strength to nurture the baby, the gem her womb had guarded for nine long months. Then she remained staring at her; still, motionless, her thighs wide open and her yellow cheeks streaked with salty tears. She continued to bleed despite the old woman's efforts with herbs and wet rags to stop the bleeding and save her life.

"Squeeze your legs, Ileana, squeeze hard," the midwife encouraged her, but she didn't respond anymore; she had no time to waste.

Light breathing barely moved her chest, even the tears stopped. "Theodora. This should be her name; He says you must call her that. I'm leaving, he's come to get me," she mumbled confusedly, staring at a spot beyond the old woman, then her mouth curved into a rueful smile.

"Who has come for you, child? The Lord's angel?"

"The angel, yes, my beautiful angel," she smiled again, staring into the void, as if there was someone there whom only she could see.

The old woman snorted, shaking her head in disapproval as if she could see it too. "That's Lucifer, he wants your soul, child. The devil makes himself look good to deceive you and take away your spirit, but don't believe him. Where are you going, Ileana? And who do you leave your children to?" she rebuked her tenderly. "Entrust your soul to the Lord, only with him it is safe; he will help you, he will take care of you" she added, forcing Ileana to look her in the eyes.

"What do you know, aunt... The Lord doesn't look at me, he never did, but my angel loves me, he's kind to me, not like my husband" she replies with the last of her strength. "Take Theodora far away... Don't leave her here. Tell John she's dead," Ileana whispered softly, then looked back at the creature she would no longer be able to protect from then on. "The only demon you need to protect yourself from is Adam's heir on earth because he doesn't even fear his Creator. You must live, Dora, promise me you will live. Do it for me too."

With trembling lips, she gave the newborn a kiss then her heart stopped.

The midwife plugged her mouth with one hand, stifling the cry that arose in her throat. Ileana had not made it; she was too weak and had lost too much blood. The woman detached the little child from the mother's now lifeless breast and held her to herself. She had seen Ileana born, had helped her give birth six times, that would be the seventh birth in ten years. Too many for her small and weak body.

"May the Lord welcome you into his garden," she murmured, passing her hand over Ileana's eyes, then she took a piece of the cloth that swaddled the little one and soaked it in the liquor. She always carried a bottle with her, used it as medicine, soothing the pains of childbirth, or so it seemed. It certainly stunned the brain enough not to mind the suffering of whatever kind it was of body or soul. When the fabric was soaked with herbal liquor, she wrapped it around her finger and brought it to the baby's hungry mouth.

"Good girl," she muttered happily as the infant stopped crying and began sucking hard then closed her little eyes, falling asleep. She was not the first baby to soothe like this; she had used that method with her own. For her plan to succeed, she needed the baby to fall asleep quickly, otherwise Ileana's husband would catch on to the lie, and everyone knew how abusive that man was.

She stroked the baby's head tenderly, and it was at that moment that she noticed the piece of placenta that was attached to her head like a cap. She squinted and almost dropped the little one. With trembling hands, the old woman placed Theodora next to the now cold body of her mother. She made the sign of the cross twice and spat into her breast.

"Ileana, Ileana..." she took to wailing softly and in a broken voice, "you shouldn't have given in to the devil's promises, Ileana." She pressed her hand firmly over her mouth to stifle her crying and prevent anyone from hearing her.

Rumors had spread in the village that a strange light descended over John's house on new moon nights; the old woman said it was Him, but the midwife had not believed their gossip. Yet, the baby she held in her arms was irrefutable proof that those hags were right.

I told you to stay away from him, not to let him into your bed, why didn't you listen, huh? She sighed, biting her tongue. "The Zburător knows no love, no demon is capable of love; they only crave the pleasure of possessing the bodies of those who, like you, are fooled by their light and beauty, without seeing the darkness they are made of.

"The newborn who's born with a caul, if it's born dead, that soul moroi will become and in the world of the living, death he will bring.

If it should be born alive, then it will be allowed to live and upon its death the ritual must be performed so that it could not turn into a moroi" she recited in a low voice. "The seventh child is Lucifer's daughter, she's a moroiniță, the Book says so, and Theodora is your seventh child... How did I not understand this before? It would have been better if she had died while she was still inside you, I would have done everything myself and no one would have known. Now it's too late, I can't kill her."

The old woman shook her head vigorously as if to chase away that horrendous thought. Suddenly, she aroused herself from that daze, shook the little body to see if the liquor had taken effect, and noted with relief that the child was sleeping so soundly that she too seemed dead.

May God forgive me... she thought as she began to scream and wail, crying and shrieking out the name of the dead woman, tormenting herself and tearing her clothes off in despair, as one usually did in mourning.

"Where did you go, Ileana, why did you leave us? Your daughters to whom will they say mother now, Ileana," she despaired clinging to the woman's lifeless body. She knew funeral songs by heart; she had performed them at numerous funerals in her life, even of people she didn't know at all. Usually, it was not difficult to pretend, but at that moment she felt a claw tighten around her heart. She had loved Ileana like a daughter.

The dead woman's husband barged into the house, furiously throwing open the door, which almost fell, remaining attached to the wall only at a hinge.

"What are you shrieking about?" he muttered, shrugging off the midwife and tugging at the dead woman's limp arm. "Ileana? Answer, for fuck's sake! Answer or I'll beat the shit out of you, you slut!" A tremendous slap hit Ileana's face, but she didn't hint at the slightest movement. The man let himself slide sitting on the floor next to the poor straw bed where his wife laid. "Where is the brat?" he asked, taking off his cap and nervously running his hand through his sparse, greasy hair.

"Dead. The newborn died with the mother," replied the midwife between sobs. "I covered the body with those rags, do you want to see it?" she asked, knowing he wouldn't give a damn.

To him, daughters were just a burden; he gave them less importance than he did cattle.

"A boy or another damn female?"

"A female; you would've had another daughter if Ileana hadn't taken her away with her."

The man grimaced in disgust and spat contemptuously at the rags covering the little one. "I don't care, I've got six other little bastards outside that door," he growled hatefully. "Off you go! And take that carrion with you too, throw it to the Dry Well. This other one," he continued, pointing to the woman's corpse, "I'll take care of it. I have no money for two funerals," he concluded, pulling a bottle of wine out from under the bed and draining the contents in one breath.

Everyone knew about the Dry Well; a deep hole in a remote corner of the pasture that stretched beyond the farmers' houses, used by them as a kind of dumping ground; they threw in the carcasses of dead animals and other garbage...

Wretch! If you had fed her, she would've been strong enough to make it, she wouldn't have died, thought the old woman, casting him a look full of rancor.

In that family, only that poor woman, whom Death had claimed too early, worked to feed the creatures. John, on the other hand, charged in alcohol: a quart of schnapps, a half-liter of wine, depending on the work he did. He didn't care if his daughters and wife were hungry at home.

Damn you! To the Dry Well I would happily throw you, wretch!

The midwife took the sleeping bundle and laid it in the saddlebag where she kept her healing herbs. She was old enough in that trade to understand who, or rather, what the babies born with cauls on their heads were, but nevertheless she had no intention of harming the newborn.

When the Lord didn't want them to walk the earth, he killed them in their mothers' wombs or as soon as they were born, before baptism. In those cases, she couldn't ignore the Lord's will, she would finish what he had started. Otherwise, the souls would come back and take revenge. It had happened other times that just after the funeral, family members suddenly became ill and passed away.

The moroi did not forgive, they craved revenge, they wished to make the living suffer. Mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers up to the ninth degree of kinship, all would suffer their wrath unless someone broke the curse in time. Many times she had accompanied the priest and the Impaler to the cemetery for rituals only known to them, bringing peace back to the families.

She looked at the little creature sleeping blissfully in the saddlebag then approached the woman lying in a dark lake of blood, stroked her hair then placed a kiss on her forehead.

"I cannot raise her myself, Ileana, we hardly feed ourselves, and then I am old, I'll no longer have the strength to keep up with a baby. I will leave her on the path through the forest, towards the mountains, some good soul will find her and take care of her. Our Lord already has a plan for her if He allowed her to survive. Rest in peace, Ileana, and watch over your daughters from up there," she murmured softly, then picked up her saddlebag and walked away, leaving Ileana alone in the cold darkness of the small room.

As she walked away, she heard the wails of the girls and their father bellowing cursing at the sky. She shook her head, gritting her teeth to stop the tears that moistened her age-veiled eyes.

She moved quickly, leaving the village behind; she had to cross the forest to get to her home and she didn't like the forest at night. At that time of year, caravans of traders would pass by, coming from the plains with carriages full of grain to barter for fruit: apples, pears, nuts, which abounded in those parts. Perhaps the little one could find a bland soul who would take her in.

The little baby girl was a moroiniță, there was no doubt about it, but no one else beside the old woman knew that, and then, that dark side of her would only present itself at her death. It was for that, above all, that the midwife wished to keep her alive: to deceive Death and the demons of hell, hoping that the Lord's love could save her.

She pulled the baby out of the saddlebag, gathered a pile of dry leaves and spread her thick shawl over then laid the baby down covering her so she would not feel cold.

"Be strong, little baby, be strong," she whispered, caressing her with her rough hands. She picked up a piece of dry wood and, with the tip of the small knife she kept hanging from the colorful belt that supported the skirt, carved over the child's name: Theodora. An insecure and clumsy inscription but Ileana wanted her daughter to be called that, and it was the only way to communicate it to whomever would have found her.

The woman thanked the village priest for teaching her to write and read the letters of the alphabet. She, unlike other peasants, didn't sign her name by stamping her finger in ink; she wrote, with basic handwriting, but she could turn the sounds of words into marks on paper. In those days, being able to read and write was almost a miracle, considering that very few children in the countryside attended school.

"Theodora is the name your mother wanted for you; may it bring you good luck and protect you from the Evil One and his temptations."

The old woman raised her eyes to the sky. The slice of the new moon shone shyly illuminating the sleeping houses that lay below the hill. Only the howling of dogs and the cries of those motherless daughters broke the silence of the night. She sighed, and she straightened her back, put her saddlebag back on her shoulder and without looking back, walked away.

"Thy will be done, Lord," shemurmured, making the sign of the cross, then disappeared on the narrow pathdown into the valley among the tall beech trees.