A Thread for an Unbaptized Soul

Sit closer to the stove, for the cold rising off the earthen floor feels as if someone under the clay were slowly breathing out. Last winter I myself got lost in a blizzard near Vyshenka. I came upon a house at the very edge of the village, where the gardens run up against the blackthorn wood. From under the threshold came not frost but warm, soured milk. And someone was scratching from inside.

In the house I found an old wheelwright. He sat on the bench, trembling, though the stove was hot. His sheepskin coat smelled of tar and fear. He had been hired to replace the widow's threshold. The wheelwright drank horilka straight from the jug and whispered that a threshold is not simply wood. It is the boundary between our world and that which never lived to be baptized.

The woman was quiet, but in the corner an empty cradle creaked in steady rhythm. The wheelwright told me people give this yard a wide berth. You must not rock an empty cradle - that is calling the Unclean One into the house. The craftsman had not known it when he took up his axe, but now he was afraid to step outside, for outside the blizzard was howling.

He showed me what he had found under the old oak. In a dry nest of cobwebs lay a child's ribbon. Bright red, silk. And from it, straight out of the clay, that same smell of soured milk hit the nose. The wheelwright dropped his axe outright when he dug it up, because the earth around it was warm and damp, like a body. The ribbon was tied in a witch's twist. That is how the healer-women knot threads onto the cord when a child is born dead.

The knot was tight, to hold down what lies under the earth. The wheelwright, the fool, pulled at the little end, thinking it was just a rag. And the knot came undone all by itself, as if it breathed raw cold into his face. Earlier that day he had thrown the ribbon into the fire. The silk would not burn. It began to melt, to hiss, and thick white smoke rose up. And in that smoke the wheelwright heard not the crackle of fire but a wet, contented smacking of lips.

Like an infant that has finally reached its mother's breast. And the smell of milk grew unbearable, till it stung the eyes. Then the widow came out. She was not frightened - she dropped to her knees by the embers. She began raking the coals apart with her bare hands, whispering an old charm. She pulled out a charred scrap of silk and pressed it to her breast. He has grown hungry, she whispered to the wheelwright.

Without his bridle he has grown hungry, and now he is looking for his mama. The old people know: an unclean thing is not buried in the churchyard, for holy ground will not take it, it would burn the bones. It is planted on the boundary, under the threshold, to guard the yard from werewolves, for that is the only place it can lie. The wheelwright was frightened, but the work had to be finished. He buried the charred silk under the new threshold.

He and I stayed the night in the entry hall. No sooner had I dozed off than I felt it: under my head, under the greasy oak of the new threshold, someone was quietly gnawing the wood. The scraping was wet. And from under the door drifted that familiar sweetish-sour smell. The wheelwright did not open his eyes until dawn, clutching a little cross in his pocket.

In the morning the wheelwright fled without even taking his pay. I stayed alone and looked at the new threshold. There were marks on it. As if someone had been trying to gnaw the wood from the inside out. And in the middle, woven right into the oak heartwood, was that same red thread. It stuck out like a thin red little tongue.

They say the widow lives there still. Only now she never bars her door at night. Because the thing under the threshold is getting cramped, and it wants to rock the cradle. I set the jug aside, took the long poker and slowly pushed it deep into the stove, breaking up the red coals. I look at you, and all the while I can smell it: from under the floor of the inn, ever so faintly, soured milk.