black and white photo of a couple, and while it took him several moments to realize why they seemed familiar, recognition hit him like a mallet. “Those are my grandparents,” he uttered with excitement, and when he saw the flowers in his grandfather’s hair atop the usual crown of oak leaves, he tapped it with his fingers. “Must have been when they got engaged. Look, he’s wearing her flower crown. That’s what it used to mean. It’s the sixties, so they were barely twenty back then.”
Emil leaned over to show Adam. “It’s nice to see them like this, you know? So happy. My grandma’s body was never found. The general consensus was that she had been attacked by a bear or wolves, because she walked into the forest on her own and never came back.”
Adam’s fingers rested on Emil’s forearm, golden and warm like the sun outside. “I’m sorry. It must have been hard on both of you.”
Emil swallowed. “It happened less than a year after my parents died. I was seven I think, but I remember her vividly.” When he turned the page, even the somber atmosphere lifted from his heart for a moment. “Don’t look!” He laughed and covered Adam’s eyes so he wouldn’t see the whole collection of photos featuring people dressed only in wreaths as they ran into the lake where the Kupala Night festivities always took place in Dybukowo.
Adam grabbed his fingers, chuckling as if they were studying the album just for the fun of it. When they were together in the sun, the burning fear of the unknown dispersed, as if they’d been friends since forever and knew there was nothing they couldn‘t take on.
“It’s artistic nudity though!”
“Right. They allow that at church after all.” Emil winked at Adam, and they looked through the photos page after page. “No! It’s Mrs. Janina.” He pointed out a smiley young woman hiding her nudity behind a tall man. “Can’t believe this shit.”
In the seventies, the festivities seemed to involve hundreds of people who had to have come to Dybukowo from all over the region, but as the years in the album passed, the groups seemed smaller, and in 1991, just one photo featured a group of more than ten people.
Emil’s heart skipped a beat. “That’s me, and that’s my mom.” He pointed to his mother holding a baby. He barely remembered her and Dad, only glimpses of a happy childhood taken away because he couldn’t keep his hands away from a box of matches.
“You have her eyes and nose,” Adam pointed out, and it was true. While her features were softer, the overall shape remained similar. Maybe he should take his time and find more albums that weren’t about celebrations, but a happy yet mundane life?
But there was no reason to stop browsing through the album despite the festivities clearly dying down in the nineties. Emil flipped through a bit faster, but Adam grabbed his arm. “Wait. Back.”
Emil raised his eyebrows, but went two pages back where Adam touched a picture that featured people Emil didn’t recognize, even though they stood right next to his mother and his own six-year-old self.
Adam swallowed hard. “It’s them.”
“Who?”
“My parents. They’re my parents. Wearing wreaths, holding horns with mead, the whole deal. Mom’s not even wearing her cross. She always wears her cross.”
Emil frowned, uneasy about this discovery. “I guess they didn’t tell you everything.”
Adam wheezed and his fingertip moved to a veiled person in the back of a picture. It was a nun.
The room started spinning around Emil when Adam hurriedly paged through the collages from earlier years. The nun was in each one. The same nun. Emil’s brain boiled, and he pushed Adam’s hand away, returning to the very first year recorded, and yes—it was the same woman, unchanged, wearing the same robes. A chill went down Emil’s spine.
Adam scrambled to his knees and pushed his head through the window. “Oh, God… Emil, my mom always did everything so I couldn’t come to this region. Blocked every trip I planned, even the school one.”
Emil swallowed, staring down at the photo of the happy couple and the nun. They seemed to be the only people present at the festivities that year, other than all the members of Emil’s family. Creepy as fuck. “I hate to be the one to say it, but I’m sure you’re thinking it. They might have done something here they’re not proud of.”
Adam sat by the window, slowly catching his breath as he studied Emil