Beyond the Veil

Many flowers grow in the little village of Popný during Spring. It is marriage season and the air is filled with pollen. Mara collects flowers with the people who should be most important in his life: his mother, his sister, his aunts, his various cousins, and those that would be his bridesmaids.

They should be important, but they are not. They do not see him as the man he is inside and have thus arranged an early marriage for him.

A marriage to a man older than his own father.

“These flowers,” his oldest aunt says, cutting all of them from their pot and placing them within Mara’s basket. “For fertility. With luck, you’ll give your husband his first son next year.”

Mara does not weep. He may be desperately unhappy, but he is also more stubborn than their goat.

His wedding dress is ready. His shoes shine. His mother gives him a delicate lace veil to cover his face. But his family couldn’t grow back the hair he had shorn close to his scalp.

If his family could not accept him as a man, then they would have to accept him as their village’s ugliest, unhappiest bride.

Night is swiftly falling upon their group. Mara doesn’t care. He sits upon the tall grass, bugs dancing on his legs, as those that should love him do him harm. They make two wreaths out of the flowers they had collected—one for the wedding and one for now.

Mara does not wear the wreath. He holds it in his hands grudgingly enough as he is led into the thick of the woods.

His mother sings old songs, the same she sang her youngest children to sleep with at night. Mara is the oldest and has never actually been sung to before. The oldest children are born into parenthood, many in Popný would say. Not to be cared for, but to do the caring instead. His oldest aunt joins in with her own rendition. His cousins, mere children, are so loud that they must frighten ghosts, singing about Mara’s impending marriage. Mara is more than bitter that now is the only time he has been extended care.

He doesn’t care, he tells himself. None of this matters.

The river Noteć is bubbling and cheerful. Silver fish swim in its blue waters.

Mara’s only sister carefully places a lit candle upon a piece of wood. “Mara, your wreath,” she says.

They say you can find out how fortunate your marriage will be if you throw a flower wreath into the river. Mara hands it over.

Mara’s sister places the wreath around the candle. “Beautiful!” she says. “Time for you to launch it down the river.”

Mara rolls his eyes. He gets a wallop across the head and a tongue-lashing from his mother. Words are just words and he is long used to being beaten. But he expects worse from his future husband.

He sighs and picks up the wooden plank, setting it down in the river and watching as it floats away.

Every bride does this. And, now, Mara.

“Many grandchildren please,” says his mother, already weeping openly. “At least eight. Four big, strong boys. Four beautiful girls.”

The candle wobbles on the river and then tips over. The wreath Mara’s family made so carefully catches fire.

“Ah! God,” his oldest aunt says, wading into the river bank. “Let it not be so!”

Mara watches and blinks.

What does it mean that the wreath caught fire?

Mara’s oldest aunt lets out a cry and swoons, falling right into the river. His mother follows suit.

The temperature rises, as though the sun was breathing right on their necks. It is so hot that even Mara sways.

Slowly, Mara turns around.

A woman that Mara has never seen before joins their group. She is not one of his many family members. She is not a bridesmaid. She is dressed as a bride, resplendent in white. Her hair is braided around the crown of her head, flowers entwined with straw blonde. She holds an old sickle. When she notices him watching, she smiles.

“Noonwraith,” Mara says. “Why have you come here? It is long past noon.”

The noonwraith smiles sweetly. “It is midnight. This is also noon.”

Mara frowns and does not argue. His cousins, his sister, and his bridesmaids are all unconscious now, their faces flushed bright red. If the noonwraith wishes to do him a kindness, then, well, he would have to take it.

“Where will you go now?” The noonwraith’s skin is poreless, perfect, like that of a porcelain doll.

Mara startles badly. “I am not sure,” he says. “Away.”

The noonwraith tilts her head. “The man they chose as your husband. He was supposed to be mine. He was a cruel thing, even then. How many cats can you kill before a village takes notice?”

Mara waits.

“They say I killed myself,” the noonwraith says. “This is not true. He killed me the night before our wedding. No one ever seemed to care about that.”

Mara’s heart thuds painfully in his chest. He could have been murdered too. His family would have assumed the same.

The noonwraith smiles again. “But now when he works on his farm, I take my vengeance,” she tells him. “I give him heatstrokes and body aches and all sorts of wicked visions. It would not do if I also had to worry about his innocent husband.”

Mara smiles for the first time he can remember. Tears drip down his cheeks.

This is the first time someone has recognized him as he is.

“Oi, no crying is allowed. I rescued you from your fate, didn’t I?” She places a hand upon his cheek and he startles once again. The noonwraith is cold, colder than a grave.

“Thank you,” Mara says.

The noonwraith smiles, nods, and then she is gone, leaving Mara alone with his unconscious family.

Mara pulls his oldest aunt out of the river because he is not entirely cruel, but leaves the rest of his family there on the riverbank. He looks at the remains of his wreath, now mere ash upon the river’s surface, and thinks to himself, Good. Let his family think him dead.

The person they will grieve for has never existed.

© 2021 J. Kosakowski

About the Author

J. Kosakowski is a New Yorker. Their interests include crochet, cannibalism, and mythology. You can find them on Twitter @kosakowski_j.