I had never seen such hopelessness, even in the mother with the lamb. The whole village of Tamno streamed into the house, tears in their eyes. Everyone who got the cough passed away. No matter what ailment they took, no matter what god they prayed to. They all ended the same way, waiting for Mora to pick them up in the winter. So when all hope was lost, they knocked on grandmother’s door, looking for a miracle. But all she had to give them was a seed to make peace with what was about to happen.

“Why him? Why my son? Why did he get the cough? Is it something we did?” - a desperate mother asked, crying.

“No, dear, you have no fault for this.” - grandmother told her.

“I just don’t understand how there could be so much injustice in this world.” - the mother said.

“There is justice, but sometimes it comes for the innocent.” - grandmother told her.

It hurt me that she had to take care of me, not the other way around. I heard her sigh when she stood up and saw how slowly she bent to pick things up from the floor. But she still preferred to take the pain herself instead of asking me to help.

She taught me prayers - to Perun I prayed for strength. To Lada I prayed for life, and Morana, I begged not to touch me yet. But I also prayed to the dead god.

“What do I ask of him?” - I asked.

“They say he’s all-seeing and all-powerful. He’s not like our gods. You can pray to him for everything.” - she told me.

A god who had power over everything. I kept him busy with my prayers. For my health, for my family’s harvest, for my brothers to leave me alone, for my father to not be ashamed of me. For the rain to stop when the roof was leaking. For the sun to be more merciful.

I prayed each night and imagined how dark smoke left my body. But a few hours later, I still woke up and coughed, howling like a wounded wolf. The coughing fits lasted for hours each night, keeping me in a limbo that didn’t let me rest and deprived me of the clarity I had during the day. Not asleep, not awake. It was torture.

Maybe I was praying too much for some days. The rain stopped, but the cough continued.

With time the family got used to my howling at night and learned to ignore me. But I still had to feel every cough slice through my throat. One of those nights, the last of my willpower gave in. I just wanted to get some sleep, and I was willing to do anything for it. With no god willing to accept my bargain, I took matters into my own hands.

I had to find my grandmother’s seeds.

I was ready to endure any pain they could cause me if I could shut my eyes for more than a moment. I crawled to my grandmother’s stash and opened it quietly. I looked around the house and listened to see if anyone was awake. I let out another noisy cough, and no one moved. They must have been so accustomed to it at this point that you had to blow a horn to wake them up.

The dead god’s priests said that stealing was a sin, but the pain of the body is greater than the pain of the soul. I was going to think about the consequences tomorrow, but even if I brought a god’s, or worse - my grandmother’s wrath upon me, I would’ve finally slept.

I found the seeds in the darkness, touching the small pouch she kept them in. I ate one seed, put the rest back, and crawled back to my bed.

I did what I did each other night. I stared at the roof in silence and examined the cracks in the wood lit by the fire’s last embers. After countless nights, I knew them so well. They were like a spider’s web, an accidental pattern. This one looked like lightning. Those two cracks looked like the open mouth of a beast. I imagined a miniature version of myself, running and jumping from crack to crack. I missed running. I missed playing.

I imagined how well it felt to have your lungs tired from playing instead of coughing. I thought about running through the forest, chasing squirrels that were quick to jump up the tree. Playing hide and seek and sword fighting with wooden sticks. Yelling how we would go fight the imperials one day.

My body loosened, and my mind went to the land of dreaming, deeper into the forest.