“So what? The dead are low-carbing it?” I asked, smiling.
Thankfully, the girl returned my smile. “The dead don’t eat. If they did, we’d be even poorer.”
“She’s hot,” Baz whispered. “I could totally see her doing a spread in a Hot Girls of Necuratul calendar, maybe with a Vlad the Impaler bikini—oof!”
Isabel had elbowed Baz sharply in the stomach.
“Harsh, Iz.” He coughed.
“Evolve, Baz,” she spat back.
“You speak English,” John said to the girl, stating the obvious.
“Yes. I go to university. I’m home for the summer. For the festival. By tonight the tavern will be full of drunkards.”
John smiled. “Works for me.”
“What is the language anyway?” Baz asked, trying to come off as worldly. “Sounds a little Romanian? Hungarian?”
“It’s Necuratuli. It’s traditional to the village. Don’t bother trying to find a translation. It’s too obscure. I’m Mariana, by the way.” She stuck out her hand and I shook it, which made the older woman shake her head and mutter under her breath. She spat three times. Mariana rolled her eyes. “My mother. She doesn’t believe in anything new and sinful like women shaking hands with men.” Mariana answered her mother in Necuratuli, and the older woman gave us another suspicious glare before marching off.
“Don’t mind her. She gets nervous about outsiders and new things. So. You are here for the festival?”
“Yeah. We read about it in here.” I held up our book. “You know, the whole goat’s head, sacrificing lambs, possible pact with the Big D thing.”
Mariana laughed. “This is how we get our tourists. Florence has the David; we have Satan. I’m sorry to disappoint you—mostly there are sheep and superstitions. But the wine is fantastic and the festival is a lot of fun. Here. Leave your bags. They’ll be safe. That’s one of the great things about this town—everything’s safe; you never have to worry. Can you imagine doing that in London or New York or Moscow?”
“I got my bike stolen once, and it was locked up,” Baz said. He gave her his pretend shy face, and Izzie rolled her eyes. “I really missed the bell the most.”
Mariana was a good sport and laughed at his lame, player joke. “So sorry about that. Maybe a little tour of Necuratul will cheer you up. Come on. I’ll show you around.”
“What’s with the stones and salt?” I asked, dropping my pack.
“An old folk custom. Supposed to keep evil spirits out. Nothing undead can cross the threshold. And nothing undead can eat. That’s why she offered you the bread while you were still on the other side—to prove you were among the living. If you’d tried to grab the bread while crossing the threshold, you would have been burned to ash.”
Baz whistled. “Yowza.”
“You get a lot of undead coming in, snapping pictures, asking for I Partied with the Goat’s Head T-shirts?” I asked.
Mariana nodded gravely and sighed. “Why do you think they call them unquiet spirits? They trash the rooms at the inn and they don’t tip. Anyway, you’re not supposed to go into the forest. And you’re especially not supposed to take bread into the forest. It’s like feeding the undead, giving them power.”
“Superstitions, man. Culture of fear. Totally bassackward, right?” John smirked.
“Every place has its traditions,” Mariana said a little coldly.
Baz leaned in close to his cousin. “Way to endear yourself to the locals, my friend.” To Mariana he said, “I love hearing about customs!” He fell in next to Mariana as she led us through the heart of Necuratul.
The guidebook hadn’t lied: the town was storybook charming—in a “we fear for our lives” sort of way. Each house was circled with salt. Braids of garlic hung from the windows and were nailed over the doors. Behind the village was a cleared area of rolling farmland populated by sheep. It was peaceful. Postcard pretty. Then I noticed the scarecrows with the big evil-eye symbols painted over their foreheads. Nobody wants that in the family photo album. But the masterpiece of the whole place was the enormous Gothic church that sat at the top of a hill at the very edge of the town, practically up against the first line of trees. I counted thirteen twisty spires. The entrance was guarded by big wooden doors with faces carved into them. Up close the faces were gruesome. Screaming mouths. Eyes opened wide in terror. People begging—for what, I couldn’t say and didn’t want to know.