By Blood We Live

vechi brbat into her home, and it was then that he lived in the cage all the time. She…looked after him, and then her daughter, and so on. It soon became the unspoken rule that only one took responsibility for him. One woman of each generation, the task handed down to the next in line, the eldest. Eventually my grandmother was responsible."

"And with your mother gone, you were next in line?"

Nita's hands trembled and felt white cold. "Yes."

The man paused. "And this responsibility, to take care of, to live with the

vechi brbat, is this something you wanted for yourself?"

"I…I don't know," she said. No one had asked her this.

Bunic had not. It was assumed that Nita would go to school, then return home to the village and bear children, raising only one girl child, and that she would look after the ancient one who would live with her, in the cage, as it had been with all the women before her.

"Tell me, you said the

vechi brbat walked in the village, and he tried to touch you in the forest. So he was no longer in a cage."

"Somewhere back in time it was determined by a woman who cared for him that if he were not permitted to eat he would be weak and he could then be allowed to roam free at dusk, provided a chain was attached to his ankle with a long rope. This seemed to work out, and the villagers agreed. Anyway, he could not tolerate the sun and always returned to the cage during the day."

"Like a vampire," the grey-haired man said.

"Exactly like a vampire."

"And he was fed blood."

"Yes."

"What kind of blood?"

"The blood of the village."

The man looked a little shocked by this revelation. "Not animals?"

"No. His body could not tolerate their blood. Only human."

"Did he drink your blood?"

"Sometimes."

"How…how was this done? Did he bite you?"

"Of course not!" she said, feeling the tension building in her. "We would make cuts on our arms and legs, each person in the village taking a turn, and would provide a tin cup every day and he would drink that. It kept him alive."

"Why, over the centuries, did the villagers want to keep him alive?"

"Because it would be bad luck to kill him."

"But he'd brought disaster to the village, or so everyone thought?"

"But more disaster would come from killing him. He was a Gypsy. He had been in touch with the most evil spirits. They had come to him, heeded him, given him what he asked for. The villagers did not know what would happen if he were killed or released, but they knew they would be cursed and harm would come to them. They just did not know the nature of that harm."

"But you didn't believe that, did you? That his curse would bring disaster. That he was ancient. That he had brought back his dead wife."

A small sound slipped from Nita's lips. She felt a tear form in one eye and tried to brush it away but the sparkly multicolored drop slid down her cheek. Maybe…maybe he understood! "I…I… The university. They said it could not be so. That he was not old. That he was just a crazy man that everyone kept caged and starved, and that his dead wife had not returned but a woman in the village-my grandmother, and my mother-had slept with him to get pregnant."

"How did your mother die?"

That was too horrible. Nita could not bring herself to admit the suicide. Instead of answering his question, her mind raced on as if he hadn't interrupted. "The university professor said it was an example of a mythology that had gone terribly wrong, and the people wanted to blame someone for all their problems, and to torture him." She looked up at the grey man. "I went home to make it right."

The man nodded imperceptibly.

Now the words spilled from Nita, like the scorching lava that had formed the mountains. "I tried to tell the others. I told them that he could not be ancient. That he was not responsible for catastrophes. That the gods had not returned his wife to him. I explained that my grandmother who kept him, she was his wife. They would not believe me."

"What did you do?"

"After the sun set, I cut his chain and took him far from the village, up into the mountains, a night's journey by foot. I gave him food I had brought home with me, liquid food with nutrients, some blood because he was used to that, but other beverages, because he had not eaten solid food that I knew of. I tried to feed him grains but he could not digest them. And then I pointed to the much larger village just over the mountain peak and told him to go there, to begin a new life. That he was free. I told him that he would be caged no more."

Nita shook her head. Tears streamed down her face and though her voice wavered, she needed no encouragement to finish her story. "I returned to my village the following day. My grandmother was furious with me. She struck me and called me a fool, ranting that I had brought down the curse and put them all in danger. The villagers were angry and afraid. Some wanted to run away, others found weapons to defend themselves. One suggested I take the place of the