No use crying over spilt milk! No use crying over spilt milk!
Come on, come on!
Quick, quick, quick!
You mucus pile. Couldn't hide in your own house?
May the Wolf-Eateress smite the lot of you! Scram!
Every last one! Out of my sight!
Back to your own damn mothers!
Bother them instead!
Have mercy.
On my blood I beg you.
On my life.
That is a child.
You don't want the nuisance.
Are you a fool, woman?
As if I'd want a child?
A bit of blood, that's all.
A fresh-born's.
I'll bring you other babies!
Girls, boys. A whole pile.
Only, on my sorrow,
leave me my Nevena.
So I can watch her grow a bit.
It's a daughter you want, is it not?
You're Old Maid Maria, are you not?
Spend my one witching spit?
On this runt?
I'll give her to you grown.
Let her turn 16 with me at least.
Then I'll give her to you as a maiden.
For what was done unto you.
Under this very roof.
A daughter. To serve you.
So you're not alone in your old age.
And?
What sort of covenant did you have in mind?
One you seal with a word?
The Lord! The Lord is my witness. Lord.
Right, wonderful.
And this scrawny thing?
To get away without a mark?
I think not.
Don't, my chicken. Don't, my golden.
No fear now. Not with the Lord our protector.
A holy place, my blood.
A sacred place.
She can't set one foot in here.
A Wolf-Eateress!
She snatched my baby girl!
A Wolf-Eateress...
The blue?
Is it the blue that speaks?
The red?
The red after the moon-white?
Is it? That speaks?
But never to me.
Never to me.
But their voices...
Again and again, they come back.
To me, my voice...
It won't come back.
Never ever.
Mama's puppy...
My voice...
The devil, she scratched it hard, so hard.
When I was tiny like a fist.
Mama tells me so.
But I think different.
I think the devil-scratch made it scared.
But my voice didn't run away.
It went hiding deep, deeper inside.
Where no one can touch it.
Do you understand what devils prowl out there? Do you?
Have I raised a fool?
They would tear you to pieces outside these walls! To pieces!
You know what I went through for you?
Speak.
Speak to me.
Their voices.
Speak them to me.
Or make mine nothing.
Make it blacknesses.
Make me blacknesses.
Oh, my little chick...
Stay there!
You won't take her from me!
No!
You won't!
Come on.
Well, woman?
Before me, the sky swallowed the leaves.
And the martens. And the bees.
And now it swallowed me.
Well? You coming, or what?
And Mama, it swallowed her, too.
But her,
it chewed her up to bits.
Her voice, in blood, it thickens it.
Her skin, it unclothed it.
Cold... It is cold, this one.
Her underskin.
Drink.
The sky, it chewed her up to bits.
Spat out the whisper-mama bits.
Witch-mama is what was left.
Witch-mama and me, the witch.
Me, the witch.
Sometimes my wish is,
"Come back, whisper-mama."
Just for a little bit.
But the walls, I never want them to come back.
Never ever.
What do we have here?
Now then, handsome.
What, you don't like me like this?
Look at him, the fresh lilac.
And I fixed my hair just for you.
Do you know anything?
Were you just going to stand there?
Let him cleave you in half?
Come back, whisper-mama.
You prefer day-old bread.
A dungeon.
Blood we need, woman, strength! Not playthings.
You think it would be better with her?
I chose you. You.
I get one witching spit.
One.
What a waste you are.
Blood.
Not playthings.
What did you think me, a mother?
A fool?
From now on you're nothing to me.
Zip.
Let's see how you fare.
That there, it is...
Poplars.
That there, it is...
Sparrows.
But are sparrows snakes?
Are women wasps?
Kisses chains?
Me, am I devil?
For God's sake, it's been two hours.
Quick, on the ground!
Back to the corn.
Let's go, wife of Boris.
Whoa, there.
Damn, woman.
What isn't strange?
What isn't...
...when you think about it?
Daughter-in-law!
What's struck you!?
My, my, my...
What's with you, woman?
Woman madness.
Don't, son. Don't, my seed.
For my sake.
It's no way to fight back, daughter. This unseemliness.
I know he makes it difficult. It's not that I don't.
He learned it all from his father.
God smite the pair of them.
Let's go.
Come on, come on!
My, my, my...
Dear God, already! Daughter-in-law!
And her speech? Gone completely?
From the blows, all of it. From the blows.
For the laughing, the mouth opens.
And for the crying, too, the mouth opens.
Only when the man is in the room,
the mouth, it should never open.
The man, the eye water he wants.
From the woman.
How far you think to take it, huh?
Till all of us are a mess?
Learn to keep the gob shut.
To me, it won't come.
The eye water.
When the man is in the room,
you are not a woman.
You are stew. You are tea.
Your place, it is inside his palm.
You trickle out.
Like water, you trickle out and around him.
But when you are with women in the room,
your mouth, it should never stop opening.
When you are with women...
You are a looking-glass.
When her eyebrows lift up,
yours, you lift them up, too.
When her eyes go wide, yours, you make them go wide, too.
To the woman, you are glass.
To the man, you are water.
You seen yourself?
A twit.
Head to toe.
Everyone can see through it.
As if they couldn't.
But then, why should it surprise me?
That you'd choose prison.
What do you think?
That you're the first to try this?
Just wait. Just you wait.
They'll tear you to pieces.
To shreds.
Ah, my, my...
The world,
it has been here so long so long.
Everything
means something else.
And yet...
What isn't strange?
-Look, look, look... -Slow down, why the hurry?
That so? Then that's so.
All right, man.
All right.
Well...
Man, oh, man, oh, man...
Right then.
Yo, jughead.
Of all the times to go stud-horsing...
Got what he deserved, looks like.
Come on!
It's a burning, hurting thing, this world.
A biting, retching thing.
And yet...
Come, one day without foolishness...
I am a man now, and so I can do it.
Go out where the grass is.
Where the soil is.
Clothe myself in sun.
In sun like liquid.
My, my, my...
Brother-in-law? What are you doing?
Out, spirit! Out with you this instant!
Get out! Shoo, shoo!
Had to take it that far. Fornicating with a Wolf-Eateress.
-She must've yanked his wits. -Hell, his manhood with them!
He always was insatiable.
But would she have left him alive?
She's a crafty one. A trickster.
That's what's gnawing at me.
A handsome one like him?
She'll want seconds, damn her.
You can breathe it in.
The smell like dirt when it's sour.
Dirt like they will bury them in.
Every day now,
I feel new rivers spin open inside me.
Whoosh, they whoosh in.
Deeper, deeper inside me.
Me the skin, they will bury it.
But me the witch?
They can't.
Unless she whose name I won't say...
Maybe she can bury me. Snuff out the spin-waters.
Leave it so I am me the nothing.
What strangeness...
Me the nothing.
Come on.
Not much to show for it all, have you?
Now, now, brother, why so shy?
Let us have a look.
Think you're fooling someone?
Dressed in corpses?
Think they see you as one of them?
Just wait.
Just you wait.
A whole day chopping two logs...
Damn pansy-ass, I can't stand to look at you.
Come on already, I've got brandy warmed up.
I don't want you upstairs until it's all chopped.
My, my, my...
It can't be a lie.
Can't be.
The smilings...
The cheek-pattings...
So simple.
When you know how.
Man...
So, so simple...
There's blood all over! The rocks over there, she fell! Run, run!
So simple.
Bilia!
Ah, my Bilia...
Bilia, darling.
You maybe broke something?
-Must've bumped her head, that's all. -Answer, Mommy.
-It'll pass, it'll pass. -Answer, child.
What'd I tell you about the hair?
I didn't know...
...that it could be like this?
I didn't know.
The hands that light up...
The voices that warm up...
Fires...
What soft fires.
How about a Mad Marko story?
No, a scary one.
What, Mad Marko's not scary?
Mad Marko just gets naked.
You seen a man get naked?
As if it's not scary.
How about Lydia and the Turk?
No, no, the one about Old Maid Maria! Tell that one, Grandma?
Old Maid Maria...
All right.
Let's go with that one, I suppose.
This is something that happened centuries ago.
When the Turk was at his cruelest.
Entire villages he emptied of boys.
Every last boy.
For Old Maid Maria, there wasn't a bachelor left.
And so,
-Maria's life was like a river... -My life is like a river.
It flows and flows,
and still it stays in the same spot.
It's become harder to cry.
Stupider, too.
Maria...
Wolf-Ea...
Find me a husband.
A husband. To give me a child.
A life.
Ahoy there!
Someone there knows my daughter?
Well, I've crossed many villages.
A friend mentioned Old Maid Maria.
Your son couldn't come in person?
A young man to cross the woods? With the Turk hunting rebels?
Hardly wise.
Your aunt can take me in, I guess.
Dearie! Come, dearie.
Go right ahead.
Go to your betrothed. We'll fix everything.
Oh, husband, come!
Go, dear.
Where the hell'd you go? Come here.
Come, come on...
The groom is to multiply his seed. Oh, Lord...
Daughter, I beg you...
Look at my boy... My only-born...
You won't let him die a half-man? Having spread no seed?
Send him to God a virgin? An "un-man"?
I know, daughter, I know.
It's how the act is done. My, oh, my...
You'll shut your eyes for a bit and that's that.
What woman does not want a baby?
Oh, poor Maria, oh, our Maria...
So young for a deathbed, my, my...
Sister?
Mother?
You.
You I summon.
Which is the blood that heals?
That keeps my death at bay?
I've seen nothing of life.
Of the good in life.
This can't be the end.
Can't be.
Vileness with livestock will not pass. Witchery will not pass. Hear us, oh, Lord.
Just wait.
Just you wait.
It's a burning, breaking thing.
This world.
A biting, retching thing.
And yet...
Bilia!
The years?
Leaves in a flurry.
Lashing the cheek.
Man, oh, man, oh, man...
My, oh, my...
-Poor pansy-ass. -Bit of blood and he's sniffling!
Boy, oh, boy, oh, boy...
Every me.
Every last me.
Me the woman...
Me the witch...
Me the bees buzzing in my bowels.
Every me. Every last me.
He'll find you out.
Throw you in the fire himself.
It's you then, Yovan dear.
So be it then. Bugger it.
-Cheers? -Cheers.
Yovan hon, come.
Give that.
Come on, man, stand here!
Higher. Higher, damn it. A bit more...
Keep going, keep going.
Once more. Three times all up, yeah?
I wasn't counting, were you counting!?
Come again, from the beginning. One, two, three...
And where's the damn boy for the blessing?
Daughter, there's to be no shame here.
Yours is to serve a husband's will.
Where he wants to slip himself in, you're to let him in.
No shame. None of that.
But no relish neither!
A virgin bride? To show relish?
It's just not done.
It baffles a husband.
Come on, come on! Enough!
Man...
Every me...
Every last me thirsts
for every him.
Only not the skin-flesh him.
Him the boy inside.
Him the boy with the eyes...
The eyes that look scared,
even when they're smiling.
It's that boy.
Him I want to put my arms around.
To hold him. To hold him.
Chase the scaredness away.
God damn...
Where's your husband?
Must have lost his way from the bedspread to the loft.
It's her that brought on this evil. Is it not?
All her fault.
God damn, enough already.
The dewy bride!
We have to, all of us.
Or else it won't take. The cleansing.
Don't mind these fools babbling on.
You're ours. We all know it.
The Wolf-Eateress...
She rages with envy,
rages since always.
Bit more...
Get them back here!
Watch and learn, I said!
-A female. Alas. -The swineherd's wife. Her damn evil eye.
-Hang on, darling. -Daughter, what's with you?
-Sit down! -Leave it, leave that!
Give it here. Give the baby!
The spirits, woman, the evil spirits!
Bilia?
Is she not precious to us, too?
Would we let something harm her?
You need rest, child.
That's right. Strength.
Just an hour or so.
I'll stay right here.
I'll guard.
And?
This runt?
So it came from your innards.
So?
What's so good about it?
How was it so simple for you?
How?
And yet...