Nadja saw the Strigoi when she went outside to fetch snow to cool Stanoska’s brow. It was riding her one remaining cow, drumming its heels into the mooing, stumbling animal’s heaving sides and bending low to snap and nuzzle at her straining neck. The full moon shone on the snow, providing more than enough light to make out the revenant’s darkly discolored face, its bloated naked body. She thought it was Stavra the Miller, one of the first to die from the plague, but she wasn’t sure. Stavra had been a thin man, and the Strigoi, like all its kind, was swollen with the blood it had taken from the living. She knew better than to call out for it to leave the cow alone, for that would surely bring it to her doorstep after her. Instead, she quickly turned around and went back inside, not forgetting to scoop some snow into her bucket.
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