The Old Church 13
The Big Bad Wolf
This piece comes with an official soundtrack: 2SISTERS. Hopefully, this is going to be part of a longer work, just as The Old Church is going to be part of a longer book.
The song is an integral part of the story. The stoner/psychedelic sound heavily influences the writing of Rikku, Didrik and the whole gang. The lyrics speak about what happened, and what is about to happen (without spoiling anything).
I put it at the end. It is intended to be listened to after the axe hits the spruce.
This story is part of The Old Church series.
Click here for more.
The Big Bad Wolf
† † †
SHE’S THE ONLY ONE WITHOUT PROBLEMS
CONAN THE BARBARIAN
SHE SLITHERED INSIDE ME
HE KNOWS HE’S NEXT
THE KNIGHT AND I
THE SERPENT ENTERS CESLAV’S DREAMS
SZOC
HE SEES THE WOODCUTTER’S AXE
† † †
Pelle sits down first. Behind him, slowly, Leena takes her position.
She makes a movement, and a sickle appears in her hand. But where the hell did she get it from?
She leans forward with her torso, sets it down on the table in front of Pelle, and moves back into position behind him.
Then it’s the Shadow’s turn. She keeps moving without making a sound: when she walks, all you hear is the wood crackling in the fireplace. Her sister stands beside her: you should see them, the two tree-women.
Varja sits down, Lumi positions herself with the chair back barely reaching her waist.
Have her lips always been black?
The Shadow sets down a small mirror with a handle, silver perhaps.
Reflection, firelight.
Obadiah Cale is here too. His turn: he struggles to settle in with that belly hidden under his inevitable batik shirt.
He puts his round sunglasses on over his long grey hair, glances toward Leena, who nods. Then he knocks his pipe against his foot, tips its contents onto the floor, sets it on the table.
Carla stands behind him. When she gently rests her hands on his shoulders, dozens of pendants jingle like a Christmas tree.
The blond man must be Knut Pedersen. A man in his sixties, overweight. Varja is the only one without figure problems. Behind him stands a very young man. Blond, his beauty strikes me: androgynous.
White complexion, smooth, pearlescent. Taken from his mother, like the sadness.
The Norwegians all have checked shirts and axes in hand: Knut sets his down on the table. An ordinary tool, looks freshly bought from the village hardware store. None of that Conan the Barbarian nonsense.
As if called, the fifth enters through a door: Ceslav. It’s no coincidence he wasn’t already here with the others: Rikku literally starts growling when she sees him. He’s accompanied by half a dozen bastards in overalls, and he sets nothing on the table. Who knows what that means in the world of these lunatics.
Yellow eyes watching me. Pelle speaks, explains, brings up Matti, but I feel the tremors rising, my back soaking with sweat. The vertical slit pupils keep staring at me, indifferent to what’s happening.
The Shadow watches me, hisses.
Forked tongue between black lips.
These are things only I can see, but I can’t breathe, I move around the room, and the sharp pupils follow me.
Scales, coils.
Fissure, crack.
She slithered inside me.
I want to go outside. I need to smoke something.
No.
It doesn’t matter if that witch is scaring me half to death: there’s something I have to do.
It takes courage, but it has to be done.
I circle the entire table. Again, thuds beneath my feet.
Cavern.
I look straight ahead, pass Obadiah. The curve of the table seems endless.
I pass Knut Pedersen. The boy looks me straight in the eyes. Soft lips, his clothes smell of wardrobe and mothballs.
I reach Ceslav. He barely notices me, keeps staring at Pelle and Leena.
I run my right hand over his head.
Fear.
Ceslav is afraid.
He knows he’s next.
If he isn’t the next one, he’s second in line.
Food chain. The smallest one wants to grow up.
He freezes for a second, turns slowly, stands up knocking his chair over. He gets up in my face, shoves me so I land on my ass.
Kas tau yra debile?
His men step toward me, I get up. His men glare at me, he ignores me.
I see Pelle, Leena and Rikku watching me without a word.
I leave, walk out.
In the car park, under the seat of my car, I find an old carton of wine. The tremors are back, I drink it: it’s old, disgusting.
Has the Cales’ stuff stopped working on me?
I breathe.
† † †
Frozen air cuts the skin, destroys hands already painfully chapped.
Dark. The wind stirs the marshes.
The Knight and I.
— So sorry, why exactly would you have left?
— Pelle and Leena are in there. I don’t want to breathe the same air as Ceslav, if I don’t absolutely have to. But you need to explain something to me.
— Go ahead.
— So you’re telling me you had the balls to go with Pelle into the bunker, and you’re terrified of the village librarian?
— You said yourself that even Ceslav is afraid of them.
— No, I said he doesn’t want to get on their bad side. Lumi and Varja have agreements with the state: for fuck’s sake, they’re practically social services. If one of his men pulls any shit, the police show up at his door within a day. So what are you afraid of?
I look at my right hand. Grease, sebum, dandruff. I want to tell Rikku this: I know. The Serpent enters Ceslav’s dreams. Every night he has to run and she tries to devour him, she hates him, she wants to drive him mad.
Fissure.
I say none of this.
— I don’t know, she gives me the creeps, that’s all.
— You know she’s one of Leena’s best friends?
— Rikku, come here a moment.
Rikku widens her eyes, lifts her chin, then moves toward me.
She stops one step away.
Cement against leather.
Indomitable heart.
Who will be next?
— Please, turn around and take off your hoodie.
Rikku narrows her eyes and tilts her head slightly.
— I promise I won’t graze you, not even with a finger. Please. Turn around, take off your hoodie and your shirt.
She lifts her chin for a second, then nods.
She turns around. She unzips her hoodie, tucks it between her legs, pulls off her shirt and stands before me in a grey sports bra. Hoodie in one hand, shirt in the other.
I take a half-step forward, being very careful. I close my eyes, breathe in for a second. Rikku must have worked in the fields today, she hasn’t showered and smells strong, like a barnyard animal.
I love her scent. I could spend the night with my eyes closed, just breathing it in.
Nostrils, soul.
Scent is the last thing that leaves earthly life, the final trace of our existence.
I still have her clothes.
I open my eyes, look at her back. I see only a constellation of freckles, moles, and blackheads. The strong muscles, the shoulders, the trapezius. The freezing cold doesn’t touch her at all: she could stay like this all night.
Her shoulder blades. I need to read her fate. What emerges from her shoulder blades? I’d have to touch her to know, but I can’t.
A tear runs down my face.
— I’m sorry, you can get dressed.
I turn, walk away, embarrassed.
— But what happened, what were you looking for?
— I... It’s better I don’t tell you. I think I’m going mad. I don’t know, maybe the stress, the alcoholism...
The Knight is slightly sad, distant.
— Rikku?
— Yes?
— Why did you do what I asked without asking why?
— Why not?
— Well it’s not exactly a common request.
— Didrik, we’re country people. When we trust someone, we do what they ask and ask questions later.
— Even if I ask you to jump in the ditch?
— We’re country people, not idiots.
We laugh.
† † †
When Pelle comes out through the back door, he finds us half-asleep on the family swing. The cold is deadly, but I’m half drunk and wrecked from all the weed I’ve smoked.
— Hey Rikku, there’s something here for you.
The woman pulls herself up, goes toward him: I can’t quite make it out in the dark.
Knut’s axe. Rikku looks at it with a smirk on her face, like she can’t quite believe it.
Meanwhile I’ve stood up, taken a step forward.
— What does it mean?
— I’ll explain. You see that tree?
— Yes.
— Could you stand in front of it?
I don’t understand, but I do it: I move to stand in front of a spruce in the small garden where we’d settled.
— Hey Didrik, look here!
SZOC.
A sharp sound a palm from my ear. I’m completely paralysed, not even breathing.
The axe is buried less than ten centimetres from my face. Out of the corner of my eye I see the handle.
Rikku is what, ten metres away?
— It means they’ve decided to give me permission to use it.
There it is. From the tomb where he’d been locked away, Old Didrik decides it’s the right moment to come out. We have ourselves a good laugh, the three of us: Pelle, Rikku and me.
— Right, I say, excellent! But how are we going to flush him out?
— Well, we have some bait.
— Which is?
— Miko. We just let it get around that he’s woken up. You were the one who said it’s impossible to keep secrets in a place like this, right?
God knows what face the Big Bad Wolf will make when he sees the woodcutter’s axe.
2SISTERS
Along the edge
Between your eyes
Scrawled past the signs
Where your tear dries
But between the wounds
You’ll find the sorrow
My little world of
The ones who matter the most
She wants to undress
I feel the broken wings are grazing
The sky is her face
The sky is her face
We’ll have to play
And i feel naked
And i feel naked
Rust everywhere,
Can’t find the place
And i’m alone now
And i’m alone now
For today
Before a dream
I call the thread that waved your mother
The way you turned out
The way you turned out
Alone i swim
Don’t fear the sword beheading father
The way you turned out
The way you turned out
And i know
My empty role
The day i swore
To hide on shore
And i know
To loathe my soul
Too long i’ve told
To feed my ghoul
© 2026 Grimelight. All rights reserved. Don’t be a dick. Good luck, and godspeed.