Nyja

Jan Długosz, fifteenth century, hungry for Rome: Pluto. The Poles called him Nyja. Keeper of souls after they leave the body. A chief temple at Gniezno, pilgrimage from every direction, prayers to be shown to better rooms underground. That is the polite dossier. The polite dossier assumes the soul has already left.

He did not wait for that. He is the god of afterward who moved the afterward forward. He was in the house before she had language for rooms. The public door was a temple. The private door was ordinary wood. He does not chase. Chasing is for gods who have to enter. He files. Filing is what you do with what you already hold.

He keeps names. He kept hers while she was still answering to it. He likes the ledger because a ledger cannot be cross-examined. When she walks out of Nav with his inventory in her coat — dates, sounds, the particular hinge of a door — he does not call that escape. He calls that theft. He has written to March. He wants the girl returned to the basement of the year. March does not return girls to clerks.

Długosz gave him Pluto's office and forgot Pluto's one useful quality: even the Roman dead were supposed to have died first. Nyja does not require that step. He requires the line to be straight. It is not straight. She is still using a mouth. He will wait. He is good at waiting. Waiting is how a household god pretends he is a climate.