Ripple
1. Tales of the Water
2. Tales of the Living
It’s strange how different things tasted without him in the world.
Even the air lost its usual tang. Became bitter, somehow tainted. It was sunny, and the day smelled of freshly cut grass and summer barbecues. Children’s laughter rang in the distance and water splashed, followed by joyful cries. It was all happening, out there, just outside the bubble enveloping her.
She gazed up at the house again, tiny in the shadowy patch of darkness hidden under a giant oak. The shadows complemented it. They hid the peeling wallpaper and cracked wood. The grass needed cutting and somehow as she signed the lease, she was sad to let the house down like this. It probably deserved better.
The real estate agent left too quickly, eyeing her with suspicion. She tried to wave but, as usual her arm was quick to betray her and fell to her side rigidly. Finally she turned and walked up the front porch’s creaking steps. A gush of stale air and dust attacked her as the door opened, but she didn’t cough. She ignored it, walking straight in and locking the door behind her with a loud click.
The ghost and the cat watched from the backyard with sad, tired eyes.
Two days later there was a knock on the door.
It creaked open with a sorrowful wail, revealing big violet eyes sunken in pallid, sickly skin. It was quite apparent the vision startled the new arrival. He stumbled over his hastily memorized replicas in hurry.
‘I’m h-h-here to deliver the groceries for M-Mrs… Štěpánek?’
The face nodded in silence. A hand snaked out from the darkness, reaching for the board. She scribbled something over the indicated line and looked down at the box by her feet. She made no other movements. It was starting to freak the delivery boy out.
‘Mrs? Do you… do you need help with this?’ he asked uncertainly.
‘No.' The voice came and went. The door was already halfway closed by then. ‘Thank you.’
He stayed there for another moment, blinking at the door and shivering. When he finally did move the shack creaked a single long warning. It was enough to send him running. He backed away hurriedly and at the edge of the property, just where it met the snaking river, stumbled over a crooked old cat. It's coat was black as night and matted with dirt. It hissed at him with a force that bowed its pitiful skinny spine into a rainbow bridge. Its eyes - an intense forest green - glared at him with venom.
He did not run away from the house. He just walked very quickly.
*
Not more than twenty days after the mysterious figure moved into the old, abandoned Horák shack, Kristýna Rudná lost her sister’s brand new ball in the high grass surrounding the crumbling structure. The other kids dared her to retrieve it, calling her chicken when she hesitated, just outside of the fence. She felt uneasy gazing up at the cold little shack, in it’s cold little garden, surrounded by the cold shadows of the towering willow trees.
‘Go on!’ teased the kids. ‘Or are you scared?!’
‘Of course she is scared!’ cried one of the boys. ‘Because she is a little chicken!’
They started making chicken noises, flapping their arms and legs, jumping around in a circle. They looked utterly ridiculous, yet, somehow it was Kristýna who felt like a fool. She puffed up her chest, pulled her hands into tight little first and lifted her leg to take a step toward the shack…
The ghost touched her shoulder steadying her. Cold ran through her spine, chilling her to her bone as the ghost shook his head. There was a gentle pull. It made her stumble back, a puppet on a string.
Without another through the girl turned and ran, ignoring the cackles of her friends. Back at home her little sister cried when told the ball was lost to nature and her parents berated Kristýna. That night she was send to her room without supper.
The ball was found on the front porch in the morning the next day. No note accompanied it. In a few days everyone forgot it was ever lost.
3. Tales of the Tenant
The night air tasted of sweet river water and lavender.
It was hard to describe, really, unless you were there, walking the tight, overgrown passages along the river bank. There was magic to that place. Something wild that affected the countryside surrounding it like a spell. It had a hold over the people, over the air, over the fire and the skies.
The tenant touched her fingertips to the flowery petals dotting the path, inspecting the fireflies flickering overhead. Last night a brilliant four winged dragonfly landed on her knee as she sat on the jetty, watching the wild ducks nest in the dusty patches of overgrown bank. The creature was ink black and glittered in the moonlight like soft velvet. She has never seen anything like it and for a moment she was overtaken by the beauty of it. The river, the wildlife, the scent. It was a fairy-tale.
And just like a true fairy-tale it deserved a monster.
The moonlight glittered off the shimmering surface. Memories hit her like a train-wreck.
*
The night she remembered was warm and flickering with fairy lights but somehow, the memory of it still made her feel cold and afraid as the voice spoke.
‘This is Tessa,’ he said. ‘Tessa, this is my mother, Marie; my father, Karel. And the devil of course.’
The pretty girl gasped, narrowing familiar blue eyes at him. ‘Well, fuck you too, bro.’ Despite the sharp reply when her blueish gaze turned on Tessa it was filled with warmth and satisfaction. ‘It is so nice to finally meet you, Tessa! I’m Ema. I was beginning to wonder whether you were real, or just a robot my brother build in his cellar.’
Tessa smiled, accepting the girl's kiss on the cheek while her fiancé chuckled.
‘If I wanted to build something in my cellar it would be a death ray,’ he grunted at his sister. ‘To get rid of you.’ There was gentleness to his tone. He enveloped his sister in a tight hug, kissing her head loudly while she gagged.
The parents watched it all, rolling their eyes and shaking their heads at them. ‘Kids, please,’ the mother spoke finally. Her English was rugged and heavily accented. Obviously taught by the kids and only rarely brought to any use. ‘There are guests.’
‘Good,’ snapped their son, ‘at least they can see what a bully my sister is!’
While the rest of the family argued the father made a step toward her and Tessa froze, bracing herself for disapproval. He laid blue eyes at her and with a pang she realised how familiar they were. The kids all had their father’s eyes.
‘Welcome family,’ he said, stopping with a frustrated expression. Shaking his head he turned to his son and called something in Czech, which the man waved away with his hand. They could’ve been discussing their wedding as easily as their dislike of her.
‘Boys! Speak in English or don’t speak at all,’ chastised Ema, noticing Tessa’s spooked expression. ‘You’re making our guest uncomfortable!’
The father reacted by waving his hand again and retreating into the center of the party, relaxing when he got far enough from the strange people and language and close enough to the min-fridge filled with beer.
Tessa winced, looking up at her fiancé. ‘He doesn’t like me very much, does he.’
‘Nah. He is just salty because he loves to be heard, yet only managed to learn two phrases in English for this.' Ema chuckled, taking her arm and pulling her toward the tables. ‘But enough about these bores. Tell me everything about you! Where are you from? Did you really have to rescue my brother from drowning in England? What is he threatening you with to make you marry him? Blink twice if he's kidnapped you and you need help getting out.’
‘Ema!’ he whined behind them, following close on their laughing heels.
*
Hours later, tired of the smiles and friendly banter, she was sitting alone by the river, letting her fingers graze its ice cold surface gently. The ripple of it reflected the moonlight and she got lost in it, forgetting where and who she was, just staring at the nature and feeling so full and happy fro the first time since arriving into this strange land.
The voice beside her startled her. ‘„Ach nechoď, nechoď na jezero, / zůstaň dnes doma, moje dcero! / Já měla zlý té noci sen: / nechoď, dceruško, k vodě ven.’
She glanced up, meeting a curious dark gaze. He walked out of the shadows, smiling his son’s smile. For a little moment Tessa panicked. ‘I’m… sorry. I don’t speak very…’
‘It’s a… poem,’ he said, slow and deliberate as he joined her on the pier. ‘A balada. Like a very sad poem about a monster that lives… there.’ He pointed inside the water's depths.
‘A monster?’
‘A green man. He wants… wife. So he takes a girl and she unhappy. They have son. So he lets her visit mother, but tells her she must return. But she…’ he shook his head and Tessa, fascinated inserted, ‘refuses.’
He nodded and continued. ‘So man, vodník, come. He bang bang bang on the door one time. The mother sends him away. He bang bang bang two time. Mother sends him away. He come three time and says son cry and wants… food. And the girl asks mother to go, but she…’ he sputtered again, looking at Tessa in contemplation. Then, slowly, drawls, ‘refuses. She says the vodník to bring child to them.’
‘Does he?’ she whispered with a shiver.
He shook his head, looking at her sadly. ‘In way. There is storm and when over they find little body on door.’
Tessa shivered, but didn’t know what to say. The gruesome story replayed in her mind’s eye. Without realizing she pulled her leg back up onto the safety of the jetty, away from the murky darkness rippling below. ma
‘They say,’ continued Petr’s father, ‘vodník still here. He search for bride.’
‘Jesus. Christ, father!’ cried Petr, running toward them with a cocky grin. ‘Stop with that nonsense! This weirdo is bound to believe you!’ He continued in Czech, making his father huff and puff as he rose to his feet, arguing back. The conversation was over with an eye roll and the father started walking toward the gate. He only stopped once to look at her over his shoulder. ‘My son don’t believe in old story. Old story good. Old story warning. Keep people save.’
With that he disappeared into the bright lights of the party, followed by Petr’s snort of derision. ‘Right. Old story good,’ he mimicked with a derisive shake of his head. ‘You know he used to scare the shit out of Ema with this one. For years she would be scared to go outside after nightfall for fear of some water goblin pulling her underwater to impregnate her and decapitate their child.’
Tessa took his hand and rose toward him, laughing at his annoyed expression. He was never one for stories her Petr. He liked his life in ones and zeroes, easy to navigate and make sense of. As real as you got without hitting a wall with your nose. ‘He is right, though,’ she whispered, ‘most stories are warnings. You would be wise to abide by them.’
He rolled his eyes again and turned to face the river with one of this mocking smiles. ‘Shoo, evil green man! This one is mine. Go find your own fucking woman, you dripping weirdo.’
At that she laughed, letting him lead her back to the gate. For years all she has done was letting him lead her to the gate.
4. Tales of the Dead
In midsummer the water fell, revealing tiny hidey-holes for fish and ducklings. More and more people started coming out to the abandoned shacks on the bank, opening all windows wide to chase the winter dust away. Children frolicked around, playing pirates in old rusted boats chained to the piers, until the owners of said rusted boat rushed out of their houses and chased them away with a few yelled threats and fist shake.
The river, which seemed so wild a few weeks ago was now milling with canoes and row boats connecting the overgrown banks.
Only at night did water shine again. Only then did it have the power to be heard over the occasional campfire song, or a hiss of fireplace roasting over the day’s fish. It was subdued in daylight but at night it was back to whispering its dark secrets to anyone willing to stop and listen.
On one such night in late July Tessa stopped by a jetty and sat down, letting her legs down to touch the surface of the river. She couldn’t have been sitting there longer than twenty minutes before he came, bare feet slapping on wooden planks with loud, wet splashes.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, deep green eyes reflecting the silvery moonlight. ‘I'm heading down the river with my canoe. Can I pull it up here, or is there a spot closer to the weir?’
‘There is one just before the weir, but it’s hard to see at night. I could show you,’ she replied.
‘That would be most kind of you.’ He smiled. He was looking at the river with a gentle sigh. ‘Do you mind if we sit here for a moment? I have been rowing for hours.’
She moved a little to make space for him and watched as he sat down and let his own feet dangle over the pier. ‘It’s a little cold.’
‘It is. But sometimes the pain is worth the outcome. Don’t you think?’
*
‘A girl I knew used to say,’ she breathed, dangling her feet to create a spiral on the water surface, ‘that scars never heal. The pain never stops. But after a while, little by little, in order to protect one’s sanity, the minds starts to cover it over. The scar scab over with scar tissue. They fade. They are never completely gone, but the pain… the pain eases a bit.’
‘That would make the entire humanity a canvas of scar tissue,’ he replied. ‘Are you waiting for your pain to ease?’
‘By now I’m just kinda hoping it ever will,’ she whispered and the water splashed underneath. When she looked up he was watching her, eyes curious. ‘You know, Keats one said that world of pains and troubles is necessary to school intelligence and make it a soul. Do you think that means that people who never suffer are soulless?’
‘I don’t think there are people who never suffer. Everyone is the hero of their own story and everyone feels pain in one way or another. It could be something that to us appears trivial, but that doesn’t lessen their pain. Some people suffer because they lost their loved one, others because there were no more chicken pot pies left at the store.’
‘I don’t think people who miss chicken pot pies are schooling their intelligence,’ she answered on a snort. ‘But I get your point. It is a good one. Different things weight on different people in different ways. The bottom line is: no one is happy.’
‘They are,’ he disagreed. ‘Sometimes. But it’s far easier to recall the negative memories than positive ones. You do have positive ones, don’t you?’
She looked over the water, mumbling. ‘I did. But they died.’
‘Memories don’t die. They fade away, and only do if you let them. Because Roman Empire is gone it doesn’t make its story any less true.’
‘Sometimes it feels like it does.’
5. Tales of the Goblin
For weeks they met under the old willow tree, letting their toes caress the still cold water.
She started bringing food and wine, offering it to her companion on a soft picnic blanket. First few times he politely declined, shaking his head. One night, defying expectation, he picked up the crystal glass and took a sip of the blood red liquid, meeting her shy smile with his own.
‘I don’t usually drink,’ he confessed.
She chuckled, clinging their glasses together. ‘Don’t worry, I will cut you off when you get heated. I’m sort of an expert in this department.’
‘I don’t think I can get drunk.’ He looked into his glass for a second, perplexed, then lifted his gaze to hers and shrugged. ‘I heard it helps to forget. I don’t think people should forget.’
‘So you would rather have them suffer?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I would rather they think really, really carefully. I would rather they think until it seems they cannot think any longer. Keep that memory inside their mind for days, years, and only after they are completely, absolutely sure of their feelings, should they take the leap.’ When she didn’t speak he leaned closer, blinking his bright blue eyes. ‘Did you think about him long enough? Do you think about him still?’
‘Oh,’ she breathed. ‘I think about him every day.’
‘The day we found out we went for the longest walk.
‘He pretended everything was okay. We had a lunch at our favourite restaurant, then bought two tickets for a boat trip. Under the stars on the river we talked about future, as if there was ever going to be one, as if it was a sure thing. When we exited the boat he pulled me closer and lead me by the hand to the club where we met. We danced the night away and in the darkness of flashing lights and broken shadows I cried and gasped during desperate screams of anguish.
‘Nightclubs are perfect places to cry. Nobody tries to console you, because nobody knows.’
*
He touched her hand and his fingers were cold, so very cold. It made her skin crawl even as she looked up into his deep, fluid eyes and whispered, ‘Terminal. There was nothing that could be done. They gave him four months. He lasted five. He laughed he was too stubborn to even die on the terms of random doctors.’
‘I’m very sorry.’
She looked away quickly, hiding her tears in the dark. Her voice hitched when she finally whispered, ‘Sometimes I wonder. If we found out later. Like two months later. Would he even feel sick during them? It just… seemed so sudden. One day he was fine, the next… he wasn’t. Maybe if we didn’t know… maybe he would just… go on.’
‘I don’t think that’s how it works, Tess.’
‘Yeah. It does not.’ She kept silent. The night was starting to get chilly on her bare feet. When she finally spoke her words made him freeze. ‘I tried to end it, you know. I thought about it, hard and long. But there is nothing out there for me any longer. Or, more precisely, if there is, I don’t want to see it. I’m too tired. I’m too tired of this life of losing.’
‘The pain is there to make you stronger,’ he whispered.
‘I don’t want to be stronger. I have been strong those four months. I have been strong ever since and I’m just… exhausted. I want peace. Silence. Tranquility.’
The silence that followed stretched for ages. Once again, that coldness descended. It filled the air around them, choked her until she felt like dying. Her fingertips touched her throat and she realised she was choking. Choking on a breath, on a squeal, on a goddamn wail.
She found herself in his arms then. Enveloped in that cold embrace that tore her heart out, little by little. His voice rumbled behind his thin ribs as he whispered, into her tangled hair, softer than a cloud, ‘From all that pain, I can help. If you really are sure.’
She looked up at him with eyes tinted red. ‘Are you the one?’
Without missing a beat he nodded, offering his hand to her. When she touched it now it felt moist, cold like the river beneath them.
‘If you can,’ she finally spoke, ‘please, help me.’
His next nod was solemn and something in his eyes went dark. Not dark and vicious, but dark with sadness too profound to be expressed in words. This time when he enveloped her in a hug she melted into the cold, catching on his drenched clothes. Together they fell down into the river, disappearing in the depths.
She hit the water and it was cold, colder than she ever imagined.
The shock of it shut off her brain.
And just like that she was saved.
5. Tales of the Saved
‘I… I just don’t think I can go on like this. Every breath I take… It hurts so much.’
‘Someone I used to know once told me that the pain is worth the outcome, don’t you think?’ the voice whispered from the dark.
The girl shook her bright head. She was staring ahead, staring into the water with heavy, crystalline tears washing down her flushed cheeks. ‘He doesn’t feel pain,’ she spat.
‘No,’ answered the voice sadly. ‘And neither does the one he goes to when you’re gone. They don’t feel guilt, or pain. They laugh. They laugh and fuck and tell stories about how you will never know. How even if you did you were too weak to do something about it.’
Her next words came on gasped whimpers. A little kitten demanding attention. ‘They… they… should be… the ones… hurt.’
In the moonlight two long fangs flashes behind a curtain of wet, tangled hair of darkest black. ‘They should,’ purred the voice. ‘You should make them see that. They should suffer as much as you do. No, they should suffer more.’
‘They should suffer more,’ repeated the girl in trance. Her shaking fingers reached to touch the white dripping hand outstretched toward her from the shadows. The hand snatched for her as she repeated her little mantra, pulling her deeper into the shadows. Those dirty, rigged fingernails punctured her skin, drawing blood. It was an oath, one spoken into the eerie silence of the night, ‘They will suffer more.’
‘So they shall, my darling,’ cackled the voice beyond the veil, ‘so they shall.’
The girl stumbled away in daze, repeating the final words again and again, until they merged together and turned meaningless in the cauldron of her hurt and fury. The rusalka watched her go, grinning in the darkness beneath the willow tree.
*
‘You tricked me, rusalka,’ came his voice from the dark murky depths.
It didn’t sound angry. It sounded… impressed. A little hurt.
She turned toward the water. A white ghostly figure dripping sweet murky water at her feet. Her eyes seemed bigger. Her long tangled hair darker. There was not fear in those eyes as she watched him rise to the surface. Instead she flashed her fangs in an impish smile. ‘Did I? Perhaps I did. But I did not lie, my sweet goblin. I only told you I was in pain.’
‘But you didn’t want me to end that pain, did you.’ It was not a question. He sailed down toward her and sat next to her in one fast fluid motion. He did not wait for an invitation and neither did he get one. ‘You were wronged and you knew what happens to wronged women when drowned by me.’
She leaned her head to the side, matching his challenge. ‘Are you disappointed in me? Because, after all, I’m not one of your wounded souls looking for redemption?’
‘No. I’m just disappointed to see a good person on the wrong side of history because of some man.’
‘He cheated,’ she informed. ‘With his ex-girlfriend. Our entire marriage. I guess he found it exhilarating. To come home after a good fuck to find his little devoted wife sitting at her desk like a good puppy. He told me as he lay dying. He needed to make amends.’
‘But he didn’t. If he did you wouldn’t have done this.’ The water goblin glanced at the ghost watching them from the groove, black cat resting in his lap. ‘How did you curse him?’
‘I found a witch. He always did make fun of my fascination with the supernatural,’ she snorted. ‘I wonder how he feels about it now, being part of the supernatural.’
His fingers were cold on her skin. A perfect match to her own. ‘So this has been the plan all along. Become immortal. To make him watch you go on forever as a rusalka. Doing what?’
Tessa glanced at him, eyes shining with purpose. The smile on her face did not retain the sweetness she expressed in life. ‘Doing just what rusalka does. I think this is the end of our friendship, dear vodník. You go on saving your souls by drowning, I go on saving them by giving them life.’
‘And making them kill their loved ones,’ he whispered. ‘Like you wanted to kill him, and never got to.’
‘Nature is cruel that way. It requires sacrifices. That’s why you exist.’
He pondered it. ‘I see far more cruelty in men now. At least nature is honest about it.’
The rusalka, once known as the tenant, even longer as Tessa Greer, laughed then, leaning down to kiss his cheek. Against his cold skin she whispered, ‘Take it from me, old man, honesty never helped anyone.’
He turned to watch her leave, but she didn’t. She stood there, looking into his eyes for the longest moment before whispering, ‘It’s strange.’
‘What is?’ he questioned.
‘That for a moment, right here, I almost fell in love with you. Just a little longer and you would have found your wife.’
‘Just a little longer,’ he agreed, ‘and I would have saved your soul.’
She sighed, smiling as her fingers caressed his face. ‘All it really takes is just a little moment in time. But most of the time we miss it. Isn’t that tragic, my little water goblin?’
Comments
Post a Comment