by Janna Ruth
“Something was wrong with that nymph,” I say instead. Her whole appearance and actions still puzzle me.
Wulf nods severely. “It was a lot stronger than any nymph I ever met. Actually, stronger than any nymph could possibly be.”
Eager to share my assessment, I lean forward on my elbows. “She felt dirty, polluted. I can’t really explain it, but the water around her felt icky somehow.”
“Well, that’s something for the SSA to deal with. We did our job. We caught the spirit. Now it’s their turn.” He makes a move to get up.
I didn’t expect him to pass responsibility off to someone else that quickly. “Aren’t you worried?”
Wulf remains half crouched. “About what?”
“What it could mean? I’ve never seen or felt anything like what we encountered today.”
Leaning towards me, he says, “I told you; that’s for the SSA to find out.”
“How long will it take them?” In my mind, I try to estimate how many days we have between now and the results of their investigation.
Realising that I’ve still got a lot of questions, Wulf sits back down. “I don’t know. Weeks. Months.”
“Are we gonna stay here for that long?” I ask, honestly surprised.
He laughs a little. “No, we’re done here.”
“But we can’t be.” Sure, we captured one nymph, but that can’t be it, can it?
Wulf puts a hand on my elbow. “Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten my promise. We’ll take a couple of days to look for your mum.”
I haven’t even thought about that, but the reiteration of his promise warms my heart. He really meant it earlier. My lips stretch into a smile before I can remind them of the topic at hand. “Thanks, but… I mean, I’d love to. It’s just, I don’t think we’re done yet.”
His hand slips from my arm, and he frowns again. “Why would you say that?”
“Well, for example, the dryads said they were afraid of the nymphs. Nymphs plural, not a single one. Furthermore, I’m worried that whatever transformed the nymph into that hideous spirit could affect other spirits in the area. It has to come from somewhere, after all.”
Wulf massages the bridge of his nose, and I can hear him take a couple of deep breaths. When he looks at me again, I feel like a precocious child. “Have you ever considered that your dryads might not be the most reliable source of information?”
Groaning, I lean back and cross my arms. “For someone so attuned to spirits, you sure dismiss them a lot. The dryads weren’t lying or anything. I can actually feel that, you know?”
He places his words carefully, clearly afraid I may blow up otherwise. “Or so you think.”
“I know what I feel.” He opens his mouth, but I stop him right away. “I don’t need you mansplaining my feelings to me.”
Wulf raises both his hands in defeat. “Wouldn’t think of it,” he says in a voice that’s no longer trying to hide his annoyance and frustration. “All I wanted to say was that you put an awful amount of trust in these spirits.”
“Yeah, well, they never lied to me. Your kind, though, all the time.” And with that, I get up and leave him at the table.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT’S COMPLETELY DARK when I wake up. Is it morning? Did I wake from a dream in the middle of the night? These chambers underneath the ground really mess with my mind. Usually, I wake at first light, but there’s no sun down here. All I have is a digital clock. I stare at the red numbers in confusion until they compute in my head. Somehow, I’ve slept until 9:20 am. No wonder I feel absolutely groggy. In Berlin, I would’ve already been on my feet for an hour or two.
So much for my plan to sneak out early and talk to Aeola. By the time I get dressed and enter the main room, it looks like everyone’s woken up and left before me. Used coffee cups and breakfast plates have piled up on the kitchen bench, silently awaiting someone to wash them. The room is deserted apart from one table, and who else would sit there other than my most precious commander?
Wulf hunches over a laptop in one of the alcoves, thoughtfully staring at the screen while scribbling down something on a notepad next to him. He’s wearing his glasses again.
I tiptoe over to the kitchen, not really looking forward to confronting him again. But as soon as I pour water into a glass, he looks up.
“Good morning,” he says in that passive-aggressive tone usually elderly Germans use when they’re already silently judging you for not saying it first.
Taking a deep breath, I glare at him. “Morning,” I finally answer, trying to make it sound as aggressive as his.
He remains unfazed and lowers his gaze towards his laptop again. Obviously, he’s taunting me to ask him what he’s doing, but I won’t give him that satisfaction. Instead, I grab some leftover bread and salami to go with my water and sit down as far away as possible from him.
Whenever I steal a glance at him, he’s got his head down, working away. The silence is palpable in the room, lending towards the grave-like atmosphere of the Hungarian headquarters. I wonder where everyone else is, but won’t ask Wulf to find out.
When I’m almost finished with my sad little breakfast, he looks up at me over the laptop edge. “So, when did you want to leave?”
“Leave?” What the hell is he talking about?
“To look for your mother? Unless you no longer want me to help you?” His hand on the pen is still, waiting for me to answer.
Right, he’s a guy who keeps his promises. He’ll lie to you or hide the truth from you, but he’ll keep his promise no matter how much he wants to do something else. I decide to call him out on that. “Looks to me like you’re busy.”
As if to prove me wrong, Wulf closes the laptop and puts down his pen. “I’m not.”
Squinting my eyes a little, I say, “Very convincing.”
He sighs as if he held the sky on his shoulders. “Rika. There’s always work to do. I’ve had to sight some reports from Berlin, sign off on some trap shipments, but none of that is urgent. I can do it tonight or even tomorrow. But if you’d rather not see my face all day, that’s fine with me.”
Well, too late for that. I won’t give him the satisfaction now. I don’t want him to think he’s got me all figured out. “Fine.” I put my dishes together and get up. “Let’s go then.”
“You’re sure?” he asks.
I drop my dishes off at the counter. “Unless you no longer want to join me.”
With a snort, he takes off his glasses and puts them away. “Let me get my stuff.”
We meet outside of the convent about ten minutes later. I wish he’d given me more time alone, but of course, Wulf is never late nor lazy. Thus, I only catch a glimpse of Aeola hanging around at the edge of my sight, keeping her distance from the spirit seeker next to me.
Speaking of him, we walk silently next to each other until we reach the Margaret Bridge. Once we stepped onto the bridge, Wulf stops and turns to me. “So, how are we gonna do this?”
There are two layers to this question. A) What is my plan to find my mother, and B) how are we both gonna stand each other long enough to not make this the most horrible morning in history? I decide to answer the former and leave the latter for him to figure out. “Well, I remember more things on the Buda side than on the Pest one. So, I’d figure I’d walk some streets until something strikes me as familiar.”
I don’t need Wulf’s raised eyebrows to tell me that this is a terribly ineffective plan. It’s the only one I have, though, and he either agrees or doesn’t really care since he makes an inviting gesture to the hills of Buda, and we set off.
Once again, the silence between us spreads as wide as the Danube behind us. You wouldn’t think so, but it’s incredibly distracting. I pay more attention to the brooding man half a step behind me than to the surrounding neighbourhoods. By the time we reach the foot of Castle Hill, I’m utterly frustrated.
And so too seems Wulf because he asks, “Don’t you have anything to start off? A name? An address?”
“Sure,” I answer, a tad too confronting. “I actually know exactly where we need to go. I just enjoy leading you through this city while you fume behind me.”
“I’m not fuming,” he bristles ever so slightly. “I’m just wondering how I can be of help?”
I almost believe him. He’s got that innocent look down to a T. Just a simple mission where he hasn’t been briefed properly. “You wanted to come.”
“But you didn’t want me to,” he replies, his voice slightly off the neutral path.
Part of me wants to agree, mainly because it’s true. I’d be much more comfortable on my own. But there’s another part of me, which decides that this would be a suitable moment to remind me how sincere Wulf was yesterday when I told him all about my mother.
“Look,” I start, slightly more diplomatic. “I was a child. I remember playing on the stairs of Fisherman’s Bastion and visiting the caves under Gellért Hill. I remember a hideous couch, which was the best hiding spot ever, but unless you know of some webpage that lists couches of Budapest, I don’t know how that would be of any use.”
My comment about the webpage makes Wulf chuckle, and I feel the silence fading away. “Can I make a suggestion then?” he asks.
“Sure,” I answer, but it comes with an enormous sigh. I can’t wait to hear what brilliant ideas he comes up with.
“Let’s go to the places you definitely remember and see if that sparks a memory that could set us up on a street or subway.”
It’s actually not a half-bad idea. It definitely beats wandering aimlessly through the city until a house jumps out to me. “Sounds good.”
“You really don’t like working together, do you?”
“I don’t like being told what to do… or who to be.” I start moving again. “Relic from my awesome youth home days. I’m sure you actually know better what’s good for me, though,” I add for good measure.
Wulf chuckles again. “I didn’t say that.”
“You always say that when we talk about spirits,” I point out.
“Yeah, but I’ve grown up amongst the spirit seekers. I soaked up every piece of knowledge I could find about them.” He shakes his head, somewhat frustrated. “I’ve graduated at the top of all my classes, not just fighting. I keep up with all the research results regarding spirits and constantly try to learn more. You’ve just started out.”
Oh, so it’s a pissing contest. Who knows more? Well, I can certainly beat him there. “My mum introduced me to spirits before I could talk. She taught me their ways, and we spent hours watching them. You know, actually studying them in their environment, not when they’re hurt and torn in your tubes. They talk to me, and I listen. You’ve learned about spirits. I’ve learned from them.”
Wulf looks like he’s about to throw his hands up. “How?” Shaking his head, he elaborates, “How can you be the only person in the entire world that knows them better? Spirit seekers have dealt with spirits for hundreds of years. Everyone I’ve ever met, read about, or listened to says the same thing. Everyone but you.”
It’s a sobering thought. Of course, I could claim my mother, who taught me all I know about spirits, or the other Travellers who valued spirits are just like me, but I know that they’d still be a minority. I believe in what I know with all my heart, but I understand all too well why he can’t do the same.
And what if I’m wrong? What if what my mother told me is just some hippie nonsense? What if us Travellers are all just making it up? I mean, how can we be right if the experts in the world say something else?
“Because I know,” I whisper. “I’m higher attuned to spirits than you.” Wulf bristles, but I didn’t say it to rub it under his nose. Not today. “That must count for something.”
The fragility of my voice at the end softens his face. He looks to the ground, breathing audibly for a few moments. When he lifts his head again, his voice is equally brittle. “I wish, Rika. I swear, I wish you were right. I wish we could just talk to them. That we could sort out our differences like that. But I’ve seen too much death. I’ve seen entire towns lain to waste. I’ve seen children dead in their mother’s arms. I’ve seen my parents smashed on the bottom of a cliff.” He shrugs almost helplessly, breathing heavily. “Maybe there once was a time when talking would have got us anywhere, but that time has long gone. And I can’t risk anyone—not even you—on the off-chance you’re right.”
His honesty is breath-taking. All his arguments make sense. I understand completely where he’s coming from. And yet… “I can’t do it. I can’t follow your lead.”
Wulf swallows the bitter pill I’ve given him. He takes a moment to collect himself, then nods. “Let’s agree to disagree for now.” Another deep breath. “Shall we go and try Fisherman’s Bastion again?”
I’m happy to push the parts we disagree aside and concentrate on the things we do agree on. Together, we spend the entire day walking through Buda. Nothing speaks to me. There are places I remember, but they stay cold, like images you’d see in a sightseeing video. Remarkable sights each on their own but disjointed as a whole.
By the time we get back to the spirit seeker base, I’m exhausted. I’ve had so many hopes for Budapest. I thought that I just had to come here and pick up the threads I left. But the city is much larger than it is in my memory, and all my perceived distances are entirely off. Eszti lived in a plain house that doesn’t even stick out in my memory. And unless I accidentally run into her tomorrow, I don’t know how I’m ever going to find her.
Wulf tries to be optimistic, ensuring me that we’ll try again, but I can hear in his voice that, as much as he wants me to succeed, he doesn’t honestly believe I will. The probability is just too low.
“I’d like to stay outside a little longer,” I say when we approach the trapdoor I’ve already come to hate.
“Do you want company?” Wulf asks in a peculiar mixture of kindness, wariness, and hope.
I shake my head. “No, I think I need some distance from humans. Just for a few moments. You go, do your work.”
He gives me a crooked smile. “Will do. I’ll see you later.”
After making sure he’s gone, I stroll away. It’s early evening, and there are still a sizeable number of locals and tourists around. Since I don’t have my staff with me, they don’t pay me any more attention than anyone else. Still, I seek a spot by the water where I can’t be seen from the path.
During the last few weeks of my life, I’ve had an overload of human interaction. After eight years of going through life primarily alone, it’s a bit much. I miss those quiet moments where it’s just me and nature, where I can centre myself and pick up the energy to get me through the next few days. Since our arrival here, we’ve been so busy I haven’t even had a chance to talk to Aeola.
Now, the soft breeze bending the grass next to me tells me of her approach. She settles next to me, making the hairs on my right arm stand up in the wind. “You look sad,” she notes.
And maybe I am. I look out on the river to my feet, towards the houses of Pest. A passing boat sends waves lapping onto the shore. “I just miss my mum. I miss her so very much.”
I told Wulf that she might never have looked for me, but deep in my heart, I don’t want to believe that. I can’t. “We had such a close bond. Men may have come and gone, but I was her constant. We were a team.” Me against the world just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
“I never had a mum,” Aeola tells me. “My father breathed us out after mingling with particular scents or winds.”
I’ve never considered how sylphs procreated before, but I like it. Studying Aeola, I try to discern what the Erlking mingled with to create her. “You’re a summer breeze.” Warm in winter, cold in the summer.
Aeola glows. “Yes, I am.” She snuggles against me, warming my right side. “What’s it like to have a mum?”
I guess, growing up as a daughter of the Erlking, she never experienced parental care. Or at least, the Erlking didn’t strike me as a l
oving father. “A mum is someone that keeps you safe. Not just physically safe, but safe to be yourself. I could tell her anything, any problem, any worry, ask her any question.” I have to take a deep breath. There are a lot of questions I would have loved to ask her now.
“When I was sad, she’d hold me in her arms.” I can feel the memory of her touch. “She loved me so much.” Blinking away tears, I look at Aeola. “You know, she’s that one person who will love you no matter what. Who truly, irrevocably loves you.”
Suddenly, I feel Aeola’s breeze all around me, but there’s more to her. She loves me. Truly, irrevocably loves me.
My tears are falling now, but they are happy tears. “I love you, too,” I whisper. “I love you, too.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WE TRY AGAIN the next day. Last night, I described my mother to Aeola, trying to capture the distinct smell of her. She’s flying through the city to look for that particular odour while Wulf and I take a look at the caves under Gellért Hill. They’re even more stunning than my memory of them, but they don’t lead us anywhere. Disappointed, I return with him to the island.
“When were you planning to go back?” I ask, knowing that we can’t stay here forever.
I can see in his eyes that he wants to tell me we won’t leave until we found her, but when he opens his mouth, reason takes over. “Maybe in a week?”
That’s a lot more generous than I could hope for. “Thanks.”
“No worries. Things seem to be relaxed in Berlin,” he informs me, reminding me of the reports he has got.
“Do you think they’ll be all right?” When Wulf was in Naples, the spirit seekers were at a great loss. If they hadn’t met me—not that I want to toot my own horn or something—Berlin might have suffered a great tragedy. As it was, the Central Station Disaster still was a tragedy, but it could’ve been a lot worse if the Erlking had got his way.