by Janna Ruth
“Do you now?” one of them asks, her voice a slimy liquid that seeps into my ears.
“I know someone did this to you,” I tell them, sounding much braver than I feel. Aeola presses herself against me, carrying a waft of the same fear I feel deep in my bones.
A fourth nymph appears from further downriver. “You did this.” I know this one. It’s the nymph who attacked Wulf and me the day before. My feet feel like jelly now.
“No, it wasn’t me.”
“You’re with them. You’re one of them,” the nymph says, causing the water of the inlet to lap at my feet. I can see where Wulf hit him in the face. Something like pus is flowing out of that hole, washing down his face before it gets swept up in his body again.
I shake my head, trying not to grimace in disgust. “No, I’m not. I thought I was, but they’re wrong. They’re wrong about you, and what they do to you is… It’s unspeakable.”
“Do you now?” the slimy nymph repeats like a broken record.
Another one seems to be more whole since she actually manages to string coherent sentences together. “They did this to us. They turned us into these abominations of ourselves, and we hate them. We hate them.”
The formerly still water is getting choppier by the minute. Hopefully, the raised energy won’t alert the spirit seekers. “I know. I hate them too.” Clenching my fists, I speak on, “But we can do something about it.”
“Yes,” the nymph on the far right says, her voice gleeful. “Do something about it.”
Her enthusiasm makes me queasy. The last thing I want is to provoke another battle and get someone else hurt. “I will. There are avenues we can take.” My mind is moving fast, going through all the different possibilities of how I could make people aware of their plight. “Maybe I could get a news reporter to cover your story.” And they’d likely call me crazy for claiming I can talk to the nymphs. “We need to get other Travellers involved.” Maybe together, we can change the public’s perception bit by bit. Because that worked so well for us all these centuries, a snarky voice inside of me says.
“Yes, get others,” the nymph on the right says.
They are coming closer now. Two of them are stepping onto land. I have to fight my instincts with everything I got to remain standing where I am.
Aeola whispers, “Let’s leave. Please.” She floats a little higher.
One of the nymphs comes closer. Each step of hers ends in a reeking puddle until she stands right before me, teeth bared. “Are you gonna help us take revenge on them?” Her long, webbed fingers run over my temples, leaving behind gooey streaks.
My heart is hammering in my throat. Her rotten smell is overpowering. The touch of her is so disgusting, the bile rises from my stomach. Foul water seeps under my collar, trickling down my back. My breath catches in my throat.
“I will help you,” I whisper, returning the look of her bottomless eyes.
Her hands move down to my hips, leaving wet patches in their wake. “Good.”
Before I can even begin to understand, the nymph grabs hold of me and throws me into the water.
CHAPTER TWENTY
COLD WAVES CRASH over my head. I clamp my mouth shut and try to swim to the surface. I’ve just managed to break through when something wraps itself around my thigh and pulls me back into the deep. I know somewhere in my mind that this inlet can’t be terribly deep, but gosh, it’s dark.
Panic makes it impossible to think. I thrash around, unable to tell where up and where down is. I just know that I need to breathe. I need to…
Aeola wraps herself around my face, bringing with her much-needed air. My mind clears a little, enough to know that she can’t sustain this for long. The water pressure will eventually be too much for her. Nevertheless, her presence lends me a sense of direction as we float up a little.
More hands grab for me, tear at my arms, my legs, even my waist. I can’t possibly fight them all off, not in their own element. Not anywhere. Only spirits can hurt other spirits, and I’m not one of them.
Long fingers close around my neck, choking me until I have to gasp, and water fills my mouth. I try to spit it out before it runs down to my lungs, but the pressure around my neck intensifies, and I can see stars dancing in front of my eyes.
Yet another hand grabs my upper arm, just where Wulf’s fingers have left their mark earlier, and I’m ripped into another direction. This one brings me back to the surface. Instantly, the pressure around my neck disappears. As I cough up the water, I see a wooden staff flashing in front of my face. Again and again, it stabs into the waves around me until the nymphs let go of me.
I find myself being dragged back to shore by Wulf. He’s only got eyes for the dry ground, onto which he pushes me before returning to the river.
Aeola is right beside me, making sure I get all the water out of my lungs. “Are you all right?” she asks, visibly worried.
I nod at her, unable to speak. Wulf is not the only spirit seeker who’s come to my help—or rather, who responded to the heightened spirit energy. The entire Budapest team is present, trying their best to fight against the nymphs, who are rapidly retreating now. No one tries to capture them.
By the time Wulf gets out of the water again, I’ve managed to get back to my feet. He immediately has a go at me. “What were you thinking?”
I swallow. “I was talking to them.”
“Underwater?” He spits out some of the water he swallowed. “What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? You’re the ones that experiment on spirits. That twist them into something unnatural!” I gesticulate in the direction of the river. “This is your fault. It’s not pollution. It’s you!” Wulf shakes his head and walks off, but I’m not done with him. “What if everything you do is aggravating the situation? If you would talk to them instead of fighting even the most peaceful spirits in your vicinity…”
He spins around, snarling at me. “Talk to them? How long have you been without air? They were trying to drown you!”
I notice faintly that the other spirit seekers are gathered around us. “Because they’re broken. They’re no longer whole. The only thing they know is anger and hate.” It clings to me even now.
“So, like all spirits then.” Wulf has crossed his arms, daring me to disagree with him.
I do him the pleasure. “No. No, not like all spirits. Most spirits aren’t anything like that. You can talk to them.”
“No. You. Can’t,” he spits out each word individually, then throws his hands up in the air. “Gosh, you’re so gullible and naïve. I can’t anymore with your hippy attitude.”
“Hippy attitude?” Did he really just go there?
Wulf nods grimly. “You are endangering yourself and everyone else if you keep pretending all spirits are just lovey-dovey, waiting for us to embrace them. There wouldn’t be any spirit seekers for hundreds of years if spirits were harmless. Don’t you think someone would have tried talking to them at one point if you were right?”
“Travellers did.” Before he can protest, I continue, “Oh, I forget, we don’t count because we don’t belong anywhere.” My voice gets sharper with each word. “I mean, how could people that live outside with the spirits know anything about them, especially when there are much more experienced spirit seekers sitting behind thick walls and killing every spirit that moves—or doesn’t.” I glare at Iván for good measure.
“You’re so ridiculous.” Wulf sneers at me. “Józsie was right. I should have sent you home straight away. Forget about that. I should have never brought you along.”
It’s the cherry on top, the one bit that pushes me too far. “You know that I should be the one calling the shots.”
Wulf frowns. “What?”
“My NAV is much higher than yours. Fourteen points, probably more because, knowing you, you underscored my last test. So, according to your stupid rules and conventions, I should call the shots.” My breath has quickened. I don’t even know what I’m doing here. Claiming co
mmand of the spirit seekers? Have I gone mad?
Wulf certainly stares at me as if I have. He’s so perplexed he even forgets to shout. “I told you, the errors…”
“Are bullshit,” I blurt out. “Iván told me they don’t matter. You are under five hundred; I’m over. Case closed.” There are some gasps from the other spirit seekers following my outrageous claim.
“No!” Wulf’s face turns an ugly shade of purple. “No, Rika! This is not how it works. The SSA didn’t introduce the NAV ranking just so you could spit on our values and traditions. The highest-ranked spirit seekers are ranked that way so we can lead our teams to victory. You don’t want to fight spirits; you want to pretend to be friends with them.” His spittle covers my face. He’s snarling that much. “You want your own command, Rika? Fine! Go to the academy! Go and get yourself properly inducted. They’ll give you a command. I’m sure of it, but it won’t be over me.” Abruptly, he turns away, telling the others, “We’re done here.”
What I mostly hear is that he’s done with me. Which is fine, because I’m most certainly done with him, too.
“Over five hundred.” Iván whistles softly. “What a freaking waste.”
He and the others follow Wulf, leaving me to shiver in my wet clothes. A waste of a good NAV, that’s all they can think of. It’s like I haven’t uttered a single word. Iván joked that they took the fun out of Wulf’s and József’s curriculum, but it looks like they took empathy out of all of theirs.
Aeola tries to warm me up with her breeze, but the cold in me goes far deeper. “You did well,” she whispers.
“I failed,” I say.
“But at least you tried,” a new voice says. I peer into the darkness until Rebeka steps out of the woods. “Look at you. You’re soaked.”
If she’s come back to mock me, I’m not in the mood for it. “I’ll be fine.”
“Will you?” Rebeka comes to a stop five metres across from me, as if she’s unsure how close she’s allowed to come. “I know a place where you could get changed.”
Is she kidding? “I’m not going back there.”
“I figured as much.” One step closer and she begins to knead her hands. “Look, I think what you did was incredibly brave. I… I wish I had the guts to stand up to them like that.”
“Them?” I’m a little confused now. Is there more to this than gleeful gloating?
Rebeka shrugs with a small smile. “Guys with a high NAV, you know, the big jocks. But I guess it’s easier when you’re actually more talented than them.” She takes a deep breath. “I’ve got a cousin. She lives not too far from here. You could stay the night. Have a shower, get some dry clothes, and then think about your next steps.”
“And what would those be?” I don’t want to be trapped in yet another bad situation.
“Let’s discuss this over some food, okay?” She cocks her head like an invitation. “Please.”
I’m too tired and wet to refuse. Where else do I have to go? “Okay.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
MAYBE I’M TOO tired or just plain exhausted from everything that’s happened today—Eszti’s son, Iván’s betrayal, the fight with Wulf, and those broken spirits—but I’ve taken Rebeka up on her offer, and now her, her cousin Szonja, and I are sitting around the kitchen table of the small flat with soups in front of us. The walls around us are a garish yellow, and there’s a terrifying metal heater from another century under the ceiling right above the couch. A faint cigarette smell hangs in the net curtains, though neither Rebeka nor Szonja smoke.
As promised, I’ve been able to take a hot shower and put on some dry clothes. Szonja has taken my wet clothes down to the drying room in the cellar while Rebeka whizzed up the soup. After throwing up earlier in the day, it’s probably the only thing I can stomach.
We don’t really talk much over dinner. Szonja and Rebeka are covering the basics, how they’ve been and whether they’ve heard the newest of this or that relative, but even they stick to the superficial, never acknowledging my glaring presence at the table. I assume Rebeka must’ve filled her in with the basics while I was showering because Szonja never questions my right to sit at her table.
“Well,” she says after finishing her bowl. “This has been lovely. I have to get up early for work. So, I’m gonna get the bed ready for you, and then I’ll put my mattress down in the office. You two stay up as long as you want. Get yourself something to drink.”
It’s such a thinly veiled attempt to give us some privacy that I have to chuckle softly. Rebeka smiles at me. “I know, she’s making too much of a fuss, but she can keep a secret. You’re safe here.”
“I’m not making a fuss; I’m being a good hostess!” Szonja complains, but she smiles warmly at me and starts converting the sofa to a bed.
I wait until she’s busy in the office next door before I ask Rebeka, “Are you gonna tell me a secret?” I’m still trying to figure out what her game is. I haven’t forgotten that it was she who sold the spirits to the researcher.
“More like a warning,” Rebeka says, her eyes faintly glistening. She takes a moment to gather herself by turning out some pálinka and glasses for the both of us. Once she filled both and took a sip from hers, she looks at me. “Run, Rika. Don’t ever set a foot in the academy.”
Now, I’m intrigued. Not that I planned to join the SSA—not after everything I’ve learnt about them—but I wouldn’t have expected a spirit seeker to warn me off. I take a small sip of my pálinka and lick the fruity taste of my bottom lip. “Why?”
Rebeka’s shoulders sag. This seems to bring up some old memories for her. “I got drafted into the SSA during my bachelor’s. I studied archaeology here in Budapest, and we learnt all about spirit activity in prehistoric times. It was fascinating. I learnt that some people feared the spirits. Others thought they were messengers of the gods. And yet others hailed them in their own regard. We learnt that some of the first spirit seekers appeared in Ancient Rome. Most of the history is classified, so for all public purposes, the spirit seekers didn’t officially band together until the late eighteenth century. But you can read between the lines, and there definitely were some sort of spirit seekers in Ancient Rome. As usual with the Romans, they sought to conquer the spirits.”
I wonder where this history lesson is going, but I don’t dare interrupt her. Despite my reservations, I’m intrigued. Things weren’t always like they were today. No matter what Wulf claims.
“A friend and I… Sebestyen, the guy you saw me with in Aquincum, were intrigued by the Roman’s spirit weapons. We both did our bachelor theses on them. Somehow, that triggered a response from the SSA. Sebestyen and I got tested for our NAV. He scored below fifty and continued on with his master’s and PhD until he recently got a research position at Aquincum, still specialising in ancient spirit weapons.”
I pull a face. After what I’ve learnt about spirit weapons and hearing Sebestyen talk about the salamander he broke down, spirit research doesn’t sound one iota better than spirit seeking.
“I know,” Rebeka says. “It’s despicable.” She sighs and runs her hands over her face. Then chucks down her pálinka. “I can’t believe I was actually taking part in this.” She shakes her head, once again looking close to tears. “That’s what you get for joining the SSA, I guess.” Her voice chokes on that.
Gently, I pour her another glass. “Why would you say that?” As heart-breaking as it is to watch her, I believe people are responsible for their own actions. No one walked her to Aquincum and forced her to keep that relationship with Sebestyen alive.
“Because it changes you.” She straightens her back after a more measured sip from the glass. “I tested above two hundred, which saw me strongly invited to the academy. And if I say strongly, I mean that there wasn’t really an option to say no. Because I certainly didn’t see the appeal of becoming some sort of soldier.” She suddenly grows passionate. “I wanted to study and learn all I could. Spirits were intriguing, but Roman life was more so. I never s
hared Sebestyen’s enthusiasm for weapons, despite my thesis.”
Add another argument against the SSA: forced recruitment. “I’m sorry they didn’t let you choose.”
Rebeka draws her shoulders up and drops them again. “They won’t let you choose either. You’re lucky Wulf hasn’t contacted the SSA yet. If they find out that your NAV is above five hundred, they’re gonna come for you. They’re gonna hunt you down.”
A shiver runs down my back. Don’t tell them about the spirits, was the last thing my mum said to me, and I suddenly realise that she knew. She knew that I would draw the attention of the SSA and warned me against it. “Lovely.” I hate how my voice shakes when I say that.
“I joined the academy without really knowing what I was in for,” Rebeka explains. “Some of it was exciting. I learnt more about the history, but whenever I asked a question that would lean towards a more pro-spirit direction, it was shut down. The research at the SSA is deeply flawed. Most people don’t care, or they don’t notice, but you can’t ignore critical questioning. I’d be very surprised if any of the current research would pass a peer-reviewed study.”
Whatever that is. Though, I have an idea of what it could mean. “You mean it’s biased.”
“Exactly. Results need to be reproducible, and as a researcher, you need to accept that your working hypothesis might have been wrong,” Rebeka explains. “That’s why you do the research. You have to interpret the data you get, not get the data you want. The SSA only wants one result. That there are absolutely no redeeming characteristics in a spirit. That we must fight them. When you hear that every day, you find yourself believing it.” She points both her index fingers at herself. “Point in case. And I considered myself smart. But once I graduated, I had gobbled it all up.” Her voice is somersaulting once again.
For some reason, my thoughts wander to Wulf. Can I really blame him? The SSA took him in as a nine-year-old. A nine-year-old who had just watched his parents die. That he hasn’t reported me to the SSA but respected my decision not to join them might be the only hope he’s not a lost cause.