Before Ever After

by Samantha Sotto

  Most mornings bring small miracles. They wash away shadows and chase away ghosts. This was not such a morning. The dread that Viktor had gone to bed with was the same one pounding in his chest when he woke up. He grabbed his sword and ran to the river.

  Viktor did not call out Pavel’s name. He could not bear the silence that would answer back. He trudged along the riverbank until the sun was high in the sky and the muddy scars from the previous night’s search on the bank were far behind him. And that’s when he saw it, the very thing he had hoped not to find. Peeking through the marshes was a small foot. It was paler than when it had happily leaped off his shoulders. Viktor forced himself to move, to run toward the body when everything else in him told him to flee. He knelt beside Pavel and cradled him in his arms.

  A whimper. A tremble. A breath. Viktor looked down at Pavel and gasped. He was alive. But there was no time for relief. The boy’s lips and chin were stained black and his breathing was growing faint. Pavel’s feet stiffened. Viktor realized what was happening. The boy had not been drowned. He turned Pavel over on his knee and thrust a finger down his throat. Pavel vomited poison and bile.

  Anja rushed to Pavel’s bed carrying a bowl containing a mixture of egg whites, honey, and herbs that Viktor had instructed her to make. She pressed the bowl to her son’s lips.

  “Are you certain this will work, Viktor?”

  “Yes.” He said what she needed to hear. Pavel’s recovery depended on the kind of poison that had entered his body, something he had no way of knowing. The bowl in Anja’s hands was as much for her as it was for Pavel. It contained a small mercy: honeyed hope.

  They waited for the medicine to work. Their eyes flitted around the room like restless moths, avoiding each other’s gazes.

  Pavel coughed.

  Viktor stopped pacing.

  Pavel opened his eyes. “Mama?”

  “Pavel!” Anja gathered him to her breast.

  Viktor collapsed into a chair, his feet swept from under him by a flood of exhaustion and relief. He breathed. His family was whole again. His arm dropped to his side. It brushed against the hilt of his sword. The metal turned his blood cold. He gripped the weapon, readying it for the task ahead—to carve out the heart of the monster that had dared to slash his.

  “The River Man asked me to stay.”

  These words were all Viktor could coax from Pavel in the three days that had passed since he found him.

  “Let it go, Cousin,” Anja would say. “Pavel is safe now. Let him forget.”

  But it was Viktor who could not forget. Pavel had almost died and a murderer was free under the pardon of superstition. Viktor was convinced he would kill again. He sharpened his sword.

  The shape of Pavel’s body was still carved into the marshes when Viktor returned to the site where his search had ended. But today was not a search. It was a hunt. He combed through every reed for his prey’s trail. By midday, he accepted that there was none to be found, which meant only one thing. Pavel had come here on his own. He had escaped.

  Viktor’s gaze fell to the stain of vomit on the bank. He remembered that when Pavel had first purged the poison, it was inky black. Fresh. Not much time had passed since the time it was forced upon Pavel and the time he had found him. The boy could not have been adrift in the water long. Viktor hoped that if he walked farther upstream, he would find the place where Pavel had jumped to safety. From there, he could find the trail to the place he had fled. He walked on.

  Viktor knew when he stepped on it that what was beneath his feet did not belong to the river. It was solid but not firm enough to be a rock. He held his breath and looked down. There, pressed into the mud, was a small sandal. Beside it were the caked footprints of the man he was going to kill.

  Gnarled branches grew over the shack and gathered it into the darkest part of the evening’s shadow. Thorny vines snaked through its decaying planks, tearing them apart while holding them together. Viktor would not have seen the hovel if not for the yellow-orange slivers flickering through the gaps in its weathered walls. He crept toward it.

  A carpet of damp leaves muffled Viktor’s footsteps. He drew his sword and shoved his foot against the shack’s door. The heel of his boot crashed through the rotting planks. Wood clattered to the floor.

  “Good evening,” said a thin voice.

  Viktor turned in its direction.

  A man was seated on a low bench in front of the fireplace, his back toward Viktor. A silver-white braid fell down to his waist.

  Viktor hastened toward him and pressed the blade of his sword into his neck. “Stand up.”

  “Come, sit with me awhile, Viktor,” the man said. “Or are you in such a hurry to kill me?”

  Viktor gripped his sword tighter. “How … how did you know my name?”

  “Young Pavel told me,” the man said, “before I let him go.”

  “What did you say?” Viktor nicked the man’s pale skin with his sword. Blood trickled down his slender neck.

  “I said …” The man stood up and turned to Viktor. The shadows from the fire swirled over his face, unable to find a wrinkle to settle in. “I let Pavel go.”

  Viktor bit down his shock. It sliced his teeth. What he saw magnified the horror of the crimes. The monster was much younger than he expected, a boy no older than seventeen. “You’re just a … boy.”

  “It was the villagers who gave me the name River Man.” The young man smiled. “But, please, feel free to call me Gestrin.”

  “I prefer to call you what you really are, beast.” Viktor raised his sword to Gestrin’s chin. “In a moment you will have no use for any of your names. You and your myth die tonight.”

  “I hate to disappoint you, Viktor, but myths cannot die,” Gestrin said, “and neither can I.”

  Viktor laughed drily. “A murderer and a madman.”

  “Ah, but that’s where you are wrong. I am not mad. I know very well that I am not the evil spirit that villagers believe me to be. I am no myth. I am so much more than that.”

  “Is that so?” Viktor sneered. “And just who do you think you are, then?”

  Gestrin edged closer until the tip of Viktor’s sword drew blood from the cleft in his chin. “Your god.”

  A mixture of revulsion and pity rose in Viktor’s throat. He spat it out.

  “What’s the matter, Viktor? Have you lost the stomach to run your sword through my flesh?”

  Viktor held his sword steady. “I am just waiting for you to stop gibbering. Slicing your throat before then would be …”

  “Impolite?”

  “No,” Viktor hissed, “messy.”

  “How considerate,” Gestrin said. “I feel the need to return the courtesy.”

  “Shall you be offering me some supper then before I kill you?”

  “No, but I will tell you what happens after you do.”

  “You mean other than me wiping your blood off my sword?”

  “Yes,” Gestrin said. “I will tell you how you will walk away from this grove, satisfied with your revenge.”

  “Not revenge,” Viktor said menacingly through gritted teeth. “Justice.”

  “The kill is yours to reason out as you choose.”

  “The way you justify your murders?”

  “We are talking about my death, not theirs.”

  “Yes,” Viktor said. “Let’s talk about your death.”

  “If you were a lesser, nameless man,” Gestrin said, “I would let you go home to your village, bursting with pride that you had slain your monster. I would let you live your life with your family, wishing only that you grow in happiness and contentment in the years that pass.”

  “Who knew that you were so generous?” Viktor said.

  “Indeed.” Gestrin smiled. “And then when your heart brims with joy, I will find you. I will watch you as you kiss your wife, wrestle with your sons, and cradle your baby daughter in your arms. I will look into your eyes and see which one of them makes you smile the most—so that I will know
which one to take while you are sleeping.”

  “Enough games.” Viktor grabbed Gestrin’s shoulder and shoved him to the floor. “Kneel.”

  “I respect your courage, Viktor. You are different from the others. You do not fear me. You do not fear … death.” Gestrin rubbed his chin. “Perhaps you do deserve to know the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “About what really happens when you walk out that door with my blood still dripping from your hands,” Gestrin said.

  “More foolishness …” Viktor raised his sword, preparing to strike.

  “There will be darkness and then the Silence,” Gestrin said. “I do not know for how long the Silence will last, but when it is over, when the fire crackles in my ears, I will open my eyes, stand up, and walk out the door. I will find you, Viktor, but I will not kill you. Courage like yours is a shame to waste. You would make a worthy companion. I will seek you out only so that you will know what I am telling you is not a lie. I am a god and you will see me rise.”

  “Stop.” Viktor did not want to listen anymore. “Let us end this madness.”

  “Very well.” Gestrin knelt in front of Viktor. He tilted his chin up and looked directly into Viktor’s eyes.

  Viktor tore his gaze away. But he was too late. Gestrin had seen what he was trying to hide.

  “Wait …” Gestrin gasped. “You do believe me. I see it in your eyes. Why? Tell me!”

  “What I believe is that you are mad and that you are a murderer.” Viktor tightened his grip on his sword. “I cannot let you live.”

  “But I did not kill them!” Gestrin said. “I simply asked them to stay.”

  Viktor remembered Pavel’s words. He brushed them away.

  Gestrin rose to his feet. “Tell me, Viktor, is that too much to ask? Even gods grow tired of being alone. They should have been honored just to stand in my presence. I gave them a choice, the same choice I gave Pavel.”

  Viktor’s sword weighed heavier in his hand. “What choice?”

  “To die.” Gestrin took a step forward. “Or to live as a god by my side. Forever.”

  Viktor backed away.

  “I can make gods of the tiniest of men,” Gestrin said, “just as I became the god that I am now.”

  “You are not a god.” Viktor flicked his sword and cut Gestrin’s arm. “You bleed, just like any man.”

  “Wounds are fleeting.” Gestrin ran his finger over the flesh wound. “I am not. I was born before a grove grew here, at a time when the river was mightier. I had a family here. A wife. A child growing in her belly. One night a man my wife had spurned carved my son out of her womb. He bound me and forced me to watch, knocking me out in the end not as a mercy but to stain me with their death. I cried for justice and instead I was accused of his crime.” He smeared the blood from his wound across his lips.

  “The river was our judge, receiving the innocent and shunning the guilty. My people bound my hands and feet and cast me into it. I tried to be calm, but I was a boy and I thrashed and cried for mercy, for reason. But they did not listen. I heard their jeers as I sank. The water rushed into my nose and mouth.” Gestrin took another step toward Viktor.

  Viktor backed into a rotting wall.

  “If my judges were fair, as was our custom, they would have pulled me out of the river once my innocence was proven by the ordeal,” Gestrin said. “But they were not. My absolution became my execution. The rope that tethered me to the bank broke and the superstitious fools took it to mean that the river did not wish me to leave. They left me to die.

  “But the river was more merciful. It invited me to lay my head on its soft bed. But I could not accept its invitation. I thought of my wife and the shreds of my son. I thought about the man who had killed them both, the man whose crime I was drowning for. I could not die. I would not.” Gestrin stared at the blood on his hand. “What happened next is a blur to me now, because it has been many lifetimes since it happened, but I do remember this: There was pain, there was darkness, and then there was nothing at all. I rose from the river a day later, a god. Whatever battle was waged in the river, I won.”

  Viktor swallowed hard.

  “My people feared me and worshipped at my feet—as they should.” Gestrin sneered. “I had beaten death and now I was its rightful master. It was mine to give as I pleased. I gave it freely to those who laughed at my trial and slowly to the man who had killed my family.” He smiled. The blood on his lips shimmered in the firelight. “Was I not a generous and patient god?”

  Viktor’s sword trembled in his hand.

  “Time passed. A grove grew. The river dwindled,” Gestrin said. “But I remained. Everything changed except for me. I did not know this new world and its new god. I did not want to be a part of it. I stayed away. I was alone. Always alone.”

  “You sought …” Viktor tried to form the word without gagging. “A companion.”

  “Someone worthy to stand by my side and speak my name.”

  “But you tried to drown them …”

  Gestrin shook his head. “No. No. I tried to give them life! But … they were all afraid. They were all weak. They flailed about, too terrified of the water to fight for their right to live. They surrendered to death. The river judged them undeserving of my gift.”

  “And so you gave them poison.”

  “I thought that it would be less frightening than the river. I thought that if they were not afraid, if their minds were clear, perhaps like me they would triumph over death.”

  “But it did not work.” Viktor clenched his teeth.

  “Many died on the floor, writhing in terrible pain, unable to think, much less fight for their life,” Gestrin said. “I had to make the poison less painful and … slower. It needed to bind their body but not their mind.”

  Viktor’s hand tightened around his sword. “That was the poison you gave Pavel.”

  “I did not give it to him, Viktor,” Gestrin said. “He stole it from me.”

  “What?”

  “I told you, I let him go. He was like you. He wasn’t afraid of me. He did not believe in monsters. He asked me if I took his father. I told him that his father had met the same fate as the others who would not remain by my side.” Gestrin sighed. “I told Pavel the same story I have just told you and asked him if he wished to stay. I asked him if he wanted to live forever.”

  “What … was his answer?”

  “He said yes.”

  “Liar!”

  “Pavel said he never wanted to leave his mother. He told me how sad she was when his father died. He wanted to be immortal so that she would never have to be alone,” Gestrin said sadly. “It was then that I knew I could not keep him. He was too young to truly understand the gift that I could give him. He would have left me, like all the others. So I cut his binds and told him to return to his mother. That’s when he stole the poison from me, to keep himself forever at his mother’s side. I chased after him, but he swallowed the poison and jumped into the river.”

  “No …”

  “I swam after him. I was in the water when you found him. I saw you take the choice from his hands before he had a chance to make it,” Gestrin said. “I wonder if he will ever forgive you for that.”

  “I have heard enough,” Viktor said with a heaviness in his voice. “Kneel.”

  “But … I thought you believed …” Gestrin implored. “I let him go.”

  “It does not matter either way. You are still alone. Tomorrow you will try to find someone else to be with you. Nothing has changed. I cannot let you go.”

  “Then stay.” Gestrin held up a small silver flask. It glowed in the firelight. “It will not hurt.”

  Viktor closed his eyes. “Neither will this.” He felt his blade slide between Gestrin’s ribs. “I’m … sorry.”

  Gestrin clutched the sword sticking out of his chest. His fingers bled on its blade. He took a step forward, burying the sword deeper inside him. He reached out and gripped Viktor in a tight embrace. His lips curled an
d blood gurgled through his yellowed teeth. “I will find you.”

  Viktor looked down at the grave. The man who believed he was immortal did not move or breathe. His silver hair was caked in blood. Viktor filled the ditch quickly, covering Gestrin’s half-smiling lips with loose ground. He didn’t have to do it. He threw more soil over the grave. He didn’t believe Gestrin. The man was dead. He had killed him. Still, he had bound Gestrin’s hands and feet, twice, and he dug a hole deeper than death. Just in case.

  A young boy skipped stones across the river. Laughing children ran past him as they chased one another on the bank. The boy smiled up at his uncle.

  His uncle smiled back, his sword ready at his side.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gifts and gratitude

  LJUBLJANICA RIVER SLOVENIA

  Five Years Ago

  The tent’s tarpaulin door flapped in the wind. The wet smell of the marshes drifted through and hovered over the group like the words of Max’s story. Shelley felt their weight in the air. She leaned her elbows on the table.

  “How sad,” she said. “I don’t see why Viktor had to kill Gestrin. He was clearly insane, but couldn’t they have just locked him up?”

  “I don’t think things worked that way back then,” Dex said.

  Simon nodded. “What Viktor did was the kindest thing that could have been done to the man. Gestrin was a murderer and what the villagers would have done to him would have been a thousand times worse.”

  “But still …” Shelley said.

  “You pity him?” Max asked.

  “I do,” she said. “I don’t think he was evil.”

  “He was a dangerous man, Shelley,” Max said.

  “I’m with you, Max,” Brad said. “ ‘I’ll drown you so that you can live forever.’ I mean how twisted is that? Nut job or not, he had to be stopped.”