Vodník

by Bryce Moore

  “Come on,” I said. “It’s not all that bad.”

  “You’re being haunted, and you say it’s not that bad?”

  I tried to laugh. “I’m being haunted by a cute medieval girl. There are worse things in life, even if she is made out of water. Maybe I could save her or something.”

  L’uboš tried to smile. “Maybe. It is good you are positive. But I think maybe you should not go down the well tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, trying to sound like I believed it. “I’ll have the safety harness on, and if anything goes wrong, you’ll be right there to rescue me, right?”

  He nodded but was still somber. “You tell me if you get into other trouble. Okay? Anything.”

  I hated lying. “Okay,” I said.

  My uncle patted me on the back. “Get some sleep tonight. You have a big day tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow.

  Tomorrow I’d go down the well. Maybe it’d turn out the vodník didn’t live there after all, and instead I’d find Lesana and get to talk to her. It’d be like expecting to get executed but ending up on a hot date instead. Unless of course that hot date decided to stab me on orders from higher up.

  The day went by slowly. Work was practically dead—only one tour group the whole day, and they were Slovak. We kept stealing glances at the well, where some of the jousters were doing double duty draining it. Katka and I didn’t approach the well—we just kept pretending we weren’t worried. One way or another, I lasted through the remaining hours. I was so nervous, I forgot to keep an eye out for the Bigot Gang on the way home, something I realized only once a large guy my age passed in front of me in the park.

  I froze, convinced it was Jabba, and that I’d walked into another trap. But it was just a stranger. Sufficiently chastened, I was more careful the rest of the way. I hadn’t had a run-in with the Bigots, but a large part of that was due to how well I’d been avoiding them. I’d take them on when I was ready. Maybe in a few more years.

  Sleep that night was restless. I kept dreaming about the well. I was in a harness, getting lowered down and down and down, all the while knowing that at the bottom, I would die.

  Uncle L’uboš was supposed to pick me up at 5:30 a.m. I was sitting next to my apartment building when he came by.

  He smiled at me while I stood up. “That excited?”

  “Sure.” I couldn’t tell him I was scared out of my gourd. So scared I had downed some nasty-tasting potions made out of strange household ingredients—and a lot of salt—and now felt like I’d been an entire day swimming at the beach. I had even taken along the salt shaker, just in case.

  L’uboš stopped for a moment and sniffed. “Do you smell something?”

  “What?”

  “Like . . . ocean?”

  I frowned and shook my head. “No. Nothing.”

  He shrugged and headed off. We spent the walk to the castle going over how the cleaning process worked: strap a guy into a harness, send him down on a rope, and have him use a bucket to gather up all the loot.

  “What about all the water?” I asked. “Is it totally gone?”

  L’uboš shook his head. “Not dry, but most of it. The water should be just like if you were standing in a shallow pool. Maybe your knees, maybe your waist. Not deep.”

  Easy to say for someone not afraid of water. Remember, Tomas—this was your idea.

  When we got to the castle, L’uboš went to set everything up. I headed over to check out the well again, standing in the courtyard while I waited. It should have been a harmless thing—just a circular waist-high stone wall and a wooden roof. And (more importantly) a sturdy metal grate over it to keep anyone from falling down into the water. Eighty feet straight down and kerplunk. Now the well seemed more like a giant mouth, waiting to swallow some aquaphobic fool dumb enough to go into it. Buckets went down wells, not people.

  I wanted to say I wouldn’t do it. Forget the vodník. I couldn’t go down there and get stuck with the water, with no way out except a rope. But then again, I couldn’t forget Katka. And after all, L’uboš had already told me they had taken out most of the water. There probably wasn’t even enough to drown in. As long as it didn’t start raining. The sky was clear, the sun was out, and I had my uncle to look out for me. I took a deep breath and tried to focus on what I’d say to the vodník.

  We had been friends before. Ohnica had told me that. But he had tried to kill me. Why? It was a question I’d thought of again and again since first meeting the fire víla, and maybe today I’d get an answer. Or get killed.

  L’uboš showed up and slapped me on the back. It felt like a love tap from a gorilla. “We’re about ready.”

  He led me closer to the well, lecturing as we went. “Remember, the water down there, it’s dead. They never reached any spring. Everything that’s down there is from the rain, and it leaches bad minerals from the rock wall around it. We don’t use it for anything. Don’t swallow, and don’t get it in your eyes.”

  I ran my hands over the stone wall. It was rough and jagged. Would the inside be like that too? The thought of getting scraped and banged up did little to make me any more excited to make the trip down. I sniffed, imagining I could smell the stink already, dank and moldy.

  I peered through the grate down into the shaft. It was too dark to see anything farther than a few feet. It reminded me of that movie where the girl drowns in a well and then kills people for revenge. Why would a vodník want to live down there?

  My uncle unclipped his keys from his belt and jangled them as he found the right one. He unlocked the grate and opened it, then continued his preparations. I took a few steps back. I didn’t want to fall in by accident; a rope was better than nothing.

  I searched around the grounds for a rock, not finding one near. People probably threw them down all the time. There were some over near the rough path that led up to the main keep. I came back to the well, held my arm out as far as I could reach without actually approaching the edge, and let the rock go.

  It was uncomfortably long before I heard the plop.

  “Here we are.” My uncle was ready at last. Before I knew it, I was strapped in and L’uboš and some of his friends were holding the end of the rope attached to the harness. I felt like Peter Pan, just without the tights.

  I crept onto the edge of the well and perched there, waiting. Team L’uboš had the rope pulled tight and shouted for me to start. I held my breath and slipped over the edge.

  I didn’t fall to my death. In fact, they were maybe being overly careful. They must have been trying to make the descent more comfortable. As it was, I just had more time to think about the bottom and feel the harness dig into my butt. It was basically just some straps that fit around my waist and legs, and it hurt.

  The walls weren’t round. That was surprising. They were square. Dry at first, becoming slimy and covered in moss and algae as I went farther down. They weren’t rough, but I did my best to not touch them anyway. It smelled like I was headed toward a sewer. What else did people throw down here besides coins? I started to breathe through my mouth, but it was so bad I could taste the smell. At least it got cooler the lower I went.

  I kept a tight grip on the rope; my scarred hand didn’t feel the fibers of the rope very well, but my left hand started to get raw as I kept adjust­ing my grip. It felt like the air was getting thicker—harder to breathe. My heart was trying to pound a hole through my chest.

  Don’t look down. Don’t look down. I repeated the phrase in my head like a mantra. I focused on the rope or on the light from the hole above me that kept getting smaller each time I checked it. On second thought, maybe focusing on the light was a bad idea. Despite the cold air, I was beginning to sweat. My grip grew looser. What would happen if I slipped? Nothing: I had the harness. What if the water was too deep? The harness would support me and I’d call out for them to stop. What if . . .

  I couldn’t resist anymore. I glanced down to see the bottom still shrouded in darkness. I’d barely gone d
own twenty feet. It had felt like eternity.

  Lower.

  Lower.

  I looked back above me. The light seemed as small as a tennis ball now. Any minute I’d be down to the bottom. Down to the water. Down to something that might be waiting to kill me.

  Time to risk another peek below me.

  The bottom was only a few feet away, and someone was waiting for me there, standing waist deep in water and looking none too pleased. I gasped in surprise.

  It was Vít’o, the strange sweaty guy.

  And he threw a knife straight at me.

  Union dues are to be paid at the end of each decade. Late fees will be assessed at thirty percent interest a month for the first year, followed by ritual dismembering for each month thereafter. Participation in the union is mandatory.

  The rope snapped like an old guitar string.

  I dropped the remaining few feet into what turned out to be ice-cold sludge, splashing it everywhere. It tasted like someone had boiled brus­sels sprouts, blended them with dirty socks, rotting melon, and a generous dose of raw sewage, extra chunky. And don’t get me started on what it felt like in my eyes.

  I panicked.

  No matter how much I flailed my arms and struggled, I couldn’t seem to get above water. I was going to drown. And then someone grabbed my hand and pulled me to the surface.

  “Put your feet down,” he said, but I was so pumped up on fear that I couldn’t understand him until he repeated himself.

  The bottom was just a few feet down, muddy with what felt like a fair number of coins mixed in. My panic subsided to a dull roar, and I stood in water up to my waist, spitting out everything in my mouth and trying to throw up and gasp at the same time.

  “Anything happen to you?” Uncle L’uboš’s voice echoed down the shaft.

  Vít’o—the vodník—wiped at my face, fresh water streaming from his fingertips and cleaning my eyes far better than I could have done. He scowled at me, pointed upward, and then put his finger to his lips. I got the hint. My first fear had been that he planned on killing me on sight. That didn’t seem to be the case.

  “Uh—I’m fine!” I spat out more sludge. “The rope snapped, but I’m okay.”

  There was a pause, then he swore. “Don’t get the water in your eyes or mouth. We’ll lower more rope, and you tie it to the harness. Can you make a good knot?”

  “Y-yes,” I called back. And to think I had once said Boy Scouts would never come in handy.

  “Good. Fill up the bucket, and then jerk on the rope when you’re ready.”

  “All right!” I yelled back, then focused on the vodník. It was dim down there, but as my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see the turtleneck was gone. He now wore a green top hat and an olive three piece suit. His hair had turned green, and it flowed out from under his hat like a spring bursting through a rock.

  “Vít’o?” I asked, edging my hand into my pocket to feel for the saltshaker. It was gone.

  “You can still do it,” he said, sounding envious. Greedy.

  I stared at him. “Do what?”

  “Never mind.” And then he was silent. And silent.

  At last I said, “What was that for?”

  He cleared his throat and glared at me. “What? That’s it? You finally meet me as I truly am. I haven’t seen you for, for, for ten years or whatever and the first thing out of your mouth isn’t ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’ or ‘oh, it’s you.’ No. It’s ‘what was that for?’ Great. That’s just great. Fantastic.”

  Now I was really confused, and all this water everywhere wasn’t helping any. “Um. You cut my rope.”

  He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his green hair. “Cut your rope? Of course I cut your rope. I had to cut your rope. If I hadn’t cut your rope, who knows what would have happened. My life—my existence—was in danger. You came here to kill me, after all. Didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

  I took a step back through the sludge. “Well, no.”

  That stopped him. “You didn’t? You seriously mean that—”

  “No, I did not come here to kill you. I came because you threatened to kill me.” I came to break one of your teacups, or at least try to free poor Lesana. Poor homicidal Lesana.

  Now he put his palm to his forehead and scrunched his eyes closed. “But what about Ohnica? She told you—told you to kill me. I know, because I heard, because I was there.”

  “Then you know she said I might have to kill you. And besides, how would I kill you?”

  The vodník brightened up. “That’s a very good point, because we vodníks, we’re very hardy. Sturdy. I’d say we had excellent upbringing, except for the fact that none of us are ever brought up. But you never know. Maybe you would find a way to kill me, or hurt me or even harm me. After all, I mean, you’ve been talking to that witch of a fire woman, and you can talk to Death to boot. When you’re on a first name basis with the Great Beyond, you might get a wink and a nod and a—” He brought his hand across his throat and made a little death noise.

  “You knew I was talking to Morena and Ohnica too?”

  “Knew? Of course I knew. It’s my business to know. That’s why I had to cut that rope of yours. I had to tell you that I’m working on getting the answer. I know all about it, and I know what you can do to get out of this deal she’s made. The one about your cousin.”

  Everything was going too fast for me. The rope L’uboš was letting down hit me in the head. He called out from above: “Did you get it?”

  I glared up, then lost my irritation when I remembered just how far down I was. Did I mention I was standing in water? My clothes were soaked, my socks were squishing in my shoes, I was cold and covered in toxic slime. Why did I think this was a good idea? Life sucked just about then. “Yeah,” I called back.

  “Good. Don’t worry,” L’uboš said. “You have plenty of time.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Everything’s going just fine.”

  “Good.” And that was it.

  I turned back to the vodník, forcing myself to take deep breaths. I should have been filling the bucket with coins, but I was too scared to move. “So you don’t want to kill me?”

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise and put his hat back on at the same time, jamming it on with both hands. “Kill you? Kill my old friend, my best comrade, my old partner in crime? Why would I want to do that?”

  I scrunched my forehead in confusion. “Didn’t you have Lesana threaten me? And didn’t you try and drown me when I was a kid?”

  “Drown you,” he said in disbelief. “Drown you. Of course I tried to drown you. But that doesn’t mean I’d kill you. Never that. Not for Tomas.”

  “Isn’t it the same thing?”

  “No. No no no no no. Is a work by Warhol just a snapshot? Is a symphony by Smetana only somebody plunking at strings? Drowning by vodník and death are two very different approaches to the afterlife. With death, you have a very unpleasant heart-to-heart with ol’ Mrs. Sickle, followed by something that goes far too deeply into religious debate for me to want to answer off the cuff like this. With vodník drowning, you find yourself safe and snug in a luxury teacup. No worries, no cares, just philosophy and debate for the rest of eternity. It’s even better than life, if you can overlook the brief shortness of breath it takes to get there.”

  “Doesn’t sound so much fun to me,” I said. My feet were getting very cold and uncomfortable, but I wasn’t dead yet, so all told, this expedition had been a success so far.

  The vodník sniffed. “Not so much fun. Well, your alternative was getting charbroiled by Ohnica. She already had your arm crisped when I got to you. Besides, back when I knew you before, drowning was all you wanted. I told you and told you that your parents would be upset. But you wouldn’t listen. You just had to be drowned. Is it my fault that I couldn’t say no? That I wanted to fulfill your every whim?”

  So Ohnica claimed one thing, and the vodník claimed something else. Who was I supposed to trust? My fear was subsidin
g, and I started eyeing the water. That bucket wasn’t going to fill itself. “I was five. You knew better.”

  He shrugged. “I see. Such a simple answer. I’ll keep that on file for the next time a kid tells me he wants to go under. If only I’d been half as smart as you are now. But I wasn’t. That’s no reason to kill me, though. Right?”

  “Of course. I mean of course not. I mean, right. It’s no reason to kill you.”

  “Phew!” He wiped his brow in relief. “Of all the ways to go, I thought that death by best friend would have been one of the worst.” He looked down into the water and crinkled his nose. “Not salt. Surely my old best friend wouldn’t have brought salt with him. Not into my home.”

  “I, uh . . .”

  He rolled his eyes. “Oh well. Perhaps it was to be expected. And at least you didn’t bring a lot of it. I can’t stand the stuff. It aggravates my allergies.”

  And indeed, he did seem to be getting puffy around the eyes. “Hold on,” I said. I swallowed, then plunged my hand into the water, feeling around for loose change. There was plenty down there, slimy and slippery. I grabbed a fistful and took them out of the water. Most of it was sludge. It was going to be a long job. I eyed the vodník. “You’re really not going to kill me? Or drown me?”

  “For you, Tomas—anything. You say the word. No killing, no dismembering, no drowning, no vivisecting. No nothing. I’m just glad you’re back, and I’m glad I can be in a position to help you.” He poked a finger into the water, and small jets of liquid shot into the air, each of them carrying a coin and shooting right into my bucket. In a matter of moments, the bucket was filled with slimy currency. Watching water do unnatural things made me want to throw up, but it was better than rooting around in a pool of it all on my lonesome.

  I cleared my throat. “Oh. Uh. Thanks.”

  “Tell your uncle to lift it up. There’s plenty more where that came from. I usually keep a percentage back from the greedy buggers, but in your case, I’m willing to let that go. I’ll even throw some extra in on the side.”