Vodník

by Bryce Moore

  I tied the rope to the bucket and gave it a few quick jerks. After a moment, it started rising up the well toward daylight above. I looked back down, blinking away the brightness of the sky. “So . . . do I call you Vít’o? Is that really your name?”

  He snorted. “Vít’o. It’s a ruse. A guise. A simple pretense. I’m a vodník, not a name. I’m bigger than names. Names don’t begin to describe me.”

  “Nuts” didn’t begin to describe him. “What was that you said about knowing how to fulfill Death’s bargain? Do you have a plan?” This was unexpected. Maybe I wouldn’t have to come up with a way to ask him to see a teacup without raising suspicions. Sure, Ohnica had said they were unbreakable, but I’d figured it was at least worth a shot. Besides, Ohnica didn’t seem like she had a monopoly on truth. But avoiding that whole scenario wouldn’t be a bad thing.

  The vodník smiled, all teeth, but in a denturish sort of a way. “Well, I wouldn’t quite call it a plan. Not yet. I have lots of ideas. Many ideas.”

  “As in?”

  He patted his chest. “I’m taking notes. Writing down the ideas. Every single one. While you’ve been out gallivanting around, I’ve been working, thinking, coming up with ideas to help you. And then you repay it by trying to murder me in my own glum home. I mean, it’s not much, you know, but it’s something. It’s all I have.”

  I examined the walls. “Not much” was an understatement. “Hellacious pit of stench and despair” was closer to it. And water was everywhere. I had to take deep breaths. Think about the vodník, not the water.

  He fluttered his hand at me to catch my attention. “Not that it’s always this bad, of course. When the water’s full, it’s not as dank, and there’s more room to stretch, and it’s much wetter.”

  And that was supposed to make me more relieved? “Where are your teacups? All the souls you’ve collected.”

  “The souls? That’s a very personal question. I don’t just go up to you and ask you to see your life’s greatest achievement, do I? Why do you have to be so nosy? Stay focused on what matters to you. The plan.” He patted his jacket pocket again. “You’re a bit earlier than I would have liked, I must admit. It’s not completely ready. Only semi-ready. Quasi­-ready. But I’ll have it for you soon. It’s going to be fantastic. Supreme. Magnificent, even. Not that my ideas right now are bad, mind you. I mean, generally speaking, I’m a genius. I wouldn’t say I’m a god among men, but I am. You don’t kill gods, you know.”

  “What about Lesana?” I asked. “Where is she?”

  His eyes narrowed, and he cocked an eyebrow. He was probably going for benignly amusing, but it came off as sinister. “First the souls, and now my girlfriend. What is it with you? How about I start taking an unhealthy interest in Katka. Would you like that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Right,” he said. “Then don’t you worry about Lesana. She’s off limits to you. Strictly secretarial work when it comes to humans. But I’ll be in touch with you soon. No well involved. Just don’t bring any salt again. I’m practically breaking out in hives. And no more plotting to kill me.” He sunk beneath the water, just as if the bottom of the well had given out and sucked him under, leaving me very much alone.

  And wet.

  Deep breaths, Tomas. Deep breaths.

  The bucket klunked into my head, and when I grabbed it, the jets of water shot up again, filling the bucket with coins again. I repeated the process three more times before I was finished. When the vodník had been with me, it was easier to keep my mind off where I was. Alone, it was much worse.

  I tried to convince myself that it had gone well. The vodník seemed much nicer than I expected (or at least more insane than violent), I wasn’t dead, and he had a plan to help Katka. So nothing had gone according to plan, but things were still looking up.

  If I could bring myself to trust the vodník.

  Every time I thought of him being helpful, the image of him drowning that boy and stealing his soul flashed into my head. How could I work with someone who could do that?

  It didn’t make sense. He sent Lesana to me weeks ago to ask me to come to meet him here, and then he sent her again to threaten me. It was so urgent, it seemed. But when I showed up, he tells me he didn’t expect me to come so soon.

  Every time I hoped I’d get closer to some resolution, something popped up to push me further away.

  And we were running out of time.

  While they present a unique set of problems for the aspiring Death, ghosts also present an interesting set of possibilities. Because their souls have not yet left this world, they are essentially “live deaths”—deaths just waiting to be completed. If you get behind in any of your tallies, and nothing seems to be working, finishing off a ghost might be the answer.

  Eight days from when I talked to the vodník, we weren’t any closer to a solution. He hadn’t come forward with his “great plan,” and no amount of searching the book helped us come up with new ideas. It was already August third.

  We only had twenty-two days, but every way we turned was a dead end.

  I thought I was going to go crazy. Always before, when there was something wrong, I could do something. Anything. Study harder for a test. Practice more. Talk to someone. Not this, though. Every idea had led to a dead end.

  We couldn’t kill another person—Morena knew ahead of time who was dying when, and she would inevitably beat us to the punch. We spent three days trying to finagle our way to a castle in Orava that was supposed to be haunted, but when we finally got there, we found no evidence of actual ghosts. And even if we had, we weren’t entirely certain how to kill one. Death in the Modern Day had more than a little to say on the subject, but apparently killing a ghost depended a lot on how the spirit had become a ghost in the first place. We didn’t have time to turn this into a Supernatural episode.

  We tried other haunted places. Graveyards. Museums. I went over that cursed book backward and forward, and when I wasn’t using it, Katka was. We came up with zilch. It didn’t help that it was so hard to find anything in it. Death didn’t make a deal with you that she knew was impossible to meet. Did she?

  Maybe she did.

  The questions were going to make me bonkers if the waiting didn’t. At times Katka and I would manage to forget the looming storm cloud over us, but it inevitably came back with a vengeance. Katka would have a splitting migraine for two days, or she’d disappear into her apartment for an afternoon and not want to talk about what had happened.

  She was getting worse.

  It didn’t come as a comfort that I was now practically a professional when it came to falling down and getting shoved, and even the dumbbells I was lifting were getting bigger. Progress in only one area—the least important one—felt like no progress at all. I’d rather get beat up again and have a guarantee that Katka would live than have her die and never have another run-in with the BGs.

  It was my day off from giving tours. When I woke up, Katka had left a note on my door saying to meet her at the plague monument at noon. L’uboš was gone on a trip with the jousting group in an attempt to raise enough funds to hold on to the castle. Tourism had gotten even worse. In any case, Katka asking me to go into the city today wasn’t in the normal routine, and I hoped it might mean she had a lead of some sort.

  It was pouring rain, with wind gusting hard enough to make my umbrella feel ready to go airborne. Among its other flaws, cobblestone acts like a great water retaining device. My feet kicked up drops with each step, and the wind made up for the rest. By the time I got into town, I was soaked from the knees down, and the rest of my body was more than damp. I wasn’t so much panicked as just plain miserable. My phobia only got really bad when water started pooling. In the rain, I could tell myself it was just like taking a shower, only with more water retention.

  The city center was empty enough that it took less than a glance for me to see Katka wasn’t at the plague pole like she said she’d be. Maybe she didn’t have an umbrella, and had go
ne inside one of the stores to wait. I made my way from shop to shop around the square. No Katka, though I did get a glimpse of Gollum walking out of the pizza place over by the clock tower. I was careful to duck into a store before he saw me.

  “You!” the storekeeper snapped as soon as I walked in. “What do you want?”

  I looked around. It was a dress store. “Uh . . . something for my mom?”

  “Get out! You’re getting water everywhere with your umbrella.”

  So much for that. But Gollum was gone, so mission accomplished. I checked my watch: 12:15. She could be running late. Or maybe she’d had a seizure, or . . . I’d wait another fifteen minutes, then go to the castle and check there. There was no place to sit down, and judging by the reception I’d just gotten, going into stores wasn’t going to win me any friends, so I stayed outside to wait, against my better judgment.

  Probably as a throwback to Communism, customer service wasn’t a big thing here. In fact, the motto seemed to be “the customer is always wrong.” From what Katka had told me, in the Cold War, shopkeepers had it cushy. If someone wasn’t nice to them, then they wouldn’t let that person buy the good stuff. No wonder a free market pissed them all off. Then again, it could have just been more racism. Part of me really wanted to pick up shoplifting as a hobby. Everybody thought I was doing it anyway. I wished I could just walk through town and not feel like an outsider—not have the nasty looks from people I passed. I didn’t have the plague. I was just like everybody else, only darker. And burned. What did that matter?

  A Roma family walked by me: a father, mother, and a little girl that couldn’t be older than five, eating an ice cream cone under her little umbrella. She waved at me. The parents just nodded stoically and kept going. At least it wasn’t outright hostility.

  Katka didn’t show—not fifteen minutes later, not a half hour later. There was only so much “I’m sure she’ll come round the corner the next second” I could take. I was worried, and that made me even grumpier. She’d get an earful from me when I found her.

  If I found her.

  The memory of her seizure leaped into my mind, the way her body had convulsed. The spittle. What if she were out there right now, alone in the city? Would anyone help a Roma girl, or would people just shrug it off and assume the girl was doing it to get attention or increase her haul when she went begging later?

  I tried to take my mind off that train of thought. That’s when I saw them.

  Across the square, Gollum had cronied up with Jabba and Draco. They stood there staring at me through the sheets of rain. I wanted to slink away somewhere and hide. A knot of fear settled into my stomach. I’d been able to avoid the Bigot Gang until now, but there would be no escaping them now. Not unless I wanted to try running away.

  And all of a sudden, I didn’t. What had L’uboš said? Embrace the fear. Focus.

  I kept my gaze steady. They weren’t going to make me cower, though a big part of me wanted to. I felt at my side where I had been bruised for days after their attack. Not again.

  Time to leave. I gripped my umbrella tightly and trudged up the hill toward the castle, walking right past the Bigot Gang on my right. They spat at me as I walked past. I ignored it. Running wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Yes, L’uboš had said to run like a rabbit if I got attacked, but he’d also told me to stand up for myself. If they kept their malice to spitting, I could handle it.

  On the slant, it was harder for me to keep my footing on the cobblestones, but I still tried to hurry as much as I could. Now that I was moving again, I was back to getting wet. I glanced back to see if I was being followed. Sure enough, they were there, walking side by side. Too cool for umbrellas. At least with all three of them behind me, I knew there’d be no surprises up ahead.

  Then I tripped on the slick cobblestones.

  Snap. Crunch. Splat.

  I was face first on the ground. My umbrella lay beneath me, transferring all the water it had soaked up and making sure it finished the job of getting me drenched. I tried to stand, but someone pushed me from behind.

  “What are you going to do, Gypsy?” Draco said, coming to stand in front of me. “Blame us for tripping too?”

  I stared up at the three of them, surrounding me once again. I almost panicked. This was just like before. I had to control my emotions. I left the broken umbrella on the ground and stood up in a fluid motion. All that falling practice was good for something. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  To my left, Gollum coughed, then snorted up some phlegm. “We don’t think you learned your lesson last time. Just like a Gypsy. You went running for your uncle and the authorities, full of lies.”

  On my right, Jabba moved to shove me. I stepped to the side of the blow and blocked it with my right hand, hooking around his arm and turning it into one of the arm locks L’uboš had been having me practice, twisting his wrist so that his elbow was out straight in front of him. Using my momentum, I kicked Jabba as hard as I could between the legs, feeling a jolt go up my leg as I connected. He oofed in pain and bent over. I let go of his arm and ran for the hole he’d left in the circle around me. Draco stepped in to stop me, but I pushed him away. He stumbled to the ground, off balance. Gollum just stood there as I ran off up the hill.

  It had worked. Even being soaked to the bone, I couldn’t help smiling. Sure, maybe I’d just gotten myself into some sort of future trouble, but in the here and now, it felt great. Jabba would be talking like Mickey Mouse for a week. I didn’t even mind being so wet anymore.

  I slowed to a walk as I passed the main gate to the castle. The guy who was on ticket duty that day, Janči, nodded to me as if nothing were different. Like he always saw people walking in rain so dense you could drink it like a water fountain.

  Up at the castle, I found Katka in the tour guide break room, lying down with a damp cloth across her eyes. That wiped the smile off my face. I knocked lightly on the door. “You okay?”

  She took the cloth off her face and sat up. “Tomas? You’re drenched. Didn’t you get my phone message? I told you I’d meet you back at the apartment. I know how you hate getting wet.”

  Oh. “I didn’t check the machine. What happened to you?”

  “The usual, but I’m pretty much over it.” She stood. “Wait here. My dad keeps a change of clothes in the other room.” She returned with the clothes—including shoes—and some keys and headed outside. “There’s an apartment over here where we let people stay sometimes. It has a shower that’s more private than where you showered before. Don’t worry. You’ll be better in no time.” In typical Katka fashion, she dealt with her problems by ignoring them. It must run in my family. I didn’t bring up my encounter with the Bigot Gang.

  When we went outside, the rain had stopped. Just like that. Stupid weather. We walked down the hill the main entry gate, where a staircase led up the wall to a little square tower with a door recessed into the side. After a moment Katka found the right key, and we were inside.

  The door opened to a short hallway, with a bathroom on the right and a large room straight ahead. It was furnished with four single beds, and two small windows let enough light in to make the place feel roomy. It would be a cool place for a sleepover. Rustic, but not medieval like the rest of the castle.

  “Meet me back at the break room when you’re finished,” Katka said. “And lock the door behind you when you’re done.” She must not have been feeling that much better, since she was so quick to leave.

  I sighed and headed to the bathroom. Everything would be better after a quick shower. I’d go and find Katka and cheer her up. But first the shower. A dry, clean Tomas was a better Tomas.

  There was a towel already in there, and the shower was the kind with a bathtub built in, and—more importantly—a head that attached to the wall, which improved my mood. It had been forever since I’d had a real, hands-free showering experience. There was a window in the bathroom, but it was frosted glass, and I made double sure both it and the door were locked b
efore I was ready to start.

  I shucked off the soaked clothes and jumped in. Maybe it was the contrast with the wet pelting rain I’d just endured, but for once, I was able to forget my fear of water and just enjoy the heat and calm down.

  At some point, a different sound intruded on my relaxation. Water was accumulating in the base of the tub, the shower stream now plunging into a growing pool. Just that quickly, my relaxation was ruined. My phobia started to kick in. Had I closed the drain? No.

  It had to be a clog: old castle plus old pipes equaled plugged drain. I shut off the water. Or tried to. The knob spun loosely in its tracks, doing nothing. I spun it the other way, and the shower got stronger.

  I swallowed, trying to remain calm while fiddling with the knob. The water pressure increased more. Now it was like hot needles jabbing into my skin. I’d get out and try fixing things without getting poked to death.

  But the shower curtain didn’t open. It might as well have been glued to the wall. My panic rose, and it got even worse when I saw a head emerge from the water, followed by shoulders and arms. It was transparent at first, but as it shot up, it gained color and form, water streaming down until I knew who it was.

  The vodník.

  Remember: your scythe is not a toy. Anyone caught using it to pole vault, play baseball, or shoot pool will be punished.

  He leaped toward me, hitting me in the chest and knocking me into the wall. My head bounced off the tiles, and the room began to swim. My feet slipped out from under me, and I made a wild grab at the shower curtain. It ripped off, sending me crashing into the growing pool of water in the tub.

  The vodník had moved his hands up to my neck, and he was doing his best to shove my head under the water. I flailed wildly, my right arm caught in the shower curtain, and my left batting at his body. The water was getting deeper, helped by my body mass. If I had fallen in the other way—with my head toward the deep end—I would be submerged already.