Vodník

by Bryce Moore

  “Good,” Dad said. “It’s three thirty in the morning. It won’t be light out for two hours, but we can start by searching inside for the notes. Come on—they’re bound to be in there somewhere.”

  We got to work in L’uboš’s apartment five minutes later. I started in Katka’s bedroom, while Dad headed for the living room bookcase.

  A big part of me thought I’d find it right away. I knew Katka, and I knew where she liked to hide things from her dad. I went straight for her dresser, her desk, her closet, her nightstand—nothing. Not under the socks, not shoved back on the hard-to-reach highest shelf—I even checked in the underwear drawer. Nada. When I went out and checked with Dad, he hadn’t found anything, either. Ransacking the rest of the apartment brought the same result. We moved bookcases, flipped through books, checked under the fridge and stove. Nič.

  By the time we had finished, the sun was rising, and worry was gnawing through my stomach. Every time I’d glance at a clock, there was that much less time left before Katka would die. Seven o’clock: forty-one hours to finish the potion, find the grave, and get this done. We’d already blown three and a half hours, and we still hadn’t even gotten her notes.

  At half past seven, Dad hit pay dirt: Katka’s makeup compact. It made sense, I guess. She was in an apartment where the only other occupant was male. Speaking as a male with some experience in the matter now, the compact was pretty much the last place a man would think of to look. Dad brought it in to me and together, the two of us read it. She had basically rewritten the instructions into list form, and checked off things as they were done.

  Katka had gotten a lot farther than I had feared she would: the potion had been transferred to the crystal basin and she had added the Dubak, walnut, and blood. All that was left was to put it into the cherry wood cup precisely at dawn tomorrow morning and then spread it on Lesana’s grave before Katka died tomorrow night.

  “But it doesn’t say where the potion is,” Dad pointed out.

  I shook my head. “She would have hidden it somewhere outside, where it wouldn’t be messed with. And we still don’t know about the grave, either.” And we had no clue if the potion would actually work. I had assumed all along that I was the one who was supposed to complete all the steps. I was the “enchanter.” Would it work the same with Katka having done so much? There had been that disclaimer at the bottom of the instructions saying if we screwed it up, it could cause “severe consequences.”

  Dad said, “According to the notes, we have until tomorrow morning to complete the potion. Why don’t you help me get started on finding the grave, and while I’m on that, you can find where Katka was keeping it. You said it was outside somewhere?”

  I nodded. “It has to be. That’s how it’s made.”

  We rushed back to our apartment, and Dad went straight to the computer. He quizzed me at first about everything I knew about Lesana, peppering me with questions. What the legend was, when she was supposed to have lived—anything that might help him in his search. He was a librarian. This was what he did. When he had drained me dry, I was released to go find that potion.

  Outside, the clouds hovered close to the ground, almost scraping the apartment buildings. It was going to rain. I hurried around the building, checking all the windowsills and glancing at all the trees and low branches, hunting for a gleam of crystal. Nothing. I thought about making the circuit again, but there wasn’t time. The only place I could think of that Katka would place the basin was the castle. There was nowhere else she could be sure it would be safe, and the castle had a ton of nooks where a basin could be stashed.

  When I was halfway into town, running for all I was worth, I practically collided with Draco. He was coming out of the bakery and his eyes about popped out of his head when he saw me. It probably would have been better if the Bigot Gang had kept thinking I was dead until after this thing with Katka was over, but whatever. I dodged and missed him by a few inches. I checked to see if he was following me. He wasn’t. Maybe he thought he’d seen a ghost.

  Thirty feet later, a fat raindrop splashed into my face. Another hit the ground in front of me. And then it was raining in earnest, an enormous downpour that soaked me in seconds.

  I didn’t care. There were more important things in life than worrying about being wet, or wondering what other people were thinking about you. And anyway—all that worrying about water and fire hadn’t done me any good.

  It rained harder, my feet splashing through puddles that had formed in seconds. My lungs were aching, but I kept pushing myself. Halfway up the hill to the castle, I had to slow down. Getting there fast and then falling over from exhaustion wouldn’t help anything, and no matter how much I wanted to get this done quickly, I had to pace myself. I wondered what Dad was doing—if he’d had any success—and how Katka was. Maybe L’uboš or Mom had called with an update.

  Once I’d caught my breath, I started running again, up the hill and to the castle gate. Janči was in the ticket booth again, and I stopped to question him, though I could barely talk. “Have you—seen Katka—”

  “No,” he said.

  I shook my head, droplets falling off my face as the rain continued to pour down. “Crystal basin. Have you seen her with a crystal basin here recently?”

  He frowned. “No. What’s the matter? Hey!”

  I was already running again, scanning the walls and the windows—anywhere the basin might be. By the time I was at the castle’s first courtyard, I realized how futile this was. It was one thing to think “the basin’s at the castle,” but I could search the place for a day and still not look everywhere. Just finding the note in Katka’s room had taken my dad and me over three hours.

  Some water flicked in my face, as if I’d been splashed. I glanced around to see where it had come from. No one was there.

  It came again, like the rain had decided to curve in for a moment and hit me straight in the eyes. I blinked the water clear, and when I could see again, I could see her.

  Lesana.

  A shiver went down my spine. She was standing in front of me, her body outlined by the falling rain. I had assumed she wouldn’t be around to help—that the vodník would have captured her or locked her up to keep me from getting help. But then again, he must think I was dead. Why would he worry about Lesana helping me now?

  She pointed to her throat and shook her head. No talking. The vodník kept her on a pretty tight leash. The only reason she was as visible as she was now was likely because of the rain.

  I stepped toward her. “Do you know where the basin is?”

  Lesana nodded.

  “Can you show me?”

  She nodded again, then turned and started to run.

  I followed after her, glancing up at the sky, for once in my life hoping as hard as I could that it wouldn’t stop raining. It was going full blast right then, but the way Slovak weather was, it might turn off at any moment.

  Following a figure made out of rain—in the rain—is even harder than it sounds. I had to keep pausing to be able to make her out again. Each time, she was motioning me frantically to continue. She led me to the right, to a house-sized wooden tower that hugged one of the castle walls. We climbed up two flights of steps, and then Lesana walked out onto the wall, like a gymnast on a balance beam.

  We weren’t supposed to go up there. Katka must have put the basin there at night. No one was out right now, but the wall was slick, and it wasn’t wide, with crenellations built into it, so the top of the wall wasn’t smooth: it had those little spaces for archers to fire out from. A fall from thirty feet could kill me. About twenty feet down the wall, I could just make out the basin. It had been risky for Katka to put it there in dry weather. In wet weather, getting it back was borderline suicidal.

  I got up and followed the water ghost.

  Now I couldn’t go quickly. The rain was still pelting down, and I got down on my hands and knees to creep forward toward the basin. Each time I came to a space on the wall, I had to reach out, ba
lancing only on my knees for a second, and praying I didn’t fall. On either side of me, the ground dropped down, and the farther out I went, the longer the drop became as the hill fell away below, making me dizzy every time I forgot and looked down. The wall was rocky and jagged in my grip, and my knuckles were white with the effort of keeping my balance. The image of the other section of the castle wall—the one lying in crumbled ruins—flashed through my mind. There was a reason we weren’t supposed to go on the walls: they were unstable.

  Lesana was waiting by the basin. I got up into a crouch so I could use my hands and pick it up. It was overflowing with rain water. That didn’t matter—the spell had said to leave it open to the elements. I slowly stood up and did my best to turn around on the narrow wall without sloshing any of the water out. I wobbled, losing some of the contents, but I managed to complete the turn and glance back the way I had come.

  Crawling out had been hard enough. Now I had to go back walking, and I couldn’t use my hands for balance. The wooden observation deck seemed miles away, and I was no gymnast.

  Pace yourself, Tomas. It’s no good if you drop it, and no good if you die. Just get there.

  Inch by inch, I started back. All my instincts wanted me to let go of the basin and get better balance. I tried to imagine I was just on a street curb, but there was all that empty space on either side of me, and my imagination wasn’t up to the task. Now wasn’t the time to get afraid of heights.

  It was inevitable, really. Halfway back, I slipped. For a few seconds, I was teetering on one foot, high above the ground. I pressed the basin to my chest, trying to throw my weight around and regain balance. Water sloshed out and fell to the courtyard below, but I recovered in time to make sure some of it stayed in the container. And I had regained my footing with that move too. That had been too close.

  I took a few deep breaths, closed my eyes, opened them, and then kept going. I had to do this. I had no other options. I came to another crenellation and stepped across it, shifting my weight more smoothly. It was one of the longest twenty feet I’ve walked in my life, but I made it.

  Once I had my feet back on a surface wider than six inches, I faced Lesana. “Thank you,” I said.

  She nodded. I thought she might be smiling. I bent down and set the basin on the floor in front of me. “Lesana, I need to know where you’re buried.”

  She shook her head, then shrugged.

  “You really don’t remember?”

  She nodded. The rain was slowing down.

  Come on! This had to work. She’d told me before to ask the vodník, but he and I hadn’t exactly parted on speaking terms. “It was in a crypt,” I said. “I saw it in one of the visions. You were buried alive. Remember!”

  She paused for a while, thinking perhaps. Then she shook her head again and pointed to the ground.

  “What? Here?” I said. “You were buried at the castle?”

  “No,” she mouthed, then disappeared down to the lower story of the observation deck.

  I picked up the basin and followed. Down there, the rain couldn’t penetrate, and I couldn’t see Lesana anywhere. I was about to continue on to the ground when some water flicked in my face again. When I turned, I saw she had managed to write something on the dry wood.

  Try the archives.

  The archives? What archives? I went to ask her, but the rain was stopping in the way only Slovak rain could. “Lesana?” I asked.

  It took me a bit to spot her now that the rain was slower, but after a moment I did. She was standing outside, just within the reach of the rain so I could see her. “What do you mean?” I said.

  She pointed at her throat, then shrugged and pointed at the message again. Now her body was only outlined by drops here and there. I watched in frustration as she disappeared altogether. I felt a tug on my hand, like someone had brushed it with their own. It shouldn’t have meant much to me, but it did. Why couldn’t she have been alive? I didn’t even know Lesana, but I still found myself thinking about her, wanting to get to know her, wanting— Focus, Tomas. Those kinds of thoughts weren’t going to get me anywhere.

  I could do this. I was meant to do this.

  Tomorrow night, Katka would be back to normal and Lesana would be free of the vodník, no matter what.

  Hospitals are wonderful places. A home away from home for the weary Death. You can always get a warm meal, kick your feet up and read a magazine, then go out and collect a few souls—all in a one-stop-shop.

  Getting home was an ordeal. I didn’t want to cover the basin, for fear of further violating whatever rules the potion was supposed to follow. So I had to go as fast as I could without spilling any of the leftover contents, ignoring the strange looks other people threw my way. Who cared what they thought? I caught a glimpse of Gollum, sitting on a park bench and chowing down on an ice cream, but I didn’t think he’d seen me. Please, just give me a day free of the Bigot Gang. I couldn’t deal with them right now.

  I took the basin to the canal across the street from our apartment. It still had to be left outside, but it wasn’t like I could just leave it outside one of our windows. Maybe I’d been living in Slovakia too long and had become as paranoid as the rest of them, but anyone could steal it or knock it over. The BGs would love to get their hands on anything I valued. This was probably why Katka had put the basin in such a hard-to-reach place to begin with.

  The canal was nestled between manmade hills on either side of it. On the side by the city, there was a path at the top of the hill and one at the bottom. Trenčín spread out behind me, but across the canal was nothing but fields and a few houses. It was still surprising to me how quickly Slovak cities ended. Urban sprawl didn’t exist in this country.

  Having seen Gollum, I’d taken extra care to make sure I wasn’t being followed to the canal. All I needed was for the Bigot Gang to ruin everything. I descended the hill to go to the path right by the canal. Every so often, the canal had a road that crossed it, and you could walk under the bridges when you were on this route. I checked again to see if anyone was watching. The path was clear. I stuffed the basin on top of one of the girders in the bridge closest to my house. When I was done, I didn’t think anyone would find it unless they were searching for it: to reach it, I’d had to clamber on top of a garbage can I’d dragged over.

  It was as safe as I could make it for now. And even if it wasn’t outside under the stars, it was still technically outside. It would have to do. The instructions said it had to stay outside for a week, and that meant tomorrow morning. If only we could just use it now. But first we had to find Lesana’s grave anyway. Maybe Dad had had some luck.

  I rushed back to my apartment and straight to Dad’s office. He sat hunched over the computer, a light breeze blowing in from the open window next to him, a serious expression carved into his face.

  “Have you found it?” he asked when he saw me.

  I nodded, breathless. “It’s all set for tomorrow at dawn. You?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet.” There were books everywhere, all of them opened to different pages and spread out all over the floor. “I’ve found all the local cemeteries, and I’ve seen references to the legend of her death, but nothing that says where she was buried.” Dad liked to keep a running commentary going when he searched—it was the librarian in him coming out again. The man was always in Teach Mode.

  He continued in English—in our urgency, we’d been slipping in and out of Slovak to avoid wasting time thinking of the right words. “One problem we’re coming across is that Slovak graveyards simply aren’t online. In America, you can actually have quite a bit of success at finding grave sites, particularly of famous or more notable people. There are whole websites devoted—”

  “Dad?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Can we get back to the search?”

  He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Right. In any case, I thought we might be able to find at least some graves online, but I’m not having any luck with that.
And even if we could, there’s no guarantee her burial place is in a graveyard. From what I’ve learned, back then the rich could decide to be buried anywhere. Churches, the forest, a favorite travel spot—even in their basement. Lesana belonged to a wealthy family, and there’s no way to tell where the family crypt is. At least no way I’ve found.”

  “What about the archives?” I asked.

  “What?”

  I shook my head. “That’s all I know. Lesana said to try the archives.”

  Dad frowned. “I’m not sure. I’ve never heard of something like that.”

  “Then call L’uboš. Has he gotten in touch with you yet? How’s Katka?”

  My father looked sheepish, then took out his cell phone. Sometimes librarians get so used to checking sources they forget they can get answers from people too. I looked at the clock. 5:08 p.m. Less than thirty-one hours to go.

  Dad dialed, then put it on speaker.

  “What?” L’uboš said. Slovaks aren’t big on the whole “Hi, howya doin’?” routine, even when they aren’t in the middle of a crisis.

  “It’s Brian,” Dad said. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but Tomas and I are having trouble finding some information here, and we were wondering if you might be able to help.”

  Silence on the other end, then, “Hold on. I’ll call you back.” He hung up.

  It took him about five minutes, minutes my dad and I spent making fruitless attempts at Internet searches. The phone rang.

  “Sorry,” L’uboš’s voice came out from the speaker. “I didn’t want to disturb Katka.”

  “How is she?” Dad asked.

  “She’s . . . they’ve put her into a coma. Said it would be better for her. The doctors, they know nothing. They’re so . . . They won’t . . .” He was quiet for a moment, then said, “How can I help you?”

  “We need to find a grave,” Dad said. “An old grave.”

  “Why?” L’uboš asked.

  I answered. “It’s about what I was saying before Katka went into her seizure. If I can release a soul to replace Katka’s, then Morena will spare her. We need to find the grave of the girl I asked you about before. The one who was buried alive?”