Before Ever After (26 page)

His mother shushed them both.

The chanting ended.
Finally
. Pavel looked up at his mother. She nodded at him and handed him his toy. It was time. Necklaces, pots, and
coins splashed into the river. The carved wooden boat joined them. It bobbed, tangled in a string of his mother’s beads. It took on water. Pavel watched his favorite toy sink. It was silly, he thought. He kicked at the mud. He didn’t have to do it. He didn’t believe their stories. His father wasn’t dead. Gestrin did not kill him. He didn’t have to make an offering. He just wanted to see if his boat would float. He wasn’t hoping that it was enough to buy his father back. Not really.

The clouds stirred as Pavel skipped pebbles across their reflection. “Do you believe in the River Man, Uncle Viktor?”

Viktor patted Pavel’s shoulder. He no longer had to crouch down to do it. The boy had grown since his last visit. “That is an old wives’ tale, Pavel.”

“So … the River Man did not take Papa?” Pavel picked up another stone.

Viktor looked into Pavel’s eyes. They were as amber as his own. “No.”

“I knew it.” Pavel beamed. “I told Mama that Papa was coming back.”

“No, Pavel. You misunderstand. Your father isn’t coming back.”

“But you said …”

“Your father wasn’t killed by the River Man. He had an accident. I’m sorry.”

Pavel threw the stone. It skipped three times before sinking into the river. “You’re wrong. He will come back. You’ll see.”

Viktor sighed.

A young woman marched toward them. The hem of her wool dress was wet from the marshes. Her brown hair swung in a braid behind her. “There you are! I’ve been looking for both of you. It’s getting dark. Come away from the river.”

“But, Mama, it’s still early.”

“Listen to your mother,” Viktor said.

“Only if you tell me more of your stories when we get back home.” Pavel looked up at his uncle hopefully.

“It’s a deal.” Viktor smiled and tousled Pavel’s hair.

Anja and Viktor walked back to the village. Pavel ran ahead of them.

“You have a good boy there, Anja,” Viktor said.

“Yes. He’s just like his father.” Anja dabbed at her eyes with a rough sleeve.

“I am so sorry about Ivan,” Viktor said. “I regret I was not able to come sooner.”

“Thank you, Cousin,” Anja said, “for your company and for your help. I will pay you back, I promise.”

“There is no need. That’s what family is for. We take care of each other.”

“But really, Viktor, it is far too much.”

“And there will be more if you need it.”

“But …”

“Anja,” Viktor said, “we are blood. You are my family. I will take care of you and Pavel.”

“Thank you.” Anja sobbed into his chest. Viktor’s help had lifted the weight of a widow’s worldly burden off her shoulders. Now only the greater task of healing what was left of her heart remained.

The morning rippled over the river. Pavel squealed with delight as he jumped from Viktor’s shoulders and scattered a sunbeam across the water.

“You are a boatman’s son.” Viktor smiled as the young boy swam back to him.

Pavel laughed. “One more time, Uncle? Please?”

“All right, but this is the last time. My shoulders are about to fall off.”

Pavel clambered up his uncle’s back. He looked out into the water to the place where his toy boat had sunk. He closed his eyes. It was fleeting,
but the river made good on their trade. His father’s shoulders were beneath the soles of his feet, ready to launch him into the sky.

Anja cleared the dinner table. She stacked the bowls without looking at her guest. “Viktor, Pavel told me that you went swimming in the river today.”

Viktor smiled. “Yes, we did. Ivan taught him well. Your boy is a fish. Why don’t you come with us tomorrow and watch him?”

“Cousin, please don’t take this the wrong way, but you shouldn’t go back to the river,” Anja said. “Ever.”

“Why? Pavel is a good swimmer, Anja. You have nothing to worry about. He is safe with me.”

Anja’s lips trembled. “No one is safe from the River Man.”

“But there is no such—”

“You are wrong,” Anja said. “That vile creature does exist. He took my husband. I will not let him take my son. You must promise me that you will never take Pavel to the river again.”

The river blazed with torchlight. Night had fallen and Pavel was still missing. It was easy for a child his size to crouch in the nooks and crannies of the village, and easier still to hide in the tall growth of the marshes—at least this is what the villagers chose to believe as they held up their oiled flames and called out his name.

Anja tore at her cloak. “Pavel! Come home!”

“We’ll find him, Anja.” Viktor held her to keep her from crumpling to the mud. He knew Pavel would not answer back, no matter how loud or long his mother called for him. He was not hiding from her. He had run from Anja when she had told him that he could no longer swim in the river, but he was not a cruel boy. And neither was he a weak swimmer. Viktor was confident that he had not drowned. But what he was most certain of was that a river spirit had not taken the boy. Evil did not
need make-believe monsters to do its work. There were very real men for that. Viktor knew he had to find Pavel. Soon.

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.”