Daikaijuzine

Yldri’s sister never did anything without careful consideration.

Runa walked as if every movement was planned and each sentence that left her lips seemed to have been composed in advance. She was always sensible, ever wise. The last thing she would ever do was to walk into the arms of a stream devil.

So, as their father stumbled into their cottage one summer afternoon, cradling Runa’s drowned body in his arms, Yldri would not believe it.

“No,” she cried, clasping her sister’s bloated face between her hands. “Runa would never go near the Whisperbrook!”

Upon her father’s usually uncompromising face was now only a calm acceptance. “The nix wanted her, Yldri,” he said. “Once he has set his sights on a maiden, nothing will stop him from taking her. Your sister’s soul sings in dark harmony with him now.”

Together, they wept over Runa’s body until the sun had set. When her father finally stumbled into his bed, Yldri gathered linen, thread and needle to prepare her sister for her burial shroud.

As Yldri sewed, Runa’s drowned face stared up at her. Some wicked force still lingered within the corpse, for although the body had been pulled out of the stream hours ago, greenish water still welled up from underneath Runa’s swollen skin. Yldri dried the body for hours, mumbling prayer after prayer, and still water flowed from Runa’s nose, mouth and ears, pooling upon the floorboards. It seemed as if the stream was inside her, aiming to rot her from within. Yet, the most horrific part was the missing tongue.

It had been torn off at the root, leaving Runa’s mouth a fleshy hole, frozen wide open.

Each night before the funeral, Yldri dreamed of Runa. She tossed and turned in her sleep, seeing her sister in the depths of the Whisperbrook. Beneath the waves, Runa struggled to reach the surface, but forever ensnared in the twisting waters, she could only scream her torment.

Stay away, Runa warned, her tongue-less moan bleeding into the water. Yldri, please, stay away.

Runa’s burial was well attended. Yldri felt the compassionate hugs of her neighbors and friends, but it left her only numb. She heard the pastor, Markus Agne, speak of faith and eternal rest, yet Yldri felt no peace even when the earth was settled over Runa’s corpse.

Once the funeral was over, the pastor approached her with outreached arms. “Yldri,” he said. “I see the grief upon your face, but you must not fret. Runa rests with God now.”

“Does she really, pastor?” Yldri asked with hostile bluntness. “Then why does she cry out for me in my dreams? She wants me to help her.”

Pastor Agne looked miserable. “Child, there is nothing that you can do for your sister’s soul,” he said, his voice lowered to a whisper.

“It is true then. She is not at peace.”

Agne shook his head. “I wish I knew,” he said. “I pray every night that the souls of those nine girls slipped out of the nix’s hands, and that they are all by God’s side now. But I will not lie to you, Yldri. I cannot know for certain.”

The pastor’s ambiguous answer told Yldri all that she needed to know. “They are not resting,” she said with certainty. “But there has to be some way to save them, pastor.”

“Pray for them,” Agne replied. “That is all that we can do.”

As Yldri left the church, she felt her exasperation flaring into anger. Pray? If the pastor prayed for the drowned girls, but still held eulogies each year once their numbers increased, God was apparently not listening. There had to be another answer.

She already knew who she could ask.

Yldri had never been to Tindra’s cottage before, but when she knocked on the door, it seemed that the old storyteller had been expecting her. She greeted Yldri at the door with a compassionate but troubled expression.

“Come inside, my dear,” she said. “I saw the fury in your eyes at the funeral, and I had better bring some common sense into that grieving heart of yours before you do something rash.”

She invited Yldri inside. Once they were seated in Tindra’s kitchen, the old woman offered Yldri some hot tea. The sight of the cloudy liquid reminded her of the dark river water that had erupted out of her sister’s body. It made Yldri’s stomach churn with thick disgust. She could only manage one sip for the sake of courtesy, and then she pushed the cup away.

“Tell me about the nix,” she said.

“You have heard the stories many times,” Tindra said. “I tell it every year at Midsummer.”

“Only as a fleeting ghost story, washed clean for the ears of the innocent. But I want to hear the truth. Tell me the things you did not tell us when we were children. Tell me of the darkness and the shadow.”

“There is not much that you do not already know.” Tindra put her cup aside as well. “The nix is a creature of evil, but he longs to create beauty. He desires to keep the lamenting song of the virginal, the chaste, and the fair. It is what brings harmony to his tunes. The more souls he keeps, the sweeter his violin will play. When the music is fair enough, it will invite the waves to dance and the trees to sway.”

“And the… tongues?” Yldri spat the word out.

“I am sure there is some wicked reason why he keeps them. Perhaps it keeps the soul tethered to him somehow.”

“If I get them back and bury them in sacred ground, will that still his strings?”

“It may free your sister’s soul from the brook, but it will not vanquish the nix. To do that, you must learn his name, and damn him to hell.”

“Then, I shall learn his name,” Yldri said. “He shall never play another maiden into a watery grave again.”

“Nobody has ever enchanted a nix and lived to tell of it, Yldri. If he claims you, his charms will convince you into willfully accepting purgatory.” Tindra sighed. “I know that I cannot change your mind about trying to save your sister, but I will at least ask you to be careful.”

“Do not worry, Tindra,” Yldri said. “If I cannot trust myself to keep to the shore, then I shall put my trust in something else.”

Thus, Yldri was the first maiden to ever approach the Whisperbrook as the huntress, and not the hunted. Her weapon, however, was no bow or sword or dagger, but a humble rope.

The aspens that grew by the stream rose into the air on thick, healthy trunks. Yldri tied one end of the rope around the strongest tree she could find, and then wrapped the other end around her waist.

Every day at dusk, Yldri walked along the rocky shores of the Whisperbrook. Anchored to the trees, she let her voice soar into the sky, shaping melodies to the stream, singing of frail aspen leaves and frothy waves and all those things she imagined would tempt the nix to appear.

Yet, the moon waned and waxed, and the Whisperbrook kept running its crystal waters unattended. The nix would not show himself.

As the weeks and months passed, Yldri forgot for whom she was singing. Instead of trying to paint enchanting melodies about cheerful beauty, the songs became laments. She sang for her sister, for the other eight maidens, and for her father, who had secluded himself into quiet shadows of sorrow. Soon, she sang only to grieve.

Thus, when her voice one evening found itself met by another, it startled her.

It was gentle at first – a mere breath upon the air. It grew into a weeping of strings, clasping itself around Yldri’s own tune and embracing her voice like a crying child.

Yldri turned toward the sound. It pulled at her along the shore like an invisible ribbon, leading her toward the rockiest part of the stream. Finally laying eyes upon the devil of the Whisperbrook, she lost her breath.

He was a creature of beauty.

Had someone asked Yldri to describe the man she looked upon, she would not have been able to, for the splendor of his music overpowered all her other senses. With a slender arm, he caressed his violin into a maddeningly fair tune. Behind the strings, between the swaying of the aspens and the dancing waves, was a faint echo. It was a cry of captured and corrupted chastity, floating upon the winds all around. Yldri could hear her sister’s voice spinning in the air, weaving threnody with other trapped souls just like hers. It was magical.

This is no devil. This is an angel.

It was the last, reasonable thought she had before rapture took her.

Come, the angel played. You hear the music, fair maiden. You see the dancing trees and the twirling waters. This is where you wish to dwell. I will show you darkness and light intertwined, and you will sing to me your very soul.

As overwhelming lust launched Yldri forward, the rope jerked her back into reality. She lost her footing and fell into the water. The icy waves washed her mind back into its senses, and when she came to the surface, she remembered herself and why she was there.

“I will not come to you, nix,” she called out. “I know your true face, and it is horned and fiery red.”

“You know me not,” came the answer. “But I know you, Yldri. When I ask you to, you will give yourself to me. I know it will come to pass.”

His blue eyes pierced their way into her chest. For a moment, Yldri thought she would succumb to his gaze and untie the rope around her waist. But her feet untangled themselves from the water and retreated onto the shore. Freed from the watery link, she turned around and fled.

The nix’s melody drifted after her, summoning her and pushing her away at the same time. Not until the music faded behind the trees, and the familiar path gravel dug into her naked soles, was she on solid ground. She untied the knot around her waist, mumbled a prayer of thanks to the end of the rope, and ran.

No matter how frightened she had been that evening, and no matter how terrified she felt at losing herself so completely, Yldri could not stay away from the Whisperbrook after that.

She would creep upon the brook at sunset every evening, and watch the nix play. He would see her, and smile at her knowingly, as if he had already heard all her secrets in her song. His would beckon her to come to him, but the rope around her waist would never let her leave the shore.

Knowing that she was tethered to safety, Yldri allowed herself to be lost in the haunting music. She would sit upon the shore with a smile on her lips, listening as the stars wandered across the night sky.

The nix seemed to never run out of tunes to play to her. Mostly, he would direct the trees to dance to his lively strings, with the maiden chorus bouncing along in merry harmonies. Sometimes, the voices became melancholy, and the violin pushed out notes of longing. And on occasion, but not often, the nix would put down his instrument and let his own voice be heard, clear and lonesome, and Yldri’s heart would swell at the beauty of his tenor voice. Each day, her fear of the nix faded. Each day, her affection for him grew.

One day, he spoke to her.

“Tell me, fairest and most stubborn of maidens, what must I do for you to untie that bond and embrace me?” he asked across the water.

“I cannot trust you, nix,” she called back to him. “You may be the devil, or a spirit, or a man. I shall never want to find out until you tell me your true name.”

“If I tell you my name, will you visit my dark world below for a moment, and consider it becoming yours?” the nix asked.

“If you indeed do tell me your name, I shall,” she replied.

The nix rose from his rock. Water pearled upon his nude body, making him glimmer. He floated across the stream’s brow like a ghost. When he was upon her, her world dazzled.

“I will tell you my name, for a kiss,” he said, his breath smelling of seaweed and warm stone.

“The same kiss that took my sister?”

He looked hurt. “My kiss has never been given to anyone. Nor has my name. You shall be the first to have both, if you will it.”

“I will it,” she whispered, weakening as he wrapped his arms around her.

“I am Nan. And I am yours.”

He covered her lips with his. Warm saltiness slipped into her mouth. She knew then that if he had led her into the water, she would gladly have followed. But he did not. After their kiss, he escaped her embrace and disappeared into the tumbling water. The song of the trees and waves died suddenly, and the voices of his captured choir faded, leaving the brook silenced and still.

Yldri did not know what to think.

He could have taken me, she thought. I have been at his mercy for months, but he never took me. And now… Now I hold power over him.

Over Nan.

She whispered his name to herself that evening until she fell asleep.

The very next day, Yldri went to the shore again, worried that it had all been some kind of dark, wonderful dream. But when she emerged from the trees, the nix sat upon his rock as if he had been waiting for her.

“My stubborn Yldri,” he said, his eyes glittering with amusement. “One who resists, yet loves from a distance. I see questions in your eyes.”

“You gave me your name,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He grew serious. “With my name, you can command me as you please.”

It was as Tindra had told her. “I have the power over you now?” Yldri asked.

“Oh, but you have had the power over me for moons, Yldri. You did not believe it, so I gave you my name to convince you. Tell me now what else I must do to have you.”

She did not hesitate. “Show me where your music comes from,” she said. “Show me where the nix dwells when he is not singing to the brook.”

Once again, he floated across the waves to her. His hand grasped hers, clasping it in warm wetness.

“You must undo your bond.” He pointed at the rope around her waist.

“You won’t take me unwilling?”

“I take nothing that is not given.”

She untied the rope. He took her into her arms, and together, they seemed to lift into the air, dancing upon the wind across the waves to his rock.

“Hold your breath,” he said.

Yldri inhaled. In the next moment, they were no longer floating above the waves, but moving downward and thrusting into them.

The cold stream surrounded them like a black blanket, and the shock of the darkness pushed Yldri’s breath out of her. Panicked, she squirmed in the nix’s arms, and as he only drew her deeper, she thought he had changed his mind and intended to drown her. She opened her mouth to scream, but then air burst into her. Relieved, she sucked it into her lungs.

They were in a dark cavern, where the air smelled thick and moist. Yldri could hear the stream flow above them, its water rumbling like wet thunder. The nix took her hand, and led her through blackness. Wet rock slipped under her bare feet, but he held her hand tight.

They came upon his chamber. From somewhere above, razor-thin rays of light shot into the cavern, granting just enough light for Yldri to make out the details of the room. Seashells and slick water grass grew around the walls in clumps. Upon a shelf of greenish coral sat a row of clay urns, their opening turned downwards.

Nine urns. One for each gravestone.

Yldri’s heartbeats quickened.

The nix saw her looking at the urns. “My choir,” he said calmly.

“You keep them in the urns. Their…” She hesitated. The thought of decaying tongues beneath the urns was repulsive. “Their voices.”

“Yes,” he replied. “Sometimes, the fairest of sounds come from the harshest of torment. The maidens’ spirits feed my violin, and they tune my voice. Without them, I shall not play the stream to go forth, or the trees to dance. I will wither, and so will the brook.”

To let Runa suffer in purgatory, or to still the stream’s song. After spending months with the nix’s music weaving itself into Yldri’s heart, the choice didn’t seem so easy to her anymore.

The nix didn’t seem to notice her qualms. He smiled, and took her face in his hands. They were warm now, not clammy, and they radiated heat into her. “I have shown you my secrets, and I have given my name, Yldri. Will you not give me something in turn?”

Somehow, she had wanted him to ask that question.

So, below the roaring waters of the brook, she gave him everything.

* * *

Yldri did not remember surfacing, or collapsing upon the shore. She was shaken awake by her father’s hand.

For the first time since Runa had died, there was emotion in his face. “Yldri,” he whispered. “I thought that devilish creature had taken you.”

“Never, father,” she said. “He will never take me.”

Yet, the memory of him having her already was burned upon her recollection. Her lips smoldered, and where he had touched her, her skin flared wildly along with her guilt.

Together, Yldri and her father walked back to the village. Thoughts overwhelmed her.

Yldri knew now the way to his dwelling. She knew also where her sister’s soul was held, along with the souls of the other eight girls. She even knew how to banish the nix forever. All the answers that she had set out to collect were now hers.

Yet, she was only faced with more, harder questions.

Oh, why did I not speak his name the moment he showed me the urns? she thought. I could have damned him then. Why did I let him touch me? Why did I not send him out of this existence?

Even though her conscious thoughts could not solve the conundrum for her, her dreams pressed the answer upon her mind. For the next several nights, garish nightmares tossed and turned her with images of Runa’s corpse, gaping at her with her torn mouth.

On the fourth night of waking up in cold sweats, Yldri could not take the guilt anymore. Even though the sun had barely risen past the horizon, she rolled out of bed and dressed. As she hurried down the path towards the Whisperbrook, she prayed silently to her sister.

Runa, do not stop. Haunt me. Torment me. When I look into his face, do not let me forget yours.

While the morning sunrays played upon the stream when she arrived, Yldri knew she would find the brook silent and the nix’s rock empty. She worried for a moment that if she went into his cavern, that she would come upon him there, but she knew she could not enter as long as he played upon the rock. She had to act while it was still morning.

She waded into the cold water. The waves crashed against her, tugging and pulling at her skirt. When she reached the nix’s rock, she was exhausted and fell upon the stony throne to catch her breath. After resting for a while, caressing the smooth surface as if consoling it for her impending betrayal of its owner, she dived.

The cave was empty. Last time it had been warm and humid, but now the air hung cold and naked around her. Yldri felt that the cavern knew her intentions, and that it hated her for it.

Shivering from the cold, and perhaps also guilt, Yldri stumbled her way to the inner chamber. The urns were still neatly lined upon their coral shelf. She stepped up to them, closing her eyes. She willed the urns to speak to her, to affirm that she was doing the right thing.

But the voice that came to her was not her sister’s.

“Yldri.”

When she turned around, she was met with his pained eyes. He knew why she was there.

“I trusted you,” he said accusingly.

“You should have known better than to be so foolish,” she replied. “You knew what I intended to do. Now, stay away. I command you, Nan. Stay away.”

He couldn’t disobey her, but it seemed he had no intention to even try.

“When you take my maidens, you will forever still the music,” he said. “I hope  you’ve had your fill, Yldri. Of my music and of my love.”

He turned from her and walked away. Yldri stood silent, holding her breath, listening to the soft patter of his bare feet against the rock until he disappeared in the blackness and all was quiet.

She swung around to the urns again. Without hesitating, she reached her arms out and pushed them all onto the ground, breaking them with a resounding crash. Amidst the clay shards were nine blackened, decaying tongues. They were alive. The pieces of flesh flapped and twisted on the ground like angry fish, convulsing against the ground with a sickening sound.

Yldri bent down, and despite her disgust, managed to gather the tongues in her skirt. She ran down the passage to the cavern entrance, where she dove into the water and kicked, flayed and twisted herself to the surface.

After sunset, she took the tongues to the church. The moment she stepped onto the hollow ground, they stopped their writhing and lay still in her apron. She buried them at a corner of the churchyard, praying as she dug.

For the first time in months, her sleep was dreamless.

The nine maidens rested now, yet Yldri felt unresolved. Had she made a mistake, not banishing the nix? Would he just collect his choir all over again, when the next unsuspecting girl wanted to cool her feet by the brook? How could she allow him to play on, if it meant someone else’s sister would take their place upon his coral wall?

She told herself that these were questions she had to answer, and that those answers could only be found by the shore. There was a fluttering notion upon her mind that she wanted only to see the nix again, but she would not allow that thought to take root.

I need to make sure he is silenced, she insisted to herself. I will banish him.

When she returned to the brook, she brought the rope with her. She had tied twice the number of knots this time.

The sounds and sights that now met her at the shore were pitiful.

The nix sat upon his rock, his cheek resting against his violin. He played it painstakingly, his eyes closed with concentration. The only sound that came was vile screeching, pushing forth a nightmarish, dissonant melody. At his feet, the stream lay still like a mirror, and above him, the aspens stood frozen. Frustrated tears ran down his pale cheeks.

Any hostility that Yldri had felt ran out of her, and longing to still his tears blossomed within her.

When he opened his eyes and saw her, he seemed to wince in pain. “Yldri,” he said. “Have you come to gloat in my misery? I, who gave you nothing but trust and love, and who played you songs upon the winds every night… What did I do to deserve your wrath?”

“I had to save Runa’s soul,” Yldri said, her voice already losing its determination.

“And now, you are here to damn mine.”

She had been sure just a moment ago, but now it seemed she did not know any longer. She could not answer.

The nix put his violin down, seemingly taking her silence as an affirmative. “Then, let me at least sing one last tune,” he said. “One I composed just for you.”

“No, I do not wish to hear it,” Yldri cried out. “Let me remember the songs that you sang to me when this rope kept me tethered. I cannot stand to hear your songs twisted into ugliness now that you lost the maidens.”

He shook his head. “Oh, but the other maidens never mattered after I met you. Do you not see? I cannot play, this much is true. But it is not because of your theft. It is because of your betrayal. Even a rotted heart such as mine can be crushed. So do me a favor now, beloved, and command me into the darkness if you will not be my light.”

Yldri lifted her face towards the trees above, and they seemed to bear down upon her with accusing branches, blaming her for their stillness. The water that brushed against her feet did so in sad, lifeless wavelets. The magic he had brought, however darkly acquired, was gone. Yes, Runa was saved, but the brook had died, and it was Yldri’s fault. She wept.

What else could she do, but make it right again?

“If I tell you I love you, will your song return to you?” she asked, tears spilling onto her cheeks. “If I promise to sit at this shore every night?”

He shook his head solemnly. “Not until you are a part of the world below, will I make the stream go forth again.”

She had done her duty to her sister. What of her duty to the brook and the forest? What of her duty to her own heart?

She wanted him, darkness and all.

“Nan,” she said. “I command you to make the brook flow and the trees sway, and to never stop again. I command you to play me into your depths. I command you to never take another maiden again.”

She undid the knot around her waist, dropping the rope onto the ground, looking at him expectantly.

He smiled. “I told you I never take what is not willingly given,” he said.

He put his cheek to his violin again, and begun to caress the strings. As he played on, the tune eased into the air, growing wider and taller and truer. Yldri knew he played for her soul, but she did not care. She had never heard a sweeter melody.

This time, there was no rope to hold her. Yldri rushed into the water, reaching for the heavenly devil upon the rock.

As the music and water blended themselves into her, rapture took her.

Then, the brook did.

---

Sylvia Hiven was born in Sweden, and relocated to Atlanta, Georgia in 2001 where she lives with a part-time husband and full-time dog. Her fiction has appeared in the Lorelei Signal, Mystic Signals, Everyday Fiction, and more. You can find her at http://sylviahiven.webs.com.