Vodník Page 4

  I pointed the sword at Dad. “Hello,” I said. “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

  He laughed, but Mom rolled her eyes and said, “Put it down, Tomas. It isn’t a toy.”

  Katka frowned. “I don’t understand. How could your father kill your father? It is a joke?”

  I blushed and tried not to appear hurried as I gave the sword back to Adam. “No,” I said. “Just a movie quote.”

  Adam flourished the blade and then pointed it at my chest. “To the pain,” he said in accented but clear English.

  I instantly liked the man. I’d have to educate Katka about fine American cinema later this summer.

  “Dobre,” L’uboš said from behind me. He was coming out from his tent, just finishing pulling on a T-shirt. Even in normal clothes, he still seemed ready to do some serious damage. He handed me a Coke, which I took gratefully. It wasn’t cold, but it was wet, and I was thirsty.

  “Tomas,” he said while I drank. “I have question.”

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “You want job?”

  “What?”

  He sighed, then pointed up at the castle. “Castle Trenčín. We give tours, but we not have English tour guide. Katka does some, but we need native. You want job? I am night watchman here. I know boss, and I can get you job.”

  I looked from him to the castle and back, afraid I wasn’t understanding. “You want to know if I’d like to work at the castle?”

  L’uboš laughed and shook his head, causing my heart to plummet. “Sorry,” he said. “Too fast.”

  Katka explained in Slovak, and my uncle grinned. “Yes. You like to work at castle?”

  I beamed. “I’d love to.” Then I recalled who I was standing with, and I turned to my parents. “Can I?”

  They nodded.

  L’uboš clapped his hands. “Dobre. Then I give you tour. Meet me in courtyard in fifteen minutes. Katka will take you.” He babbled some stuff in Slovak I didn’t catch.

  My parents said their good-byes, and Katka grabbed me by the arm and dragged me back toward where I had come in. “He made me promise to get you to close your eyes again.” She stopped in the middle of the path and smiled even broader. “I’ve never had cousin before. I have been planning this since I first hear you coming. I’m very happy you are here.”

  I was surprised her English had gotten worse so abruptly. During the tournament, it had been flawless. The change in her speech was endearing. Sure, it was like she was doing one of my dad’s Boris and Natasha impersonations, but it gave her a flaw, which made her more appro­achable. We reached the door back to the main castle complex, and Katka opened it for me. I dutifully closed my eyes, still feeling kind of silly, but willing to endure it. She took me by the shoulders and led me through the door.

  “So when did you start learning English?” I asked, trying a stab at conversation. Jet lag was starting to catch up with me, and I didn’t want to let it.

  “When I was eleven, although I don’t have much chance to practice it except here at the castle.”

  So maybe she memorized those speeches, which would explain the sudden change in language ability. “How long have you been giving tours?”

  “Two years.”

  We walked in silence for a while, her giving me nudges to keep me from running into anything, and me wishing I could think of something to talk about.

  At last we stopped. “You can look now, but only one direction. No turning around.”

  I opened my eyes to see her smiling at me. I couldn’t help smiling back, and in the process, I felt a little more comfortable. I was facing the main entrance. It was still as dead as it had been before. Three guys about our age were huddled over by a modern building made from steel and glass, which stuck out amid all this history like a drama kid on the football team. They waved at Katka, but they ignored me.

  “Where are all the people?” I asked.

  Katka glanced past me, back up toward the castle. “Don’t bring that up when my father comes, okay? It’s . . . difficult, especially on days like this. Usually, we have better crowd, but it’s getting worse. After wall fell down—” She cut off in midsentence, her face suddenly twisting in pain. She put a hand to her right temple.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She shook her head, but didn’t say anything.

  “What’s wrong?” Was someone nearby who could help?

  “Just a headache,” Katka said. She was back to normal, her face pain free.

  Right. In my experience, headaches didn’t come and go at the drop of a hat.

  “Anyway,” she said, ignoring what had just happened, “my father worries enough about the crowds already. If we don’t get more people here, we might lose castle.”

  That jolted me from my train of thought. “What?”

  “It belongs to the city now. If we can’t keep castle in proper shape, it will be sold to someone who can.”

  “Like who?” I asked.

  She frowned. “Can we talk about something else?”

  I nodded, my mind racing to come up with another topic. I was saved by an interruption.

  “Excuse me.”

  A short man—maybe a slice over five feet—walked up from behind me, coming into view to look up at me. Two other things stood out about him besides his height: his wild, bushy hair and the fact that he was wearing a dark turtleneck despite the heat. He had eyes that were straight out of Santa Claus: twinkling and merry was the only way to describe them. Better yet: he’d spoken in English.

  “Yes?” Katka said, also in English.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt. I mean, I know it’s rude and everything to come up to complete strangers and just start talking. Just start blathering away. But I heard you speaking English. Not that I was eavesdropping. Never that. But the language does stick out a bit. I’d say like a sore thumb, but with less pain. That was English, wasn’t it? Not Dutch or Swedish or Swahili?”

  I smiled. English! “Yeah,” I said. “It was English.”

  He chuckled. “American English, no less. How impressive. Are both of you American?”

  Katka seemed to be having a hard time following the guy’s words. He had an accent, but I couldn’t place it. Some place European, probably.

  “No. Only me. I just got here yesterday.”

  “Allow me to welcome you to Slovakia. I’m Vít’azoslav. Vít’o for short.” He thrust out his hand, and I shook it. It was soft and moist, like he slathered on hand lotion.

  Vít’o adjusted the sleeves of his turtleneck. Now that I’d seen him for a bit, I noticed he had some huge sweat stains going on in that thing. You could have wrung it out and gotten a half gallon. “I don’t mean to intrude,” he said, “but I wanted to be sure to speak with you before you scurried off somewhere. You never know, with Americans. Will you be here long?”

  I nodded. “We moved here.”

  He rolled his eyes in exaggerated joy. “Oh! Yes! Fantastic. Superb. Will wonders never cease? And now, for the next question. You wouldn’t, by any chance, have anything against a strange man coming up to you when he sees you in the city or the castle, would you? And when I say strange man, I mean me. And when I say come up to you, I mean come to practice English with you. Would you be opposed to such a situation?”

  “I . . . guess not?” I kind of wanted to say no, but couldn’t think of a polite way to do it.

  Vít’o smiled again. He had a big mouth. You saw more teeth in his grin than you expected. “May the moon of peace and prosperity shine down upon your posterior. Or is that posterity? I get the two mixed up. See? I need the practice.” He raised his hands in the air. Thankfully, BO didn’t accompany the pit stains, or the whole castle would have been a biohazard site. “But enough. Enough, Vít’o. You’ve taken enough of the kind lad’s time. I’m off. We shall see each other again, good sir. Certainly we shall. What was your name?”

  “Tomas.”

  “Of course it is. What else would it be? Wel
l, Tomas. A token for your generosity, and a down payment on next time.” He flipped a coin in the air toward me, and I caught it. I tried to turn to thank him, but Katka stopped me as Vít’o rushed past me up the hill.

  “No turning around. Besides, my father is almost here.”

  I nodded and examined the coin Vít’o had given me. It was well-worn and shoddily minted. It had a picture of a shield on each side, with some hard-to-read writing circling the edge. The date was clear, though: 1690.

  A hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Who was that man?” L’uboš asked, coming to stand in front of me.

  I shrugged. “Some guy. He wants to practice English with me, and he gave me this.”

  L’uboš took the coin from me and studied it for a moment. “This . . . Kreuzer. Old. Good condition. Maybe fifty dollars. The man, he spoke English?”

  “Yeah,” I said, still marveling that someone had casually tossed me fifty bucks worth of coin. “Do you know him?”

  He frowned. “No. Probably here snooping for Germans.” He trailed off, and if anything, I could have sworn he growled. Whatever his thoughts were, he shook his head and clapped his hands loudly. “No matter! Time train new American ace tour guide. Please turn around and meet your new job.”

  Spirits aren’t to be confused with vílas. While vílas each have their own element and are formed by ancient forces of nature, spirits are simply souls that lost their way at one point or another, becoming bound to an element in the process. A spirit might be tied to an element, but a víla is that element. It’s a slight but significant difference, as you’ll no doubt discover in time.

  The castle plateau was as big as my high school grounds back home, and almost every bit of it was old. There were trees as thick around as five of me, and a large amphitheater lay ahead with an enormous stone well by it.

  L’uboš pointed at the modern building where the teens had been hanging out. “See that?”

  I nodded.

  “That is stupid,” he said. “Look at where we are. This castle was built by at least 179 AD. There were trees. There were rocks. There were no steel I beams and plate glass. The first thing you must know about Trenčín castle is that Communists restored it. They were more interested in making new style of architecture than doing good restoration.”

  His voice grew louder, dropping into a singsong pattern that indicated this wasn’t the first time he’d said this. Plus, his English was much better when talking about the castle. “Now,” he continued, “we are having many troubles with maintenance. The Communist work is falling apart. In some cases, this is very bad. We don’t have money to make repairs. In other cases, this is very good. Get rid of bad renovations for free. If only stupid glass building would fall down. Hot in summer. Cold in winter. Stupid gift shop that sells no gifts.”

  Katka and I followed as he strode across the terrace, weaving between the amphitheater’s wooden benches, and to the well. It had a waist-high stone wall with wooden beams supporting a pointed roof. I didn’t get much closer. After all, wells meant water, and even if the thing was covered with an iron grate, I didn’t want to risk falling in.

  L’uboš saw I was still ten feet from the well and motioned for me to come forward. I shuffled a foot or so more, but he would have to pay me to go farther. He laughed and shook his head. “Whatever.” He gestured at the well. “This is Well of Love.”

  “Is that like, the tunnel’s mother?” I asked slowly.

  L’uboš creased his forehead in confusion. “Not tunnel. Well. Legend says it was built long ago by man named Omar. His love, Fatima, was captured by the lord of the castle then, Stefan Zapolsky. When Omar found out, he rushed to Stefan and offered him anything—Omar was very rich, and he had much to trade. But Stefan said only thing the castle lacked was water, and that if Omar could give him that, he would let Fatima go.

  “Omar and his men dug for three years, eighty meters straight down, before they reached water. In the process, almost three hundred of his men died. When they found water, Stefan was so happy, he let Fatima go. To this day, people come to well and throw in coins for luck in love.”

  “Eighty meters,” I said, edging a bit closer to the well to show I was impressed. “Cool.”

  L’uboš gave a half smile and walked over to stand by me. “And the whole story is lie. Actually, the well was started in sixteenth century. It took workers forty years to dig down eighty meters, and by the time they got there, they still hadn’t found water. But with rainfall, the well collects enough water to act as artificial . . .” He frowned, then said, “Umelá nádrž.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Place for water—about fifteen meters deep usually, but all fifteen meters of it is bad for drinking now. Too many minerals from rock walls. As tour guide you must know the legend of the Well of Love—very popular tourist attraction. We clean the coins out twice a year. Good for money. Let’s go. Much to see.”

  He led us on a whirlwind through the armory and some outbuildings, and then we headed up the hill. The path curved past a murky pool on the right before it led to another gate in a wall. I stopped at the pool and stared at it, the wind blowing through my hair. Something about it was familiar. I started massaging my scar. L’uboš and Katka stopped as well.

  “Is this where it happened?” I asked.

  Katka translated for her uncle, and he nodded. It was hard to believe something so small had affected my life so much. My scar tingled, like it could still feel the heat of the fire.

  L’uboš pointed at the pool. He spoke in Slovak, but Katka translated. “That is runoff from castle gutters. No doubt it is hard for you to see, but you will work at the castle now. You need to be comfortable, or else tourists won’t be. We need the money. So don’t think of that pool as the place you almost died. Think of it as castle runoff.”

  Katka patted me on the back, and they continued up, giving me a bit of space. The water in the pool swirled, and for a moment, I thought I saw a head staring out at me. The eyes in particular seemed well formed, two evenly spaced tight swirls that gazed up at me with an unreadable expression. I blinked, and it was gone.

  Enough with the trip down memory lane.

  Right before the main entrance to the keep, L’uboš stopped on the wooden ramp’s corner and pointed in front of him. “The wall fell away here a few years ago. Probably because of water damage. One night, I woke up in morning to see it was gone. I was just worried at first that I had done something. I was very glad to know it wasn’t my fault, and that no one was hurt. Construction is working on it, but to replace the wall is very expensive. It will take many tourists to earn it back. Many.” He trailed off, his face lined with worry.

  L’uboš didn’t stop long, though. He shook his head and resumed his cheerful demeanor, taking us through a barbican and into the main castle, the central tower looming over us and blocking out the sun. The next hour was filled with him talking and us listening. In each building we entered, he’d pause and mutter something, then bow. Finally I asked, “What are you doing?”

  He stopped and studied at me. “When I first started working at the castle, some of guides told me it was haunted. But of course people will say it’s haunted, I thought. Good for tourism.” His English here was pretty good, so I figured this was part of the tour too. He continued.

  “One night, I was going on my watch route. The dog was out, it was late, and castle was empty. Normal. I was outside in the courtyard when suddenly the alarm goes off. Very loud. I find out what set it off, and it says something had been in one of the tower rooms. So I investigate with a flashlight. This was my first time dealing with the alarm going off, so I am very nervous. I search the building from top to bottom. No one was there.

  “Then the dog starts to bark again and I see what he is barking at. Across the courtyard, I saw a woman made out of water. Clothes, skin, hair—everything. I blinked, and she was gone.”

  A shiver ran down my back. That sounded just like the person I’d seen last night o
utside our apartment. L’uboš continued.

  “I didn’t know what to do. I knew I had seen someone, but what if it was an intruder? I was not paid to be scared. I was paid to protect castle. So I took Stallone—the dog—with me and went to where I had seen the woman. When I got there, there was a puddle. Nothing was near the puddle. No leaky faucets. No pipes. It had not rained for days, yet there was the puddle.

  “I look back where I had come from. Where I had been standing, a man was watching me. He was short, and dressed in full suit. He made no movement—just stared at me. I blinked, but he didn’t disappear. Stallone didn’t bark at him. I should have yelled to him. Asked who he was. What he was doing there. I am night guard. But I could not. I was shocked. Scared. We held that position for a minute, then he walked away.

  “After I got enough courage, I searched the castle again. The whole complex, from the entrance gate to the tower. No one was anywhere. No locks were undone. No windows open. I didn’t sleep for the next three days.”

  L’uboš finished his story, and I remembered to breathe. I almost told L’uboš about my experience from the night before, but then a quick glance at Katka made me hold my tongue. “Who do you think they were?” I asked.

  My uncle sighed, then spoke in Slovak with Katka translating. “I will tell you something I don’t tell tourists. And you are not to repeat it.”

  I nodded.

  “Many believe Trenčín is cursed. Of course they blame Roma. When do they not? Stupid. But it is fact: there are more drownings here than anywhere else in Slovakia, and that is even with many people avoiding water. I think the man and woman are connected to these deaths. Maybe angry spirits from the castle’s history.”

  The town was cursed? And of course it would be drowning. I shuddered.

  “Come,” L’uboš said, breaking my train of thought. “This is not talk for happy day. The tour continues. You asked what I say each time I enter a new building. I greet the real owners of the castle. This is not ours. We just use it. Remember that, and you’ll be fine. And now, more tour.”