The River's Gift

The bark stung Ben’s hands as he dug furiously into soggy, clay-thick soil, the edges of his makeshift shovel crumbling away in rough splinters. Occasional raindrops were testing his patience with their staccato threats, each one a warning that the storm would be upon him soon.

Soon, but maybe not soon enough.

Before him rushed the softly foaming Juniper River and its waterfall veil, two of his closest companions since moving to this godforsaken country three years ago. Little else felt familiar to him -- the houses were all too big, the shops too flashy, his classmates too loud and spoiled and rude. Even the cars were endlessly foreign to him, hulking testaments to some outsized ideal he felt he’d never understand. He missed his family’s little wood and glass home by the forest; he missed the smell of snow and wool. He missed being able to use his real name, Torben, and hated every kid at school who mocked him for it. Most of all, he missed looking in the mirror and seeing a face free of bruises.

When the hole he’d been digging was finally big enough, he pressed a silver dollar into the bottom of it, followed by a bundle of flowering herbs and a clump of crystallized honey out of a jar. He then tugged out his ponytail holder and carefully collected every loose hair he could find, draping them delicately over the sticky, golden mess he’d made in the dirt. With his shovel of bark he retrieved a drink’s worth of water from the river and poured it over everything.

“Great-grandfather River! Oldefar Flod!” he called out, pulling a small bottle of akvavit from his coat pocket and undoing the cork. “I call you to me with honey and wine! I call you to me with that which shines and that which grows!” He reverently added a small amount of akvavit to the offerings in the hole, then covered it all with the bark and sealed it up with wet clay. “Oldefar Flod, I call you to me!”

The sky overhead was growing darker by the second, and Ben knew that if Oldefar Flod didn’t respond before the storm began in earnest, it likely wouldn’t respond at all. Ben inched closer to the river and poured a thread of akvavit into it, idly wondering how much would count as a drink to an ancient spirit.

A dark shape rose from the water at the base of the falls, too far away for Torben to see clearly. It was small, though -- perhaps just the top of a head.

“Great-grandfather River! Oldefar Flod!” repeated Ben, once again offering a sip of akvavit into the river. The shape disappeared, and Ben’s heart sank with it. He clenched his raw, bloodied hands into angry fists and stared hard at the spot where he’d seen the shape emerge, not wanting to give up. It was just when his hope had nearly extinguished that he saw something staring at him from the edge of his peripheral vision -- eyes and nose protruding from the water, surrounded by a halo of long, black hair, iridescent as an oil slick. So delicate were its features that Ben would have thought it a girl, save for the oddly fish-like eyes; still, he jumped at the sight of it, not expecting it to be so close.

Any illusion of femininity was lost, however, when Oldefar Flod began to crawl its way onto the riverbank. Its mouth was wide and bearded, and its body was so thin and stretched -- yet bunched up in odd places, as if harboring eggs under its skin -- it barely resembled either a man or a woman. Though sunlight scarcely illuminated the two of them, Oldefar Flod shimmered in patches where it was covered in silver scales, and appeared slimy like an eel in others; other parts, still, were dotted with a chitinous pink and blue crust, and black moss coated its forearms and the undersides of its feet. The smell, however -- Ben would never forget the smell. It smelled of pine trees and mulled wine, of mineral-rich soil and freezing air. It smelled of home.

“Oldefar Flod,” said Ben as it curled into a hunched position beside him, “I have called you to me by the old ways, and by the old ways you must protect me. Give me a piece of your magic so that I may survive here.” He was doing his best to sound regal and commanding, reciting lines he’d rehearsed in front of his bedroom mirror for hours the night before.

“Go home, Torben Erland,” whispered the spirit, painfully drawing out each word like nails slowly scraped across a chalkboard. “You know not what you ask of me.”

“Yes I do!” shouted Ben, all his practiced composure lost. Then, softer, “And I can’t go home. This place will never be my home.”

“I know this, Torben Erland,” replied Oldefar Flod, its transparent false eyelids clicking shut and peeling back open like a broken membrane. “But what you ask cannot be undone, and I have seen your many years unfolding in these waters. You know not what you ask of me.”

“You can’t refuse me,” said Ben, turning his gaze to the bottle of akvavit he’d stolen from his father’s liquor cabinet.

“Ah.” Oldefar Flod’s eyes widened slightly as it lifted its head in acknowledgement, hungry mouth open as if searching for one more kiss of the aromatic spirit. “I cannot, no,” it confessed, “but you can reconsider.”

“I won’t,” replied Ben, squinting as the rain began to fall in earnest. “I hate it here.”

“Very well.” Oldefar Flod drew a chitinous nail over one of the egg-like lumps under its skin and squeezed out a viscous, caviar-like substance, watercolor green and effervescent. The pungent odor wafting off it made Ben’s eyes sting and his mouth water in the way he’d sometimes salivate excessively before vomiting. “Listen to their song,” it said, smearing the caviar goo over the pits of Ben’s ears. “Return to me in three days’ time with your first gift of flesh, and do not think to mock my kindness, or I will take a gift of my own choosing.”

Like fluttering moths trapped inside his head, he felt the eggs as much as he heard their overlapping whispers, drowning out everything around him but the storm’s distant thunder and his own whimpering. He slumped to his side as the frantic trembling pushed its way behind his eyes and down into his throat, his vision dimming, his fingers desperately tugging at the collar of his shirt in a plea for air. Before the soft sibilant murmurings could steal his sight, he watched Oldefar Flod turn and crawl to the river’s edge, poised on all fours like a hunting dog.

Lightning fled from cloud to cloud above them, and Oldefar Flod let out a scream of all dying things. High and terrified, low and mournful, full of prayer and need and hate and sorrow.

Ben felt mud seeping into the corner of his mouth, and then he felt nothing at all.

*****

When Ben awoke the following morning, he was in his bed. Filthy, stinking, and confused, but in his own bed. He checked the clock; 5:44 AM. His dad’s bottle of akvavit was still tucked in his coat pocket and the house sounded quiet as could be. Thank God, he thought.

He rolled to his feet and shed his mud-encrusted clothes into the hamper before wrapping himself in his robe and creeping to the bathroom. There was an ache in him he couldn’t identify, like a vague headache before an illness, but also a wild, vivid, almost unpleasant alertness. By the time he’d finished his shower, his reflection showed him the Torben he remembered being before coming here -- his long blonde hair and pale winter skin no longer felt foreign, but comfortable. His split and bruised brow was merely a memory; the fat lower lip he’d been nursing had shrunk back down to its slender curve.

“Torben?” His twin sister’s voice, muffled by the door, followed by a gentle knocking. “I have to use the bathroom.”

“One sec, Astrid,” he replied, slinging his robe back on. He opened the door to find her tiptoe-hopping from foot to foot in the hall. “Why didn’t you go downstairs?”

“Shh! It’s too early,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to wake Dad.” She shimmied past him and shooed him out with a smile. “Thanks.”

Breakfast passed much as it usually did -- thick toast with cheese and coffee -- and the two of them were out the door just as their father was pouring his first mug. Halfway to school, however, Astrid stopped, reaching out to her brother to ensure he stopped as well. “Torben?”

He glanced down at her hand on his arm, then looked up at her, confused. “What?”

“I, uh,” she let go and began fidgeting with the strap on her backpack instead. “I noticed your face looks a lot better today. If you don’t want to go in, I’ve gotten pretty good at faking Dad’s signature. I can write you a note--”

“No, it’s okay,” he interrupted. “I think it’s going to be fine.” He watched as Astrid’s cheeks flushed, and he thought at first that she felt embarrassed -- but then her eyes were rimmed with tears. “Hey,” he said softly, pulling her in for a hug. “Hey, it’s okay. Thank you.”

“It’s not fair,” she murmured.

He sighed and gave her a squeeze before stepping back, hands on her shoulders. “I have a feeling it will all be over soon. Just trust me, okay? I just... I have a feeling.”

She nodded, sniffling, and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“Gross,” he said with a smirk, earning himself a playful shove.

*****

Amidst a clumsy, crashing stream of students, a voice as charming as a lawnmower at 7AM on Sunday pierced through the main hall. “Hey, it’s Turdben! Hey Alex, Turdben showed up!” It was Dominic, easily the most annoying person on the planet as far as Torben was concerned.

Astrid tugged on Torben’s flannel. “Do you want me to stay with you?”

“No, go ahead,” he replied. “Get to class; I’ll be fine.”

She bit her lip, frowning, but did as he asked -- being sure to shoot a glare in the direction of Alex and his gang on her way.

As usual, Alex rolled up to Torben’s locker with Dominic in tow shortly after Torben had arrived there himself. Hanging back were Alex’s three other toadies, all clinging like barnacles to the social status they somehow perceived in doing his bidding.

“Not going to tell us to go away today, Turdben?” said Dominic, snickering.

“Not today, no.” Torben opened his locker and shoved his backpack inside, then looked Alex dead in the eyes. “But I think you should come with me after school. Just you.”

Silence choked the air for a moment. A moment, nothing more, as if someone had accidentally toggled a mute button on the world. Then, with a thunderous clap the silence left as quickly as it came, leaving Dominic with his hands over his ears. “My ears just popped, man! Why’d my ears just pop?” Thin rivulets of blood trickled down as he pulled his hands away; he shrieked, high and helpless as a child.

Alex, oddly unphased, snapped his fingers at his three lingering toadies. “Take him to the nurse.”

Torben closed his locker, cradling his books under his arm. “So?”

Alex nodded absentmindedly. “Sounds good, yeah. Meet you on the steps?”

“On the steps. Just you. Deal.”

*****

When Torben walked outside at the end of the day, he found Alex on the steps as expected, although he was excitedly talking to a very nervous-looking Astrid. She held up a polite hand to her newfound “friend” and hurried to her brother, whispering, “What is going on right now?”

“I’m not... exactly sure,” Torben replied, honestly. “Listen, I’ll take care of this. I’ll see you at home around dinner, okay?”

“Torben...”

“You better go or I’ll make you carry my backpack home,” he joked. She made a face and turned to leave, waving awkwardly at the kid who just yesterday was ordering his buddies to smash her brother’s face into a urinal.

As soon as his sister was out of sight, Torben stepped over to Alex. “Hey,” he said. “You ready?”

“Yeah!” replied Alex. “Where we going?”

“To the woods. Just wanna talk.”

And talk Alex did. The whole way there, he did nothing but ramble on about how incredible it was that Torben and his sister were from another country -- how great it must be to speak more than one language, how cool their clothes looked, how much smarter Torben was than him... and, after a while, it dawned on Torben that Alex was letting out a flood of his innermost thoughts.

“Hold on, Alex,” he said, slowing his pace. The river wasn’t far. “Are you jealous of me?”

“No!” Alex glanced at Torben, then shrugged and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “Well, maybe a little. You have a lot that I don’t have. I grew up here. I’ve never been anywhere. I’m not good at studying and compared to you I look like a troll.”

“Trolls are part of my culture,” replied Torben. “I’d say you act like one more than you look like one.”

Alex stopped, gesturing outwards without taking his hands out of his pockets; he looked like some kind of pitiful bat to Torben. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay?”

“Why do you do it? Why the gang of toadies -- why be a jerk all the time? What’s the point?”

“You can’t be more popular than me. I thought you were going to be more popular than me, I mean. It’s... man, it sounds so stupid now.”

Torben laughed incredulously. “Is that a joke?”

“No!”

“I don’t want to be popular, Alex. I want to go back home. I don’t even want to be here, do you understand that?”

“I do now.” Alex seemed to shrink in that moment, as if all the air had been let out of him. “I’m sorry, Torben. I’m sorry for everything. I’m even sorry that you have to be here and not where you want to be. I don’t know what that’s like. I’ll help you, if I can.”

Torben sighed. This new version of Alex was agreeable and likeable and it was almost making him angry. “I don’t think you can help, Alex. Thanks, though.” Then, after a pause, “But you can stop beating me up. That’d be a nice start.”

Alex nodded. “Hey, can I ask you some questions? Like, about where you’re from? It just sounds really cool.”

Again with the likeable side. Torben didn’t want Alex to be his friend; he was planning on feeding him to Oldefar Flod, after all. Is this what the ancient spirit meant by not knowing what he was asking for? He sighed and kicked at the leaves and dirt, then shrugged and gazed straight up into the forest canopy above. Anything to stall, to find a way to change the subject or get moving again. Maybe they could turn back, though. Maybe Torben could use the magic to convince Dominic to come out here instead -- Dominic was just as much of a jerk, and twice as annoying to boot.

He’d almost made up his mind when, somewhere in the back of his thoughts, Torben felt more than he heard a soft, fluttering whisper. “It is not the third day, Torben Erland. You mock my kindness.”

“Alex, you need to run. Now.”

“What?”

“Alex, run! Run, now!”

Torben saw a flash of something in Alex’s eyes just before he turned and ran; some great terror there, greater than Torben’s command alone could have summoned up in his heart.

The smell of pine trees and mulled wine, of mineral-rich soil and freezing air filled Torben’s senses as he watched Alex sprint for his life. A pang of regret stung at him -- not for having missed his opportunity to offer Alex up to Oldefar Flod, but for knowing Alex had seen Oldefar Flod at all.

“He won’t be a babbling loon now, will he?” said Torben, more to himself than anything.

“You mock my kindness,” repeated Oldefar Flod.

“My sister,” said Torben, quietly. “Will you look after her?”

*****

Astrid squinted up at the clouds as a raindrop thudded against her forehead. Thumbing the cork on the bottle of akvavit she’d found in her brother’s room, she took a tiny sip and gagged. Why did he have this? She still couldn’t make sense of the last few days.

She chucked off her shoes and scooted closer to the river, dipping her feet into the rushing water. Another swig. Still gross. She was just about to toss it into the swell of the waterfall when she caught a glimpse of blonde hair rising from below the water’s surface.

“Torben?” She stood and waded in up to her chest, frantic. “Torben?!”

The grip of Oldefar Flod on her arm was cold and sinuous, like a thousand squirming ropes under scaled skin. She watched her brother’s body turn over in the water and open his eyes as Oldefar Flod rose behind her, a guttural clacking escaping its throat. Torben thrashed helplessly in his watery prison, crying out in soundless fury, but no anger or magic or prayer could save either of them.

Astrid let out a scream so high and loud the birds fled every tree in a frenzied cloud, ink bursting into the sky, and Oldefar Flod yanked her backwards into the river -- its gift of flesh chosen on the third day.