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As he drove, Sam’s mind flickered over certain memories Up North. Waiting out the summers, fixing up the cabin, having to leave not long after, starting the whole cycle over again. Prank wars were started, fought, and ended, usually with particularly nasty results, and their father, well...he enjoyed the summers.
But today, Sam was alone, and carefully pulled up to the ratty lake cabin half returned to the wilds. He thought about raising it up, repairing it by magic, but that was a cheap use of magic, and he didn’t feel like being laid out for a month recovering. He’d go face the black widows later, or sleep in a lean-to. If he did, it would probably be better insulated than the cabin ever was.
The day was still warm, and muggy enough to make a good case for swimming, though the main set of cabin-goers had departed. Sam undressed down to his trunks quickly, his movements slightly furtive as he looked around. For all the years he’d had that particularly excellent gift, there was still always that worry of being caught, of being seen. But nobody was around, nothing in sensing range.
“Neck, neck, needle thief,” he began in a childish singsong, walking down towards the shore, walking with a hobbled gait over the stones. “You are in the water, but I am on land. Neck, neck, needle thief, You are on land, but I am in the water.” Even if the Nixen were not in this particular lake, it was still best to be safe. Sam had no desire to find out that the Nixen were in a temper today, and hadn’t been for a very long time.
Stepping into the water, Sam walked deeper until he could half-fall, half-dive further in, going along with a sort of glorified dog paddle until he stopped gasping. Beneath the surface of the lake were water plants, bright with life, and Sam sank through them, kicking in different styles as he traveled through the twisting flora. Looking upwards, he traveled upside down for a few moments, admiring the shift of vision that the film of water provided. Of course, the bubbles ruined that effect, but you could go for a good long time, watching.
Eventually, Sam moved into swimming strokes, through freestyle, backstroke, a playfully driving corkscrew, and eventually a wild butterfly, pushing himself through the water until he grew tired, and could bob along, kicking gently to float and trail his hands through the water plants. Deciding that it would be a good time for lunch, Sam headed in, chuffing to himself to remove the last of the lake water from his face as he located a towel.
“A mixture of past and present.” Sam announced to nobody in particular as he removed his lunch from its cooler. He’d made the oat bread and grown the greens himself, but the thick slice of government cheese topped with beans and something that was probably once pork tasted absolutely like childhood. As for the overwhelming mass of condiments, it tasted like...well, it tasted like a time that was very far away now. It was a good sort of thing to have, at a day on the lake.
After lunch, Sam tucked the food into the cooler again and lay back, settling into the muggy afternoon. Maybe he’d take a nap, or decide what he was going to…
Something purpley-pink glimmered at the edge of his vision.
Purpley-pink was not the color of the lakeside.
He sat up, looking at the source of the color. Either it was a bit of trash, which he could throw away, or it was something else, and even more of his business.
A bit of ribbon, caught on the edge of a bush. A bit of ribbon, ordinarily, would not make Sam worry, but by water, he could feel his heart begin to race. He wasn’t getting closer to touching that ribbon, he didn’t fancy his brains being bashed in. Glancing up at the sky, he grabbed the towel and the cooler, hurrying towards the car to lock himself in. No way there was decent Internet here, he was headed back to the diner in town, or his room, something, but he wasn’t staying up here until he got a handle on what was going on.
Voydyanoy. He’d take a lake of Nixen, ten lakes, over a Voydyanoy. And if that Voydyanoy was married…well, either way, he wasn’t leaving the lake alone like this. If Sam wanted to get that shower in, though, he was going to have to do it before dark. He’d probably twanged the Voydyanoy’s senses by entering his territory, and Sam had no intention of failing the requirements of what it called the Old Ways.
He sped out faster than he’d entered, and was two miles down the road before he realized he was singing, drumming his fingers in his usual slightly-missed tempo. Didn’t get to bed last night...Man, I had a dreadful flight....
Showered while the sun was still up, Sam settled in to research what deaths had taken place locally. Mostly divers, drunks, car crashes, old age…
But there was a degree of caution pressed on around the lake that Sam wasn’t sure he remembered from before. As soon as he started counting, he noticed it was everywhere. Warnings to watch children, that there were no lifeguards, sharp rocks, and how easy it was for children to disappear. More than anything, the phrase repeated over and over like a peculiar prayer. Drown without a sound.
Poking too closely there, he knew, was unlikely to play out well. Still, the warnings were so consistent that he decided to call it. And if he was wrong? Well, it wouldn’t hurt much to be wrong in this case. It was autumn, and there were sure to be at least a goose or two.
This was going to be another job come Spring.
The next morning, Sam was as close to vegetarianism as he could manage this time of year, and Up North. No meat today, just as there had been no meat for dinner last night. He needed to be clean for summoning like this. Even eggs were looked at as temporarily suspect, until after he dealt with the lake.
At the lake, Sam called a goose to him, sensing it out until he could push it with his mind, and the goose collapsed. A nice, bloodless death, because Sam could guess that the town’s new friend in the lake was going to be hungry for anything he could get his hands around, and with as much blood still inside as possible. He could have picked up a goose from the flock making lawns miserable in town, but he also wanted the back of his car to be as goose-free as possible.
A small weight was tied around the goose’s neck, and Sam stood up to admire his handiwork a moment before flinging the dun-and-black body into the water as far out as he could, before it sank to the bottom. There. That should keep the drownings to a minimum for now, and he’d be back in Spring again to help manage that before the crowds set in.
With that over, Sam decided to head back to town and have something more filling before he started turning the cabin somewhere close to livable.
You don’t know how lucky you are, boy...back in the U.S., back in the U.S., back in the U.S.S.R....