The Folveshch

1. The Folveshch

The boy's father lost his mind in the winter of 1922.

It was the year that Renkassk felt the first cold touch of something unexplainable that would unhinge its community for as long as it existed. I was fourteen at the time this ill wind blew, and little Aleksy Viktorovich Malenhov had just turned nine.

My family of three lived across the valley from the Malenhovs' crumbling cottage, sat between the Forests of Darakyev and the village proper. Each year their home seemed to recede a little further into the hillside, sinking into the rock and conifers as the shack fell apart at the seams. As a child I'd feared that one spring the cottage would no longer be there, and the villagers of Renkassk would not mourn the vanished Malenhovs. It would be as though they'd never existed, and only I would know of the carpenter and his son that had once dwelt there. My concern did not seem so foolish back then, as the valley was full of impenetrable tension I could never find the root to explain.

Of course, it sounds ridiculous as I recount all of this to you now, as many other of my childhood tales might, but after Viktor Malenhov lost his mind ... I realised it was not impossible for people to disappear over winter after all.

The story takes me back to a Sunday morning in snow-covered December, and my father tuned in to something amiss while outside driving an axe through logs for the stove. He'd noticed the absence of chimney smoke from the Malenhovs' cottage, and the place lay dark and dormant against the surrounding white terrain. A trivial detail, you might assume, though those born and bred in Renkassk knew better than to dismiss these kinds of warnings. It meant that no fire kept the Malenhovs' home warm that day, and the dark winters of the subarctic proved fatal if not prepared for.

"Viktor's fire never goes out this time of year," my father grumbled, mostly to himself. He'd been restless all morning since, peering out the front window of our house every five minutes or so. But Papa was like that: always afraid for his peers, whether it be from God or nature's cruel schemes. He was a grizzled man approaching his mid-thirties, and wore his fur-lined cap and boots all year round. The villagers affectionately called him 'the warden' for this trait, though they were wise enough never to say it to his face.

"Something's wrong." His breath clouded up the pane as he spoke. "I'll be damned if they're not frozen to the core in there."

I joined his side and peered out too. "What if he's out of firewood?"

"Tcha. The man's a carpenter, Stefan. He has more logs stacked up outside his house than he knows what to do with."

He had a point.

"No," he continued, "something's not right. It's been hours." He shot to his feet and snatched up his coat. "That decides it. Fetch me some bread, son – a couple of your mama's rye loaves will do. I'm heading out to Viktor's and I'm taking food with me, just in case."

I tensed with excitement. "L-Let me come with you, Papa. I can help."

"Absolutely not. I may not want you to see this."