The Folveshch

5. The Folveshch

"Nothing will happen to him," I sighed after Aleksy had expressed his routine fears of leaving Viktor unattended. I took out my frustration in the swing of my axe. "The villagers aren't going to hurt him. It wouldn't even cross their minds."

"But how can you be so sure of that?"

"Because I'm not paranoid. Like I keep saying, there's always the kabina if you're finding it all too much. There's no shame in admitting you've had enough. As it happens, I helped build the kabina with you in mind."

He let his axe sway at his side and said, "Da. I-I guess he could go there for a while ..."

Had I heard him properly in the rattling downpour? I paused chopping and narrowed my eyes at him. "Say again?"

"I said I think you're right."

"Oh, so ... you have considered homing him there?"

The boy glanced down at his soggy feet. "Mm-hm."

"Huh. What's changed your mind, malysh? Every time I ask you about the kabina you dig your heels in and won't hear any more of it. What about the part where you tell me your papa's just a quiet man? That he's not a lost soul like mine?"

He brought up his gloved hands, took a long look at the axe across his palms and dropped it into the slush underfoot. "I-I think Papa wants to go," he sobbed. "He hates me."

"He does?"

"But I don't know what I did wrong, Stefan. I washed his face as usual, I changed his shirt, I fed him, same as every other day. The fire's still going, his pillows are plump, his breakfast oats were just how he likes them ... and he still won't talk to me. I-I asked him what was wrong, but he ignored me. I just don't know what to do ... I just don't know."

What could I say to comfort him? Of course Viktor had blanked him – he hadn't responded to anyone in years – but Aleksy was the only person in the village who didn't believe that.

"He changed after I drew those pictures," he continued, and a single tear tumbled down his cheek. "He wants to leave me and live in the kabina like the other men in this shithole village."

His blue eyes flickered as he looked up at me, pleading, and dread enveloped me like a black veil. Growing up in that spooky village you'd think I'd develop an immunity to ill changes in the wind, but in my gut I knew something had happened. Aleksy had never cried in all the years I'd known him, and it unnerved me something awful.

I marched towards the house with no time to waste, boots squelching in the slush.

"Stefan?" Aleksy called after me. "Where are you going?"

"In." I threw my axe down on the porch. "To check on your father."

I led the way inside and Aleksy jogged close at my heels, peeping over my shoulder. As I pushed the front door open the wall of stench greeted me worse than I'd ever known, and I battled the reflex to retch.