The Folveshch

15. The Folveshch

The door creaked open a fraction and I shot him a look so cold, so full of piercing hatred that it made the storm seem mild. Quivering blue irises shone like beacons in the dark.

"Stefan," he croaked. "Stefan ... what are you doing out here? You shouldn't have come."

I ground my teeth together. "I heard everything. I know what you've done."

"Go back home before it comes for you!"

"Oh, quit your games, for God's sake! Get outside!"

"I shouldn't."

"Get outside or I'll drag you out here myself!"

"W-What are you going to do?"

"Turn you in you vile worm! Get you executed for ... for –" My voice cracked. I couldn't say the words aloud.

He hesitated a moment, but eventually nodded and emerged from the house. "I can explain, but not now. Please. You have to go."

"You're the one who should be running," I snapped. "Running far, far away, until you perish and I'll be glad. You dug up your father after we worked for weeks to find him, and then –"

"What? No." His brows knitted. "I told you at the graveyard that Papa dug himself out of that grave. You saw the state of the place. You saw where he'd pulled himself along in the snow. He came here and I found him."

"Bull shit. You want me to believe that? Dead men don't crawl from underground and return home. Who do you think I am!?"

He licked his bloodied lips. "He said you saw the pictures."

"What pictures?"

"The day they took him away. He tried to tell you not to look at the drawings I'd made of the Folveshch. Isn't that right?"

Again I recalled the charcoal faces. Those terrible, contorted faces. I turned away from him. "Nothing happened that day, Aleksy. All of this is in your head. Pyotr said in your report that you went mad with loneliness."

"Tcha! Mad!? I'm mad? Do you know about the men at the kabina?"

"It's a disease! It's ... Pyotr said –"

His cold laughter disarmed me. "Ha! And the identical tales about the Folveshch? How do you explain that?"

"There's nothing to explain. You spread stories when you were a kid; everybody knows it."

I didn't like the wicked smile that split his face in two. His cheeks cracked as though his skin was brittle wood, drawing his lips back over his small, jagged teeth.

"You don't know anything at all, do you, Stefan?" he hissed. The gleam in his eyes intensified. "You've never believed me about the Folveshch. If you'd just listened to me in the first place, perhaps all the other incidents could have been avoided. Viktor Malenhov, Iakov Yakunin, his brother Georgiy: all lost in their own minds because you didn't believe."

"There was nothing we could do prevent what happened!"

"But you blocked it out, all this time. Ha. I didn't want to have to do this to make you believe me."

"Do what?"

The wind picked up around us and the topmost layer of snow swirled into the air. "Show it to you. It's nearby. It can already see you."

"Stop talking like that."

Snap. A branch broke above me. "Do you know what happens when the Folveshch appears before you? No? It follows you and watches you for the rest of your life. Each day on repeat. Over ... and over. And then you can only hope to stall it, to keep it at bay."

"Enough!" I planted my palms in his chest and pushed him over into the snow with a muted thud. His head hit the wood underneath and the next thing I saw was the blood trickling down his chin where his pointed little teeth had bitten straight through his tongue.

Though horrified, I did not falter.

"That's enough of this crap!" I yelled.

"When you see it, you'll lose your miiiind!" Aleksy sang from the floor. His mouth wept crimson into his scarf. "You'll become obsessed with it; gripped by the fear that it's always there. Paranoid that it's watching you at work, at home, while you sleep. Nowhere is it blind."

"Shut up! Now!"

He didn't care.

"The winter days grow darker and darker until even the sun dare not rise, and the Folveshch comes nearer the more you fear it. It resides in your periphery, whispering your name when all's quiet. Clawing at the walls at night. Calling. Never resting. It won't give in until it has you, and when the day comes that you can't take it anymore, it will lure you close. Face to face. It'll lure you out wherever you are, whatever you're doing."

"Stop it!" I drove the toe of Papa's boot into his side and stormed off down the trail through the conifers.

"It's your turn, Stefan!" he called after me. His voice blared through the trees. "You can't walk away and hope it will disappear!"

I stopped dead.

"I didn't want it to come to this," he continued, quieter, "I've grown fond of you, after all, yet you will never understand the curse if you don't feel what I feel. The more you think of it and remember its wretched face, the closer it gets to you. And not just where you can see it. No. You remember those drawings, Stefan? Ha! Don't act like you don't. They were of the Folveshch. You've already seen its face. You knew all along."

I curled my fists again. "Aleksy ..." I breathed, turning to face him from afar. My lungs warned of their old rattle. "Let's ... let's just go home. Go home, to the cellar, a-and we'll talk in the morning about what to do with you. This is your chance to confess. It's your chance to do the right thing by me."

"It's toolate," he grinned. "It's too late. It's here. It's right here withus. Look." He threw his arm out above his head. "Look, Stefan!"