The Rusalka's Daughter

At dusk the girl went missing.

At dawn she was back in her bed, sodden and caked in black earth from the waist of the nightgown to the bottoms of her ice-cold feet.

It didn’t matter which room she was in. It didn’t matter which doors they locked. It didn’t matter who kept vigil night after night.

At dusk the girl went missing. At dawn she was back in her bed.

Even when the family moved across town. Even when she was sent across state lines to live with a new family. There always came a dusk. And Greta always went missing.

“Did you sleep well, Darling?” Mrs. Wentz asked maternally, still mopping up the muddy footprints that lined the hallway floors. Three months of washing little muddy footprints, and yet Mrs. Wentz smiled each time, the night of worry slipped into relief that Greta was home safe again.

Greta didn’t speak. She never spoke. But she did hum. In the mornings her hums were cheerful. Her eyes lit up, and her tip-toe sprints out of bed were brisk and full of play, like a budding ballerina heading to centre stage.

Mrs. Wentz beamed despite dark circles under her eyes, and the crows-feet around her grey eyes pinched in delight as Greta almost passed for a typical happy child.

“What adventures shall we have today, Sweet One?” Mrs. Wentz cooed as she helped the girl out of the soggy, stained nightgown that clung to the back of Greta’s skinny legs. The state of the nightgown was as much a mystery to Mrs Wentz as the disappearances themselves. Mrs. Wentz could have sworn that she never saw Greta ever put on a nightgown, and yet, no matter what the kindly old woman did with it, washed it, left it in the hamper, or left on the line to dry, Greta always woke with it on, and the one Mrs. Wentz last remembered specifically throwing out in the morning bin, was back as it always was, freshly worn and freshly mucked.

During all hours of the day, Mrs. Wentz kept her eye on the girl. Greta never left her sight. With crayons and large coloured paper on the kitchen floor, the humming girl was quite occupied while the tender white-haired lady made supper with only half an eye on the stovetop.

At the dinner table, Mrs. Wentz served her young ward, and kept up a lively conversation as though Greta took equal share in the discussion. But when the sun set, if Mrs. Wentz so much as blinked, Greta was gone.

***

It was past 11 o’clock when the tire blew out. A miracle that the driver hadn’t spun right into the steep marshy ditch. He swore loudly, caught his breath, and then clambered out of his car to see the damage. A slick black road, nearly invisible in the darkness with the ancient overarching forest canopy tangled overhead like twisted claws. The high-beams pierced right through the shadows, and in the distance, caught a reflection where none should be.

“Hey!”

Too large to be a rabbit, too upright to be a deer.

“Hey! Little girl! What are you doing out here?”

With his hands cupping his face, he watched a blur of white nightgown and long black hair step steadily closer into the thickness of the woods. Too slowly, the driver told himself, too entranced.

He shouted again for the child’s attention, but the sleepwalking girl slunk deeper into the darkness.

After cursing and kicking the side of his car, the driver zipped up the front of his hooded sweater, he flicked on the torch from his phone. Calling after the girl as he followed the faint sense of the path she had taken.

When the headlights of his car no longer flooded the path in front of him, he lost all sense of where the girl had gone. He pinched his own cheek, questioning if she had ever been real to begin with. A girl that young? What? Ten years old at best? In a place like this? Alone? At this time of night?

And then he heard it. Soft, melodic, and airy as the wind itself.

A fine layer of gooseflesh burst up through the bumps already formed from the chill night air.

“Hello? Little girl?” His voice quaked. He stumbled despite the light in his hand.

A lullaby. Sweet. Enchanting. Pulling him in closer. His feet moving as if disconnected from his head, and his head fogging as if disconnected from the world itself.

Each footstep landed as though he gained weightlessness. Had he a mind to see the trail behind him, he may have noted how much shallower each passing step became. Of course he had no such mind to notice such a thing, not while the tune in the wind played.

His hands relaxed as his side. His fingers loosened knuckle by knuckle. The glowing phone slid from his non-existent grip, and marked the last footprint this former driver would ever make.

***

Greta hummed. Sitting under curved branches that nestled her in close, her knees pressed against her chest as she watched the song at work.

Her own voice hardly carried far enough to reach the pond, merely inches away from her bare toes. But that was no matter, she was only singing along.

From the heart of the water, her mother stood, white nightgown spread out in the green algae of the murky waters in the woods. Her mother’s ghostly form, pale and iridescent, drenched in dark and shadow, as if she were the reflection of the night sky itself. Water and air, flesh and decay. And her song was no different. Dark and light, soft and strong. The lullaby and the eulogy.

Greta relaxed her throat, striving to match the ebbs and flows of her mother’s song. And as the man approached, Greta released the clutch of her knees and mimicked the gentle motions of her mother’s graceful hands. “Come with me,” they beckoned. “I will keep you safe.”

As the former driver sunk deeper with every step, as his finger tips fell short of ever reaching the siren before him, Greta smiled.

Greta smiled as the green algae drifted over the last ripple. And her mother met her daughter’s smile. “I will keep you safe.”

“And I will learn our song,” Greta whispered.

***

“Did you sleep well, darling?” Mrs. Wentz asked cheerily, folding freshly warmed clothes over her arm. Greta emerged from her bed, bright-eyed, and caked in mud as usual.

Mrs. Wentz smiled. “One day you will have to teach me that lovely song.”

Greta beamed, and continued humming.