by Tobias Wade
“Anna…” he whispered my name. The word moved through my whole body, stirred parts of me that had never been stirred before. It was electric.
“Come.” His voice was smooth, melodic. It sounded like the first stream in spring, after the long winter. Like a lazy river on hazy summer eve. You smile, I see it, but you’d understand if only you could hear it. He held out his hand for me. As I moved to take it, a gust of wind blew my hair aside, exposing the silver crucifix I wore around my neck. He flinched, anger flooding his face. He pulled his hand back, shaking his head. Then he turned around, picked up the fiddle, and walked straight into the water. He was gone.
I stood there, shaking all over. The spell had been broken, and my longing turned to fear the moment I realized what he was. What he was trying to do. That was the Nøkk. I knew the stories, of course. He’d spellbind young girls—sometimes young men too—with his music, and in their desperation to hear more they’d follow him into the water and drown there. I said a quick prayer, holding the crucifix. They don’t like things of Christ, things of silver, things of steel. As long as you have that, you are safe. As long as you’re strong enough. Remember that.
I know I almost wasn’t.
I said my longing turned to fear, but not all of it. Still I had half a mind to throw away the crucifix and jump into the waterfall, just to see if he would play again.
But I didn’t, and he didn’t.
For weeks I longed for that music. For weeks I tried convincing myself that it was dark, wild, evil. As the days passed, and the memory faded, I became stronger in my convictions. I was a child of the Lord, the wild things in the woods would not make me stray from my path. I would be strong.
But then, on another sunny afternoon much like the first, maybe two weeks later, maybe three, I heard him again. I was alone on the farm, leaning against the timber wall of the little house as the sun warmed my face when the fiddle rang through my soul. All my resolve faltered, melted away like snow under the spring sun. I wanted—no I needed—nothing else than to go with that man, that beautiful young man who could play the fiddle like the devil himself. Even if I knew what he was. Even if I knew he wasn’t one of God’s creatures. Oh, what he made me feel wasn’t of God. But that music, that voice; all I wanted was to be with him, if only for a brief moment. Maybe an eternity of damnation would be worth if I could just hear that voice, if I could just feel his touch. Just for a moment.
I got to my feet, and took a slow, hesitant step towards the woods. Another step, and I stumbled. I landed face down in the dirt, and the sharp pain in my hands pulled me out of my madness. I crawled into the house, slamming the door shut behind me before the music took over again. I bolted the door, and stuffed my fingers in my ears.
It did nothing to drown out the music. That beautiful, dark, wild music. Music that made me want to run into the woods, rip my clothes off, and be carried off by the river. Music that made me want to turn my back on the Lord himself. Desperately, I searched for a way to fight the temptation.
My eyes fell on my mother’s bible, and I picked it up, hugging it to my chest. I went into the kitchen, closed the door, and put a chair against. I prayed, I pleaded; I fought with every fiber of my being. I spent an eternity in there. I stuffed my fingers in my ears, sang hymns in a loud voice. I screamed, I whispered forgotten curses and prayers, I read scripture in a loud voice. All the while, the music rose and fell, the music pleaded, persuaded, and pulled at me. Made me feel things I never felt before. Made me feel alive and dying at the same time.
I gave in. I tossed the Bible aside, got to my feet, and ripped the chair from the door. Three long steps, and I was at the front door, pulling at the bolt, desperate to get outside.
I slammed the door open, and it hit the wall with a loud bang.
Silence. I stood there for a long while, listening for the fiddle, but heard nothing but my breath and the birds singing.
Never again did I hear that beautiful, wild music. I know I should thank the lord above for not leading me into temptation, but a part of me will always be longing for that song.
A few days later, I realized how lucky I had been.
You see, something else happened that day. The day I heard the fiddle was the last time Gertrude from the village was seen alive. She was found floating face down in the lake under the waterfall a few days later. They said she drowned herself because of a broken heart. Word around the village was that she had taken quite the shine to the fiddler at the last dance. Evil tongues whispered that she was carrying his child.
The fiddler at the dance, they said. That hack was like a boy playing with his little toys next to the fiddler in the woods. Oh no, I knew exactly what had made her go into the water. I would have done it myself if he only played a little longer.
But if he hadn’t gotten her, Anna, sweet little child, I don’t know if either of us would be here today.
So child, listen to me carefully. Stay away from the river, stay away from the waterfall. Never go alone into the woods. Never go with them, even when they call for you in their loveliest voice. Because they really are out there, the wild things in the woods.
The Call
We had struggled up the grassy hill for more than an hour, and I was hungry, sweaty, and in an increasingly bad mood. The weak smell of cow dung hung in the air, and I could see the woods in the distance, above which the peak loomed ominously.
“Are you sure we’re on the right path?“ I asked, panting. “Feels like we’ve been walking really far.”
“It said an hour’s walk from the sign, it hasn’t been an hour yet,” my boyfriend said, seemingly unfazed by the climb.
“I just feel like we’re kinda in the middle of nowhere. Can’t we go back down and just take a cab like normal people?”
Ike turned around and gave me a disappointed look. We had reservations at this apparently “super-cool” restaurant that was in the middle of the forest, halfway up a goddamned mountain in the Swiss Alps. I was out of breath and sweaty already, and didn’t really feel like a fancy meal at an expensive restaurant anymore. We were nearing the edge of the woods, and I didn’t want to go into the dark shadows unless I knew we were going the right way.
“The hike is half the point,” he said. Gesturing down towards the valley where the village we started in lay, he added: “This is beautiful!”
He wasn’t wrong. The tall mountains towered towards the sky, the light dusting of early fall snow turning pink in the sunset. The jagged peaks continued as far as the eye could reach. I sighed.
“Yeah, sure, now it is, but it’s getting dark, and once we’re in the trees we won’t be able to see anything!”
“But we’ll know it’s there!”
I just shook my head, I knew that I wasn’t winning this argument. I had agreed to the hike, after all.
“That’s fine and all, but are you sure this is the right path?” I threw a furtive glance towards the dark path that snaked itself up between the trees. It looked very narrow.
“Pretty sure!” he said, turning around.
I sighed, and followed. To be fair, he usually was right about where we were going. I guess I just didn’t want to walk on the narrow path between the tall, dark trees—there was something claustrophobic about it. The open fields that dominated the lower part of the valley were much more my type of terrain.
“And look, there are people in front of us, they’re probably going there too!”
I squinted in the half-light. At first I couldn’t see what he was talking about, but then I caught a glimpse of three shadowy figures moving about 200 meters in front of us.
“That’s weird, where do you think they came from?” I asked, a slight tremor in my voice.
“I dunno, I guess they walked here?” he answered, not looking back at me.
“Yeah, but wait,” I tugged at his arm, stopping him. “Wouldn’t we have seen them before if they walked up from the village too?”
“I guess not, ‘c
ause we didn’t!”
I bit back a sharp retort, not wanting to start a fight. After a moment’s hesitation, I tentatively added: “But don’t you think that’s odd?”
“Why?”
“I dunno, just like, you know…” I shuffled my feet awkwardly, not wanting to admit that I was actually a little scared of the whole situation.
“Oh my god, I’m never letting you see another horror movie!”
“It’s not because of horror movies, I just think it’s weird! I’m not always scared just because I say I think something’s weird!” I said, eyeing the shadowy figures suspiciously. “I just think we’re on the wrong path!”
“Maybe they took a break, I don’t know!” he said, gently pulling his arm out of my grip. “Come on, or we’ll miss our reservation.”
I sighed, and continued walking. I kept my eyes fixed on the backs of the group we were following, hoping I’d catch them doing something weird so we could turn around. Had they really taken a break in the dark, creepy forest? Why would you take a break inside the forest, when you could have done it just a couple of hundred meters further down and enjoyed the incredible view?
I voiced my doubts to Ike.
“Maybe they were peeing? I don’t know! Why?”
I mumbled something about weird forest people, and he chuckled.
“Honey,” he said in an exaggeratedly condescending tone, “We’re in Switzerland. Literally nothing bad ever happens in Switzerland.”
“People sometimes disappear in the mountains though!”
“Yeah, in the real mountains. Not in places like this, on an actual path between a village and a restaurant!”
I looked down. He was right, of course. I got creeped out the moment we entered the forest, but it was probably just because I don’t like the dark. I mean, narrow paths in lonely, dark woods in the evening do tend to invoke images from horror movies, it doesn’t mean they’re dangerous. There were even other people here. We kept walking.
As we walked deeper into the woods, higher and higher, we didn’t gain on the group in front of us at all. We kept the same distance the whole time while we walked, over fifteen minutes or so. It was odd, usually you either overtake someone, or you lose them. I would have been suspicious of their motives if they seemed at all interested in us, but my close scrutiny had not revealed any of them looking back at us once. Well, maybe they didn’t hear us; we sure didn’t hear a single word coming from them.
We kept walking, until the light was almost completely gone.
“Hey Ike?”
“Yeah?”
“Aren’t we gonna be late for the reservation now?”
He glanced at his phone. “Oh shit, yeah, it’s seven now! Wow, I did not realize we had walked for that long!”
I didn’t repeat that we were probably on the wrong path, but I was sure gonna ask the restaurant.
I pulled my phone out, and quickly found the number to the restaurant.
“Gueten Abig,” a cheery voice answered in Swiss German, followed by a string of sounds in the indecipherable dialect uttered far too quickly for me to pick up on.
“Uh, sorry, do you speak English?”
“Yes, of course, how can I help you?” he continued in perfect English, accented in the bouncy Swiss way.
“Yeah, so we have a reservation, but we’re a bit late. We wanted to hike up, you see.”
“Jaa, that happens, of course. We hold the table for you, no problem! Where are you now?”
“We’re in the woods, I guess, on this little path. We’ve walked for about twenty minutes since we entered the woods.”
Silence.
The line crackled with static, and a strange scraping sound followed.
“Uh, hello? Are you there?” I asked, slightly unsettled. “Did we take the wrong path?”
“Is it a narrow path of dirt?” a female voice asked.
“Uh, yes? Wait, who’s this?” Maybe the man had to run suddenly, and gave the phone to a coworker, I mused. Strange though.
“You followed a family into the woods?” the woman continued. I swallowed, trying to keep my panic under control. How did she know?
“Wait, what? Who’s this?”
“Did you follow a family into the woods?”
“Uh, I dunno, there are some people in front of us, but I dunno if—”
“Nein, listen to me, really! Turn around at this moment, and do not turn on your flashlights. And do not talk to the people.”
“Okay, but—”
“ Listen, please! Walk straight back where you came from, and Do. Not. Turn. On. Your flashlights.”
“I—” Was she joking? What the hell was this?
“Please, you have to trust me!”
“Okay, but I…” The line crackled again, and then the call was dropped completely.
I looked up, searching for the shadowy figures in front of us. I couldn’t see them at all. Panic surged through me. They had either stopped, or kept moving ahead from us.
“Okay, so we’re definitely going the wrong way,” I told Ike, trying to lay a plan for how to retell the phone call in a way that would convey the urgency. “And she basically told us to get the hell out of here and not turn on the flashlights.”
“What?”
“Yeah, she sounded super serious about it too. Maybe there are weird mountain people here.”
“Should we tell the people in front that they’re going the wrong way?”
“No!” I shook my head frantically. “No, she said to absolutely not talk to them.”
“Wait, what the hell? That’s like the weirdest thing ever, right?”
“Yeah, but we’re 100% listening to her.”
“Why?”
“Because I do watch to many horror movies, and if you love me at all you just trust me and the weird phone lady on this. Not listening to the mysterious phone lady is literally how you die!” I said, my voice increasing in pitch as adrenaline surged through my body. If he didn’t listen, I didn’t know what I would do.
“Okay, sure,” he said. I could hear the eye roll in his voice. “But she’s probably just messing with you.”
“Not taking that chance!” I grabbed his arm, and pulled led him down the hill.
I walked quickly, Ike one step behind me. My heart was beating fast, and I had to fight the urge to run. Winding roots crossed the path, barely visible in the half-light.
A loud bang filled the dark forest. A gunshot?
I caught my scream before it left my mouth.
Someone else screamed. A long, wailing, high pitched scream, half panic and half deep sorrow.
I turned to Ike, wide eyed. He stood slack-jawed, staring into the darkness.
Another shot rang out.
I broke out of my trancelike fear, and started running, darkness be damned. I glanced back, only to see Ike still standing there, motionless.
“Ike,” I yelled, “Come on!”
I took a few steps towards him, grabbed his arm, and pulled him with me. He immediately started running. I tripped, fell, skinned my knees, and was back on my feet before I even registered what was happening. We just ran. My breath grew ragged, that metallic taste in my mouth. How far had we walked? The forest stretched on forever. As we ran, the darkness fell, forcing us to slow down. A root caught my ankle, and I was on the ground again. This time getting up was harder.
Ike stopped a couple of meters ahead of me, panting.
“You okay?”
“No,” I groaned, “I twisted my ankle.”
He was by my side in a second, and turned on the flashlight he had in his hand.
“No!” I yelled.
“Don’t be silly, we need to see!” He shone the light on my ankle, and felt along the bone. “Don’t think it’s broken, let’s keep going.”
As he got up, the light from his flashlight illuminated the path behind us. I didn’t see what was there, all I saw was Ike’s face t
ransforming into a mask of terror.
“Oh god, oh god,” Ike muttered, bending down to grab my arm. “Get the fuck up and run.”
“What is it?” I yelled, panicking, “What?”
He pulled me roughly to my feet, and half dragged, half carried me onwards. I gritted my teeth against the pain, and pushed on.
“Don’t fucking look back, just run!”
And we ran. Pain shot through my leg with every step, but the adrenaline surging through my veins kept me going. The woods seemed never-ending. Breathing got painful, and my leg threatened to buckle under my weight. Just as I was about to give up, we were out of the woods. Ike turned, looking back into the dark.
“I think we’re good,” he whispered. “I think we’re good.”
“We’re not fucking staying here.” I said, struggling to stand up. “We’re going back down to the village.”
“Hell yeah.”
And we started on the decent, me leaning against him.
A shrill tone rang out, and we both jumped.
“Isn’t that your phone?”
“Oh, shit, yeah, totally,” I said, patting myself down. I found the phone and pulled it out, trying to calm my shaking hands enough to hit the answer button.
“Yeah?” I said to the phone, voice still weak.
“Hello!” A cheery male voice greeted me. “I am calling from Berghaus U—. You had a reservation here at 7, it’s now 7.15 and we haven’t heard from you. Did you get lost on the way here?”
“Uh, yeah, I…” I frowned. 7.15? It had felt like hours passed since that phone call. “But I called you?”
“Ah, ja, I remember, but the call dropped out,” he said, still just as cheery. “But that’s fine, we were just wondering if you’re still coming? Someone else wants the table, you see.”
“Uh, yeah, no, I don’t think we’ll make it, just give up the table.” I said. “But the call didn’t drop, I talked to a really—” I cut myself off before I could say nice lady, and continued, “I talked to some woman, she didn’t tell you?”
“No, we don’t have any woman working here tonight.”
“No, really, there was some static on the line, and then this super Swiss woman, picked up—”
