The Pond - Part 30

With Mikhail safely away, things became very quiet. Izolda did not trust the quiet.

There were times she caught Nikolai looking at her with a strange look on his face, as though he was about to ask her something, but then he’d turn away without saying anything.

The water in the well of one of the outlying farms became tainted, and the entire family died, as did much of their livestock. No one could understand how such a think could happen – none of the other sources of water were affected.

Nikolai fought with his elder brother Konstantin. It began as something trivial but exploded into near violence. The result was Konstantin uprooting his family to look for better luck elsewhere. Others took this as a sign and began moving away as well.

Izolda kept her remaining children close by her side. If anyone thought this was odd, they knew better than to say anything. Her temper, never even at the best of times, was beginning to fray. The stress of her continued failure to stop the entity was wearing on her.

Where once Nikolai enjoyed good fortune in everything he did, now he seemed to have nothing but ill luck. It became rare that a week would go by without an accident happening at one of the logging camps – one man received a serious slice in his arm when the cross cut saw he was using snapped, another lost the use of his legs when a tree fell wrong, and a third lost his life when a log stack gave way.

“Another family has moved away,” Marta, the woman employed as a housekeeper and to help watch over the children, said one evening.

“Who was it this time?” Izolda asked, when Nikolai said nothing.

“Lavin and his wife Sara. They packed up their children and their belongings, and left like thieves in the night.”

“That is the third family this month,” Izolda said.

“It makes you wonder who might be next.”

Nikolai rose from where he’d been sitting and left without a word, slamming the door behind him.

Izolda could hardly blame him. Life had never been easy in their small settlement, but now it was becoming next to intolerable. It was like an impending storm was about to break. And when it did, it was a blow none of them expected.

A few days later, Marta came to Izolda, white faced. “I have looked everywhere, but I cannot find her,” she said.

“Who are you talking about?” Izolda asked impatiently, angry at being disturbed.

“Pavlina. I left her napping in her room, but she is gone.”

Izolda went white as bone. “If anything has happened to her, I will kill you with my bare hands,” she vowed.

All work was suspended and search parties were quickly gathered and sent out. Dimitri had been out with his father at the time and knew nothing of his sister’s whereabouts. Izolda demanded that he stay with her while the others searched, and if she held onto him a little too tightly he knew better than to protest.

When the men finally returned, just before sunset, she had only to look at their grim faces to know the worst had happened. Izolda’s keening wail of grief sent the birds in the surrounding tress to wing.

Pavlina had been found in the pond, floating face up, but still quite dead, ringed in water lilies.

The next day, Marta was found hanging by her apron from a tree just outside the village.