Water Drabble: Rusalka

[kleenexwoman]

Illya was seven, and he feared the rusalka in the pond. He saw her blonde hair waving like seaweed, her eyes warm as sky, decoys for the rotting monster he knew lay beneath. He knew she stretched out her long white arms not to hold him, but to drag motherless boys down into the cold.

Through Moscow, Oxford, Paris, New York, he thinks he has left her behind. But he sees her treacherous eyes and strangling arms in the woman his best friend swears is an angel, like her name. Napoleon has no fear, and Illya knows he will drown.