Willow, Weep

By Victor J. Banis

"Tell me again, why are we here?" Brad asked—again.

"It's beautiful, honey, I promise you," Laura said.

"I guess. If we could see it."

"Ah, this?" She waved her hand at the fog that all but obliterated everything outside the window of the little lounge. Occasionally the willow by the pond thrashed its fronds in frustration, and the fog fled from it in wispy tendrils, and then closed back in again. "This'll be gone by morning, you'll see."

"I hope," he said, but without much enthusiasm. "You came from around here?"

"No, not quite here. But lake country. It's very much like this."

He turned from watching the swirl of fog outside and looked at her. "You never talk about yourself," he said. "About your life, before you met me."

"I think my life began when I met you," she said, and smiled at him.

He smiled back, a self-satisfied smile, a believing smile. "You fell in love at first sight?" He could easily imagine someone falling in love at first sight of him. "Did you really mean that?"

"I begged for you."

"Begged?" That seemed to amuse him. "Who? Your daddy?"

"Well, I suppose prayed is more appropriate."

"You're a strange girl, Laura."

"And yet, you married me."

"Yes," he said simply. "I did."

He looked out the window again. The whirling gauze was fountains, plumes, dervishes. He suddenly sat forward on his chair, leaning close to the window. "Did you see that?" he asked.

"What?" She looked too, saw nothing but the frenzied mist.

"A woman, just by the lake, there."

"I don't see anyone."

He leaned until his nose was practically against the glass, staring for a long moment in silence. "No. I don't now either," he said. "I would have sworn…"

"Maybe a Willi," she suggested.

He looked over his shoulder at her. "You think I've got the willies?"

"Not the willies. A Willi."

"A Villi," Magda said from behind them, turning the W into a V. They hadn't heard her

come in. Both of them looked in the direction of their hostess's voice.

She paused just inside the door and looked at them with a Gioconda smile, a woman crowded full with woman-ness. Her breasts crowded the moss green of her peasant blouse and her milky white shoulders, so pale they too almost seemed tinted with green, crowded out of it. Her crimson mouth crowded her face, and the roses on her cheeks, that said she had just come in from the cold, crowded her mouth, and the thick black brows above them crowded her enormous dark eyes. Too much of all of it to be pretty, a woman cleverly planned and perfectly constructed for one thing, and that was surely not for running a country inn.

Brad saw that, acknowledged it in a single, hungry glance, like a man eyeing a buttered scone. He looked at women that way. All women, really, but the beautiful ones especially. Laura had wondered, more than once, if that were a short man thing. He was almost painfully good looking, and perfectly proportioned, with a cocksure attitude that he wore like a well-tailored suit; but he was little, no more than five four. Did that make men aggressive that way? She had never had anyone to ask. Felt quite sure he would not like being asked.

"Do you know the Villi?" Magda asked.

"No, I…wait," Brad said. "Some kind of succubus, isn't it?"

Magda shrugged, the movement threatening to free her breasts from their mossy enclosure. Brad's eyes glinted. "A spirit," she said. "The will-o-the-wisp. Rusalka. These hills are filled with hundreds of legends."

"Giselle," Laura said, trying to draw Brad's attention back to her, sure that staring at Magda's breasts was not a smart thing to do. "Remember, the ballet? They lure the hunter to dance, dance him to the death. Isn't that it?"

"Why would they do that?" Brad asked, laughing. "Just for the hell of it?"

Magda seemed not to appreciate his laugh. Her smile faded. Laura said, to change the subject, "Are we the only guests? I thought I heard someone in the room next to ours."

"Two women," Magda said, still cool. "Sisters."

Brad raised an eyebrow. "Nuns?"

"They've stayed before," Magda said. "They'll not bother you."

He glanced around at the empty tables, their candle flames trembling in an errant breeze. "They must have eaten early," he said.

"Quite early," Magda said. "Will you want anything else? I was about to close up the kitchen."

Brad looked at Laura, at the table, at the mountainous expanse of ruffled blouse, as if considering what she might have on offer that had not been on the menu she had recited for them earlier.

"Another bottle of the Tokay?" he said, giving her his most winning smile.

She left wordlessly, was back in a moment with a frosted bottle on a tray, two fresh glasses, set it on the table in front of Brad, conferring a special favor upon him. She leaned down, her arm brushing his fleetingly, her eyes carefully avoiding Laura's.

"I'll leave you to find your way to your room, then," she said, still looking only at him. "I have things I must do, outside. The stock. Firewood to be brought in. Shutters to close, in case it should rain. You will no doubt be abed before I have finished."

"I could help, if you like," Brad said.

She smiled again, this time at Laura. "And leave your lovely bride alone?"

"We're not really newlyweds, not for a couple of months now," he said, but the bountiful Magda had already turned away. She went out of the room without looking back, her skirt swishing as she walked, her slippered feet soundless on the old wooden floor. The kitchen door closed behind her, a soft, a clandestine sound.

Brad poured two glasses of the wine, handed one across to Laura. "Did I say the wrong thing?" he asked.

She did an imitation of Magda's shrug. "These peasants. Who knows," she said. "Maybe you didn't take their legends seriously enough." Maybe it was the way you stared , she thought. but did not say.

"Well," he said, laughing dryly and sipping at his wine. It was pale and sweet, but not cloying. He smacked his lips in appreciation and swirled it about in the glass. "It's superb. So was the dinner, for that matter. It is a little treasure, this place, I'll give it that."

"And Magda is a lovely hostess," Laura said, tweaking Fate's nose.

He ignored that, drank again, half emptied his glass. "So, what are these Willi, then? Or Villi, I guess it is?"

"Spirits, she told you. Some say mothers who died unblessed. They come to claim the unfaithful lover. Or the one who has broken a maiden's heart."

"And they dance men to death?" He showed his skepticism.

"Oh, that's just the ballet. It gives them a good excuse to leap and prance about on the stage for an entire evening."

"Well, what then?"

She sighed. "They entice men into the water, drown them. Or they kiss them, and turn them into mist. There's a hundred or more variations, I'm sure."

"Sounds a little harsh, doesn't it? For nothing more than a little fooling around? Guys do that all the time, you know. It's a man thing."

"This is a harsh land. Ancient." She took a sip of her wine. It tasted like lake water, and mist, and the dark mustiness of old forests. "It's just a folk tale. A ghost story. It doesn't mean anything. Shall we go up? I think the lovely Magda would like to have us out of her hair before she comes back."

* * *

The bed in their room—"Big enough for six," Brad had laughed when he first saw it—was turned down invitingly, the lamp low. He went to the window to close the curtains against the pervasive fog, and said, with a snap of his fingers, "Damn. I forgot the wine. I'll go back down and get it."

"Do we really need it?" she asked. "It's late."

"We've paid for it, haven't we? No sense wasting it." He came to give her a quick kiss, and hurried toward the door.

"Brad?" she said after him. He paused at the door, hand on the knob, to look back. "You are very handsome, you know. I don't know if I ever said."

He grinned, perfect teeth gleaming, altogether aware of his handsomeness. "I'll be back in a flash," he said.

She took her time undressing, shook out the little nightgown she had brought, and slipped it on over her bare skin, turned the lamp lower still, a mere ghost of a light, and went to part the curtains and open the window. The wind was up and wisps of fog insinuated themselves into the room, slipped around her like the sacred serpents of old. She stood for a long moment staring out. The moon emerged, silvering the fronds of the willow. The wind blew the ragged clouds and the mist, and in their frantic tossing the moon seemed to reel drunkenly. Then it vanished and the darkness grew darker still, and the mist retreated slightly and held its breath.

The door opened behind her and footsteps crossed the room. Magda's arms came about her, cool and damp.

"See, there," Magda said, pointing. "The willow is weeping."

Laura turned into her embrace and kissed her. "Is it done, sister?" she asked.

"It is done."

Laura parted from her and climbed into the waiting bed. "The others?" she asked.

"Are coming," Magda said. She slipped off the blouse and let her skirt drop to the floor. In the pale light she looked hardly more substantial than the mist that, once again, crept into the room through the open window.

"And you, little one?" Magda asked, coming to the bed. "Will you weep?"

"No," Laura said, opening her arms, "No. He was faithless."

* * *

This story first appeared in the anthology COME THIS WAY, Regal Crest Enterprises, 2007