The Devil_s Garden

EPILOGUE

December. Snow fell gently over eastern Estonia, coating the hills, dusting the tall, imperial pines. The young man with a finger missing from his right hand stood looking out the window of a house set atop a hill in Kolossova. He had read about what happened on the Internet. The newspapers said that Aleksander Savisaar was some kind of monster, that he had terrorized a family in New York City.

Villem Aavik knew the truth.

When Savisaar left more than a year ago, he told Villem many things, had entrusted him with a great many responsibilities, not the least of which was the care of the house, the grounds, the animals. With both parents dead, Villem saw Savisaar as much more than just a father figure. He was the thing of myth. He was vennaskond.

Villem looked at the wall of knives in the study, each one a work of art. He took one from the rack, opened it, fingered the blade.

He had read all the books in the small library, knew all the names: Baba Yaga, Koschei Besmertney, Bas Celik, Ivan, Marya, Anna, Olga. He had listened many times to Stravinsky’s The Firebird, his confidence growing with each hearing. He had memorized every note from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Kashchey the Immortal.

Immortal, he thought. He was young, just sixteen, but the idea enthralled him.

Forever.

He looked out the window again, at the blackness of the winter night. He had lost the finger in a foundry accident, but the fable would ultimately be whatever he said it was. He had already begun to visit Savisaar’s accounts along the Narva, dealing with the provincial roimar who at first did not take him seriously. Villem Aavik made an example of one man in a farm village near Varska. In time his legend would precede him.

And there would be time enough. There was a girl in a nearby town, a girl they say will one day be ennustaja. She was only eleven years old, but already people were bringing to her their tales of unfaithful husbands, dying mothers, and lottery dreams.

One night, when the rue flowers were in bloom, and the Narva River ran silent, he would visit her.

Villem sat before the fire, his stomach full, the house and grounds secure. In a few days, a new year would begin.

Outside, in the soundless white of the countryside, a pair of silver eyes watched. And waited.