The Riverside Haunter and Expressionist

I woke up slowly, a throbbing ache pulsing arhythmically through my body. I was vaguely aware that I felt heavy, compressed. There was a gurgling in my ears, and a ringing like an eternal bell. I realized the gurgling was the waters of the Fae Run, the river my village stood next to. I was laying on the riverbank, legs floating in the water, torso upon the dewy grass. The ringing persisted.

I heaved myself up off the ground, and almost fell face-first into the river again--I must have had my weight in water soaked into my clothes, but my body was light, far lighter than it should have been. I steadied myself and took a few hesitant steps. I was almost swimming through the air, but I still felt physically heavy. What was going on?

I winced as another surge of pain travelled through my body. What happened to me? I tried to remember, but everything was fuzzy. I saw flashes in my mind of my home village, a tiny town of only a few hundred people. Haphazard wooden structures with thatched roofs, the Golden Griffin Inn dominating the square, the rickety fishing piers that threatened to collapse under the weight of a few barrels of salmon. Greenwell Village--the place I'd spent my entire life. Through the fog of my memory, the images I could recall were more vivid than they've ever been before. I remember walking down Fae Run, where the trees of the Wandering Woods are just beginning to root. That's my favorite spot, at the fringes of the forest, in the gnarled roots of a weeping willow at the edge of the river. I go there at least every week to write poetry. A silly hobby, I know, but this place has always inspired me… not that I ever liked what I wrote. I usually crumpled up my drafts and tossed them into the water. I had gone there… when? It felt like a few hours ago, but the sun was in the east--it had been past noon when I arrived. Had I been out for a whole day? Longer? The ache pounded my skull, cutting through my thoughts. I focused.

There had been a girl--young, maybe twelve years, in the river. That's right. She floated in the water, staring at me. It was the eeriest thing. I called to her, asked if she needed help (I thought she might be drowning or unable to swim), but there was no response. I think I dove in to swim out to her--the river here is slow, so it's safe to swim--and then… gah! What happened next?

I looked around. I'd never been this far downriver. I resolved to follow the run back to my home and find out what happened to me. I realized with a start that I wasn't hungry, even though I should have been if I had been out here long enough to miss supper, breakfast, and lunch. Maybe it was the nerves. Or a side effect of whatever clouded your memory, said an annoying voice inside my mind. I shook my head vigorously, tossing the thought to the wayside. Everything would be okay once I got back home. My mom always had answers.

I trudged upriver for an hour. The sun crept higher overhead. Eventually, I came to the willow tree. I paused for a moment, hoping the sight of my last intact memory would bring me some clarity; but the pictures in my mind dropped off into nothing like a waterfall over an impossibly high cliff. I waded a few steps into the shallow waters and closed my eyes, relishing the feeling of the fresh water running over my feet. It was oddly refreshing--no, more than that--invigorating. I marched on with newfound energy. Despite the sunlight and the length of my hike, I never seemed to dry off much. I started getting used to the strangely light heaviness I now moved with.

I tried to draw my mind away from these strange happenings by envisioning what my return home would be like. Since I was coming into Greenwell from the south, I’d arrive near the graveyard, which is on a hill a ways from the river. I’d make my way up winding streets to the big moss-covered well that gives the town its name. (Why we have a well next to a river, nobody seems to know. There are legends, of course, but there’s nothing down there,. Except the occasional kid who misjudged how easy it’d be to climb back up. Not that I’ve ever done that before.) There, I would see my mom Dahlia, and my sister Ivy, walking towards the town square a little closer to the docks. Commence happy family reunion, with Mom berating me for disappearing like that before pulling me in for one of her signature bone-crushing hugs. Seriously, as frail as she looked, my mom was like a grizzly bear sometimes.

Soon enough, as I crested a slight incline, the village of Greenwell came into view. It was just as I remembered it--wooden structures, thatch roofs, the sagging piers stretching into the Run to my right, the imposing temple and graveyard to my left. I could even make out the small cluster of pines that mark the location of our namesake well. I quickened my pace, adrenaline building up in me. Soon I would have some answers. Soon I would see my family again.

As I got closer, I realized that there was a small collection of people next to the chapel, dressed in blacks and greys. They were arranged in a loose arc around a lone individual--it looked like a funeral service. Oh gods. Had I really disappeared just before someone died? I hesitated for a moment. Then it hit me. The funeral was for me. They had no way of knowing I was alive. Would it be distasteful to crash my own funeral? I supposed I didn’t have much of a choice. I hoped the clerics would reimburse my mom the cost of my coffin.

Nobody noticed as I trekked up the hillside toward the mourners. I began to make out a few words--it was Priest Gulmer, the wizened old half-elf who’s been running the temple since my mom was a girl. A coffin was laid horizontally on a stone slab behind him, the top half open in typical fashion for loved ones to say their final goodbyes.

“--with grief for the loss of such a kind soul,” Priest Gulmer finished in his dry rasp of a voice. The 30-person throng bowed their heads in a moment of silence. A breeze drifted over the somber affair, and with it, I took my chance.

“Thanks, sir, but I’m right here.”

The breeze passed. Not a single head turned. My words were less acknowledged than the invisible wind.

“Thank you. Would anyone like to speak?” The elderly priest asked.

Someone in a black shawl stepped up next to him. As she turned, I recognized her--Mom. Tears streamed freely down her face. She choked on her words as she began to speak.

“My--my darling child,” she began, her voice trembling. “Wherever you are, whatever gods have claimed your beautiful soul, please know that we will always remember you.”

“Mom, I’m right here,” I called. I shouldered my way up to the front of the crowd. Nobody paid me any mind. I might as well have been the wind. “I’m here! Why won’t you look at me?”

My mother continued through her tears as though I wasn’t there. “--your energy, your love for others, will live on within us all. And we will never, ever forget you, my darling. I love you so much. I--” She broke down, unable to hold herself together any longer. Priest Gulmer stepped forward to wrap a comforting arm around her shoulder.

The pit of my stomach dropped into the void. “Hello? Hello!” I waved my hand in front of someone’s face. “Why can’t you see me?” I sidled up next to someone, who shifted their weight and bumped into me, but didn’t so much as glance over. “Why can’t you hear me?” I stepped in front of my crying mother, lamenting the death of a child that was standing right in front of her. “Please… why, Mom…?”

I cast my gaze around desperately, hoping for any indication that would explain what was happening to me, when my eyes fell on the coffin. Slowly, lightly, I inched forward, horror welling up inside me, until at last I could see inside.

It was me.

I instinctively felt my torso to make sure it was there. I mean, the one I was currently using. It was. I looked up, blinked as hard as I could, and glanced back down.

My body was laying in the casket. My skin was pallid, my eyes crusty. I looked like… like I had drowned.

“Figured it out yet?”

I whirled around. Standing among the throng, staring at me, was the pale girl from the river I'd jumped in to save.

“It usually takes a while to figure out how to manifest properly,” she said, tilting her head. She regarded me as though I was a newly hired apprentice bumbling about the shop making a fool of myself. “The mortals won’t notice you until you do.”

I levelled a finger at her. “Who the Hells are you?”

“Come on, let’s take a walk. It’s easier to digest if you’re not hovering over your mortal corpse, and I speak from experience.” She turned and started walking back down the path.

I froze for a moment, unsure of what to do. But this was the first person who had acknowledged my presence, and she had answers.

I ran to catch up with her. She was short, no older than 10 up close; black hair flowed past her waist and had a greenish glint to it when it caught the sunlight just right. She meandered down the path, towards Fae Run.

“What do you mean, my ‘mortal corpse’? What does that mean? And who are you? And… what’s happening to me?”

“Woah, woah,” said the girl, waving me down. “Slow your roll, kid. One thing at a time. Let’s start with introductions. I’m Fae Run.”

“...what? Like the river?”

The girl rubbed her temples. “Oh, boy. I guess you’re a little clueless about religion. That’s fine. Just please don’t make me regret my decision. Yes, I am Fae Run, the actual Fae Run, as in the river. That one.” She pointed helpfully.

A sliver of understanding began to dawn on me, cutting through the fog in my mind. “You’re a god,” I said plainly.

Fae Run shrugged. “Minor god, but yes. My actual name is Tammy.”

“I thought your name was Fae Run.”

She laughed. “No, that’s the name of the river I embody. I am Fae Run; my name is Tammy. Some deities like to change their name when they ascend. I decided not to. Simple stuff.”

No thoughts ran through my head. This little girl was a deity?

“Should I… bow?”

Tammy laughed and waved me off. “No need for all that. But you’d better get used to seeing gods and spirits and monsters and whatever else is out there, because trust me, there’s plenty. Even in my 637 years, some things still surprise me!”

“I wouldn’t have guessed you were that old,” I said weakly.

Tammy shrugged. “I ascended pretty young. I’m most comfortable looking like I did then.”

“What now? Am I your champion or something? I don’t think I’m much for questing,” I said.

“No, you’re not a champion, silly. I really have to spell this out for you?” She rolled her eyes. “Mortal minds. I forget how they work.”

“So?” I prompted.

“So,” Tammy smiled, turning towards me with bright green eyes lit up like stars, “I chose you for something even better. I made you a god!”

The revelation was like being clobbered in the head by a hill giant’s club. I staggered back as my mind was flooded with everything I had forgotten, my entire life recalled in a millisecond in perfect detail, all the way up until that fateful moment when I dove into the river, washing away the fog that obscured my thoughts. I stumbled over a loose patch of dirt and sat hard on the path.

“Finally starting to make a little sense?” Tammy teased.

“But why? Why did you make me a… a god?” The words felt foreign on my tongue, as though I wasn’t supposed to be saying them.

“A minor god, mind. After you jumped in the river, you got a leg cramp. Poor diet, probably. You drowned,” she said simply. “But I took pity. You've showed up practically every day for years! Sure, there’s plenty for me to do across my entire length, but you, after I started reading your poems, wow! I was hooked!”

I couldn’t see what shade of scarlet my cheeks turned in that moment, but they felt like I'd swallowed a campfire. My mind reeled. Instead of acknowledging the fact that I had drowned to death, my brain decided to think about poetry. “You mean the ones I hated so much that I crumpled them up and threw them into the river?”

“You basically gave them to me. I considered it a sacrifice. Honestly, it was your poetry that really made me do it, but it would have been almost rude not to reward you in some way after some 905 submissions,” Tammy said, picking up a funny-looking stone and tossing it up in the air. “Thine eyes which glow as bright as moon / ensnaring me like a cocoon. Brilliant! But even better--Hearts and minds/ falling fast / with the sinking sun--”

“Settle in / to despair / Calach’s fallen son,” I finished. “That was about a boy from Dawnshire who was killed by bandits a few years ago. Everyone in Greenwell heard about it.”

“Yeah! They dumped his body in my river!”

“...oh.”

“I loved your poem about the whole affair. Real dark, gritty, depressing stuff. It was wonderful! Some of your best work.”

I frowned. “I hated that one.”

“Well, that one got you where you are today. Because, as you probably don’t know, apparently…” Tammy caught her rock and whirled around with the grandiosity of an auctioneer, arms spread wide. “Every deity, major or otherwise, has to be a god of something!”

“A domain,” I said, recalling a lesson my mother had delivered me long ago when I asked her about the temple we never visited. “Deities have certain domains that they preside over.”

Tammy beamed. “Exactly! And you, my newly-anointed friend, are officially…” she paused for dramatic effect.

“The god of riverside haunts and expressionism!”

“I’m… what now?”

Tammy frowned. “I thought you’d have more of a reaction, honestly. Your domains are riverside haunts--not the undead kind, but the kind you visit a lot--and expressionism--conveying your emotions through art. They fit you perfectly!”

It was hard to argue with that. Writing poetry by the willow tree was the most routine part of my life except breakfast. “That is… very specific. And kind of depressing.”

Tammy shrugged. “Well, they’re your domains now, so you can preside over them how you like. You are a river god, but you’re not tied to me, so you can travel between bodies of water. Once you figure out some of your godly abilities, you’ll be zipping around lakes and rivers like a fish in the ocean! Just don’t tick off anyone who’s been a god longer than you have and you’ll be golden.”

My mortal mind would have snapped under the weight of it all. My newly-minted divine mind was not faring much better.

Tammy started walking back to her river. “Well, that’s really all there is to it. I’ll be here if you have any other questions, but otherwise, feel free to do… well, anything you want. Perks of godlihood.” She waggled her fingers at me.

“Wait. I do have a question.” Shakily, I pushed myself up to my feet again. “What if I don’t want to be a god?”

The smile melted off of Tammy’s face. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t choose this. You chose it for me. I need some time to think, and I want to know what to do if I decide that this isn’t right.”

The 400-year-old child’s eyes bored into me. For the first time, I recognized the wisdom and power within her. She could wipe my village off the map on a whim.

She turned back to the river and spoke over her shoulder. “Us deities are hard to kill. Even minor ones. But you’re tied to the rivers now. They are the source of your power, and your life. See how you’re still wet with river water?”

I glanced down at my clothes. There was a small puddle where I had been sitting, and I still felt like I was suspended underwater.

“If you stay out of the water long enough, eventually you’ll dry up. If you really want to pass up this gift… that’s your way out. Fair warning: I’m told it’s excruciating. Have fun!”

I watched Tammy walk into the river until she disappeared under the surface. I looked over at Greenwell, my home, where my family was mourning my ascension to godhood. My thoughts turned to the rest of the world I had never explored, and all the riverside haunts people frequented to express themselves. If I did it here, in this tiny village, surely it was commonplace elsewhere. I had a lot of thinking to do.

Maybe I would even give poetry another shot.