Throwback Thursday: ‘The Nix’s Wife’ by Kathryn Yelinek

In the ‘Nix’s Wife’ by Kathryn Yelinek, a newlywed tests frightening waters to save the man she loves. Watch the mystery swirl in this excerpt from Pulp Literature Issue 22.

The Nix’s Wife

by Kathryn Yelinek

After our wedding, Strømmerik and I made our home in my uncle’s fortified lodge, in the suite of rooms that had been mine as a maiden. Gone were the carved chairs and woven carpets of my girlhood, replaced during the ceremony by functional wooden benches and rushes on the floor. Such furnishings were more easily replaced once water damaged — a certainty, since I had married a water spirit:  a nix.

Summer sun and birdsong streamed through the suite windows on the morning six months later when my uncle Jørgen and his guards came for Strømmerik.

“You’re under arrest,” Uncle Jørgen said. Disappointment and betrayal dug deep grooves in his sunburned forehead. “For murder.”

“That’s absurd.” I put aside my embroidery hoop and would have risen, but Strømmerik held out a hand to stop me. 

“You know I’d never kill anyone. I swore an oath, and I’ve kept it.” Still, he surrendered his violin to the guards. How strange it was to see him do so, as if he’d handed over his black hair or his long fingers. For one moment, we all stared at the oddity of a nix’s violin in the hands of a guard. The only sound came from a drop of water, dripping from the perpetually damp hem of Strømmerik’s tunic.

I shuddered. I loved my husband, but I hated that sound.

“I wish I could believe you.” A champion frowner, Uncle Jørgen lowered his eyebrows nearly to his ruddy beard. “But we found a woman drowned this morning in the river. On her throat was the mark where a nix drank her soul, and you’re the only nix within a three-day walk.” He opened the door to the hallway. “Take him away.”

“Signe.” Strømmerik twisted to look at me. I was on my feet, but the guards marched him across the room. “It wasn’t me. Last night — ”

Uncle Jørgen closed the door behind them. I ran to it, but he stepped in front, blocking my way. “Let him go. He has to talk with Father Lars before the trial this evening.”

Uncle Jørgen had always believed in swift justice. Strømmerik might have ten hours to live before facing the executioner’s axe.

Then the rest of his words caught up with me. I froze. “Father Lars is acting as his defence? But he has no love of the Fey.”

“He loves justice, and he was the only one willing to take on the responsibility.”

I sucked in my breath. “Does everyone believe him guilty?”

Uncle Jørgen pressed his lips together. He wasn’t a cruel man, but life as a chieftain along the border with Fairy had worn off his soft edges. His silence answered for him. I felt my heart clench.

He asked, “Do you believe he’s innocent?”

To find out what happens next, pick up a copy of Issue 22, Spring  2019!

Kathryn Yelinek works as a librarian in Pennsylvania. In addition to the required hobbies of reading and writing, she enjoys bird watching, star-gazing, gardening, and going to see Broadway musicals. She and her husband share their home with two adorable parakeets, whom they are actively striving to make into the most spoiled birds in the Western Hemisphere. The birds don’t seem to mind. Her works have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Deep Magic, Metaphorosis, Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies.  Visit her online at kathrynyelinek.com.