“Hey! What are you reading in the middle of a sunny day?” Sehun snapped the book out of his older brother’s grip and quickly jumped to the side to avoid Chanyeol’s powerful punch.

 “We’re heading to the lake to swim. Come with us!”

“Give me back that book!” Chanyeol spoke with a calm but serious voice.

Acting as if they still were kids and immune to his older brother’s deadly stare, Sehun casually started to flip pages. “What is this? Some kind of fairy tale?” He turned it around, upside down, studied a couple of the pictures, before Chanyeol was able to grab it.

“Be careful, it’s old.”

 Lovingly he closed the book and used his hand to wipe of invisible dust, as if Sehun had made it dirty. “It’s history, and stuff.”

“Looked more like stories about werewolves and hulders, if you ask me.” Sehun shrugged his shoulders. He had never fully understood all the weird interests his brother had developed over the years he stayed in the city, like reading books on a summer’s day when you could be out swimming.

Chanyeol walked over to store his book away in the bookshelf when Sehun suddenly remembered something important.

“Hey… Have you heard the rumours?” In two long strides, he was lining up next to Chanyeol, almost whispering the question into his ear.

“How would I know? What rumour?”

Not bother looking at his brother for one second, he continued what he was doing. Sehun heard rumours all the time, nothing new under the sun today either.

Even with the length Chanyeol had, he still had to tip toe to reach the upper shelf. It felt good to have them up on the top, out of everyone’s reach. They were his treasure, sort of. His guide to try to understand, the tiny string he hoped might lead him somewhere. If there were something, he would find it. At least that was what he had hoped for when he first started collecting them.

“People keep telling they have seen a hulder in the forest lately. You know, a girl with long hair and a tail, singing beautiful songs to lure you into their world”

“I know what they are!” Chanyeol rolled his eyes, but something about it made him wait for what more Sehun had to tell about it.

“Yes, like those in your book! And you know the stories about the pond and that boy who disappeared last winter…’ Sehun stopped himself mid-sentence when he saw his brothers freezing gaze.

“Don’t talk about the pond” Chanyeol looked away, trying to avoid eye contact of any kind as he blinked away some imaginary dirt itching in the corners of his eyes. Sehun wasn’t having it though.

“How long has it been? Ten years or something?”

“Ten years in two weeks from now”  

“Wow… and then this boy. No one found his body. People are pretty sure he fell through the ice. What if she is the same hulder that lured Baekhyun into the pond?” Sehun had grabbed Chanyeol’s now free hands and squeezed them. He looked like he smelled a big story, something really juicy to tell his friends.

“Just stop it!”  Chanyeol snarled. He pulled free and walked away from the bad memories Sehun had put in the spotlight. He hated when people poked them or made him talk about it.   

“You know he couldn’t swim. I knew he couldn’t swim. No Hulder is lurking around.” It still hurt too much to talk about that day. Chanyeol turned to pick down another book and swallowed a lump in his throat.

“But no one found the body, not Baekhyun’s, not Lay’s…”

“It’s a pond! People drown in them and are found buried in mud 100 years later, everyone know that” He gave his younger brother a final angry stare and maybe Sehun wasn’t completely immune to it after all. The younger sighed and turned away.

On his way out the door, he turned around one last time.

“I’m just worried about you. You’ve been running around at night lately, I’ve noticed. And… and it could be that you had met someone, you know, a pretty girl maybe? It’s just… I’ve missed having you around.”

It hurt a little to see his brother worried like this. Chanyeol grabbed his shoulders and gave him a brotherly hug. “Don’t worry about me” He reassured. “I’m grown up, I know how to stay safe. And don’t believe everything kids around the village are chatting about.”

A teasing smile grew on Chanyeol’s face as he let go of his brother. “How about you? Having someone in sight? Will I have to lock you up at nights so you don’t run out to meet your hulder?”

Sehun laughed loudly at first, but then lowered his gaze as a soft pink spread over his cheeks. “Well, I mean, there is this super cute new maid over at the Byun farm”

Now it was Chanyeol’s turn to chuckle. “I get it! I’ll stay away from any girls at the Byun-farm”

He gave his brother a slap on the , and with that, he let Sehun leave for the lake.

Werewolves, hulders, trolls, fairies, the nøkk, shapeshifters, vampires, Chanyeol let his index finger slide over all of his books. He had searched for answers, knew how they fed, how they lived, how to stay safe. It was important never to let a hulder touch you with her tail. And a nøkk, in the shape of a horse, his tail was deadly. He knew about how trolls only hunted during the night and how the ponds were the place to meet any of those creatures.

Curled up in a big chair, Chanyeol opened a small book about forest creatures in the area. It contained a list of when and where people had observed anything strange, and a list of missing young girls and boys.

Flipping pages his eyes fell on a drawing of a bright white horse, the most common shape of the nøkk. That Lay-boy had been a stable boy, wasn’t it so? He liked horses. Could it be? No... Not possible. Anyway, no horses were out running the day his own friend disappeared. With a frustrated grunt, he shoved the book away, picked up one about swamps and mummified bodies found in them instead. He was too old to believe in fairy tales. Later this year he would start working as a lawyer in the village. His parents constantly reminded him about his age and responsibilities to the Park- name, he hated it but knew he had no choice.

All he asked for was to get one last summer by the pond. Before moving on with his life, he needed a final goodbye. If nothing happened within the next two weeks, if he didn’t stumble across any new clues, then he would throw all his books in the pond and never look back.