Her whole life seemed suddenly caught up and sped along faster than she could sort out the images. Nothing was true but the things everyone had said were false, her father just had embarrassed her beyond bearing and yet known exactly what was wrong with her, and cared, more than that, cared for someone he had no time for, in his care for his other daughter—
In her life she had been nothing but convenient to everyone around her, when they had talked about Yvgenie’s father, and her wedding, and how she was going to bring the whole family to court at Kiev, and she was to remember how to mention this uncle to Yvgenie’s father, and that uncle—
She felt cold, thinking: They needed me, god, yes, they did.
She remembered one summer climbing up the stack of old boards by the garden shed, and up and up the last scary bit to the forbidden crest of the garden wall, where she could look out on the lane behind the house.
There was a girl who walked by sometimes, with heavy baskets. One supposed she was a servant. But she sang as she went. And the richest girl in Vojvoda had used to wish she were that girl, able to wander the town with no fear of wizards and murderers.
Fool! her mother had cried, when a cousin caught her at it and told. You fool! Don’t you understand anything?
Now she did. God, now she most certainly did.
Bielitsa lagged further and further behind, and Ilyana reined Patches around and rode back along the hill, seeing Yvgenie had gotten down and walked away from Bielitsa—on private business, she supposed. She got down from Patches and waited for him, taking the chance to adjust the girth that had been slipping the last while.
But something was wrong. It might be her mother wishing at them. It was coldness, it was demand, and need, and all those things she had felt lifelong from her mother—
Then she thought, with a chill, No, not mother—it’s him. It’s him, the same as my mother feels, sometimes—
She wanted immediately to know where he was, got a worse and worse feeling, and walked after him, leaving Bielitsa and Patches to stand.
She found him sitting on the hillside, on a carpet of old leaves, looking out at a hillside no different than this one. She walked up to him and he said, still gazing elsewhere: “I need to rest. Please. Just let me rest a while.”
She wished him well, then, but he made a furious gesture. “There’s nothing left, Ilyana.” He put a hand over his eyes and wanted something, but there seemed a wall between them, and a wall ahead, and a weakening of her own wishes that made her feel as if—as if her mother were wanting her again, calling her away from the river shore.
Ilyana, Ilyana, come home now—
And if she gave up and came home supper would be waiting on the table again and Babi would be there and Patches and Volkhi and Missy in the pen. Papa and uncle would be there safe and sound and no one would be angry with her.
She rubbed her eyes and thought no. It was a trick and a trap, and it would not be that way again, it never could be. She was not the child she had been and she could not go back and live as if nothing had happened. But she missed her father and her uncle, and worried about them, of a sudden; and caught a muddled unhappiness, a sense of secrets and things out of place in the world…
That was definitely her uncle, she thought: uncle was upset and thinking about her: uncle could feel that secretive and confused at once. She wanted him not to be distressed about her, she had achieved that much of calm. She said to him, Uncle, don’t follow me any further. Please argue with mother. I’m all right, Yvgenie and I are all right, if you’ll only not push us any more. This isn’t a good time. He’s so tired, uncle. We’re all so tired, please don’t chase us any more—please don’t let mother chase us.
—Uncle, I’m so scared…
The mouse was there for a moment, clear as if she were standing next to him, and Sasha said, “Mouse?” without even thinking—and felt an exhaustion and an anxiousness that turned his blood cold.
What you’re feeling is dangerous, mouse, it’s terribly dangerous, please listen to me. Stop and wait for us. We won’t hurt you or him…
But she caught some hint of wrongness, and fled him, then, wary and elusive as her namesake. Eveshka was walking near the river, he knew of a sudden, Eveshka was vastly upset, thoughts darting this way toward them and that way toward the mouse, violent and demanding—
No! he wished her, as Pyetr, riding beside him, said, “Sasha? Can you hear her? Can you make her listen?”
He was shaking of a sudden. He remembered that feeling,he remembered all too clearly, nearly twenty years ago, a wanting so nearly absolute—
Rusalka. That was the way it felt.
Pyetr wanted an answer, desperately wanted good news. He realized he was staring into nothing, and said, “She just tried to tell me she was all right.” But he could not lie to Pyetr, not in something going so desperately, persistently wrong. “I didn’t get that impression.”
“What? That she’s all right? That she’s not? What does she want?”
He looked at Pyetr, at Nadya behind him on Volkhi, two faces so like—both with reason to want an answer; and to dread it.
“We’ve been pushing them hard,” he said: Pyetr might understand what he was saying, Pyetr if no one else alive. “They’ve been pushing themselves. The boy’s exhausted— “
“Yvgenie?” Nadya asked faintly. “Do you know where he is?”
“Ahead of us, and going further now, as fast as they can.— Pyetr, I don’t like this, I’m sorry, but I’m desperately worried—”
“You’re worried. God. Did you ask her to wait?”
“She wouldn’t. She’s scared now. She knew I was holding something back from her.”
“Nadya,” Pyetr said heavily.
He knew now he should have told the mouse about Nadya. Immediately. He might have protected Nadya against the mouse’s startlement, might have caught the mouse’s curiosity and drawn her to them by that very means. But Eveshka had so overwhelmed him with that feeling of strength, and need—
I wanted Pyetr back to that moment eighteen years ago and other things were inevitably tied to it: what ‘Veshka was then, what I was—god, a young fool, that’s what I was then! I’ve sent Eveshka back and done the god only knows what to myself in the bargain—
I was fifteen, I couldn’t read or write, I didn’t know what to do with magic except to be scared of it—
“Sasha?” Pyetr said. “Sasha, you’re white as a sheet. What’s going on?”
He had to get down. He had to stop moving and stop things from changing around him. Missy stopped and he slid off, taking his bag of books and the bag of herb-pots with him. He needed quiet. He needed to get hold of things. He went off looking for a place to sit down and catch his breath and heard Pyetr saying, faintly:
“Better get down.” And Nadya’s quiet, frightened voice: “What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know.” Pyetr said. “Something. Hush, don’t ask him questions right now.”
“Is it magic? What’s he going to do?”
“Hush!” Pyetr said. “Yes, and don’t bother him.”
He was grateful. Pyetr was upset, he knew it, but there was no reassurance to give him and he could not afford the distraction of lying. He was not sure what he had felt from the mouse and from Eveshka a moment ago, that was first trouble; he could not totally be sure which feeling he hail gotten from which place north of them: he knew Yvgenie might be a source of that disturbance, the same as Eveshka; and he was not sure of the accuracy of his memory even moments ago: magic could be like that, escaping recollection as quickly as water from a sieve. When a wizard wanted not to think certain things, the wizard in question could very well get his wish, and forget the unpleasantness that could be happening and believe some false thing more palatable, if he was an utter, self-deluding fool…
He found a flat rock to sit on, he set his bags down on the leaves and pulled out a book at random. He opened it and knew it then for his own.
Draga dest
royed Malenkova. But Malenkova was too much for her. The beast took her and Draga became its purpose… ultimately that’s all Draga was in the world…
Pages back from that: Owl should not have died—
A sword should not have been able to kill a wizard’s creature. Pyetr’s had done it, in spite of all the wishes that should have protected Owl: Pyetr had killed the creature that held Chernevog’s heart, and Chernevog’s heart had necessarily come back to him—
But how? Chernevog’s wish? Chernevog had grieved for Owl, if for nothing else in his life. Chernevog had not wanted his heart, and tried immediately to put it elsewhere…
Leshys all around us, watching as Owl died, and Chernevog got his heart back, watching to see what wizards in their midst might do.
And when and where did the threads of Owl begin? When Chernevog was a boy—Draga had wanted him to find Owl, and bestow his heart on Owl, because she had a hold on the creature—
“Damn!”
—Pyetr wanted to kill Chernevog and couldn’t. So the leshys took him, held him asleep three long years before they let him wake—if they let him wake. Owl was Draga’s before it was Chernevog’s. And where is Owl, now, that’s another important question.
Owl’s with him, I much fear, with him and with—
Get away from that thought!
He made his eyes see the place he was in; and saw Pyetr trying to put a fire together nearby.
“Pyetr, I think I know something.”
“What?”
“Who’s sustaining Chernevog.”
“Which ‘him’? Who?”
“Chernevog. I very much think it’s leshys. They brought us Nadya. They had Chernevog asleep for all those years. And I think they killed Owl.”
Pyetr looked as confounded as Nadya did. He stood up. “They killed Owl. Why?”
“I don’t think Owl’s a safe place to have put a heart. I don’t think he ever was. I think they destroyed Owl, because they wanted Chernevog to have his heart back. I think—” One became aware of the whisper of the leaves, of the forest all around them, alive, self-interested, listening to everything that moved. And caution seemed of utmost importance.
“So we shouldn’t worry? I don’t think so, Sasha!”
“I’m not saying that. I’m saying I don’t know what kind of a game the leshys are playing. Or what kind they have played.” God, they had relied on Misighi, they had trusted the old creature, who had held the mouse in his arms—
A nest of birds and a child are the same to them. And was it ever certain what friendship means to them? I rarely saw Misighi after that. And not at all in recent years.
Dammit, Eveshka’s worked so long and remade so much that she destroyed, she had almost made her peace with the leshys before the mouse was born, and since, since, she’s not gone any time at all into the woods—too busy with housework, she said, since the baby came, too busy once there was a child to take care of—
God, ‘Veshka, did I never see? I thought it must be motherhood or something, I thought it must be some natural change, with babies and all—but you loved the forest, you’d mended every damage you could set your hands to, you wished it life with all your heart—and you feared it so much you dreaded letting the mouse out of her own yard and into the woods?
Trust the leshys, I said.—The child knows their names, ‘Veshka, of course she’s safe. Would Misighi ever let her come to harm?
He bit his lip, saw the bright spark of the fire Pyetr had been making, thought, distractedly: The leshys hate fire. I can’t wish it. Maybe that’s why we’ve gotten along. And she hasn’t.
—Eveshka, hear me—
But he thought instantly of Nadya, glanced at her and flinched, thinking, God, ‘Veshka never did like surprises, and she’s not being reasonable, no more than the mouse. There’s no telling what either one of them might wish about this girl, or about us—
Burning papers. Stacks and stacks of papers and moldering birds’ nest and feathers and old, outgrown clothes—
Breathe the smoke. Let the fire mingle the elements of the problem, pinecones and curious dried beetles, old nests, old clothes, old papers, and lonely, disordered years—breathe it in and let it work—
God, she’s my doing. Most certainly she’s my doing, this—girl, this lost daughter of Pyetr’s, this—calamity—the leshys have dropped in our laps—
She can’t be. She can’t be what I wished up. She would have had to begin all those years ago, before I even left Vojvoda, before Pyetr and I even met—
Can we even choose? God, where are our choices, if I was Uulamets’ wish and everything that got Pyetr in trouble and brought Yvgenie to this woods and put the mouse in danger was only for a stupid wish I was going to make on a rainy night eighteen years later— I felt the whole world shift when I wished someone. And the lightning came and Yvgenie drowned. Was it all for her? Or is magic only riding the currents of what already will be—has to be?
Leaves on the water—
“Sasha?” he heard Pyetr asking him. But he could not move, could not get out of the current if that was the case—
No wizard could, if that was the case. There was no way back. He looked at Nadya and thought, The mouse won’t accept her. Eveshka won’t. How did things get so tangled? And what is the mouse doing out there in the woods, if this is all our doing? When did we ever wish it? Or is it Uulamets’ who did it to all of us? And what was the old man thinking of and what did he want in the world, but—
—but—
He drew a panicked breath. And wished the way he Iwi taught the mouse to do when magic began to go amiss—
Sasha fell before Pyetr could reach him, just sprawled on his side, senseless or dead, Pyetr could not tell until he could get a hand inside his collar and feel life beating steadily.
Then he could breathe, himself; but not feel in the least safe, not for himself and not for Sasha or for anyone he loved. It was nothing a sword could get at or an ordinary man even hear going on.
“What’s happened to him?” Nadya asked, and one could not even be sure of her, if Sasha had misjudged what shape shifters could do. But one had to trust, one had to deal sanely, and not act in panic.
“He’s fainted,” he said. “But I don’t know whether he wanted it or something else did.”
His daughter looked at the forest about them—but then-was nothing eyes could see. No Babi, either, which was not a good sign. The inkpot had tamed over, the ink had run out and blotted a page of Sasha’s book—and if that was any indication of how things were going, it was none he liked. He propped Sasha’s head on his knee, put a hand on Sasha’s brow and pleaded with him, “Wake up, can you? Come on. The ink’s spilled, Babi’s missing. I don’t like this, Sasha. I truly don’t.”
Nadya came and sank down close to them, tacked down in a knot with her hands clenched white before her lips. Scared, decidedly, this daughter of his in gilt and tattered silk. Worried. With damned good reason.
10
A wolf—it might be the same wolf—slipped in and out of view, threading a path through the brush, and one could easily feel more anxious not knowing where it was than knowing. It had come closer a moment ago—but Bielitsa had made no protest, not even a twitch of her ears, and Yvgenie rubbed his eyes with chilled fingers, wondering was the wolf a ghost itself, and whether the ghost inside him knew it.
He was convinced there was a place ahead of them where the wolf could not reach, a terrible place, but safe from that danger. He had no clear memory any longer where the boundaries were between himself and the ghost, it was all a struggle now, moment by moment, to keep awake. Perhaps it was bewitchment. Perhaps it was simple weariness. But his hold on the world was slipping, that was the only way he could think of it; and he did not want to alarm Ilyana— everything seemed so precarious and so fragile now, and he did not want to talk about ghosts, or dying.
They reached the bottom of the hill and Ilyana reined in a moment, where there was water. The horses drank, wading into
the stream, heedless of danger.
They can’t see it, he thought. They can’t smell it. It’s sun a ghost, like Owl.
It was there again, the wolf was, trotting across the slope in front of them.
“Do you see it?” he asked desperately.
“The wolf?”
“There,” he said. But by the time she had looked where he pointed, it had gone.
She patted Patches’ neck while Patches drank. Bielitsa gave a little twitch of her shoulders and lifted her head. “Probably he’s a little crazy. Uncle says they’ll kill one that’s too different.”
“Like people,” he said, and found himself remembering, not knowing what he was going to say, “My father had other sons.”
There had been another wife. His mother was dead. His father had had something to do with that, but he could not remember what, he could not remember his father’s face, try as he would. He only recalled a silhouette against a window; remembered nothing of home, though it seemed to him a while ago he had known more than that. He saw a gray sky above stark walls. He did not know why that image should terrify him or why people shouting should be so ominous. A dreadful thump, then, shocked through his bones.
The ghost said, against his heart, The man deserved what he got. Can you possibly mourn him? He gave you nothing but pain.
He understood then that it had been his father’s death he had just witnessed, and he was sure he had not been there—it had not happened when he had left. He thought, cold and sick at heart: The tsar must have found him out. The tsar must have learned he was plotting against him—but surely it wasn’t my fault—please the god it wasn’t my fault he’s dead—
Fool, the ghost said. I give you justice and you’re sorry? How can you forgive so much evil?
Memory of a gray sky. A feeling of justice done, but he could take no joy in it. The ghost’s question seemed wistful and angry at once, as if it truly did not understand. His hands felt chill as he drew up on Bielitsa’s reins, going on in the lead, he had forgotten where for the moment, and why, except he felt the wolf’s presence closer now, and he wanted them quickly on their way.