Yvgenie

  If I don’t like, too…

  “But mostly, right now, mouse, I just want you to dry your eyes and come have breakfast and let’s not worry about it.”

  He can only come here a few days more. And then it’s another year. And I can’t even talk to him—

  Not wise, her uncle said.

  Leave me alone! she wished him.

  But she did not completely mean that. She really did not completely mean that.

  “Breakfast?” her father asked.

  She nodded against his shoulder. And wished her uncle not to be mad at her, which he was kind enough to tolerate.

  “I’ll make breakfast,” Sasha insisted; and Pyetr decided to help—

  Cleverly, he thought, because Ilyana needed something to take her mind off the situation—and two men trying to find essentials in her mother’s carefully arranged shelves had her off the bench in short order, had her protecting her mother’s things; and perhaps, a devious man could surmise, beginning to want her mother back when it came to overdone cakes for breakfast, because two men who very well understood campfire cooking were not going to put off breakfast-making on a child who had not been well, no, absolutely not. They could make breakfast, they had done it before.

  And of course they would clean up.

  Babi sulked about the cakes. Babi still had extras and got tipsy on vodka. And the batter spilled across the hearth would eventually clean away, even though it had cooked on, between the stones, where no mop could reach it.

  The domovoi complained, too, about the smoke.

  And Ilyana sat at the table with her chin on her hands and watched, back and forth, back and forth like a cat.

  “You’re trying to make me want her back,” Ilyana said.

  “It wouldn’t be nice to spy on your father,” Pyetr said.

  She said, chin on fist now, frowning, “I didn’t.” And winced and shut her eyes as pottery clattered. “Uncle—”

  “It didn’t break,” Sasha said.

  “Mother’s going to blame me. She always does.”

  “Nothing’s broken,” Pyetr said. “And your mother won’t blame you. I take all responsibility. Why don’t you run down lo the stable and bridle up the horses?”

  “I don’t want to ride.”

  “No? What do you want to do today?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, why don’t we ride until you do?”

  “I think I’d better write some things down.”

  “That might be a good idea,” Sasha said.

  “I don’t think so,” Pyetr said. “God, she’s had enough of magic. She’s a child, for the god’s sake. That’s whal wrong: too much taking care of. She should skin a knee or something a little less damned dire, can’t she?”

  “Don’t fight,” Ilyana said; a wish; even he heard it. Ilyana had her lips clamped as if something else was going to escape.

  “We’re not fighting. Your uncle and I used to discuss this before—” He almost said, Before I married your mother. Which was true. He said instead, “We’re friends. It doesn’t mean you don’t like somebody if you yell.”

  “I know,” she said, with exactly her mother’s frown.

  It was not fair to Eveshka, either. He remembered pain. He remembered—

  She said, sullenly, “I’ll go riding if you want.”

  “I’m not going to make you do anything, mouse. That’s the point, isn’t it? Your mother’s just very fragile. Maybe she always will be. But she doesn’t want you to grow up like her. She wants you—”

  “Wants” was not a good word. He knew that after all these years, dammit, he knew better.

  The mouse bit her lip. “I don’t know what she wants. It changes. All the time.”

  “What would you like to do? That’s the point. Go do it.”

  “You wouldn’t like what I’d do...”

  He saw that expression in the mirror when he was shaving. On a bad day. He tilted his head and gave her one that matched it.

  “Mouse, if you’re a fool, I’m going to be very upset. There’s a vodyanoi to consider now, in your slipping about the woods with secrets—he doesn’t stay to the water, let me tell you something about Chernevog.”

  “I don’t want to hear!”

  That stung. And he forgot what he was going to say.

  Sasha said, “She’s distressed, she didn’t intend that.”

  “What about him?” the mouse asked, very quietly. And it came back to him what he had been going to say—that a man Chernevog’s age had no business with a fifteen-year-old girl.

  But he did not think, on second thought, that she would understand that.

  Instead he said, “If you should see him—tell him I’ll talk to him. Alone.”

  She looked upset with that idea, and not only, perhaps, for fear of what he might say to Chernevog in that exchange. Maybe she was thinking about the danger he could be in—knowing what Chernevog was. That was what he hoped she would see, at least.

  She said, cautiously, “What would you say to him?”

  “I’d ask him what he wants. I owe him my life, mouse. But I don’t owe him yours. And I’d pay mine to keep you safe.”

  Something wizardous went on—so strong he felt his skin crawl.

  She said, “Don’t talk like that!”

  “It’s every bit true, mouse.”

  She jumped up from the bench and ran for her room. In a moment, through the open door, he saw her sit down on her bed with her book in her lap.

  Not sun. Books.

  He shook his head.

  Sasha said quietly, “You scared her. That’s good. She’s thinking—very noisily right now. I can’t avoid hearing.”

  “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to deal with her that way.”

  “She’s making wishes to protect the house, she’s making wishes for all of us to be wise—even her mother. Winding them around like yarn. That’s the way she’s thinking of it. Don’t push her—to do anything, even to enjoy herself. That’s the real point, isn’t it? Let her think.”

  The mouse came out with ink stains on her fingers and reddened eyes. Tears as well as ink on that page, Sasha thought, and put his own pen away and folded his book. She had done all that crying without disturbing the house—in any sense. No small feat.

  “A very good mouse,” he said. “I didn’t even hear you.”

  “Where’s my father?”

  “Trimming horses’ feet. Or weeding the garden. One or the other.”

  The mouse came very quietly and sat down opposite him at the kitchen table. “Uncle, what made me so mad was—nobody even asked if he’d done anything wrong. Nobody ever asks my opinion.”

  “You mean no one asked you this time. “Ever” is quite large word.”

  “It feels like “ever.” “

  “I’m distracting you. Yes. We were upset. I’ll tell you, Chernevog was a very strong wizard. And one could suppose he’s old enough to know better than what he’s doing: we didn’t have to explain to him why we were upset—he knew that when he came here. But I do agree with you: you weren’t consulted. It had to scare you; it certainly scared me—I knew Chernevog. If he’d wanted a fight, it could have been bad down there—very bad.”

  She had not tried to say anything. He left a silence for ho to think about that. Finally she said:

  “I think I’ll go help my father. Is Babi with him?”

  “Last I saw.”

  She started for the door, turned around again with a lift of her chin. “Have you been talking to my mother?”

  He shook his head. “No. But she’s all right, I’m sure.”

  “There’s a vodyanoi out there. She should be careful.”

  “She can handle the old Snake. No question.”

  A very good sign, he thought, watching her go out the door. And the inevitable afterthought, considering the blond braids and that outline against the sun: God, she looks like her mother.

  Old Snake had not a chance if he crossed Eveshka rig
ht now, no more than Kavi Chernevog had had when, clinging to a scrap of life, he had drifted toward the only friends he had had in the world. And found Ilyana.

  No. Not Chernevog as he had died. The boy who loved Owl had found Ilyana; and Ilyana had found someone to play with. And to love.

  God help both of them, he thought, sick at heart.

  But that was not the worst thing about the affair. The worst thing, the thing that haunted Eveshka and that haunted him and Pyetr, too, so far as Pyetr’s understanding went—was that fifteen years ago they had patched something very wrong in the world; things once associated were always associated—and if there was a way for it to get back into the world it was through Kavi Chernevog or it was through Eveshka—

  Or, likeliest of all, Ilyana.

  It proved one thing, that they had not been safe all these years: things had begun going wrong very naturally, very quietly, from the very time they had left that place upriver, where Chernevog had died.

  Baby mouse, Misighi had called her, lichenous, patch-hided old Misighi, no little crazed from the death of the previous forest. They had been so relieved when Misighi had found no harm in Ilyana as an infant, when he had cradled her in his gnarled arms, smelled her over and said, in that rumbling voice of his—new growth.

  But after that, Misighi had not come to the house. A few leshys had. A very few. And he had asked why, in his wanderings in the woods—asked Wiun, for one, who was a little mad himself.

  Wiun had said—A new wind, young wizard. A new wind will come.

  And more and more rarely they would be there, leaving their backward, tracks on the riverside. Sometimes the orphans of some storm would turn up near his porch, or on it, sometimes a nest of birds—a young squirrel.

  But none lately. None last winter. The woods had a lonelier, cruder feeling this spring.

  He had written it in his book, and worried about it, and worried that perhaps Pyetr’s going to Kiev had been a mistake, coming home again with, perhaps, too much of the outside clinging about him—too much of tsars and tsarevitches and the noise of marketplaces and the smell of smoke. Pyetr declared he would not go to Kiev again: and suddenly that statement seemed ominous—as if all along their suppositions had been wrong, their fears misplaced: Pyetr could never have been in danger from Ilyana among the leshys. They would have kept him safe from harm—by means a man might not like; but he would have been safe.

  Instead they had sent him south—and the leshys had ceased to visit them. They had made a choice of some kind, without knowing they were choosing.

  God. Why didn’t we see it? Why did we ever think of it as waiting? Everything was going on around us. Misighi, Misighi, do you hear me, old friend?

  Where did the years go? We thought it was your time being so long—but we’re the ones who’ve slept too long. Come back and see the mouse now, Misighi. She’s grown so. And she’s not wicked, she never was. You knew that when you held her.

  But what’s in Chernevog’s heart? What does he want, but life he can’t have again, Misighi? Have you known about him, all this time, and not said?

  All those times we met through the years—and you never once mentioned him? Or couldn’t you? Or couldn’t I once have suspected he wouldn’t die?

  At least there was a sort of peace in the day—even if her filly managed to figure out the gate again, and got into her mother’s garden. Ilyana even found herself laughing—and laughing and laughing with tears in her eyes as Patches raced around and around the yard with a carrot-stem in her mouth, while her uncle and her father and Babi chased after her Uncle could have wished Patches back into the stable yard, she could have done it herself except she was laughing so hard, but uncle and father and Babi were all enjoying themselves, certainly Patches was, and meanwhile Missy escaped out the gate that uncle was trying to get Patches into and trotted straight for the garden.

  She could not chase horses anymore. She was laughing so hard she was bent double, and finally, as they were about to not Patches in, her father yelled at her to get the gate. She managed to do that, then sat down on the bottom rail, holding the gate shut with her arm, and gasped and wiped her eyes, thinking that somehow something had just broken loose inside, and it might have been pain and it might have been laughter. Maybe it was both, because it could not be funny enough to make her stomach hurt.

  Her father and Sasha were both out of breath from laughing and running and the Missy—chase was going slower and slower, until Missy was just trotting around the yard ahead of them.

  Her father finally waved at Sasha, saying, between gasps, “ for the god’s sake, wish her in.“

  Missy arrived, Ilyana got up and opened the gate and shut it behind her, and leaned on it.

  Her father tousled her bangs. All three of them leaned panting on the gate.

  Her father gasped, “God, why don’t we go riding now?”

  And that set them all off again.

  She had never laughed so much in her life. She felt better. And feeling better after what had happened felt like betraying her friend—but she could at least feel guilty now, instead of scared and mad. She did not, truly did not want to die. She wanted the rest of her life, now, because it seemed there were things to learn—

  Like finding out her father and her uncle could laugh like that. It was wonderful and it was scary—completely beyond uncle’s power to stop it, and beyond hers, which she had always understood was terribly dangerous for wizards—

  But it was funny, dammit, and surely laughing like that could never be wrong.

  That was what the house felt like without her mother. She saw for the first time in her life what her mother’s presence did, and what her mother’s shape was in the house—a sad and frightening shape, that right now had no house to be in tonight.

  She asked her uncle, while they were smoothing horse tracks out of her mother’s garden, “Is my mother really all right?”

  “Why should you think not, mouse?”

  “Can you tell her something from me?”

  “All right.”

  “Tell her I’m not mad at her anymore. I don’t want her to come back yet. And I can’t talk to her right now. But tell her I—” Want her to be happy? Was that bad to wish? “Tell her—no, ask her... if she wouldn’t please want herself to be happier.”

  Her uncle looked at her as if that surprised him, but not that much. “That’s very kind of you, mouse.”

  “I wish—god, I can’t stop myself today!”

  “That’s all right. You’re old enough to let loose a few wishes—you’re old enough to use your father’s axe, too, if you’ll get him to teach you how.”

  Her uncle meant that wishes were like that axe, a very dangerous thing to use badly. She thought about her mother and said, “I think my mother is so scared. What of?”

  “There’s a thing, mouse—I’m not even sure it’s a thing: maybe it’s just the place magic comes from—that she dealt with once, in a way she shouldn’t have. She still knows how to reach into that place. If she ever loses her good sense, she might get scared enough to do that; and if she did—she could become what your grandmother was. That’s enough to give anyone nightmares. Your mother killed people. I think she could forget that—if she didn’t know she could do it again and that she could want to do it again.”

  “She can want not to do it again!”

  “Oh, she does. She does. But she can’t believe it. The fact is, mouse, once you’ve used that kind of magic, it starts using you. It’s like drinking too much vodka. Only you don’t get silly. You get dangerous. I’ll tell you something—I’ve done it. I’ve done it very briefly, and in a very minor way, and I got away from it as fast as I could. Your mother—”

  People always stopped in the middle of important things. She wanted the rest of it, she needed the rest of it now, dammit!

  “I’ll tell you, mouse, I couldn’t tell you when you were small, because little children are very apt to try exactly what you tell them not to: they’re curio
us, they test things, and they don’t understand that consequences are real. But this is the most important Don’t there is in the world: Don’t ever use any magic but your own. Don’t borrow; absolutely don’t borrow magic. For one thing, it makes you drunk and it spoils your judgment. For another thing, the creatures that will offer it to you are all harmful. Every one of them. The good ones, like Babi, won’t let you. Babi would show you his teeth if you even thought about it. Does that tell you something, or doesn’t it?”

  She nodded, sobered.

  Her uncle said, leaning on his hoe, “All the ones that will lend their magic seem connected to something—in that place Babi goes to when he isn’t here. Maybe there’s more than one place. But whatever it is, it’s not like here. And if you go borrowing magic—it’s like pulling on a little string that turns out to be tied to a snake, but the snake’s got his head in deep water, and he’s holding on to something else, something that’s pulling back very strongly, do you understand me? That’s what it feels like.”

  A little shiver went over her skin. Her uncle went on:

  “A rusalka’s not quite that. A rusalka borrows life: the same kind of mistake: it only happens to kill people. But a wizard wishes nothing outside of nature; while a sorcerer when he uses magic borrows something I can’t even put a name to, maybe something alive: your mother thinks it is. I’m less sure of that, but I do believe it’s at least self-interested; and as far as any of us understand, it doesn’t seem to have any law or limits the sorcerer doesn’t give it. Pretty soon he can’t remember what he’s changed and he’s thinking how things are connected—he can fix things, right? Pretty soon it’s making the decisions, or the total of his wishes are—and he’s not. That’s a feeling you don’t ever want to have, mouse, not ever in your life. Once you’ve gone that brink every choice you make to stop yourself is an uphill climb. Every fear you have and every knotty problem face, it’s so easy to remember the quick solution and to forget the mess it got you into. You lose your wisdom. You lose your sense. Thank the god I could step back again to safe ground. Your mother went so deep in that it’s very easy for her to slip back: your mother fights on that slanting ground all alone, for the rest of her life. No other wizard can get into her heart and help her. I’ve tried.”