The Bear and the Nightingale(27)



In her defense, Vasya did not mean to send her stepmother reeling against the doorframe, but she was strong and rawboned for her age and could scamper very fast. Vasya looked up in quick apology but stopped, arrested. Anna was white as salt, with a little color burning in each cheek. Her breast heaved. Vasya took a step backward.

“Vasya,” Anna began, sounding strangled. “Who were you talking to?”

Vasya, taken aback, said nothing.

“Answer me, child! Who were you talking to?”

Vasya, disconcerted, settled on the safest answer. “No one.”

Anna’s glance darted from Vasya to the room behind. Abruptly she reached out and slapped Vasya across the face.

Vasya put her hand to her cheek, pale with astonished fury. The tears sprang to her eyes a moment later. Her father beat her often enough, but with a grave application of justice. She had never been struck in anger in her life.

“I won’t ask again,” said Anna.

“It’s only the domovoi,” Vasya whispered. Her eyes were huge. “Just the domovoi.”

“And what manner of devil,” demanded Anna, shrilly, “is the domovoi?”

Vasya, bewildered and trying not to cry, said nothing.

Anna raised a hand to slap her again.

“He helps clean the house,” Vasya stammered hastily. “He does no harm.”

Anna’s eyes darted, blazing, into the room and her face flushed dully red. “Go away, you!” she screeched. The domovoi looked up in aggrieved confusion. Anna rounded back on Vasilisa. “Domovoi?” Anna hissed, advancing on her stepdaughter. “Domovoi? There is no such thing as a domovoi!”

Vasya, furious, bewildered, opened her mouth to contradict, caught her stepmother’s expression, and closed it with a snap. She’d never seen anyone look so frightened.

“Get out of here,” cried Anna. “Get out, get out!” The last word was a screech, and Vasya turned and fled.



THE ANIMALS’ HEAT STRUCK up from below and warmed the sweet-smelling loft. Vasya buried herself in a heap of straw, chilly, bruised, and baffled.

There was no such thing as a domovoi? Of course there was. They saw him every day. He’d been right there.

But did they see him? Vasya couldn’t recall anyone except herself talking to the domovoi. But—of course Anna Ivanovna saw him: Go away, she had said. Hadn’t she? Maybe—maybe there wasn’t such a thing as a domovoi. Perhaps she was mad. Maybe she was destined to be a Holy Fool and wander begging among the villages. But no, Holy Fools were protected by Christ; they would not be nearly as wicked as her.

Vasya’s head hurt with thinking. If the domovoi wasn’t real, then what about the others? The vodianoy in the river, the twig-man in the trees? The rusalka, the polevik, the dvorovoi? Had she imagined them all? Was she mad? Was Anna Ivanovna? She wished she could ask Olya or Sasha. They would know, and neither of them would ever strike her. But they were far away.

Vasya buried her head in her arms. She wasn’t sure how long she lay there. The shadows drifted across the dim stable. She dozed a bit in the manner of tired children, and when she awoke, the light in the hayloft was gray and she was furiously hungry.

Stiffly, Vasya uncurled herself, opened her eyes—and found herself looking straight into the eyes of a strange little person. Vasya gave a moan of dismay and curled up again, pressing her fists into her eye sockets.

But when she looked again, the eyes were still there, still large, brown, and tranquil, and attached to a broad face, a red nose, and a wagging white beard. The creature was quite small, no larger than Vasya herself, and he sat in a pile of hay, watching her with an expression of curious sympathy. Unlike the domovoi in his neat robe, this creature wore a collection of tattered oddments, and his feet were bare.

So much Vasya saw before she squeezed her eyes shut again. But she could not sit buried in the hay forever; at last she screwed up her courage, opened her eyes once more, and said tremulously:

“Are you a devil?”

There was a small pause.

“I don’t know. Maybe. What is a devil?” The little creature had a voice like the whicker of a kindly horse.

Vasya reflected. “A great black creature with a beard of flame and a forked tail that wishes to possess my soul and drag me off to be tortured in a pit of fire.”

She eyed the little man again.

Whatever he was, he did not seem to fit this description. His beard was quite reassuringly white and solid and he was turning round and examining the seat of his trousers as though to confirm the absence of a tail.

“No,” he answered at length. “I do not think that I am a devil.”

“Are you really here?” Vasya asked.

“Sometimes,” answered the little man tranquilly.

Vasya was not greatly reassured, but after a moment’s reflection she decided that “sometimes” was preferable to “never.” “Oh,” she said, mollified. “What are you, then?”

“I look after the horses.”

Vasya nodded wisely. If there was a little creature to look after the house, well, then, there should be another for the stables. But the girl had learned caution.

“Can—can everyone see you? Do they know you’re here?”

“The grooms know I’m here; at least, they leave offerings on cold nights. But no, no one can see me. Except you. And the one other, but she never comes.” He sketched a small bow in her direction.

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