The Bear and the Nightingale(69)

Vasya looked down at Dunya. Dunya was dead. Blood suffused her face and a little foam flecked the corners of her mouth. Her eyes bulged, the dark swimming in pools of red.

“She died afraid,” Vasya said, very softly, shaking. “She died afraid.”

“Come on, Vasochka,” said Alyosha. “Come down.” He had tried to close Dunya’s eyes, but they bulged too much. The last thing Vasya saw before she climbed off the oven was the look of horror on Dunya’s dead face.





They laid Dunya in the bathhouse, and at dawn the women came loud as hens cackling. They bathed Dunya’s withered body; they wrapped her in linen and sat vigil beside her. Irina knelt weeping, her head in her mother’s lap. Father Konstantin knelt, too, but it did not seem that he prayed. His face was white as the linen. Again and again, his trembling hand felt at his unmarked throat.

Vasya was not there. When the women looked for her, she was not to be found.

“She has always been a hoyden,” muttered one to another. “But I never thought her so bad as this.”

Her friend nodded darkly, mouth pinched small. Dunya had been as a mother to Vasilisa when Marina Ivanovna died. “It is in the blood,” she said. “You can see it in her face. She has a witch’s eyes.”



AT FIRST LIGHT, VASYA crept outside, a shovel over her shoulder. Her face was set. She made a few preparations, then went to find her brother. Alyosha was chopping firewood. His ax whistled down so hard that the logs burst apart and lay strewn in the snow at his feet.

“Lyoshka,” said Vasya. “I need your help.”

Alyosha blinked at his sister. He had been weeping; the ice-crystals glinted in his brown beard. It was very cold. “What, Vasya?”

“Dunya gave us a task.”

The young man’s jaw tightened. “This is hardly the time,” he said. “Why are you here? The women are keeping vigil; you should be with them.”

“Last night,” said Vasya urgently. “There was a dead thing. In the house. An upyr, like in Dunya’s stories. It came as she was dying.”

Alyosha was silent. Vasya met his gaze. His knuckles showed white when he drove the ax down again. “Ran the monster off, did you?” he said with some sarcasm, between chops. “My little sister, all by herself?”

“Dunya told me,” Vasya said. “She said to remember the stories. Make a stake of birch-wood, she said. Remember? Please, brother.”

Alyosha paused in his chopping. “What are you suggesting?”

“We must get rid of it.” Vasya took a deep breath. “We need to look for disturbed graves.”

Alyosha frowned. Vasya was white to the lips, her eyes great dark holes. “Well, we will see,” Alyosha said, with the barest edge of irony. “Let’s go dig up the cemetery. Truly, it has been too long since Father beat me.”

He stacked his wood and hoisted his ax.

It had snowed in the hour before dawn. There was nothing to be seen in the graveyard but vague hummocks beneath the sparkling drifts. Alyosha glanced at his sister. “What now?”

Vasya’s mouth twitched despite herself. “Dunya always said that male virgins are best for finding the undead. You walk in circles until you trip over the right grave. Care to lead, brother?”

“You’re out of luck, I’m afraid, Vasochka,” said Alyosha with some asperity, “and have been for some time. Do we need to kidnap a peasant boy?”

Vasya assumed a righteous expression. “Where greater virtue fails, the lesser must do its poor best,” she informed him, and clambered first among the glittering graves.

In honesty, she doubted that virtue had much to do with it. The smell hung like evil rain over the graveyard, and it was not long before Vasya stopped, choking, in a familiar corner. She and Alyosha looked at each other, and her brother began to dig. The earth ought to have been stiff with frost, but it was moist and fresh-tumbled. As Alyosha cleared away the snow, the smell struck up with such force that he turned away, gagging. But, lips tight, he drove his shovel into the earth. In a surprisingly short time they had uncovered the head and torso of a figure, wrapped in a winding-sheet. Vasya drew out a small knife and cut the cloth away.

“Mother of God,” said Alyosha, and turned away.

Vasya said nothing. Little Agafya’s skin was the grayish-white of a corpse, but her lips were berry-red, full and tender, as they had never been in life. Her eyelashes cast lacy shadows on her wasted cheeks. She might have been asleep, at peace in a bed of earth.

“What do we do?” Alyosha asked, very pale and breathing as little as possible.

“A stake through the mouth,” said Vasya. “I made a stake this morning.”

Alyosha shuddered, but knelt. Vasya knelt beside him, hands trembling. The stake was crudely shaped but sharp, and she hefted a large rock to do the hammering.

“Well, brother,” said Vasya, “Will you hold its head or drive in the stake?”

He was white as the snowdrifts, but he said, “I’m stronger than you.”

“True enough,” said Vasya. She handed over stake and rock and pried open the thing’s jaws. The teeth, sharp as a cat’s, gleamed like bone needles.

The sight of them shook Alyosha out of his stupor. Gritting his teeth, he thrust the stake between the red lips and slammed the rock down. Blood spurted, welling out of the mouth and over the gray chin. The eyes flew open, huge and horrible, though the body did not stir. Alyosha’s hand jerked; he missed the stake and Vasya snatched her fingers away just in time. There was a nasty crunch as the stone shattered the right cheekbone. The thing let out a thin scream, though still it did not move.