The Bear and the Nightingale(89)

She felt rather than heard him laugh. “Medved is a master of nightmares. Anger and fear are as meat and drink to him, and so he captures the minds of men. Forgive me, Vasya.”

Vasya said nothing.

After a moment, he said, “Tell me your dream.”

Vasya told him. She was shaking again when she had done, and he held her and was silent.

“You were right,” said Vasya at length. “What do I know of ancient magic, or ancient rivalries, or anything else? But I must go home. I can protect my family, at least for a time. Father and Alyosha will understand when I have explained.”

The image of her dead brother tore at her.

“Very well,” said Morozko. She was not looking at him, and so she did not see his face grim.

“May I take Solovey with me?” said Vasya hesitantly. “If he wishes to come?”

Solovey heard and shook his mane. He put his head down to look at Vasya out of one eye. Where you go, I go, said the stallion.

“Thank you,” Vasya whispered, and stroked his nose.

“Tomorrow you will go,” Morozko broke in. “Sleep the rest of the night.”

“Why?” said Vasya, pulling away to look at him. “If the Bear is waiting in my dreams, I certainly will not sleep.”

Morozko smiled crookedly. “But I will be here this time. Even in your dreams, Medved would not have dared my house, if I had not been away.”

“How did you know I was dreaming?” asked Vasya. “How did you come back in time?”

Morozko raised an eyebrow. “I knew. And I came back in time because there is nothing beneath these stars that runs faster than the white mare.”

Vasya opened her mouth on another question, but exhaustion hit her like a wave. She yanked back from the brink of sleep, suddenly frightened. “No,” she whispered. “Don’t—I could not bear it again.”

“He will not come back,” returned Morozko. His voice was steady against her ear. She felt the years in him, and the strength. “All will be well.”

“Don’t go,” she whispered.

Something crossed his face that she could not read. “I will not,” he said. And then it did not matter. Sleep was a great dark wave, and it washed over her and through her. Her eyelids fluttered closed.

“Sleep is cousin to death, Vasya,” he murmured over her head. “And both are mine.”



HE WAS STILL THERE when she woke, as he had promised. She crawled from her bed and went to the fire. He sat very still, staring into the flames. It was as though he hadn’t moved at all. If Vasya looked hard, she could see the forest around him, and he a great white silence, formless, in the middle. But then she sank onto her own stool, and he looked round and some of the remoteness left his face.

“Where did you go yesterday?” she asked him. “Where were you, when the Bear knew you were far away?”

“Here and there,” replied Morozko. “I brought gifts for you.”

A heap of bundles lay beside the fire. Vasya glanced at them. He lifted an eyebrow in invitation, and she was child enough to go immediately to the first bundle and pull it open, heart beating quickly. It contained a green dress trimmed in scarlet, and a sable-lined cloak. There were boots made of felt and fur, embroidered with crimson berries. There were headdresses for her hair, and jewels for her fingers: many jewels. Vasya hefted them in her hand. There was gold and silver, in saddlebags of heavy leather. There was cloth of silver and a rich soft cloth that she did not know.

Vasya looked them all over. I am the girl in the story, she thought. This is the prince’s ransom. Now he will take me back to my father’s house, covered with gifts.

She remembered his hands in the night, a few moments of gentleness.

No, that was nothing. That is not how the story goes. I am only the girl in the fairy tale, and he the wicked frost-demon. The maiden leaves the forest, marries a handsome man, and forgets all about magic.

Why did she feel this pain? She laid the cloth aside.

“Is this my dowry?” Her voice was soft. She did not know what showed on her face.

“You must have one,” said Morozko.

“Not from you,” whispered Vasya. She saw him taken aback. “I will bring your snowdrops to my stepmother. Solovey will come to Lesnaya Zemlya with me if he wishes. But I will have nothing else from you, Morozko.”

“You will have nothing of me, Vasya?” said Morozko, and for once she heard a human voice.

Vasya stumbled backward, tripping on the prince’s ransom scattered at her feet. “Nothing!” She knew he knew she was crying and she tried to speak reasonably. “Bind your brother and save us. I am going home.”

Her cloak hung by the fire. She put on her boots and caught up the basket of snowdrops. Part of her wanted him to object, but he did not.

“You will cross the barrier of your village at dawn, then,” said Morozko. He was on his feet. He paused. “Believe in me, Vasya. Do not forget me.”

But she was already over the threshold and away.





She is only one poor mad fool, thought Konstantin Nikonovich. He said he will not kill her. I must get him to leave me. No one can know of this.

Gray dawn and a red sun rising. Where is the border he spoke of? In the forest. Snowdrops. The old oak before dawn.