The Bear and the Nightingale(97)

“Vasya,” he said, and reached out to her.

But she was not alone. When she slipped through the door, a dark-cloaked figure unfolded from the shadows at her shoulder and glided in beside her. Konstantin could see nothing of the face, save that it was pale. The hands were very long and thin.

“Who is that, Vasya?” he said.

“I came back,” Vasya returned. “But not alone, as you see.”

Konstantin could not see the man’s eyes, so sunk were they in his skull. The hands were of a skeletal thinness. The priest licked his lips. “Who is that, girl?”

Vasya smiled. “Death,” she said. “He saved me in the forest. Or perhaps he did not, and I am a ghost. I feel a ghost tonight.”

“You are mad,” said Konstantin. “Stranger, who are you?”

The stranger said nothing.

“Alive or dead, I have come to tell you to leave this place,” said Vasya. “Go back to Moscow, to Vladimir, to Tsargrad, or to hell, but you must be gone before the snowdrops bloom.”

“My task—”

“Your task is done,” said Vasya. She stepped forward. The dark man beside her seemed to grow; his head was a skull, and blue fires burned in the sockets of his sunken eyes. “You will go, Konstantin Nikonovich. Or you will die. And your death will not be easy.”

“I will not.” But he was pressed against the wall of his chamber. His teeth rattled together.

“You will,” said Vasya. She advanced until she was near enough to touch. He could see the curve of her cheek, the implacable look in her eyes. “Or we will see to it that you are mad as my stepmother was, before the end.”

“Demons,” said Konstantin, panting. A cold sweat broke over his brow.

“Yes,” said Vasya, and she smiled, the devil’s own child. The dark figure beside her smiled, too, a slow skull’s grin.

And then they were gone, silently as they had come.

Konstantin fell to his knees before the shadows on his wall. He stretched out supplicating hands. “Come back,” begged the priest. He paused, listening. His hands shook. “Come back. You raised me up, but she scorned me. Come back.”

He thought the shadows might have shifted just a little. But he heard only silence.



“HE WILL DO IT, I think,” Vasya said.

“Very likely,” said Morozko. He was laughing. “I have never done that at another’s behest.”

“And I suppose you frighten people all the time on your own account,” said Vasya.

“I?” said Morozko. “I am only a story, Vasya.”

And it was Vasya’s turn to laugh. Then her laugh caught in her throat. “Thank you,” she said.

Morozko inclined his head. And then the night seemed to reach out and catch him up, fold him inside itself, so that there was only the dark where he had been.



THE HOUSEHOLD HAD GONE to bed, and only Irina and Alyosha sat alone in the kitchen. Vasya glided in like a shadow. Irina had been crying; Alyosha held her. Wordless, Vasya sank onto the oven-bench beside them and wrapped her arms around them both.

They were all silent awhile.

“I cannot stay here,” said Vasya, very low.

Alyosha looked at her, dull with sorrow and battle-weariness. “Are you still thinking of the convent?” he said. “Well, you needn’t think of it again. Anna Ivanovna is dead, and so is Father. I will have my own land, my own inheritance. I will look after you.”

“You must establish yourself as a lord among men,” Vasya said. “Men will look less kindly upon you when it is known that you harbor your mad sister. You know that many will blame me for all this. I am the witch-woman. Has the priest not said so?”

“Never mind that,” said Alyosha. “There is nowhere for you to go.”

“Is there not?” said Vasya. A slow fire kindled in her face, easing the lines of grief. “Solovey will take me to the ends of the earth if I ask it. I am going into the world, Alyosha. I will be no one’s bride, neither of man nor of God. I am going to Kiev and Sarai and Tsargrad, and I will look upon the sun on the sea.”

Alyosha stared at his sister. “You are mad, Vasya.”

She laughed, but the tears blurred her sight. “Entirely,” she said. “But I will have my freedom, Alyosha. Do you doubt me? I brought snowdrops to my stepmother, when I ought to have died in the forest. Father is gone; there is no one to hinder. Tell me truly, what is there for me here but walls and cages? I will be free, and I will not count the cost.”

Irina clung to her sister. “Don’t go, Vasya, don’t go. I will be good, I promise.”

“Look at me, Irinka,” said Vasya. “You are good. You are the best little girl I know. Much better than I am. But, little sister, you don’t think I am a witch. Others do.”

“That is true,” said Alyosha. He had also seen the villagers’ black stares, heard their whispers during the funeral.

Vasya said nothing.

“Unnatural thing,” said her brother, but he was sad more than angry. “Can you not be content? Men will forget about all this in time, and what you call cages is the lot of women.”

“It is not mine,” said Vasya. “I love you, Lyoshka. I love you both. But I cannot.”

Irina began to cry and clung closer.