Juniper & Thorn(82)
At last he said, “It seems entirely apparent to me that no man killed her. Nothing mortal could have made these wounds.”
“Enough of this madness,” Derkach said, striding forward. I had not even seen him follow us through the gate. “There is no monster in Oblya, only a very sick and twisted man. In fact, the Grand Inspector has offered a reward—three hundred rubles!—for any information leading to his capture and arrest. He and his men will come for the corpse soon, I expect; as soon as word gets out. But none of this is any concern of mine. Sevas, I hope this has extinguished the charm of your little rebellion. Come with me.”
Sevas’s hands slipped from my hair. He turned toward Derkach and said, “No.”
Derkach barked a laugh. “Why must you always make things so terribly difficult for yourself? There is nothing this world can offer you that is better than what I have already provided, and there is nothing you can offer this world aside from your lovely face and your skillful dancing. You’re not a boy anymore, and it’s too late to dream of being a sailor or a doctor or a street-corner magician. You are Ivan, nothing else. Would you rather live under the thumb of some madcap wizard than preen before an audience that adores you?”
“It’s Ivan they adore. And I’d rather live anywhere that isn’t with you.” Sevas’s words drifted icily through the air; I could almost feel the cold of them from where I stood beside him. “There’s nothing you can offer that would ever make me return, Mr. Derkach.”
Derkach’s expression did not shift. He merely turned to Papa and said, “How many rubles would it take for you to throw this boy out of your home and into the street?”
I gave a choked noise of protest, imagining the exorbitant sum Papa would demand in exchange for his acquiescence. But Derkach’s words had hit him wrong; I could tell that right away. Papa stiffened like a hunting dog that had caught a downwind scent.
His eyes narrowed and he replied, “These men are here because they clamored for it, and because I lifted my enchantments to allow them inside. No one enters this garden unless I permit it—no beggars, no brokers, no Grand Inspector or his men. I am not some capitalist wretch who is jerked around by the yoke of gold. Leave these grounds now, sir, or I will turn you into a jabbering crow.”
“I leave of my own accord, wizard, just as I entered,” Derkach said, though he began pacing backward through the sage grass. “But if it’s the Grand Inspector that you fear, I will bring him and his men right to your door, and he will put a stop to this whole sham of a competition. Hear me, Zmiy Vashchenko. Never again will you welcome one of Oblya’s men into your garden. Never again will you bait them with the empty promise of your daughter’s hand. It’s only justice that she was slain now, before you could use her further for your greedy ends.”
The callousness of his words struck me like a blade to the belly, and I was nearly sick with the pain, sick with the fear that Papa would do something terrible. Now he drew himself up to his full height, sucking in a breath that felt like danger.
He laughed a hacking, humorless laugh. “Your words are nothing to me, mortal. Not even the curse of a true witch could fell me. I will cast a spell that clips your vocal cords before you can so much as whisper to your Grand Inspector.”
But Derkach had already turned his back; it was as if Papa’s words, too, were clumsy arrows that did not strike him. I had never seen my father so casually and summarily unheeded, and for a moment I could envision him the way Derkach did: as a mad old man in a crumbling house, raving about obscure indignities. For a moment, it was as if Papa had no power at all.
When I blinked, though, it all returned to me: the magic crackling in the air, the rage on his face, the flush of his cheeks that lingered from when Derkach had said the words Grand Inspector.
As Dr. Bakay rose to his feet again Undine’s body rolled over, landing facedown in the dirt and weeds. Derkach vanished back through the gate and it flapped open after him, swinging and swinging, as if it were a dress on a clothesline.
Instantly I felt Sevas relax, his shoulders slumping, though the wind picked up and I could smell the salt tang of Undine’s blood on the air. Rose was still kneeling beside her, though her sobs had ebbed to little whimpers, another sound I had never heard my middle sister make.
Before Papa could even say another word, before he could even look upon his dead daughter and weep, one of the day laborers poked up his head and said, “I need to go.”
Papa’s gaze landed on him like a hawk seizing its quarry. “What was that, boy?”
“It’s only—well, the monster, the murderer . . . he’s targeted your estate.” It was a freckle-faced man who spoke, one who was not Sobaka. “And now that your daughter is, ah, dead, well—that’s half the reason I was here, isn’t it? To compete for her hand. I mean no offense, sir, of course, but your middle daughter is vicious as a wounded bear and your youngest daughter, well . . .”
He did not have to finish his phrase for everyone to know what he meant, and Papa himself had called me plain-faced so many times before. This time, though, storm clouds gathered on Papa’s brow and he said, “My daughter’s hand comes with more than just a beautiful woman to share your bed. It is my estate you will inherit someday, in all its sprawling glory.”
But the men had been here for nearly three days, and they had seen the cracking plaster, the weeds and thorns running over the garden, the ivy growing on the walls like an old man’s beard, the taps that worked only half the time and the floorboards that were rotting under our feet. Our house was no great prize. It was a racing dog years past its prime, gray-muzzled and limping, moments away from a mercy killing.