The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3)(19)

“The city isn’t mad,” Marya protested. She had been following their conversation, her black eyes ferocious, and then had turned her head to listen to that unseen voice near the floor. “It was a man with golden hair—he made them do it. He spoke to them, he made them angry.” She had begun to shake. “He was the one who came last night, who made me come with him. People listen when he talks. His voice is very beautiful. And he hates Aunt Vasya.”

Olga gathered her daughter into her arms. Marya had begun weeping again, slow exhausted sobs. “Hush, sweet,” she said to her daughter. Sasha felt his face settling into bleakness. “The priest with golden hair,” he said. “Konstantin Nikonovich.”

“Our father sheltered him. You brought him to Moscow. I succored him here,” said Olga. Her habitual composure could not hide the look in her eyes.

“I am going to pray now,” said Sasha. “If a devil has come to this city, all I can do against it is pray. But tomorrow I will go to Dmitrii Ivanovich. I will see this priest tried and justice done.”

    “You must kill him with your sword, Uncle Sasha,” said Marya. “For I think he is very wicked.”

Sasha kissed them both and departed in silence.

“Thank you for saving our sister’s life,” Olga said to Varvara, when Sasha had gone.

Varvara said nothing, but the two women clasped hands. They had known each other a long time.

“Now tell me more of this demon that has come to Moscow,” Olga added. “If it concerns the safety of my family, it cannot wait until morning.”





7.


    Monster




IN ANOTHER PART OF MOSCOW, in the black and frigid hour before dawn, a peasant man and his wife lay awake atop his brother’s oven. They had lost their izba, their possessions, and their firstborn in the fires of the night before, and neither of them had slept since.

A light, insistent tapping came from the window.

Tap. Tap.

Below them, on the floor, the brother’s family stirred. The knocking went on, steady, monotonous, first at the window, then at the door. “Who could that be?” muttered the husband.

“Someone in need perhaps,” said his wife, voice hoarse from the tears she had shed that day. “Answer it.”

Her husband reluctantly slid down from the oven. He stumbled to the door, over the complaining bodies of his brother’s family. He opened the inner door, unbarred the outer door.

His wife heard him give a single, sobbing gasp, and then nothing. She hurried up behind him.

A small figure stood in the doorway. Its skin was blackened and flaking away; you could see hints of white bone through rents in his clothing. “Mother?” it whispered.

The dead child’s mother screamed, a scream to wake the dead—but the dead were already awake—a scream to awaken their neighbors, sleeping uneasily with the memory of fire. People opened their shutters, opened their doors.

    This child did not go into the house. Instead he turned away and began walking up the street. He walked drunkenly, lurching from side to side. His eyes, in the moonlight, were bewildered and afraid and intent all at once. “Mother?” he said again.

Above, on either side, the awakened neighbors stared and pointed. “Mother of God.”

“Who is that?”

“What is that?”

“A child?”

“Which child?”

“Nay—God defend us—that is little Andryusha—but he is dead…”

The voice of the child’s mother rose up. “No!” she cried. “No, I am sorry; I am here. Little one, don’t leave me.”

She ran after the dead boy, tripping on the half-frozen earth. Her husband ran stumbling out after her. There was a priest among the awed crowd on the street; the husband seized him and dragged him along. “Batyushka, do something!” he cried. “Make it go! Pray—”

“Upyr!”

The word—the dread word of legend and nightmare and fairy tale—was taken up from house to house, as understanding dawned. The word hissed its way down the street, up and back down, growing and growing until it became a moan, a scream.

“The dead boy. He is walking. The dead are walking. We are cursed. Cursed!”

Every instant the turmoil grew. Clay lamps were lit; torches made gold points of light under the sickly moon. Cries flew. People fainted, or wept, or called down God’s aid. Some opened their doors and ran out to see what the trouble was. Others barred their doors tight and set their families to praying.

Still the dead child walked on unsteady legs, up the hill of the kremlin.

“Son!” panted his mother, running at the thing’s side. She still did not dare touch him; the way he moved, ill-jointed, was not the way the living moved. But in his eyes—she was sure of it—lay something of her son. “My child, what horror is this? Has God sent you back to us? Have you come to give a warning?”

    The dead child turned and said “Mother?” again, in a soft, high voice.

“I am here,” whispered the woman, putting out a hand. The skin of his face peeled away at her touch. Her husband shoved the priest forward. “Do something, for God’s sake.”

The priest, his lips quivering, stumbled forward, and raised a trembling hand. “Apparition I charge thee…”