The Fifth Doll(20)

Matrona dropped her wrist and looked at him as he approached. She shook her head, trying to loosen some sense in it. “For . . . for milk? I’m sorry, our production has been . . . low—”

He offered her an expression that was half-frown, half-smile. “I meant to see you, Matrona. You were so ill, and I hadn’t heard any news of your recovery.” He shrugged. “I’m afraid your mother was not happy to see me either time.”

Her mind strained like a thorn-caught cricket wing, and she gritted her teeth, forcing it to work faster. Either time? When he dropped her off, and . . . he’d come again? Yesterday?

She felt a flush creep up her neck, but the voice in her head, the one that had been hounding her since she’d opened that second doll, remained blissfully silent.

Matrona released the plunger and sat back, moving both hands to the sore muscles of her shoulders. “I’m . . . fine. I will be.”

“You don’t look well.” Jaska lingered by the worktable. He had a few clay stains on his rolled-up sleeves, but his hands were clean. “Have you seen the doctor?”

Matrona scoffed. “Yes, I have, and I fear he thinks me dramatic.” She touched a new, pulsing pain in the center of her forehead.

“You should rest.”

Matrona shook her head. Maybe she would have laughed, were her lungs not so heavy. “I’ve rested too much.” She tried to remember the time, an impossible task when she could not even recall the day of the week. Wasn’t Slava’s third day tomorrow?

She couldn’t see Slava. She wouldn’t see him. This humiliation, this torment, these threats—it would be her undoing. Slava couldn’t possibly reprimand her without telling others of the dolls, and they would laugh at him. He would twist her father’s doll, maybe her mother’s . . . but if Matrona acted like she didn’t care, if she played aloof, he would have to set them back to rights. He couldn’t skew every person in the village. Or perhaps she could steal them . . .

If I go back, he’ll make me open the next doll, she thought, pressing her palms into her eyes. Slava had not used force, yet, but who was to say he would not? It wouldn’t be the first time another had raised a hand against her—

“Matrona? Are you all right? Do you need something to drink?”

Matrona dropped her hands, blinking spots of color from her vision, and saw that Jaska was much closer now, crouched on the other side of the butter churn. She wanted to slump over that half-formed butter and weep.

“I can’t go back,” she whispered, a sob slicing through the sentence. She pressed a knuckle against her lips and shook her head. What would Slava do if she told?

Jaska’s brows lowered, narrowing his dark eyes. “Go back where?”

Matrona shook her head again. “Maybe I should rest.” She stood from her three-legged stool. It toppled over behind her, and she wavered, blood rushing from her head.

“Slava’s house?” Jaska stood up beside her.

Matrona froze. Eyed him. Did he know? Heart racing, she searched his face, hoping for an answer.

He licked his lips. “That’s where I found you, Matrona,” he said, as though she had forgotten. He spoke with deliberate enunciation. Much the way he spoke to his mad mother. “Did he feed you something strange? What were you doing there?”

He didn’t know. No one knew. Matrona closed her eyes for a moment, letting the dizziness subside before she opened them again. She pressed a hand to the wall and leaned into it. “Just a visit,” she managed.

Jaska’s eyebrows eased a fraction. “Let me help you to the house,” he offered, turning slightly so Matrona could take his elbow.

Matrona stared at that elbow, the gray sleeve of his shirt pushed up around the crook of it. No one else had offered her support, had they? Her father hadn’t offered to lift her from bed; her mother hadn’t helped her climb into the cold bath. Feodor rarely touched her, and even Roksana . . .

“I don’t think anyone is home,” he added, “if you’re worried about—”

“Have you ever wanted to . . . escape?”

Jaska’s proffered elbow drooped. “What?”

“Escape. Leave.” She peered out the back doors of the barn, beyond the pasture, to the tree tips of the wood to the south. She could open no more dolls if she merely disappeared, the way Esfir had. The humiliation would become moot if she surrounded herself with new people in a new village. Perhaps she’d even find a man better suited to her than Feodor, if God had such a plan for her. Running would cast her as a terrible daughter, especially after Esfir, but if this was the only way to protect her family from Slava’s game . . .

“The village?” Jaska’s voice sounded softer.

She nodded.

“Are you unhappy here?” he asked, but closed his mouth awkwardly around the last word. Rubbed his jaw. He was a witness to Matrona’s struggles, just as every other person within the walls of the wood was.

“I’ve never left. Not once.” Matrona turned her attention to a loose thread on her sleeve. “I wonder if I were . . . what it would be like.”

“I’ve wondered myself.” A dry chuckle escaped his throat. “I thought to, once, with Kostya.”

Her eyes met his. “To leave?” A cool pang of something like sadness plucked within her.