The Fifth Doll(24)

She slowed, pulling at her collar to relieve the heat building beneath her dress. Turning around, Matrona searched for Slava, but he wasn’t there. Only the quick skittering of a gray shrew as it scrabbled across the forest floor. That and . . . the sound of a blacksmith’s hammer?

Picking her way carefully, Matrona moved in as much of a straight line as she could. Before long, other noises of the village reached her ears: the beating of a staff against rug, the creaking of a bellows, the occasional crowing of a rooster.

She focused on the bellows and hammer, then the steam churning from the brewery behind the smithy. The two buildings were on the east side of the village, not far from the pottery. But she had entered the western wood.

She looked over her shoulder, but there was no obvious point at which the wood had changed. Just as it is with the south-and-north woods. The strange loop surrounded them. Matrona suddenly felt wooden and hollow, as if Slava’s fingers were encompassing her, pressing. Suffocating. The enchanted wood swallowed the village whole?

Matrona paused at the edge of the east wood, placing a hand on a twisted hornbeam. How was she ever to leave? How did Slava leave? There had to be a way, for she had seen him set off with his empty wagon and return with it loaded with goods. Was there a break in this eternal perimeter, or would she have to pry the answer from Slava himself?

Slava. Matrona rubbed gooseflesh from her arms. If only her mind were still comforted by the blissful peace of ignorance.

Shying a step back into the wood, she searched for Slava, but this corner of the village was empty save for a couple of children. She worried her lip. Turned toward the hornbeam and knocked her knuckles against it, half-expecting the trunk to turn to smoke beneath her touch. But no, the wood remained solid.

“What are your secrets, Tradesman?” she whispered, stepping away from the tree and over the grass that cushioned the village from its surrounding forest. You know mine, but when will I learn yours?

She shuddered and crossed her arms over her chest. Hopefully never.

Her run had made her weary. She walked slowly, contemplating where she should go next. What to do? She was so weary, even her senses grew exhausted.

“Matrona!” yelled a man’s voice, and Matrona startled from her thoughts long enough to see Boris Ishutin, the granger that Roksana had favored years ago, tugging two goats behind him on lengths of rope. He waved an arm. “Slava is looking for you!”

Matrona froze, and Boris turned his back to her, looking down a footpath. Matrona recognized Slava immediately and choked on her own tongue.

He’d seen her run into the wood. He’d known it would spit her out here.

Matrona fled farther into the village as Boris—the fool!—shouted to Slava. Her legs protested the new exercise, but Matrona pushed them, fleeing behind a shop, looping around an izba. Slava must have seen her—there was no way he hadn’t. Matrona’s heart grew too large for her chest. She couldn’t breathe.

The scent of smoke strangled her gasping breaths even more. The pottery, just ahead. Squeezing her hands into fists, Matrona ran into it, thanking Saint Michael when she saw Jaska repairing a pottery wheel. The only other occupant was Mad Olia, who sat in an old chair against the right wall, gently rocking herself.

“Jaska,” Matrona called, a hoarse half whisper.

Jaska glanced up from his work and, upon seeing Matrona, stood so abruptly, he scraped his shoulder against the edge of the wheel. He winced but replied, “What’s wrong?”

“Please.” She rushed to his side. She’d never stepped so far into the pottery before. “Slava is looking for me. I can’t face him. I don’t know what he’ll—”

“Slava?” Jaska’s dark eyes glanced between Matrona and the wide opening to the pottery. His hand on her elbow cut off her words. “Come with me.” He pulled her toward a narrow door near the kiln and tugged her through it as her name rang through the pottery, carried on the rich baritone of the tradesman.





Chapter 8


The fresh air in the narrow space between the pottery and the Maysak house struck Matrona with a strange chill. Slava’s voice rang in her ears. Had he seen her flee through this door, or only toward the pottery?

Words bubbled up her throat—We have to move quickly, he’s just around the corner, I’m so sorry—but within half a breath’s time, Jaska pulled her around the nearest corner of his home and to the cellar doors. He pulled one open and stepped onto the narrow wooden stairs leading into the darkness below. One tug on Matrona’s elbow was all the encouragement she needed to follow him. She winced at the loudness of the door shutting behind them. Darkness flooded her vision, reminding her too much of the second doll.

She almost tripped at the bottom of the stairs, but Jaska steadied her, and once her feet found the dirt floor of the cold cellar, a few words finally made it to her lips. “I’m so sorry.”

“What does Slava want?” Jaska asked. He still held her elbow, and in the coolness of the cellar, she could feel the heat wafting from his skin the way it would from a kiln. Sunlight trickled through small spaces between the planks of the cellar doors, none wider than half a finger, and her eyes began to adjust to the shadows.

“I . . .” Her tongue turned leaden in her mouth. The secrets danced within her, pressing, begging for escape. “You wouldn’t believe me.”