The Fifth Doll(30)

Sucking in a deep breath through her nostrils, Matrona pulled open the door and stepped out into the cool darkness of the night.

It hit her all at once. Images filled her eyes, bright despite the cover of dark. A splintered table, a heavy coat, a bowl full of thin soup. Her fingers, small, wrapped around a wooden spoon.

Her mother, younger, wearing a tattered shawl as she rubbed Matrona’s numb feet.

A smell she didn’t recognize—something burning, unnatural, hanging in the air. The sound of marching footsteps in the distance, like—

The sky, contorted and dark, full of thick clouds that rumbled and . . . The word dragged slowly across her mind. Thundered.

A muddy street scarred with wagon tracks, a strange whiteness to either side of it. Breath fogging under her chin.

Matrona blinked, and once more found herself in front of Slava’s dragon house. Still, the new, startling images lingered in her mind. They were not crisp, but they were undeniable, like old drawings smeared by a careless hand. Her head ached as she tried to make sense of them. Then she remembered Mad Olia’s prattling the day she’d visited the pottery to ask for a replacement jug for Feodor.

“Snow,” Matrona breathed, touching both hands to her breath. “Jaska . . . I know what snow is.”

The light in Slava’s window extinguished. Matrona whirled around, staring at the tradesman’s quiet house.

Snow. But what was the rest?

Had she traveled outside the loop before, and forgotten?

A pressure like angry, pressing fingers flared in her temples. Snow. The more she thought of it, the stronger the pain grew. She needed to get home, to sleep. When she was well rested, she’d pick apart the details of Slava’s newest curse.

What did it mean? And how had Mad Olia Maysak named the cold whiteness before Matrona ever knew what it was?

She stumbled away from Slava’s house. The breeze felt too cold. Cold, like the snow. A coldness Matrona had never felt before, and yet these strange images made her think maybe she had.

One thing was certain—tomorrow she would find Jaska and tell him that maybe, maybe, his mother wasn’t as crazed as they believed her to be.





Chapter 10


“Have I heard of what?” her father asked, setting his water cup beside his empty breakfast plate.

“Snow,” Matrona tried again, unsure of where to settle her eyes. She customarily did the respectful thing and kept them downcast, but today she felt the need to study her parents’ expressions. Her father’s forehead wrinkled into thick lines. Her mother watched her with a sidelong look, her brows drawn, her lips puckered.

“Sounds odd.” Her father watched her, waiting for explanation.

Matrona tried a small smile. “Oh, it’s this strange plant in the wood, something . . . Slava told me about when I met with him yesterday. Small with white tips.”

“What are you babbling about flowers for?” her mother asked, standing from the table with a burst of energy. She scooped up her plate and cup as though they offended her. “Make use of yourself, Matrona.”

“Yes, Mama.” Matrona collected her dishes as well. She had risen early to do the milking, but the small barn needed cleaning, as did one of the milk barrels. There was always butter to be churned and bread to be baked.

Unfortunately, Matrona wouldn’t have time to do any of it until later in the day.

She took the pail and brush outside for scrubbing, making sure her mother saw the supplies for what would be a time-consuming chore. She set them on the table in the barn, but left her apron on the rack.

Just me this time, she thought, leaning against the table, eyeing the bin of cheesecloths that needed to be laundered. The opening of the first doll had affected other people, but the last two had only affected her. Neither of her parents had experienced the same strange visions that had flitted through Matrona’s mind last night. Now those visions perched in faded colors alongside her memories.

She’d dreamed strange things, too—tiny izbas and large gardens of half-dead plants. Steam and smoke rising from odd buildings far larger than even the tradesman’s home. Blocky things with long rows of square windows. And gray—everything around them was gray. The sky, the buildings, even the broken snow that littered the ground in uneven patches.

Her temples began to throb anew, and Matrona rubbed her head, trying to ease the strangeness away. She thought to ask Slava what it meant, but he never gave her clear answers. She could only hope that, after the last doll, the puzzle would be solved.

Lowering her hands, she thought, Find my center. What does that have to do with . . . this? The humiliation, the darkness, and now these gray, cold images. When Slava had told her she would be separated from the village, had he meant the others would ostracize her?

She thought of Feodor. Best not to mention the snow—or any of this—to him.

Matrona pushed off the table, smoothed her dress, and hurried to the nearest pasture fence, moving carefully to keep the barn between her and the house. She skirted around the Grankins’ potato farm before finding the road that cut through the village west to east. She spied Irena Kalagin—her doll had been painted to make her look younger—outside the cobbler’s, chatting with Lenore Demidov. Lenore’s eyes found Matrona first, and Irena’s followed. Their talk quieted instantly, and Irena’s face soured. Matrona averted her eyes, pretending not to notice. She may have advanced to the third doll, but not enough time had passed for the village to forget her shames.