The Fifth Doll(4)

He looked up, his dark eyes finding hers, and her stomach rekindled its unease, making her too warm and light-headed.

Jaska wiped his hands off on his apron before approaching. “Matrona! I apologize for not seeing you.”

She smiled—an easy, innocent smile. “I only just arrived.”

He glanced at the jug in her hand. “A repair?”

She hefted the jug. “I was hoping for a remake, actually. I fear this one has been repaired too many times.”

Jaska took the jug from her and turned it over in his hands. He was not as tall as Feodor, or even as tall as Viktor and his other brothers, but he had half a head on Matrona, just as her father had half a head on her mother. A good height, considering—

Stop it, for heaven’s sake, she thought with a frown.

“This is one of the Popov jugs,” Jaska said.

She blinked. “Uh, yes, it is. Feodor came by to fetch milk with it just now.”

He smiled, an upturning of one side of his lips that pressed a dimple into his left cheek. “I’m sure it was a mess for you. And congratulations, if it’s not too late to say so.”

Matrona flushed. She hoped the color would be interpreted as a reaction to the kiln’s heat. “Not at all,” she answered, her voice quieter. She tried to push more energy into it, but her throat had become oddly lethargic. “It’s only been a short time since the agreement was made. Thank you.”

He glanced at her, his dark brown eyes so very different from Feodor’s pale blue. “Agreement? You make it sound so . . .” He shrugged.

Matrona folded her arms. “So what?”

That dimple re-formed. “So formal, I suppose.” He patted the jug. “I’ll make a duplicate; should be ready tomorrow afternoon, maybe tomorrow evening. I can bring it by when it’s finished—or should I take it to the Popovs’?”

Matrona parted her lips to reply, then stood dumbly, considering. Her mother would likely want her to deliver it herself. To take credit for the effort, to bolster Feodor’s affections. She swallowed and answered, “I’ll come pick it up. It’s no trouble.”

“And it’s not there,” came a loud yet papery voice from behind Matrona, who turned with the sensation of needles pricking the length of her spine. Mad Olia hobbled into the workshop, her bowlegged steps uneven, her back hunched with age. A pink head scarf held back her half-gray hair, but a few locks had escaped the folds and dangled over either side of her nose. “And it’s not,” she repeated, brows pinched together. Her faded eyes glared at Matrona, then her youngest son. “I ought to switch your hide. There are worse punishments than being left out in the snow—”

Jaska sighed. “Mama,” he began, but his sister Galina came around the corner just then and, spotting their mother, hurried over to grasp her arm.

“It’s all right. Let’s have something to drink,” Galina murmured to the old woman, avoiding Matrona’s gaze.

Olia grumbled something unintelligible before letting her daughter pull her away, back toward the house.

Jaska’s gaze lingered on them a long moment, his eyes and shoulders drooping as though fatigued. He sighed and turned back to Matrona. “My apologies.”

Matrona shook her head, mulling over Olia’s bizarre words. “What’s ‘snow’?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea”—Jaska shrugged—“but she prattles about it from time to time.” He looked at the jug in his hands, then back at Matrona. “I’ll get this ready.”

Matrona nodded, offered her thanks, and left the workshop, trying to keep her pace respectable. She was anxious to put distance between herself and Jaska—as well as Mad Olia’s ramblings—but it wouldn’t do to appear too eager. She was levelheaded and purposeful, as always. Levelheaded and purposeful.

The heat from the pottery retreated as the village opened up to green space. Matrona imagined her flush was made of thousands of biting ants, and the soft breeze blew them off her skin as she walked, carrying them back into the wood. Her spine softened, and she fingered the end of her braid, twisting her hair around her fingers as though her hand were a loom. The sun beamed down from overhead, highlighting the milk stain on her skirt. She ran a thumbnail over its crusty edges.

Slava’s home appeared on the path, with its glimmering shingles and blue shutters, the glass-inlaid windows far finer than anything the other village izbas had put in their frames. For a moment Matrona wondered what it would be like to be a tradesman, to own a horse and take her wagon out through the wood to other towns, cities she’d never seen, even countries. To bring back the strange and remarkable things Slava always seemed to have. But the thought left as quickly as it had come, banished so thoroughly, Matrona couldn’t pin down just what her mind had been pondering.

A glint of silver caught her eye from the wild grass just off the side of the path. Stooping down, she picked up the slender item—a paintbrush with very long, very fine bristles. Its handle was tipped with silver and imprinted with an etching of chamomile flowers.

Matrona turned the instrument over in her hands, marveling at it for a moment before looking up to Slava’s house. Surely it was his. Picking up her skirt, Matrona crossed the wild grass to the narrow path leading up to Slava’s porch and portico. It was not the first time she’d knocked on the tradesman’s door, but she was not at all a frequent visitor, and she marveled at the paint and stamped designs around the door frame before knocking thrice.