The Fifth Doll(41)

“Roksana,” Matrona huffed, shoulders heaving. “Where is Roksana?”

Roksana’s father dropped his gaze. Between her breaths, Matrona heard Alena sobbing in the next room.

Darting past the men, Matrona raced down the hall to the room Roksana and Luka shared. The door was ajar.

Inside, Luka sat on the edge of their bed, his head in his hands, while Roksana lay curled up on the floor, singing softly to herself as she played with the pieces of a painted nesting doll.





Chapter 13


Opened. Every single one of them.

Roksana lay on her side, her full belly resting on a rag rug, poking her fingers into the cavities of dolls painted to look just like her.

“I will tell you fairy tales,” she sang quietly, taking up the top of the third doll and spinning it on its head, “and sing you little songs. But you must slumber, with your small eyes closed. Bayushki bayu.”

“Roksana,” Matrona whispered, and Luka looked up from the bed. Matrona took a stiff, wooden step into the room, then another, another. She dropped to Roksana’s side and took the doll-half from her hand.

“Roksana?” she tried.

“The time will come,” Roksana sang, “when you will learn the soldier’s way of life.”

“Roksana.” Matrona took her friend’s shoulders and tried to get her to sit upright, but Roksana squeezed her eyes shut and fought Matrona’s hold as a little child would. Afraid of hurting her, Matrona pulled away. Roksana snatched the doll-half out of Matrona’s hand.

Her dreams of Roksana hadn’t been dreams at all; Matrona had merely been asleep when her friend opened the dolls. Most of Roksana’s secrets were mild, save her lies about Nastasya to Luka. Yet no one was likely to have much sympathy for Nastasya now that they knew the truth about her and Viktor. That’s what Matrona’s mother had meant when she mentioned Nastasya at breakfast.

“It’s no use,” Luka murmured behind her, his voice low and rumbling. “She’s been like that since the middle of the night. Won’t come to her senses, no matter how we . . .”

His voice choked, and Luka turned away. Tried to clear it.

“Sleep now, my dear little child,” Roksana sang. “Bayushki bayu.”

Tears pooled in Matrona’s eyes as Roksana started a new verse of the strange song—a song that nagged at Matrona, for its melody sounded strangely familiar. She tried to place it. Visions surfaced: Fat, falling snowflakes. An old rag rug and unpainted shutters. A little wood-burning stove in the corner.

Her head ached. What place was this?

When Luka spoke again, he startled her. “We don’t know where the dolls came from. She came home late, without saying where she’d been. Had that thing in her hands. Looks just like her.”

Matrona’s throat constricted. She blinked, and a tear traced the length of her cheek. “It does,” she croaked.

“Do you know?”

The words felt like an open palm across her face. Matrona shook her head, forcing the movements as though her neck had rusted.

But it couldn’t be. This couldn’t be.

“Roksana,” Matrona tried again, pushing the name through her shaking voice. “Roksana, listen to me.”

Roksana merely sang, “Sleep my angel, calmly, sweetly, bayushki bayu.”

Matrona grabbed her friend’s shoulders again, but this time she ignored Roksana’s attempts to break free. Shaking her, she shouted, “Roksana Zotov, listen to me! Wake up, you hear me?”

“It’s no use,” Luka whispered.

“This isn’t you! Roksana!”

Roksana wailed and threw her fists at Matrona, forcing her to let go. As soon as she did, Roksana collapsed to the floor and sobbed into the crook of her elbow.

“Matrona.”

The voice was Pavel’s. He stood in the doorway, his features long and heavy, blurred—no, that was from Matrona’s tears. She wiped her sleeve across her eyes, but they were wet again a heartbeat later.

Pavel sighed. “We’re waiting for the doctor.”

The doctor would do nothing for them, but Matrona couldn’t voice the words. She looked back to Roksana, more tears escaping her eyes.

You’re going to be a mother, she thought, for her throat had swollen too much to speak the sentiment. You can’t . . . be like this. What about your baby? Luka?

It was her fault, wasn’t it? If she hadn’t put off Roksana last night, if she hadn’t agreed to meet Jaska. If she’d never found that paintbrush . . .

Matrona shook her head. No. This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be Roksana’s fate, to be as mad as Olia Maysak, to break her family the way Jaska’s had been broken. Matrona wouldn’t stand for it.

Through her blurry vision, Matrona gathered the dolls, her fingers mimicking a feeding hen as she snatched them off the rug. Eight pieces. She looked for the fifth doll, for Slava had claimed there were five, but she couldn’t find it. Perhaps it was in the folds of Roksana’s dress or under the bed. Matrona fumbled with the dolls she had, clicking them back together, smallest to largest, lining up Slava’s delicate drawings as tears splashed over her hands. She squeezed the finished doll in her fingers. “Roksana.”

Roksana hummed the strange lullaby and picked at a thread in the rug.