The Fifth Doll(49)

Irena had not been a babe when Slava made her doll.

When had this sorcery started?

Slava’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “We will have three days after its birth to complete it.”

Matrona looked back to the doll in her hands and separated its halves with a crisp pop. “Three days.”

“Or the child will vanish.”

Cold enveloped her. Her tongue writhed behind her teeth, and she struggled to find speech. She managed a single name. “Esfir.” Her lost sister, vanished from her cradle just after coming into the world. No trace of her since.

“You see why it is a crucial skill to learn.”

A tear beaded in each of Matrona’s eyes. “Why didn’t you make a doll . . . for Esfir?”

“I did not understand it then. My na?veté is . . . regrettable.”

“How could you not understand?” she asked, voice gaining strength. “You made dolls for every person in the village! How could you not make one for Esfir?”

She looked over the tables. She knew the faces of every single doll. How long had Slava been crafting these dolls, and why did he start? Why were there no dolls for the villagers who had lived before her time, grandparents and great-grandparents?

She looked down at the doll in her hands, staring at its hollow interior. The lines of wood grain within it.

Just like the imprint she’d seen in the sky, the wood. The pattern—it matched.

It came together then. The abstractness of it all. The wood grain had always been around her, guarded by the loop. She just couldn’t see it. She was the fifth doll.

She was inside the pieces she held in her hands.

Slava had mentioned navigating outside the village. Going wherever he went when he left on his trips and brought back supplies. Beyond the loop. Supposedly Matrona could now follow him.

But the others could not.

Trapped. Her mind formed the word as though carving it in a great block of ice. Trapped. All of them, only their bars were patterned in wood grain and bespelled by the man before her. But for how long? How long had they been jailed inside these painted cages, and what lay beyond this village?

The doll-halves fell from her hands and struck the floor in unison.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered, shaking her head, backing away from the halves. “I can’t do this.”

Slava’s face darkened instantly. “You have no choice, Matrona. I have primed and prepared you. You will learn. Or do you want Roksana to lose her child as well as her mind?”

“Mind.” Three days. Matrona remembered her promise to Jaska. Jaska, who was trapped like the rest of them. Heart thudding in her chest, Matrona glanced at the potter’s doll. Took another step back, letting herself sway on her ankle.

“Matrona,” Slava growled.

She looked up at him. “What have you done to us?”

Then she teetered on her legs, pretending to faint, and fell toward the second table of dolls. Her elbow, then shoulder, slammed into the edge of the table. Its legs held, so she swept her arm out in her descent, knocking over a dozen dolls. Half of them tumbled onto the floor with her, including Jaska’s.

“You fool girl!” Slava bellowed, rushing forward to steady the table.

In the commotion Matrona’s hand shot out for Jaska’s dolls. She slid the top half off his first doll as another doll tumbled from the table and struck her hip.

Clenching the second doll’s hands in her fingers, she pulled on the top until it popped free. She pressed it back in place just as quickly, then returned the top half to its rightful position seconds before Slava’s hand grabbed her upper arm. He hauled her upward, and Matrona tried not to gasp at the force he used.

Slava did not yell at her; his words hissed from the cracks of his teeth like steam from a kettle. “Your clumsiness could cost us dearly. Once a doll is damaged, there’s no replacing it!”

“Then perhaps you should find someone else.”

Slava scoffed and released her. “Too late for that,” he muttered. Matrona tried not to tremble, but failed. She pressed herself into the corner where Pamyat usually perched, watching as Slava picked up the dolls one at a time, inspecting them before returning them to the table, Matrona’s included. To Matrona’s relief, another doll had twisted ever so slightly, and Slava thought nothing of it as he corrected it. Hopefully Jaska’s would pass inspection as well.

Slava gathered up Jaska second to last and straightened him. Studied him. Matrona bit down on her tongue.

He placed the doll in its usual spot. Matrona swallowed a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” she offered as Slava stood, his knees cracking as he did so. He pressed his knuckles into the small of his back, for once letting his age show. Closing her eyes, Matrona tried to sort through the array of thoughts spinning in her aching head. Time. She needed time.

“Give me time,” she asked, soft and demure, pulling on the cloak of humility she wore with her parents. “A day or two to think. I need . . . to work this through. Then you can teach me how to make the dolls. For Roksana’s baby.”

Slava glared at her. “You are almost more trouble than you’re worth.”

“Please.”

He grumbled deep in his throat. “When I come for you, you will come, without any more of this nonsense.”

Matrona nodded. “Yes, Slava.”