The Fifth Doll(51)

“Feodor is not my husband.” The word yet danced at the back of Matrona’s tongue, but she choked it down. “Please, it’s important. Where is he?”

Galina shook her head. “If he’s not at the pottery, I don’t know. He’s not here.”

“Spit at his feet!” Olia’s voice boomed from a back room. “Hesse . . . and by Rhine. Kiss the mouth that curses us!”

Is that why they went mad? Matrona wondered. Olia and Roksana. They discovered themselves too quickly. Slava’s spells poisoned them.

Galina winced at her mother’s shouting. “I’m sorry, Matrona.” Whether the apology was for her brother’s absence or her mother’s vulgarity, Matrona wasn’t sure.

Matrona felt the air rush out of her. She nodded. “Thank you.”

Galina had shut the door before Matrona turned away.

The walk home was too long, as though the village stretched with her every step, making minutes feel like hours on a thread-thin path. When Matrona stepped into the izba, struck by the heat of the brick oven, her mother’s head snapped up. “You’ve certainly forgotten your responsibilities as of late!”

Then her mother met Matrona’s eyes and paused, hands frozen midwipe on her apron.

“What is it?” Matrona asked.

Her mother cocked her head ever so slightly to the side. “I . . .” She cleared her throat and looked away, the malice draining from her face. Something else replaced it—something Matrona struggled to identify. The cooling sensation she’d experienced with the others prickled her skin, but Matrona resisted it. She did not wish to see inside her mother.

Matrona asked, “What?” and looked down at herself, searching for anything amiss.

Her mother merely shook her head. Lines broke up her forehead into rows. Her cheeks sucked in slightly, her mouth pursed, her eyes clear and downcast. Not so dissimilar from how she looked on the rare occasions when Slava came for a share of milk and cheese.

Almost like she was . . . intimidated.

“Mama,” Matrona pressed, “what were you going to say?”

Her mother shook her head and busied herself with the oven. “Nothing. Busy is all.”

Frowning, Matrona relaxed and studied her mother. Really looked at her, at the faint moles on the side of her neck and the wrinkles dipping around her eyes. The feeling of falling engulfed Matrona.

She saw hard hands in her mother’s life; she’d been raised by strict parents as well. There was a survival instinct rooted deep within her heart, and Matrona wondered where it hailed from. Loss twined through every part of her mother’s being. Loss for Esfir, her disappearance lacking closure. Loss for her unborn children, for were her body fit, she would have had more than two. And most surprisingly a possessiveness of Matrona herself, rooted in the desire to make sure everything went well for her, because she was to be her parents’ only legacy.

Matrona stepped back, blinking the impressions away. Her mother avoided looking at her, just as Kostya had, but perhaps that was for the better. Matrona was speechless. All of that wrestled inside her mother’s soul? It was protectiveness that caused her heavy-handedness?

Numb, Matrona moved past her mother and down the hall, trying to process the revelation. She didn’t understand it. Was there something broken in Slava’s spell? How did such sorrowful motivations translate into harsh actions?

Taking a deep breath, Matrona shook herself, trying to clear her mind as she slipped into her parents’ room. She went to the mirror that hung near the window and inspected herself in it: light skin and light eyes, black hair and thick eyebrows, strong jaw. Nothing looked amiss. Nothing was different. So why were the others treating her as if she had become someone else? Someone . . . bigger?

She bit her lip and hugged herself. Perhaps this was what Slava had meant, being separated from the village. Would everyone see her differently, without even knowing why? Would she see all of them differently as well?

Matrona had a wrenching feeling this was only the beginning.



The next day, for the first time since Matrona could remember, neither of her parents reminded her to do her chores.

Her mother, especially, had always seemed to enjoy chiding Matrona over work that needed to be done, even if it had already been finished. But the morning after Matrona opened her fourth doll, her parents showed her a strange sort of deference, which they mostly exhibited in the form of silence.

Matrona wondered at it as they ate their kasha. Both of them were quiet, heads down. Just as Matrona used to be. When had she stopped bowing her neck at breakfast?

Her appetite was slim, but Matrona worked down as much of the porridge as she could. She itched, wondering just when Slava would call on her. Wondering how much time he would give her to digest what she’d learned. Not long, if he wanted to use Roksana’s coming child as a lesson.

Then there was Jaska. Murmurs of her own darkness slipped in and out of her mind as she tried to fathom what he must be experiencing. Was that why he hadn’t been home yesterday? Had the agony dropped him where he stood, with no passersby to help him home? Or had his family merely lied to keep Matrona at bay?

The cows milked quickly, though it may have been Matrona’s distractions that made the time pass so swiftly. Once the milk was separated and the cheese left to set, Matrona scrubbed her hands and face, smoothed her hair, and donned her newly cleaned red sarafan. She was going back to see the Maysaks and found herself indifferent toward what the village might have to say about it. She’d already lost Roksana; she couldn’t lose Jaska, too. That strange tingling sensation rose in her every time another villager crossed her vision, and she bit down on her tongue to keep it at bay. She couldn’t bear seeing into the souls of so many, not now.