The Fifth Doll(64)

“I carried you.” She bit her lip. “Let me show you.”

Deep lines creased Jaska’s forehead, but he allowed Matrona to take his hand and pull him from the room, up the hall, and into the kitchen. There, on Slava’s small table, rested a handful of dolls—Feodor, her parents, Galina. Jaska picked up his sister’s doll and studied it.

“It doesn’t open.”

“They’re the center dolls,” she explained. “Jaska, the entire village is like this. Moments ago, you were one of them.”

His eyes widened. Matrona started from the beginning, detailing her summons to Slava’s house after her . . . visit . . . with Jaska, their argument, the revelations about Slava and Russia that had filled her mind. The dolls, Roksana and Olia, the babe, the vanishing.

“Enough time passed that I could open the rest of your dolls and assemble them whole.” She paced for a moment before turning to face Jaska. She held out her hand. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Outside. The spells started to work once I left the house.”

He took her hand. She closed her fingers through his and led him out the front door and down the steps, until they stood on grass.

She studied his face. “Do you remember? The third doll should have triggered memories, like the ones I told you about. Snow, the gray skies? Your family, maybe?”

Jaska’s brows drew together, and his eyes unfocused for a long moment. Sighing, he shook his head. “I don’t. I’m sorry.”

Matrona pressed her lips together. Her own memories were faint, whereas the visions she’d gotten from Slava had been sharp and detailed.

Her mind opened to the reason like a lotus bloom spreading its petals to the dawn. Age. Slava’s visions were so clear because those events had happened when he was an adult. She had been a child, and . . .

“You were born here,” she whispered.

Jaska frowned.

Matrona began pacing again. “That’s what it is. My memories are old. A child’s memories. That’s why I have so few. But Jaska, you must have been born here, in this world.”

“I’ve been in that house all my life.”

Matrona nodded. “You don’t remember Russia because you never lived there.” Jaska had been born shortly after Esfir. Slava must have realized the trick with the dolls and infants by that time. “But your mother does. I do. It must have been . . .” She sucked in a deep breath. “Twenty years ago.”

Twenty years inside the doll world. Twenty years since Russia. Since Slava fled Tsar Nicholas and the other mysticist.

She went back into the house and sat on one of the kitchen chairs, thinking.

“Matrona.”

She looked across the table.

Jaska stood in the kitchen doorway and offered her a weak smile. “I need to find my mother.”

She nodded. “She’s still at the izba, last I checked. I should visit Roksana, too. She’s . . . not well.” Chamomile had helped her sleep through some of the grief, but it wouldn’t force food down her throat or calm her broken mind.

Jaska stood and rested his hands on his hips. “Does Slava have another home? Somewhere in the wood, perhaps?”

“Not that I know of. The wood is much smaller than we once thought.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I wonder if my mother knows. She’s surprised me before.” His dark gaze focused on Matrona. “I’ll look, once she’s taken care of. See if I can find him, or any clues.”

“Or anyone else.” She gestured to the dolls on the table.

Jaska nodded, but didn’t leave immediately. He lingered, and Matrona’s skin felt tight. The quietness of the house seemed to thicken around her.

His eyes glanced down to her lips. “I’ll be back. And . . . we need to talk.” He turned to go. Matrona watched him cut across the front room, then listened to his footfalls echo in the short hallway to the door.

“We need to talk.” She pressed her thumb into a fluttery spot in her stomach. Swallowed. Looking at the dolls on Slava’s table, she reached out and selected Feodor’s. Met its painted stare for a long moment. “Even without him,” she said aloud, thinking of Jaska, “all of this would change. Neither of us will be the people we were.”

She certainly wasn’t. To think that only weeks ago she had knelt in her parents’ bedroom before her mother’s chest, drawing out a wedding gown with Roksana beside her. That memory was a dream, unreal. Make-believe.

Where would she be right now had the glint of that silver paintbrush never caught her eye?

She knew Feodor could not hear her, for Jaska appeared to have no memories from his time in the spell’s thrall. Still, she spoke to Feodor, if only to sort out her own thoughts.

“I’ve always wanted to be loved. I don’t know if Esfir’s passing closed my parents’ hearts, or if it’s just their way, but affection has always been lacking in my home. I fear it’s lacking in yours as well. I can’t be part of that.” She sighed. “I can’t sit in a bedroom all my own, sharing your name and nothing else. I can’t be your . . . doll.”

Frowning, she set Feodor’s doll down so that it looked at her, and she studied the fine lines of its face. Her gaze shifted to the other villagers before her. She could open all their second dolls today. Then three days for the thirds, and another three for the fourths. In a week the village would be restored, all cramped into Slava’s house unless she moved the dolls outside.