The Fifth Doll(66)

“I never should have dealt with you. Better to have left you curious than to have pulled you into my plans,” Slava said, more to himself than to her, for his eyes remained fixated on the wall. “You would not have spoken of it, mousy girl that you were. And if you had, who would have believed you?”

“Jaska.” Her grip on the door handle tightened. “He would have.”

Slava stood tall, his body like the shadow of a great beast. “Then perhaps he did not forget as easily as I had supposed.”

Her stomach dropped. Jaska? Like Matrona, had Jaska once discovered something he shouldn’t have, and had his memories replaced?

She took back her half step, framing herself in the doorway once more. Slava’s calm demeanor melted from him—his eyes widened, and his forehead grew tight.

“You know the truth, Matrona,” he growled, advancing toward her, his hand reaching forward. “You’ve seen the place we hail from. Surely you recall the harsh winters, the starvation, the war. Boys too young pulled from their homes to fight battle after battle, leaving their mothers and sisters with nothing. And if the hunger didn’t kill you, disease would, festering and—”

“You were never hungry,” Matrona snapped. “You lived in a palace.”

“I was not born into luxury!” he spat. He took another step forward. He was almost close enough to touch her. “Look beyond your own nose, you selfish girl! I can sense your thoughts, and they are foolhardy!”

Matrona swallowed, trying to moisten her tongue. She whispered, “Run back to Russia, Tradesman.”

Slava’s hand shot out. Matrona released the door handle and pushed herself backward, falling through the doorway. Her backside hit the ground hard, sending a sharp burst of pain up her tailbone. Her lungs sought air as if she had run one of the loops.

She looked up. The doorway stood empty, without the slightest trace of Slava Barinov.



Matrona’s blood thrummed beneath her skin. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears.

“The Nazad.” The backward. That was what Slava had called this place—this backward version of the village, where Matrona’s eyes saw the villagers as they really were: tiny dolls made for an old man’s play. But why did Slava vanish when she entered it?

The answer lay within herself, Olia, and Roksana. They had all opened their dolls. They had been exposed to the truths of this world. Jaska, too, came into his normal being once Matrona had opened all of his dolls. But Slava . . . Slava had never opened his own doll.

She stared up at the house, unsure if it held the same layers the other dolls did, but one thing was certain. Matrona had seen Slava’s secrets as soon as she had opened his back door. Perhaps that was his doll’s first layer. Yet Jaska hadn’t known the tradesman’s secrets. Had Jaska been unable to absorb the information in his small wooden form? Was that how Slava protected himself?

The tradesman ruled over their village, but he had never exposed himself to it. In that sense, this Nazad was his weakness—the one place Matrona could go where he could not follow . . . for now.

She had to act before the tradesman found an escape.

Picking herself up, ignoring the dirt on her dress and beneath her fingernails, Matrona ran down the narrow space between the stable and house. Jaska’s home was not too far; she had to tell him what she’d learned, then go back to the house for the—

A sharp pain split her middle. Matrona gasped and tripped over her own heel, hitting the ground knees first.

Pressing a hand against her belly, Matrona took a few deep breaths until the stitch subsided. Too much exertion, perhaps. She pushed herself onto her feet—

The pain hit again, like a knife slicing across her navel. Matrona cried out this time, her shoulder colliding with the house. The agony traveled around her torso, just above her hips and the small of her back, until a ring of fire burned through skin and muscle. Matrona pushed her legs forward, leaning against Slava’s house, but the ring flared up again and again, bringing her to her knees.

A seam, she realized, and her skin paled with cold. She had handled the dolls often enough to know just where the halves split. It was the exact place that agonized her.

Somehow Slava was hurting her, using her doll against her in the true village.

Her vision doubled with the thought, and no amount of blinking or head shaking would make it relent. Was this how it was for her father when she’d twisted his doll?

Grunting, Matrona crawled forward, but every breath intensified the fire looping her middle. Her doll. She had to get her doll.

She’d nearly reached the portico when the invisible knife sliced her in half. Silent alarms screamed in her head as it dipped down to the grassy ground.

“Help,” she whispered, throat parched. “Jaska. Jaska!”

But he was too far away to hear.

Saint Christopher, get me to my feet, please! she prayed. Grabbing the side of the portico, she hauled herself up, crying out with the strain. She fumbled with the door handle that kept jumping in her vision, and fell into the house, her elbow slamming into the hardwood floor. The floor seemed to swing before her eyes, so she shut them, groaning.

Slava had never hurt her before, but she had become a threat. She was going to ruin his quaint little paradise.

Roksana’s face floated to the forefront of her mind. Matrona opened her eyes and pushed herself onto her knees, reaching for a wall to keep from stumbling. She thought of Olia and took a shaky step forward, then another. Esfir, vanished from her cradle, got Matrona into the front room.