The Fifth Doll(71)

Pavel dropped the knife gracelessly onto the table. “There’s no way out?”

“Not that we’ve found,” Jaska said. “I’ve seen no break in the loops. No secret doorways in the patterns.”

“The house is the only thing we have any effect on,” Pavel concluded.

Matrona focused on the gouges left in Slava’s kitchen wall. “In the doll world, we can leave the house.” She stepped past Pavel and pressed her fingers to the marks. She thought she could feel the wall shudder beneath her touch. “But not in the real world. If we even exist there.”

“A puzzle meant for scholars,” Pavel spat.

“Maybe not.” She pulled her hand from the injured wall. “You’re correct; the house is the only thing we can affect.” She swallowed. “If we cannot open Slava’s doll, perhaps our only alternative is to break it.”

“You want to break the house?” Jaska asked.

She nodded. “Pull down its walls, see what’s truly on the other side of them.” How much would it hurt Slava? Would it kill him? She shuddered, her stomach souring. She did not want the tradesman’s blood on her hands. If only she understood his magic!

Pavel smiled for the first time since awakening. “I like this idea. I have tools in my shop—hammers, saws, chisels.”

“Matrona.” Jaska crossed the room and took both her hands in his. “I want to escape as much as you, but if taking a chisel to the wall can cause the ground to shake, what will a sledgehammer do? We could be killing ourselves.”

Matrona’s throat constricted at the notion.

Pavel asked, “Do you have another suggestion?”

Jaska frowned. Pressed his lips together. He was silent for several breaths—they all were. Then his shoulders slumped, and he shook his head.

“The sooner the better.” Matrona hated the weakness in her voice. She could think of no other way. They couldn’t unlearn what they knew, and she would never let Slava wipe her memories to keep his false peace intact. Even if Russia was a terrible place, it was a free one, wasn’t it?

“Will it risk the others?” Jaska asked.

“Do you want to sit around and wait for them to wake, then take a vote?” Pavel quipped. “I’ve led people into far more dangerous situations. If left to choose for themselves, they will cow. If they see action, they will follow.”

Jaska’s hands fisted. “You think them cowards?”

“I think we’re wasting time.”

“Enough,” Matrona said. “Let’s take Olia and Roksana back to Pavel’s home. Then we’ll get the supplies.”

“Matrona . . .” Her name was almost a plea on Jaska’s lips.

Standing on her toes, Matrona took his chin in her hand and kissed him, paying no attention to Pavel. Peering into Jaska’s eyes, she said, “I want to escape. I want to be free.”



The sledgehammer was too heavy for Matrona to wield, so she fisted a smaller mallet. She felt like a soldier—that was the right word, wasn’t it? soldier?—going to war, leaving her loved ones behind. Olia and Roksana had been left in the Zotov izba with the dolls. If either of the madwomen wandered, it didn’t really matter. Soon, none of it would, if Matrona’s theory was correct.

Pavel carried the heavy hammer, and Jaska wielded a sturdy saw. They walked in a line, Matrona in the middle, their paces even. As they approached Slava’s house, she saw, again, the illusion of the sleeping dragon—the shingles were its scales, the portico its great head, the hedgerows its tail. She watched it, unblinking, and in her mind saw it shudder with wakefulness, stretch out four massive legs that led to beastly feet with curved claws. Saw its head rise, tilt, and look at them, ready for the challenge.

It’s just a house, she reminded herself. An enchanted house. A great doll.

A cage.

“God help us,” she whispered, and Jaska nudged her with his elbow.

Pavel must have heard her, too, because he answered, “God isn’t in here.” They stopped before the house, and Pavel twisted his grip on the hammer. “He’s out there.”

They stood for a moment. Gray flashed across Matrona’s vision. Pavel hefted the sledgehammer with a grunt and slammed its iron head into one of the house’s columns.

The ground bucked as the painted wood splintered.

Pavel grinned and swung again. The wood cracked under the blow. The ground trembled; glass rattled in Slava’s windows. Matrona heard a very distant shout, though she couldn’t pinpoint from which direction it hailed.

The sky darkened.

Pavel swung a third time, breaking through the narrow column. The quaking of the ground didn’t cease this time. Thick clouds—were they clouds?—began to bubble in the sky.

Jaska turned around. “This is bad.”

“Too late to go back now,” Matrona murmured. Gritting her teeth, tensing her shoulders, she walked up to a window and, grabbing the mallet with both hands, shattered it.

She felt power ripple up her arms—not her own strength, but something from within the house. Something struggling, or perhaps escaping. Banging and cracking trumpeted Pavel’s work, soon followed by the long, rough draws of Jaska’s saw. Matrona moved to the next window and shattered it, then grabbed shutters and hung from them until their nails pulled free.