The Fifth Doll(73)

“What?”

Pavel stepped back from the small house. “The Vitsin household.” He glanced to Jaska. “If I remember right, your parents lived closer to the wood, that way.”

He pointed . . . east. Matrona could see the first pale rays of sunlight licking at the cold sky.

Voices began to murmur in the silence: “Where are we?” “Good Lord, I remember . . .” “How did we come back?” “Where . . . ?”

“Over here,” murmured another, a baritone. Matrona gasped and turned to see her father and mother coming down the road from the direction of the trees.

“There!” her mother exclaimed.

“Mama!” Matrona ran up the road, feeling a happiness bloom within her that she hadn’t experienced for a long time—a childlike fondness for her parents.

She embraced her mother, pinching away the cold for a brief moment.

“Our home.” Her father pressed a palm to his forehead. “I remember . . .”

“This is where we lived,” Matrona said, and her mother nodded, her wet eyes darting back and forth as though ghosts surrounded her. Matrona had never seen such an open, emotional expression on her mother’s face. It was as if she could see straight through to her mother’s soul. In that wordless moment, Matrona understood her mother better than she ever had before, even with the doll-sight.

The other villagers reacted similarly. They were hushed, stiff with cold and memory, walking through a world remembered. The sun crawled up the sky, bringing a touch of life to the dead place that seemed to be on the verge of spring. It wasn’t until a plume of wood smoke billowed into the sky that Matrona and the others realized their old village was not completely abandoned.

As Matrona and her parents wound their way toward the smoke, they were joined by several other villagers who had migrated toward the promise of warmth. Jaska had squeezed her hand before leaving to find his own kin, and Pavel had also stayed behind to find his family.

By the time Matrona reached the street before one of the larger izbas, a second and third plume of smoke danced into the sky, billowing from large, controlled fires. Her gaze shifted to a handful of unfamiliar people who wore clothes much more ragged and darker in color than any worn by those from the village. There was a thin man with a scraggly graying beard and a thick hat made of fur; he threw some quarter logs onto a haphazard fire pit and waved the villagers forward. Behind him, a woman—perhaps his wife—handed out reedy blankets. She gave a pair of knit gloves to one of the older children.

Matrona began heading toward the couple, questions filling her mouth, but the cry of a babe drew her attention to a dark-haired girl skirting between the collecting villagers, a jug of water and a ladle in her hand. A child was strapped to her chest. There were other strangers, too—an older woman and a man about Feodor’s age. Whether they were townsfolk who had been missed by Slava’s curse or needy peasants who had moved into the abandoned homes afterward, she didn’t know. But there was something about the girl . . . Matrona studied her face as the girl passed by the fire—her black hair, worn in two braids. Strong jaw, thick brows.

Matrona’s breath caught in her throat. For a moment, her skin forgot the cold.

Were it not for the shape of the girl’s nose, Matrona could have been looking at her own reflection. It can’t be . . .

She didn’t realize she was moving forward until the heat of one of the fires brushed gooseflesh from her skin. But she walked away from it, bearing the cold a little longer. Approached the woman as she offered water to Irena Kalagin. Studied her again—yes. The thick brow, the dark hair. She even had gray eyes. A worn gray sarafan hugged her slender body, as though she didn’t eat enough, and her hands were even rougher than Matrona’s own. But the similarities screamed at her.

Matrona took a few more steps, until only a pace lay between them. “Esfir?”

The name was hoarse on her tongue, and too quiet, but the girl turned her head. She noticed Matrona. A few heartbeats passed before her eyes widened.

“You . . . ,” she began, then shook her head. “I . . . No, my name is Sacha. But . . . you—”

“Look like you.” Matrona’s words were a breath. Her heart beat too quickly in her chest. “I think . . . How old are you?”

“Twenty,” Sacha answered, the ladle limp in her hand. “I don’t know the exact day. My parents found me when I was just a babe—”

Matrona’s hands flew to her mouth, muffling an oath. It was her. Praise the Lord, it was her!

Esfir’s—Sacha’s—eyes watered. “You know me.” A smile pulled on her dry lips. “You know me, don’t you?”

Matrona swallowed against a sore lump in her throat and nodded. “But you were lost. If you’re her—my sister—then . . .” She shook her head. “Slava—”

“Slava?” The name danced on Sacha’s tongue, laced with hope.

Matrona shook her head. “Not a relation. I just . . . I thought we’d lost you.”

Sacha moved forward—perhaps for privacy, or an embrace—but a wail from the bundle strapped to her chest broke the pull of her body.

Matrona hugged herself. “Y-Your child?”

Sacha shook her head. “No.” She placed a hand on the babe’s head. “The oddest thing, we found him, just as I was found—”