Yvgenie (39 page)

P
yetr wanted an answer, desperately wanted good news.
He
realized he was staring into nothing, and said,
‘
She just t
r
ied to tell me she was all right.
’
But he could not lie to
P
yetr, not in something going so desperately, persistently wrong.
‘
I didn't get that impression.
’

‘
What? That she's all right? That she's not? What does
sh
e want?
’

H
e looked at Pyetr, at Nadya behind him on Volkhi, two
faces
so like—both with reason to want an answer; and to
dre
ad
it.

‘
We've been pushing them hard,
’
he said: Pyetr might understand what he was saying, Pyetr if no one else alive.
They've been pushing themselves. The boy's ex
hau
sted—
‘

‘
Yvgenie?
’
Nadya asked faintly.
‘
Do you know where
he
is?
’

‘
Ahead of us, and going further now, as fast as they
can
.— Pyetr, I don't like this, I'm sorry, but I'm desperately worried—
’

‘
You're worried. God. Did you ask her to wait?
’

‘
She wouldn't. She's scared now. She knew I was holding something back from her.
’

‘
Nadya,
’
Pyetr said heavily.

He knew now he should have told the mouse about Nadya. Immediately. He might have protected Nadya against the mouse's startlement, might have caught the mouse's curiosity and drawn her to them by that very means. But Eveshka had so overwhelmed him with that feeling of strength, and
need—

I wanted Pyetr back to that moment eighteen years ago
and other things were inevitably tied to it: what' Veshka was then, what I was—god, a young fool, that's what I was then!
I've
sent Eveshka back and done the god only knows what to myself in the bargain—

I was fifteen, I couldn't read or write, I didn't know what to do with magic except to be scared of it—

‘
Sasha?
’
Pyetr said.
‘
Sasha, you're white as a sheet. What's going on?
’

He had to get down. He had to stop moving and stop things from changing around him. Missy stopped and he slid
off
, taking his bag of books and the bag of herb-pots with him. He needed quiet. He needed to get hold of things. He went off looking for a place to sit down and catch his breath and heard Pyetr saying, faintly:

‘
Better get down.
’
And Nadya's quiet, frightened voice:
‘
What's wrong with him?
’

‘
I don't know.
’
Pyetr said.
‘
Something. Hush, don't ask him questions right now.''

‘
Is it magic? What's he going to do?''

‘
Hush!
’
Pyetr said.
‘
Yes, and don't bother him.
’

He was grateful. Pyetr was upset, he knew it, but there was no reassurance to give him and he could not afford the distraction of lying. He was not sure what he had felt from the mouse and from Eveshka a moment ago, that was first trouble; he could not totally be sure which feeling he hail gotten from which place north of them: he knew Yvgenie might be a source of that disturbance, the same as Eveshka; and he was not sure of the accuracy of his memory even moments ago: magic could be like that, escaping recollection as quickly as water from a sieve. When a wizard wanted not to think certain things, the wizard in question could very well get his wish, and forget the unpleasantness that could be happening and believe some false thing more palatable, if he was an ut
ter, self-deluding fool…

He found a flat rock to sit on, he set his bags down on the leaves and pulled out a book at random. He opened it a
nd
knew it then for his own.

Draga destroyed Malenkova. But Malenkova was too much
fo
r her. The beast took he
r and Draga became its purpose…
ultimately that's all Draga was in the world. . . .

Pages back from that:
Owl should not have died—

A sword should not have been able to kill a wizard's crea
t
ure. Pyetr's had done it, in spite of all the wishes that should
ha
ve protected Owl: Pyetr had killed the creature that held
Chernevog's heart, and Chern
evog's heart had necessarily
come
back to him—

But how? Che
rn
evog's wish? Che
rn
evog had grieved for
O
wl, if fo
r nothing else in his life. Chern
evog had not
wanted
hi
s heart, and tried immed
iately to put it elsewhere…

Leshys all around us,
watching as Owl died, and Cherne
vog got his heart back, watching to see what wizards in
t
heir midst might do.

And when and where did the threads of Owl begin? When
Cher
nevog was a boy—Draga had wanted him to find Owl,
an
d bestow his heart on Owl, because
she
had a hold on the
cr
eature—

‘
Damn!
’

—Pyetr wanted to kill Che
rn
evog and couldn't. So the
le
shys took him, held him asleep three long years before they
let
him wake—
if
they let him wake. Owl was Draga's before
it was Chern
evog's. And where
is
Owl, now, that's another important question.

Owl's with him, I much fear, with him and with—

Get
away
from that thought!

He made his eyes see the
place he was in; and saw Pyetr tr
ying to put a fire together nearby.

‘
Pyetr, I
think I
know something.
’

‘
What?
’

''Who's sustaining Che
rn
evog.''

‘
Which
'him'? Who?
’

‘
Che
rn
evog. I very much think it's leshys. They
brought us Nadya. They had Chern
evog asleep for all those years. And I think
they
killed Owl.
’

Pyetr looked as confounded as Nadya did. He stood up.
‘
They killed Owl.
Why?
’

‘
I don't think Owl's a safe place to have put a heart.
I
don't think he ever was. I think they destroyed Owl, because they wanted Chernevog to have his heart back. I think—
’
One became aware of the whisper of the leaves, of the forest all around them, alive, self-interested, listening to everything that moved. And caution seemed of utmost importance.

‘
So we shouldn't worry? I don't think so, Sasha!
’

‘
I'm not saying that. I'm saying I don't know what kind of a game the leshys are playing. Or what kind they have played.
’
God, they had
relied
on Misighi, they had trusted the old creature, who had held the mouse in his arms—

A nest of birds and a child are the same to them. And was it ever certain what friendship means to them? I rarely saw Misighi after that. And not at all in recent years.

Dammit, Eveshka's worked so long and remade so much that she destroyed, she had almost made her peace with the leshys before the mouse was born, and since, since, she's not gone any time at all into the woods—too busy with housework, she said, since the baby came, too busy once there was a child to take care of—

God, 'Veshka, did I never see? I thought it must be motherhood or something, I thought it must be some natural change, with babies and all—but you loved the forest, you'd mended every damage you could set your hands to, you wished it life with all your heart—and you feared it so much you dreaded letting the mouse out of her own yard and into the woods?

Trust the leshys, I said.—The child knows their names, 'Veshka, of
course
she's safe. Would Misighi ever let her come to harm?

He bit his lip, saw the bright spark of the fire Pyetr had been making, thought, distractedly: The leshys hate fire. I can't wish it. Maybe that's why we've gotten along. And she hasn't.

—Eveshka, hear me—

But he thought instantly of Nadya, glanced at her and
flinched, thinking, God, 'Veshka never did like surprises,
and she's not being reasonable, no more than the mouse.
There's no telling what either one of them might wish about
t
his girl, or about us—

Burning papers. Stacks and stacks of papers and molderi
n
g birds' nest and fe
athers and old, outgrown clothes—

Breathe the smoke. Let the fire mingle the elements of the
problem, pinecones and curious dried beetles, old nests, old
clothes, old papers, and lonely, disordered years—breathe it
in and let it work—

God, she's
my
doing. Most certainly she's my doing, this—
g
irl, this lost daughter of Pyetr's, this—calamity—the leshys
have dropped in our laps—

She can't be. She
can't
be what I wished up. She would
have had to begin all those years ago, before I even left
Vojvoda, before Pyetr and I even met—

Can we even choose? God,
where
are our choices, if I was
Uulamets' wish and everything that got Pyetr in trouble and
brought Yvgenie to this woods and put the mouse in danger
was only for a stupid wish I was going to make on a rainy
night eighteen years later— I felt the whole world shift when I wished someone. And
the lightning came and Yvgenie drowned. Was it all for her?
O
r is magic only riding the currents of what already will be—
has
to be?

Leaves on the water—

‘
Sasha?
’
he heard Pyetr asking him. But he could not
move, could not get out of the current if that was the case
—

No wizard could, if that was the case. There was no way
back. He looked at Nadya and thought, The mouse won't
accept her. Eveshka won't. How did things get so tangled?
And what is the mouse doing out there in the woods, if this
is all our doing? When did we ever wish it? Or is it Uulamets' who did it to all of us? And what was
the old man thinking of and what did he want in the world,
but—

—but—

He drew a panicked breath. And wished the way he Iwi taught the mouse to do when magic began to go amiss—

Sasha fell before Pyetr could reach him, just sprawled on
his
side, senseless or dead, Pyetr could not te
ll until he
could
get a hand inside his collar and feel life beating steadily.

Then he could breathe, himself; but not feel in the le
ast
safe, not for himself and not for Sasha or for anyone he loved
.
It was nothing a sword could get at or an ordinary man even hear going on.

‘
What's
happened
to him?
’
Nadya asked, and one could not even be sure of her, if Sasha had misjudged what shape shifters could do. But one had t
o trust, one had to deal sanely,
and not act in panic.

‘
He's fainted,
’
he said.
’
But I don't know whether he wanted it or something else did.
’

His daughter looked at the forest about them—but then-was nothing eyes could see. No Babi, either, which was
not
a good sign. The inkpot had tamed over, the ink had run
out
and blotted a page of Sasha's book—and if that was any indication of how things were going, it was none he liked. He propped Sasha's head on his knee, put a hand on Sasha's brow and pleaded with him,
‘
Wake up, can you? Come on. The ink's spilled, Babi's missing. I don't like this, Sasha. I truly don't.
’