C. Cherryh - Yvgenie

“I’m trying not to,” she said, and put her arms about her father’s neck and hugged him with all her might. “I love you.”

Her father hugged her back, and said, “I love you too, mouse. Be good. All right?”

When her father said that it was easy to be good. For at least as long as she could keep from thinking.

Pyetr’s step echoed on the walk-up. A not at all happy Pyetr, Eveshka supposed, and tried to think simply about the herbs she was grinding and how she was going to try a little more rosemary in the stew this evening.

Pyetr opened the door and took his cap off, came over and put his arms around her and kissed her—which she was sure had everything to do with her daughter storming out of the house.

She said, in advance of complaints, “I know Ilyana’s upset. I’m upset. We’re both upset.”

“Hush,” he said, and hugged her and rested his chin against her head. “Hush, ’Veshka, it’s all right.”

She had not even known she was tired until then. Her shoulders ached. “She’s just being difficult.”

“She doesn’t understand why you worry.”

“I wasn’t scolding her, I was talking to her. She’s in a mood, that’s all. There’s nothing you can do with her.”

“She’s just fine, ’Veshka, the storm’s over. No lightning. She’s just confused why you were fighting.”

“I’ll tell you why we were fighting! She’s so sure she knows everything in the world and of course we couldn’t possibly understand her, since we don’t agree with her! She’s the first one in all the world to want her own damned way!”

“Hush.”

“I’m not a child, Pyetr, don’t coddle me. I know what she’s going through.”

“May I say, ’Veshka, please don’t get angry at me—”

“It’s not a good time, Pyetr. Today isn’t a good time.”

“Listen anyway. I trust you. What happened to you when you were sixteen wasn’t all your fault. Your father made no few mistakes himself, bringing you up. You couldn’t go to him. You couldn’t trust him. He made that bed for himself and he regretted it all his life. Don’t let him teach Ilyana. Hear me?”

She felt cold all over. And sixteen again. And scared, except for Pyetr’s arms keeping her safe. The house timbers groaned: the domovoi in the cellar felt that chill.

“He’s gone,” she said. “There’s nothing left of him, except what he passed to Sasha. Ask him.”

“Except his lessons. Except his wishing you. And he did do that, ’Veshka.”

“I don’t do it with Ilyana!” She pulled away and stood squarely on her feet. “Dammit, Pyetr, I don’t wish at her and I don’t read her my father’s lessons—I’m trying to tell her instead of letting her find things out the hard way, the way I did, and she’s not listening.”

“She wants very much to please you. She doesn’t know how.”

“Oh, damn, if she doesn’t know how! She can try showing up for supper before it’s on the table, she can try—”

“ ’Veshka. ’Veshka.” Pyetr held up his hands and looked upset with her. “Your father wanted his house kept, wanted his meals on time, wanted you to say Yes, papa, and Of course, papa, and Anything you want, papa. He wanted a damn doll in pretty braids, I saw it. He wanted you right where he could see you, because you looked like your mother, ’Veshka, and he was scared to death you were going to turn into her some night before you were grown if he couldn’t turn you into his ideal of a young girl!”

“Pyetr, someone has to do the housework, or it doesn’t get done. I don’t wish the broom to dance around the room or wish the bucket up and down the hill—”

“It’s more important to go riding, ’Veshka.”

“Oh? “It’s more important to go riding?” And what, when you get home and supper isn’t waiting? It’s Where’s my supper, ’Veshka? Are you sick, ’Veshka? I’m sorry about your floor, ’Veshka!”

He bit his lip, ducked his head a little. “I am sorry about the floor.”

“But I mop it. And my daughter goes riding in the woods. My daughter can’t remember to come home at dark, never mind I’ve done all the cooking—”

“A bargain. I’ll mop the floor. You and Ilyana go riding.”

“Oh, god, you’d mop the floor. You’d have water—”

“Now!” he said, holding up his finger. “Now, ’Veshka, there’s a problem we should talk about.”

“What problem?”

He threw up his hands, hit his cap on his leg, walked a small circle back again. “Dear wife, let somebody do something right for you.”

“I’m not having water dripping into my cellar, all over my shelves—”

“Are you calling me a fool?”

“I don’t want my shelves soaked in mop-water!”

“Am I fool? Is Ilyana a fool? Is Sasha? God, I’ve waited years for this one, ’Veshka! And I want you to answer me. No squirming out of it.”

“You’re not a fool.”

“Then will you let me mop the damn floor?”

“If my cellar floods—”

“If our cellar floods, dear wife, I’ll bail it. I might eve fix a rim around the trap so the water doesn’t drip straight through. Some things a little carpentry solves better than magic.”

Pyetr had not a smidge of magic, none, he swore it. But he certainly had an uncanny way of getting things he wanted out of two or three wizards of her acquaintance, and the wizards in question could wonder for days exactly what had happened to them and why they felt so good afterward.

“Bargain?” he said.

It was very certainly magical. She hugged him tight and felt a tingle from her head to her feet, which she had felt the first time she had laid eyes on him.

Her father was talking to her mother, with what good result Ilyana was dubious; but the air felt clearer, at least, and uncle Sasha had gone up the hill to sit on his porch with his book and his inkpot, so long as the light lasted: she could see him from the garden fence, where the berry vine made part of the hedge—almost ripe, she decided, coincidentally, and plucked an early dark one and popped it into her mouth, for a sweet, single taste.

She felt better, over all: and she put away everything her father had said in a place to consider later, on a day when she had not been so angry at her mother. At least she was not angry now. She did not think her mother was angry at her any longer either, and all in all she felt more cheerful, never mind she had given up the ride she had coaxed her father for since the weather had warmed, no matter she had done it because she had thought her friend might be down by the river this morning.

She pulled another berry which somehow was not as sweet us the first, and thought (she could not help it) that this year had gotten off to a bad start. Nothing she did seemed right. Her friend turned out—

Turned out both handsomer and more scary than she wanted to think about near the house, so she slipped through the garden fence and down the old road toward the woods.

Not directly or by any straight path toward the river, no, not right past the house this time, with mother always worrying about her drowning—

I don’t wish to drown, mother! she was wont to declare, in her father’s way of speaking. I swear to you, I absolutely wish not to drown, and I’m perfectly safe down on the dock, god!

Her mother had not been amused, or convinced.

Her mother, direly: Vodyaniye don’t ask you to fall in. They’ll come ashore after you.

Well, I haven’t seen him, she had said to that. And her mother: Wish him asleep. Don’t think about him.

All her life, don’t think about this, don’t think about that—