C. Cherryh - Yvgenie

She tried to say she was. She stammered something like that, and tried to protest, “He never hurt me—” but no one was listening to her. Her father let her go and she ran up the shore—

Stopped, then, because her mother wanted her to stop, but her uncle said, “She’s all right, she’s just going to the house. Let her go.”

Then she could run, up the slope and up through the hole in the hedge and across the yard to the rail of the walk-up before she ever stopped to catch her breath.

There was magic going on behind her. She felt it strangling her, her mother and her uncle were wishing, oh, god, wishing her friend back into his grave—and wishing Owl to the place he had died, somewhere far separate from him.

“Stop it!” she cried. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!” There was silence after that, and a heaviness in the air. It was her they wished at now, wanting her quiet, and wanting her to know—

She wanted not to know. She wanted them to leave her alone. She shoved herself away from the rail, walking she had no notion where until she saw the stableyard fence ahead of her, and all the horses standing with their heads up and I heir nostrils working, staring toward the river.

They were afraid. So was she. Babi was in the yard with them, growling as she ducked through the rails—but not at her; Babi would never hurt her. She came up to her filly, patted a rock-hard shoulder, put her arms about a rigid neck, and Patches tossed her head and snorted, beginning to shiver. She was shivering, too, now. This yard was the only safe place in the world, the only place she could keep danger out of, the only place with creatures she trusted and hearts she knew were honest.

She did not want to face her parents right now, she did not want to see uncle Sasha with anger on his face, or meet her lather’s look when he had hurt her: she could still feel the strength of his fingers when he had stared right into her eyes, as if—

As if she had done something horrible and wicked and it would show in her face forever, that she had let her friend kiss her and put his hands on her and make her feel—

So dizzy, so terribly dizzy and cold and warm and magical she wanted to hold on to that feeling. She wanted that moment back, if only to find out what it was. She wished—

—wished he were alive and they could have run away together into the woods so this never would have happened: her mother would not have called his name, her mother would not have said:

Wasn’t I enough?…

She buried her face against Patches’ mane and leaned on her solid shoulder, wanting to stay there against that warmth and not to think, but the thought kept coming back.

Wasn’t I enough?

He was the mistake mother made, he was what father was talking about—mother knew him. Mother was in love with him, mother was with him before—

Before she met my father.

Eveshka, he had called her mother, in the tone only her father ever used. Sasha had come to this house with her father, and Sasha had known her friend on sight.

Worse and worse. Oh, god, all she ever wanted was someone to love and take care of the way her mother had someone, and for a handful of moments she had had that someone, until it turned out everyone in the world knew him, and her own mother had been with him when he was alive.

Now she understood her father being angry, and why he had bruised her face—but, but, god, they need not have sent Owl apart from him: that was somehow the worst thing they could do to him.

She did not cry often, but she cried now, mopping tears with Patches’ mane, while Patches made those strange soft sounds that meant there was something going on that Patches did not like. Babi was in a shape that seemed all shoulders and teeth, growling, facing the yard or the river where her parents and Sasha were. She was not sure whether they could feel the anger she felt—

But it was over now; they were coming back up from the river. She looked past Patches’ jaw and saw them pass the hedge and cross the yard to the walk-up, felt her mother catch sight of her and turn her way with angry intent, but Sasha caught her arm and stopped her. Her father was still carrying the axe when he went behind them up the walk-up, and she had no idea what he was going to do with it inside the house, but Babi went on growling and the horses kept smelling the wind and making nervous sudden shifts.

Looking at the river, she thought. They were definitely looking toward the river, which might mean they had done something down there that the horses and Babi had somehow feIt, some truly dreadful magic.

She wanted her mother not to be angry at her, she wanted her father not to be, wanted uncle Sasha—

Her uncle’s magic spoke to her heart, then, saying, It’s not your fault, mouse. Don’t wish at your father. Please. He’s really upset, but he’s all right, if you just don’t wish at him right now.

She tried, oh, god, she tried not to. She did not blame him for being mad, she did not blame her mother, not truly, please.

She felt her uncle’s presence like a comforting touch on the shoulder, heard her uncle whisper all the way from the house, Your mother loves you. No one’s angry now. Your mother’s just awfully upset and trying not to be, if you’ll just be calm right now, can you do that, mousekin?

Yes, she promised him the way she had promised for her uncle before, when she was little and had tantrums.

Only this one was not her fault. It was not fair for them to be mad at her, it was not fair for them to have taken Owl away, it was not fair of them to think that what they were thinking had happened between them—

Even if it was true what they had been doing together, and even if it was true that she had felt dizzy and that he could have killed her. But he wouldn’t have, she wanted them all to know that. We didn’t—he wouldn’t—

Her uncle said, I believe you, mousekin. He wasn’t all bad when he was alive. And what you were doing—

She refused to hear him. Usually she could not shut uncle out. But this time she could. This time she made him shut up and leave her alone, and told him he would have to come after her and talk out loud, the way her father insisted reasonable people ought to do with each other, not wish thoughts into each other’s heads or meddle in other people’s embarrassment.

Oh, god, mother did that with him, too, when he wasn’t dead. And father knows it.

The storm inside the house was ebbing. The one outside might be, but Ilyana had built a defense like a wall, and shut herself inside it. “I’d better talk to her,” Sasha said, not sure Pyetr and Eveshka even heard him—Eveshka was sitting on the bench in front of the fire, Pyetr holding her hands tightly in his. But Pyetr, with more spare concentration than a wizard could afford, glanced over his shoulder and said, “God, do. She’s scared, she’s just scared, Sasha, she had no idea.” Whether Pyetr believed that or whether he was saying it to placate Eveshka, the god only knew: Sasha hoped it was the case. And beyond a doubt Pyetr would be out there himself, except he was the only one of them who could reason with Eveshka, the only one Eveshka might listen to, the way she was listening to Pyetr now, Pyetr, trusting them to protect her daughter—

Which might be Eveshka’s distracted urging to him, for all he knew. If it was, her breach of attention was dangerous, and he was going, now, anything to keep the peace.

So he slipped quickly out the door and soft-footed it down the walk-up and around the corner toward the stable. Ilyana was still standing with her arms about the filly’s neck and Ilyana did not wish him to stop. That was a hopeful sign. But he felt—