C. Cherryh - Yvgenie

“With what?”

Yvgenie had no idea. And Kavi when she tried to wish him to speak to her was uncatchable, scattered in pieces, like Owl on the river shore. There were tears in Yvgenie’s eyes, which he was not accustomed to shed in anyone’s witness, he wished he could make her understand that—but he knew what Kavi was doing now, and he knew that for all the advice Kavi tried to give he was helpless to leave her, he could not stop following her or loving her or killing her the way he was doing—he loved her, he loved her whether it was Kavi’s idea or his own, he had come to think more of her in these few days than he had ever loved his own confused existence—

He touched the back of her hand, where it rested on the book, and she felt that tingling she could never forget and never quite remember. He began to say something—

Then hurled himself to his feet and away from her, as far as the old tree that sheltered them both. He leaned against its trunk, holding to it like a living person, wanting—

—it’s life, because he refused to die, he could not want in die.

Not life, uncle had told her, and she had not heard him. Not life—but hell.

She folded her book and got up to go to him—wanting him—god, wanting to hold him and help both of them wanting just that touch again—

The first leaves drifted free of dying branches, and need had become its own wish—little it could matter. She reached out to touch him.

But he shoved away and turned his back on her. Yvgenie wanted her not to touch him, not to make him touch her, please, no—and he stopped cold, if only because there was nothing in the world Yvgenie could do to stop her. Not fair , not fair to wish someone who could not even hear her doing it, not fair to insist on her own way with someone who could do no more to stop her or Kavi than he was doing now.

The mouse could never do that—never hurt her father never hurt this boy…

But mother thinks otherwise. And expecting something is a wish, isn’t it? The mouse can’t hurt anybody. The mouse—can’t. That’s why I like her better.

Ilyana’s not that good. Ilyana’s her mother’s daughter. But what’s the mouse to be, uncle, grown-up and lonely for the rest of her life because she can’t want anybody?

That’s crazy, her father had used to shout at her mother. Because we both want something, you have to want not?

“Yvgenie,” she said, in the mouse’s voice, very soft, very quiet, and held her hand a little away from touching him, making herself not want him the way she wanted Kavi. “Yvgenie, I’m sorry. It’s safe. Please look at me if you want to.”

One had to be careful with ordinary folk. And when he did look at her, one could never know whether it was wizardry or not or whether she was only deceiving herself.

She said, with as much honesty as she could find, “People have to love me if I want them to, even wizards, especially wizards, uncle says, because we hear magic—but ordinary people, too, if we want them to. They can’t help it.”

“A spell?” he asked her.

“I don’t know what you call it. I don’t. I just didn’t want in be alone all my life and I wanted Kavi back—I never wanted anything bad to happen to anyone, I never did, I don’t know what’s gone wrong, or why it was, except it’s wrong to want people to love you—”

He touched her cheek and looked her in the eyes. “If I’m bewitched, I don’t care, so long as you love me back—that’s what matters, isn’t it? I love you, I do, the same as he does. And I don’t care why—”

It hurt. God, it hurt.

He said, then, faintly, “Damn him.” He shut his eyes, and she wished, aching, Don’t do that to him, Kavi. Please. It’s not fair.

Yvgenie sank down where he was, head on his arms, not looking at her. There was pain, that was all she could hear, pain and fear and not wanting her to die because of him, when he was already sure he would die, and follow her, and do anything he had to to stay with her until someone put an end to him—because he would not leave her—not so long as he existed—

Nor touch her again, so long as he could help it, no matter what he killed—

“Please,” he said without looking at her. “Please just leave me alone.”

She wanted—but wanting stopped short of hurting him again. She went back to her book and sat down and wrote.

I wanted someone like my father. I didn’t know what I was wanting. I don’t know what my father is with my mother, what Kavi is and what she was. Now I know what it feels like. Now I know and I can’t do anything. There’s nothing I can wish that doesn’t hurt and there’s nowhere for me to go but with Yvgenie, because —

A leaf fell onto the paper. Other leaves were falling, some on the ground, a few into the fire, where they flared and burned and perished.

A ring of salt, her father had said, and Nadya had done that as quickly as possible, around her, around Sasha, around the spotted horse, too. But she had not been thinking about firewood when she had been drawing the circle, and the fire was getting desperately low. She added leaves. She stood up and broke off overhanging twigs, and a branch and broke it up and saved it back as long as she could.

But the fire began to die. And the spotted horse made a soft, anxious sound. That made her think that she might have been fatally foolish, that with the fire grown so small, whatever was out there dared come closer and closer, and if the light did not even reach the bushes she would have to go out I here totally in the dark.

She had to do it. She took the knife from her boot and went out of the circle, breaking branches with cracks that sounded frighteningly loud in the hush about her.

Something hissed at her, right at her feet. She jumped, clenching her knife, and all but fell over her own skirts, seeing two round gold eyes looking at her.

It was the Yard-thing. Babi. Babi stared at her and growled and she very carefully backed away, taking her armful of wood and her knife back into the circle.

Babi turned up there, too. Pop. Babi crouched down his head on his paws and showed white, white teeth while she fed sticks into the fire and wished, please the god, that Sasha would wake up soon, and not be angry with her about being left—and that the Yard-thing would not decide she was a threat and bite her hand off.

Please.

Babi barked at her. And vanished. She sat there with her knife in her hand and her arms around her knees and waited, shivering despite the fire.

Sasha would not be angry with her. Sasha would not be angry with her. She had waited all her life for some ill-wish that would make her slip on the stairs or catch a fish-bone in her throat or even just take a fever—the silly knife was only because nobody took her seriously, the guards never took her orders, the guards and the servants would never listen to her if she was in danger, and at least if she had the knife she had something, if only against whoever might break into the house the way Pyetr Kochevikov had done.

Except he had not broken in, she believed that part. She believed everything else. Her uncles had snatched up the silver and the gold and her mother had gathered up her jewels and her best clothes and when she had come to say goodbye—because Yvgenie had said he would take her where people would forget who they were—her mother had said go where she liked. Go where she liked—and no truth even then.

She wiped her face with the heel of her hand, angry, dammit, for that, for all the years of lies, all the years of modest, lying virtue that had made her afraid of this and afraid of that, most of all afraid of—