C. Cherryh - Rusalka

“I know. I know. You think I’m a fool. But I’m not, Pyetr!”

Sasha got up from the log and walked away.

“Boy—”

Sasha stopped, with his shoulders hunched and his head bowed.

“I never said you were a fool,” Pyetr said. “I do apologize. Most sincerely. You’re a wise young man, and you don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re the one who saved my life, not grandfather in there. I don’t forget that.”

“Then listen to me,” Sasha said.

“And do what? Trust this man? I refuse.”

“Just don’t do anything. Not yet. And don’t leave me here.”

The boy was scared. That was clear. The boy had not completely lost his senses.

“Don’t you go anywhere without telling me,” Pyetr said sternly. “If you’re going off with the old man anywhere, both of us are going. That’s my word on the matter.”

“You can’t go. If he’s going to work anything, you understand, it doesn’t help that you don’t believe in it. He won’t like that.”

“This is the man who brought me back from the dead. This is a great master, boy. Have a little respect for his abilities. If he can do what you say he doesn’t need my help. I sincerely doubt he needs yours.”

Sasha looked extremely upset with him.

“Just don’t plan to slip off with him anywhere,” Pyetr said. “You’re too good-hearted. But if it makes you happy I’ll believe anything at least while he’s doing his conjurations. I won’t do anything to offend him. Except go along.”

The clothes dried by evening in a fair wind, the woodpile stood well-stocked, the floor was swept, the fish cleaned, dinner cooked and set and done…

Then Sasha expected the old man to get up from table and take up his wrap and his staff and bid him come along. Uulamets did all of that and Sasha said meekly, “Yes, sir,” and took his new coat from the peg and put it on with never a look in Pyetr’s direction, afraid of the dark outside, afraid of the old man, and equally afraid of what foolish thing Pyetr might do.

Pyetr came and took his coat from its peg, Sasha saw him in the tail of his eye, and Uulamets said, “There’s no need of your going.”

Pyetr said nothing at all, only pulled tight his sash and pulled down the cap from its peg as well.

“Stay here,” Uulamets said plainly.

But Pyetr might not have heard him, for all the attention he paid.

Uulamets was frowning. Uulamets looked in Sasha’s direction. Sasha pretended not to notice Uulamets’ frown or Pyetr’s stubborn insistence, and kept his head down, thinking all the while of the dreadful Thing in the yard and how they had to traverse that ominous dark boundary even to get to the woods.

“Very well,” Uulamets said, gathering up his staff. “Very well.”

And Uulamets flung open the door and led the way out into the dark of the porch.

A heavy flapping of wings left the roof. Sasha glanced up in alarm and saw nothing but a shadow passing. Pyetr was walking close behind him and Sasha was suddenly, selfishly glad of that—glad of it and guilty at the same time, knowing at the bottom of his heart he had wanted Pyetr’s help, and never in his life certain whether wanting counted as a wish. He had a feeling of disasters hovering about them and multiplying, ill-aimed and ready to descend, and most of all he had a sense of something he knew no name for, but it centered about Uulamets like an ill-wish that had no destination and no owner and no one responsible for it. It was danger. It was hazard. And no one was in control of it.

Only he had wanted Pyetr by him. And Pyetr came, slogging along the rough path to the old road and beyond, where Uulamets led, down to the riverside and oif beside the dock of the ancient boat.

“Where are we going?” Pyetr asked when they had gotten that far, but the old man answered him no more than Pyetr had answered Uulamets ; and Pyetr caught Sasha by the arm and stopped him.

“Where are we going?” Pyetr asked again; and Sasha pulled to free himself, knowing better than to try reason with Pyetr, knowing certainly better than to reason with Uulamets. He only wanted to keep the pair of them from arguments and to do whatever Uulamets wanted and to get them safely back again behind solid doors.

Uulamets had stopped. He seemed part of the thickets and the undergrowth, a wisp of something gray and pale in the tangle of bare branches, and he leaned on his staff and grinned in that disquieting way.

“Boy?” he said, a quiet voice, with a deep timbre that cut a guilty soul to the quick—like uncle Fedya’s voice and ten times more so: We have a bargain, it said. Remember, boy?

Sasha tugged to be free, and Pyetr held him fast. “Where are we going?” Pyetr asked again, and Uulamets, leaning on his staff with both hands:

“Up the river. Only a little.” It was a placid voice, a reasonable voice, that made all fears seem foolish. Uulamets smiled pleasantly—impossible that the same features could have assumed that ghoul’s look a moment ago. It must have been a trick of the light, a moment of panic. One was entirely foolish to imagine harm in these woods where they had walked for days unmolested. Uulamets beckoned, still smiling.

One could only move, or feel a fool. Sasha moved. Pyetr failed to stop him this time. Pyetr echoed disgustedly: “A little,” and stayed close with him as Uulamets turned and probed their way ahead with his staff. “He’s mad,” Pyetr muttered under his breath. “Out in the dark, in a place like this. Digging roots at night—”

Branches raked at them. Roots tangled their feet. Sasha reached desperately to catch a branch Uulamets released. It raked his cheek; he winced and kept going, blinking tears of pain, fearing he was going to lose sight of Uulamets in the dark.

“Mad,” Pyetr complained. “All of us are, for being out here—”

The river sound obscured the snap of brush even at close range. Water had undercut the bank and their steps splashed now and again into narrow, unexpected puddles. For a fearful moment Sasha lost view of Uulamets altogether and his imagination instantly painted Uulamets laughing at them, abandoning them to the fearsome creatures which might inhabit this dark shore.

He stepped in water to the knee, and stuck ankle-deep in mud. Pyetr pulled him back and held on to him.

“Let’s go back,” Pyetr said. “He wants to lose us. Let him! Let’s go back to the house.”

But there was Uulamets ahead of them, like a gray ghost beckoning them.

Sasha walked forward. He had no notion why. It only seemed impossible to run with Uulamets standing there to witness it; and foolish to do anything that would challenge Pyetr’s recklessness or the old man’s temper. He had no notion now why Pyetr let him go, or why Pyetr followed, except perhaps Pyetr might be thinking the same as he was about the Thing in the yard, and coming to the conclusion that walking back to the house right now was not the safest thing to do: nothing seemed safe at the moment—certainly not the direction that took him close to Uulamets, in a place where the moonlight and the river-sound combined to trick the eyes and the ears.

One hoped it was Uulamets.

“Here,” the old man said, taking him by the shoulder, “here, there’s a good lad…” and turned him toward the river shore, down toward the water. “See that thornbush?”

“What are you doing?” Pyetr asked, and caught the old man’s arm, but the old man looked at him and Pyetr’s expression changed—as if he had laid hands on some stranger by mistake.

In that moment Sasha’s heart thumped hard with fright, to see Pyetr Kochevikov daunted and to feel the old man’s hand gripping his arm with such painful strength, fingers biting deep even through the coat sleeve. But the old man looked him in the eyes then, lightened his grip, then patted him on the shoulder, and it seemed in the trick of the moonlight that he had never seen such a gentle, fatherly look.