Кэтрин Арден - The Bear and the Nightingale

THE STILLNESS WAS SUDDEN and absolute. The one-eyed man slunk off into the undergrowth, and the chyerti disappeared into the winter forest. The rusalka laid a dripping hand on Vasya’s shoulder in passing. “Thank you, Vasilisa Petrovna,” she said.

Vasya made no answer.

Solovey nuzzled her gently.

Vasya did not heed. She was staring at nothing, holding her father’s hand while it slowly turned cold.

“Look,” whispered Alyosha, hoarse and wet-eyed. “The snowdrops are dying.”

It was true. The warm, sickly, death-smelling wind had chilled, sharpened, and the flowers wilted down onto the hard earth. It was not yet midwinter, and their hour was months away. There was no clearing, no muddy space beneath a gray sky. There was only a huge old oak-tree, its branches twisted together. The village lay beyond, now clearly visible, a stone’s throw away. Day had broken and it was bitterly cold.

“Bound,” said Vasya. “The monster is bound. Father did it.” She reached out a stiff hand to pluck a drooping snowdrop.

“How came Father here?” said Alyosha in soft wonder. “He had—such a look about him. As if he knew what to do, and how, and why. He is with Mother now, by God’s grace.” Alyosha made the sign of the cross over his father’s body, rose, went to Anna, and repeated the gesture.

But Vasya did not move, nor did she answer.

She put the flower in her father’s hand. Then she laid her head against his chest and began, softly, to cry.

They kept a night’s vigil for Pyotr Vladimirovich and his wife. The two were buried together, with Pyotr between his first wife and his second. Though they mourned, the people did not despair. The miasma of death and defeat had gone from their fields and houses. Even the bedraggled remnants of half a burnt village, led past their gate by an exhausted Kolya, could not frighten them. The air bit gently, and the sun shone down, studding the snow with diamonds.

Vasya stood with her family, hooded and cloaked against the chill, and bore the people’s whispers. Vasilisa Petrovna disappeared . She returned on a winged horse. She should have been dead. Witch. Vasya remembered the touch of rope on her wrists, the cold look in Oleg’s eyes—a man she had known since childhood—and she made a decision.

When everyone else had gone, Vasya stood alone at her father’s grave in the dusk. She felt old and grim and tired.

“Can you hear me, Morozko?” she said.

“Yes,” he said, and then he was beside her.

She saw a subtle wariness in his face, and she laughed a laugh that was half a sob. “Afraid I will ask for my father back?”

“When I walked freely among men, the living would scream at me,” Morozko replied evenly. “They would seize my hand, the mane of my horse. The mothers begged me to take them, when I took up their children.”

“Well, I have had enough of the dead coming back.” Vasya fought for a tone of icy detachment. But her voice wavered.

“I suppose you have,” he replied. But the wariness had gone from his face. “I will remember his courage, Vasya,” he said. “And yours.”

Her mouth twisted. “Always? When I am like my father, clay in the cold earth? Well, that is something, to be remembered.”

He said nothing. They looked at each other.

“What would you have of me, Vasilisa Petrovna?”

“Why did my father die?” she asked in a rush. “We need him. If anyone had to die, it should have been me.”

“It was his choice, Vasya,” replied Morozko. “It was his privilege. He would not have had it otherwise. He died for you.”

Vasya shook her head and paced a restless circle. “How did Father even know? He came to the clearing. He knew . How could he find us?”

Morozko hesitated. Then he said slowly, “He came home before the others and found you and your brother gone. He went into the woods to search. That clearing is enchanted. Until the tree dies, it will do all in its power to keep the Bear contained. It knew what was needed, better even than I. It drew your father to you, once he entered the forest.”

Vasya was silent a long moment. She looked at him narrow-eyed, and he met her gaze. At last she nodded.

Then, “There is something I must do,” Vasya said abruptly. “I need your help.”

IT HAD ALL GONE WRONG, thought Konstantin. Pyotr Vladimirovich was dead, killed by a wild beast on the threshold of his own village. Anna Ivanovna, they said, had run out into the woods in a fit of madness. Well, of course she did, he told himself. She was a madwoman and a fool; we all knew it. But he could still see her frantic, bloodless face. It hung before his waking eyes.

Konstantin read the service for Pyotr Vladimirovich scarce knowing what he said, and he ate at the funeral feast hardly knowing what he did.

But in the twilight, there came a knock at the door of his cell.

When the door opened, his breath hissed out and he stumbled back. Vasya stood in the gap, the candlelight strong on her face. She was grown so beautiful, pale and remote, graceful and troubled. Mine, she is mine. God has sent her back to me. This is his forgiveness.

“Vasya,” he said, and reached out to her.

But she was not alone. When she slipped through the door, a dark-cloaked figure unfolded from the shadows at her shoulder and glided in beside her. Konstantin could see nothing of the face, save that it was pale. The hands were very long and thin.

“Who is that, Vasya?” he said.

“I came back,” Vasya returned. “But not alone, as you see.”

Konstantin could not see the man’s eyes, so sunk were they in his skull. The hands were of a skeletal thinness. The priest licked his lips. “Who is that, girl?”

Vasya smiled. “Death,” she said. “He saved me in the forest. Or perhaps he did not, and I am a ghost. I feel a ghost tonight.”

“You are mad,” said Konstantin. “Stranger, who are you?”

The stranger said nothing.

“Alive or dead, I have come to tell you to leave this place,” said Vasya. “Go back to Moscow, to Vladimir, to Tsargrad, or to hell, but you must be gone before the snowdrops bloom.”

“My task—”

“Your task is done,” said Vasya. She stepped forward. The dark man beside her seemed to grow; his head was a skull, and blue fires burned in the sockets of his sunken eyes. “You will go, Konstantin Nikonovich. Or you will die. And your death will not be easy.”

“I will not.” But he was pressed against the wall of his chamber. His teeth rattled together.

“You will,” said Vasya. She advanced until she was near enough to touch. He could see the curve of her cheek, the implacable look in her eyes. “Or we will see to it that you are mad as my stepmother was, before the end.”

“Demons,” said Konstantin, panting. A cold sweat broke over his brow.

“Yes,” said Vasya, and she smiled, the devil’s own child. The dark figure beside her smiled, too, a slow skull’s grin.

And then they were gone, silently as they had come.

Konstantin fell to his knees before the shadows on his wall. He stretched out supplicating hands. “Come back,” begged the priest. He paused, listening. His hands shook. “Come back. You raised me up, but she scorned me. Come back.”