Dan Smith - The Child Thief

Beside him Petro lay face down in the snow.

With the rifle in one hand, I ran out to where my son lay. I couldn’t get to him fast enough, my legs stumbling in the deep snow, my arms going out for balance. But even as I came close to where Viktor was sitting over his brother, another shot came from the other side of the lake, and thumped into the ground close to us.

The horse startled and turned, moving out to the edge of the water then veering to trot along the shoreline before turning and heading back towards the trees where Dariya and Aleksandra had run.

Another shot hit wide of its mark, the shooter struggling with his aim perhaps because I had hit him. But no other rifles fired in our direction. No soldiers advanced from the trees. There was only a single shooter out there – a thought that was held in my mind only for a fleeting second, because all else was lost to what I could see right in front of me.

I dropped to my knees as another shot whistled overhead and ploughed into the trees.

There was a hole in the back of Petro’s coat, the fabric pushed in to meld with his shirt and to trail its fibres into my son’s flesh. He was still breathing, but the breaths were shallow and barely detectable.

‘Take his legs,’ I told Viktor as I put my hands beneath Petro’s shoulders, and together we lifted him, stumbling as we moved back towards the trees, the shooter on the other side of the lake firing two more shots before we were into the shadow of the forest and out of sight.

We carried Petro to a place where oak and maple rose close and tight, as if they’d grown here just for our protection, and we placed him on his back.

His face was pale and the look in his eyes was dull.

‘Did they find us, Papa?’ Petro asked.

‘Shh.’ I took off his hat and told Viktor to help sit Petro forward so I could lift his coat and press my hat against the wound. I held it there to stem the flow of his blood, but I already knew it would do no good. I could see no place where the bullet might have escaped his body, so the lead would still be inside him, perhaps lodged in his spine. Already he had lost a lot of blood and life was leaving him.

‘Is everybody else all right?’ Petro asked. His eyes were wandering as if looking for something to focus on.

‘Everyone’s fine,’ I told him.

‘Good.’ Something like a smile came to his mouth, but the effort was too great and it faded before it was properly formed.

I looked away, pursing my lips between my teeth and catching sight of Aleksandra standing against a tree, her focus intent upon Petro. Dariya stood in front of her, hands clinging to Aleksandra’s, wrapping them around her as if she hoped they would take her from the world. Close to them, the horse stood silent as if it understood what was happening. And, beside Petro, Viktor bore the expression of the helpless.

‘What can we do?’ Viktor asked, and I could see in his eyes that he wanted me to know just the right thing. He wanted me to take control and tell him Petro was going to be all right. But the truth was I couldn’t. There was nothing I could do.

Petro was going to die.

It didn’t take long. I held my son’s head while the others stood by, and a few minutes was all it took for Petro to leave us. And when his breathing stopped; when his chest failed to rise and fall; when his eyes glazed and emptied, I hung my head and wept. I wept for the darkness that had come into this life and for the light that had gone out of it. I wept for the space that would never be filled.

It took only a few minutes for Petro’s life to be gone, but I sat for a long time holding his head before Aleksandra spoke my name.

‘Luka.’

It seemed as if she were standing a long way from where I sat.

‘Luka.’

Her voice coming to me as if from another place.

‘Luka.’

I opened my eyes and looked up at her.

‘What are we going to do now?’ she asked. ‘We can’t fight the army.’

She was standing closer now, her feet just an arm’s length from Petro’s still body.

‘That wasn’t the army,’ I said. ‘There was only one.’

Dariya was beside her, the two of them still holding hands. ‘Is she coming for us now?’ she asked. It was the first time she had spoken since I had seen her in Sushne but there seemed to be nothing remarkable about it. Too much had happened for it to have any significance. But I thought about what she said and saw the strangeness in it.

‘She?’

‘Baba Yaga,’ she said. ‘Don’t let her take me again.’

I stared at her, not sure what to say. I was still trying to process Petro’s death. My son was lying dead in my arms and now Dariya was saying something I didn’t understand.

‘What are you talking about?’ I could feel anger rising, and it confused me, fuelling itself further.

Dariya swallowed. ‘please.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I pushed to my feet, Petro’s head slumping back into the snow. ‘What do you mean, the Baba Yaga?’ I drew up to my full height and Dariya pulled closer to Aleksandra, moving so that she was almost behind her.

‘Luka,’ Aleksandra said quietly, ‘you’re scaring her.’

‘What’s she talking about – the Baba Yaga? It wasn’t the Baba Yaga who took her. It was a man. A man took her.’

Dariya shook her head and drew even closer to Aleksandra. ‘He looked like a man,’ she said, ‘but it was the Baba Yaga.’

I stared at her.

‘He said he was going to eat me.’

Her words made my breath catch in my throat.

‘He said he was going to kill you and that he was going to eat me.’

I put my hands to my face and pressed my fingers hard against my eyes. The imprint of my fingertips on my eyelids darkened and then brightened into a burst of white spots, and when I took them away the brightness smeared my tears and almost blinded me.

I crouched and held out my hands to Dariya, but she shook her head and clung to Aleksandra, drawing away from me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘Please.’

Aleksandra encouraged Dariya away from her, and she reluctantly held out her hands for me to take. I pulled her to me and held her, so that her face was buried against my neck and my face was pressed to the side of her head. For a moment I imagined I was hugging my own daughter.

When I released the embrace I told Dariya not to be scared.

She bit her lip and nodded.

‘I need to ask you something and I need you to remember everything you can. Is that all right?’

She nodded again.

‘How many men were there?’

She furrowed her brow as if she didn’t understand the question.

‘How many men took you?’

‘There was only the Baba Yaga,’ she said.

‘Just one person?’

She nodded.

‘But you hurt him?’

Again she looked confused.

‘With a knife,’ I said. ‘In the hut where he took you.’

And, slowly, it seemed to sink in. I saw her eyebrows rise as if she was beginning to understand what I was asking. ‘In the hut?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘In the hut.’

‘The dead man?’

‘Yes. That was him. The man who took you.’

‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘That wasn’t him.’

Leaving Dariya with Aleksandra and Viktor, I went to sit with Petro. I took his head and laid it on my lap and sat looking out through the gaps in the trees, glimpsing shards of the lake. I took a cigarette and bent the tube without thinking about it. For a long time I held the match in my fingers before popping it alight with my thumbnail and touching it to the tobacco.

So many things had led to this exact spot, this unknown place that was marked by nothing until my son’s death. We believed we had come close to making our way home without knowing how far we really were. I had made many mistakes, from the moment I had agreed to bring my sons, and now I intended to make no more. I had believed the child thief to be dead, but I had been wrong. Now it was my duty to make sure he would never fire another shot. That he would never terrify another child.