I couldn't take it, I shrieked and jumped up.
And I can't believe how he suddenly appeared right in front of me! That is, I was quite sure that the man was sitting at the next table, still, a little relaxed, half-turned to me and in moments without a single movement he was in front of me, so close as if he was going to kiss! and I inevitably plunge into the black fogs of his eyes, which seem to splash out of the shores, the black smoke pouring out of his pupils, enveloping his face and it shivers, changes ... and through one face comes a completely different!
And instead of the usual, quite ordinary man's face I see the present: strange and...terrible. It's like he's getting taller ... much taller, and wider, I glimpse the bronze skin, dark hair to the shoulders, powerful shoulders and hands, a strange dull ring hanging on a lanyard in the section of the gate and I see his eyes again: inhuman, black eyes with a yellow rim around a rectangular, like the beast, the pupil, of which, oh, horrible, grey and black smoke is flowing!
I'm dizzy, weakness stiffens my body, and the man is getting closer. The yellow rim in his strange eyes gets brighter, flashes gold, it's mesmerizing and frightening at the same time.
He stares at me, and I feel as if I'm drowning as if I'm being sucked into a black hole or a funnel. And I am drawn, drawn to some incredible depth and I know that there is nothing left of me, my consciousness and soul!
Another wave of terror wrapped me in my head, and I couldn't stand it. With a scream I jumped up, shaking off the drizzle, overturned the shop, hit the cup, and the remnants of knocked down by sticky slurries spilled out on the table, and I, with a short, smothered sob, pushed the man away from me and, wailing, rushed to the door!
It was only when I ran a mile away from the village that I stopped and stuck myself to the rugged trunk of the muddy oak tree. And I realized that the willow basket with much-needed potions, mittens, and a sweet bun bought in the shop, was left standing on the floor of the pub, near the leg of the table! I moaned in my voice, slowly slipped down, and squatted, wrapping my hands around my knees.
And only now I noticed a ring tightly clamped to my fist?
What's that? I slowly opened my palm, staring at my own hand in terror.
I closed my eyes, counted to ten and opened it again. It was there. The ring. A dull grey spiral on a leather shoelace- torn. Stupidly looking at it for another minute. No, I'm not quite brainless, though, and I can already understand that when I was pushing away that terrible beast with nonhuman eyes, somehow I managed to rip that shoelace off his neck, but to take this event and somehow digest it, my mind categorically refused!
I didn't know what to do now. One thing I knew for sure was that there was no way I was going back.
I really wanted to cry in my voice, just for fear and misunderstanding, but I did not. I don't think that's going to help me now.
When my legs finally calmed down, I still got up and quacked like an old lady, slowly spitting toward the shelter. A dull spiral on the shoelace just stuck in my pocket, what to do with it later, now there were more important problems.
Chapter 4.
I've already reached the orphanage in the dark, barely moving from fatigue and the horror of my feet. Sadly thinking about what I would say to the equalizer, and bitterly regretting the forgotten basket, I did not even notice the gatekeeper frozen behind the gate.
The hallways were empty, all in the evening classes. I reached the herbalist's den and opened the door with a sobbing.
- Danina, I...
She threw inflamed, feverishly shiny eyes at me.
- Xenia is dying.
When I was numb, I looked at the equalizer for a moment, trying to understand what she had said and how my reckless and cheerful Xenia could be compared to such a terrible word as "death". And then she got down on her knees in front of the couch.
The girlfriend was lying quietly as if she were asleep. A little wet her curls darkened with sweat, and curls stuck to the pale face, from which as if all the freckles have dropped. Her eyelashes trembled like Xenia was having some kind of fun dream...
And the stains...
So eloquent and eerie in its inevitability blue-violet spots of ink rot, thanks to which this disease got its name. Everywhere: on the thin neck, on the chest, on the strong wrists, on the abdomen... terrible, murderous precursors of death...
- She got worse when you left," Danina said, wiping her eyes with her palm, "there was nothing I could do...
I silently sat on the couch, hugging my friend's skinny body.
- Chickenpox... - I started, Travnitsa, but I kept quiet.
I knew what she had to say. You can't touch a patient with rot, ink stains are contagious, crawl from dying to still living, like parasites will settle in the body, eat, sharpen from inside. But I didn't care. I have only one soul mate on earth, one close person. And I will not leave her.
- Don't go, Xenia," I asked, "please, I don't have anyone else...
Danina turned her back. Heavily shuffling, went to the cooling fireplace, I heard her sobbing from there.
She didn't ask about the basket. She didn't ask about the basket. No cure for ink rot. I knew it as well as a herbalist.
I had a girlfriend on my back like a little girl. Xenya didn't react. Her breath was natural, hard, with a wheezing out of her throat, slowing down, interrupting...
- I can't lose you. I can't, Ksenka, do you hear me? Please, please... please...
Her involuntary cold body seemed to have been poured with weight. So heavy is a man falling asleep...
I went to the orphanage in the fall. I remember a dirty road in front of the gate, black skeletons of trees flying over, pulling dry, twisted branches - fingers to the sky. Riverstein, overhanging gloomily over the soaked valley, slitting its narrow windows and melting like a raven's stone wings. True, living ravens, silently and waiting, sat on stone pillars and circled above the gate, announcing the ominous screams. I remember standing at the entrance, looking with horror at this black giant, which seemed to me a terrible monster's abode, and frightenedly lumped a dirty handkerchief in my hands. I don't remember how I came to be here, and who brought me here, my very first memory being the ominous boulder of Riverstein, threateningly looking at me as I was about to eat.
And then, in the shabby, flying bushes, something came in, moved. I bounced off with a wild squeal, and something dirty, hempy, with pigtails and clay-coated palms came out of the bushes.
- Chew!" Something that turned out to be a girl rattled mockingly, "and what kind of crybaby is this here?
- I am not a crybaby! - I wanted to be offended, but curiosity won," and what were you doing in the bushes?
The girl thought, suspiciously looking at me and deciding whether I could be trusted with the Great Mystery. And apparently she thought I was worthy of such great honor.
- I'm looking for the treasure of the gnomes! - She whispered an important whisper, "Would you like to come with me? I'm Xenia," she said, "and gave me a smeared palm.
I wish I hadn't! So when the Prioress found us, we were both covered in clay and sprinkled with fallen leaves.
It flew us in a noble way! Without even washing us, we were locked in a dark closet. However, Ksenka was not used to this kind of pastime, and I was so passionate about the immediate vividness of my new acquaintance that I did not notice the punishment. After 24 hours, we came out of there as our girlfriends.
...and now my sunny Xenya, so alive and cheerful, falls asleep on her mossy arms... falls asleep in an eternal sleep from which there is no return...
- Quietly in the pines, the wind rustles... quietly something to the pines says... bye-bye, the trunks shake the wing... they fall asleep, the pines fall asleep...
I remembered the words of Xenkin's baby song. It was sung to her by her grandmother before she was abandoned, leaving her granddaughter a round orphan. And the girlfriend whispered it to me when I couldn't sleep, suffering from nightmares or going through another unjust punishment.
&nb
sp; I closed my eyes. I'm not thinking about anything right now. There's nothing but this minute Kseni falling asleep on my hands, except her disappearing breath. Except for the wind in the pines that rustles, merging with that breath. Except for the thin month watching us from above. Except for the boundless, vast night sky with the scattering of stars.
I want her to have good dreams. Like the good fairy tales we loved so much when we were kids.
- ... Sleep, pines, he says, you must sleep... to grow branches in the sky tomorrow... to drink the juice of the earth roots... you must sleep. That's what the wind says.
I pressed my cheek against my friend's cheek. It's thin. Like a young pine. I always imagined it as this: an elastic, juiced tree with shiny amber resin.
- ...the sun will warm tomorrow... and the birds will sing... the river will ring, the sparkling... the herbs will smell, but in the meantime... we must sleep. You just have to sleep...
The words of the simple song ended as Xenkino's breath ended. A huge, unbearable weight fell on me, pressed me with an impossible stone, sucked out my strength, not allowing my eyes to open. I decided that I was dying too. "That's good," I thought tired. That's good. Because I didn't want to open my eyes. So I just froze, clutching the dead Xenia in my hands.
* * *
The consciousness returned to my body slowly, with nature. It was as if it was wondering whether it needed such a worthless body or look for something better. There was no better place nearby, so I had to go back to mine.
I opened my eyes, trying to figure out where I was. The side pressed something heavy to keep me from turning around. I looked over at the den. At the table, with my head on my folded arms, Danina was asleep. It's uncomfortable, cos it's as if she fell asleep all of a sudden where she was sitting. She moved, wrapped herself up as if she could feel my eyes. Awkwardly drove the faded neck.
- Chickenpox? - She whispered.
I mowed my eyes. Behind a blurred window the sun rose, pale sunbunnies lazily splashing in bubbly vials and shining puddles shining on floorboards.
It moved. She stabbed her hand with needles, as it can be from a long and uncomfortable position.
Ksenia...
I remembered everything. I remembered, and I was embarrassed by the realization of the loss, the intolerable that gurgle in my throat and the rattle from my gut.
Danina got up uncertainly.
- The chickenpox...
I clenched my teeth trying to crush what was threatening to flood me with tears and turned my head.
- And why did you lie down on me," said the dead Xenia, staring at me with your eyes as dark as cherries, "you squashed all my insides with your bones, nagging me half-dead!
I think I was screaming after all. And so did Danina.
Because there was a drum at the door, and someone from the corridor was yelling at me too:
- Hey, what's going on out there? Break down the door! Get the dead people out! Get the torches out! And burn, burn, or we'll all be rotten in here! Our destruction has come for our sins and wicked thoughts, spirits of grief and vengeance have come...
And while Danina and I were staring at Xenia, she debugly corrected her grey nightgown, stuck her bare feet into her boots, and opened the door.
- Ooh!!! - Aristarchus howled and got the nose, the doppelganger, dibs on me, dibs on me!!! Dead rebels, undead, whoo!!!!
Behind the arena crowded frightened students and the gatekeeper, armed with a quiver stool. There were a bunch of mentors behind them. At a safe distance, the eyes of Mistress Beaujolais shone and tapped the tip of the whip on the shin boots of Harpy.
The appearance of Xenia with her loose hair and up to a fifth of her shirt on the background of the illuminated doorway had the effect of an explosion: the novices squealed, Aristarchus howled, the gatekeeper threw the stool and gave the der, and the mentors waved their hands from the beginning, autumning themselves with the divine hemisphere.
Xenia froze. So did the crowd.
- I apologize, of course... but what are you all doing here? - Xenia was amazed, and who's here, I'm sorry, dead? - And I looked around interested.
- You are...dead! An undead rebel...
- — Я?? - Ksenia choked and clarified with sincere participation, - Master, are you crazy?
Everyone looked at Aristarchus as if on command. With his arms outstretched, leaning beard and his eyes goggled out, he corresponded so precisely to the image of what was said, that Bozhena could not stand, hummed. Laughter followed in the close ranks of the novices.
- Death!!!! - Aristarchus howled not quite sure, especially with the letter "e". The resemblance to the said goat became complete.
Someone was already giggling frankly.
A sharp, bossy voice had cooled everybody down, as the icy water poured out of their mouths.
- Would you be so kind as to explain what's going on here!
We've stretched a string in a single gust. Ksenia stood aside, letting the tall and beautiful woman, born Countess Araltis, mother superior of our shelter, the village of Araltis Grinocherskaya, into the chamber in her icy beauty.
There are about forty girls living in our shelter now. From the youngest, five years old (girls under five are kept in another shelter, in Zagreb, and then they are transported to us), to the graduates. And eight mentors, seven women and Aristarchus.
And all of us, as one, feel awe and awe, which passes into the sacred awe before our mother, the prioress.
The Lady of the Village is extraordinarily beautiful. Tall, blonde, with transparent green eyes like precious emeralds or deep waters of a mountain lake. Her skin is as light as snow, her eyebrows are drawn so beautifully and thinly as if they were painted by an artist, her lips are bright. And though its beauty resembles the beauty of a sharp ice floe, it is impossible to break away from contemplation.
We admired her and were equally afraid of her.
- I'm waiting," she looked at us in a little surprise and hurried.
- Mother, don't ruin it! - Danina woke up and rushed to her knees, with her lips on a thin hand in a suede glove," the student's pine needles became ill, so I told them to bring them here so that they would not be infected! For three days I gave them tinctures and potions, covered them with herbs, smoked them with resin, cured them! The girls are recovering, soon there will be no sign of flesh left!
Lady Village looked around, pulled her nose as if sniffing. The smooth, alabaster-like face was reflected in perplexity. She froze in the middle of the room, not even her hand from the herbalist, as if she had forgotten.
- Lie..." Aristarchus threw up from the door, "Ink rottenness has been brought to our house, sinners! They have been undead for a long time, dead... We shall all lie down here if...
- Quiet. - Mother Superior woke up, smeared her icy eyes at Xena, turned to me. I tried to hold her gaze, though, honestly, I wanted to hide under the blanket. If she had asked me about it, I'm afraid I couldn't stand it, I laid it all out for her. And about the Call, and the ink stains on Xenia's body and the hidden Danila... and even the way I carry bread from the refectory at night!
"Just don't ask, just don't ask anything," I prayed to myself and imagined myself sitting in a transparent shell, like when I was a child, in which I couldn't be found.
The villages still stood, pondering, and turned sharply, waving silk skirts.
- Arey Aristarchus, don't be silly! Obviously, the rotten novices are not sick and definitely alive. Girls, you are relieved of your classes until you are fully recovered. And now all of you go to your rooms," said the prioress, not raising your voice a bit, but a minute later the crowd from the corridor, like the wind blew off! The oppressed Arae has evaporated the fastest. Disappointedly, Harpy flicked the whip and sparkled her eyes, and departed.
The door of the den with the knock closed.
Danina, quacking, got up from her knees.
- I made a mistake," she said without looking at anyone. It wasn't rotten, I guess...
I
mistrustfully kept my mouth shut.
Xenia, who couldn't keep her mouth shut for a long time and was all the more sad, plunged onto the couch.
- Oh, I'm so hungry! - she exclaimed, she would eat a whole bear now! Let's go!
We laughed with relief, and then I cried. Well, I couldn't help it.
* * *
Still, the friend was still pretty weak. Whatever Ksenia was sick with (we did not discuss this by silent agreement), she recovered slowly, as if not even though she was sick. The body that had been burned in fever was struggling to regain its vitality, and our meagre contentment did not encourage their early return.
It was decided to temporarily leave Xenia in the herbalist's room, but I had to go back to the girls' bedroom. When I got there after our three-day absence, it turned out that the frightened novices, led by Aristarchus, burned not only all our things, but also the bed shoes, linen and even the bed the gatekeeper cut with an axe and let the fireplace flood. So I just had nothing to sleep on. I had nothing left in this room, which had served as my home for many years.
I didn't blame the girls. Everybody's scared of death. Ink rot and death are synonyms.
But that's where I sleep now - the question.
While I was standing confusedly in the middle of the room, and the novices were frightened, complaining in the corners and mowing at me, the youngest mentor of the Lookout appeared and lured me with her finger.
- Come, Vetryana, Mother has ordered to temporarily put you in the blue room. Where are your things?
- On me," I squeaked.
She shrugged her shoulders, saying "it was her own fault," and went out into the corridor.
The blue room was a small room in the left wing of Riverstein. From the furnishings there was only a narrow bed with a hard shoe, a bedside table with a dusty clay pitcher, and a puzzled chest of drawers. The walls, formerly beige with a beautiful cornflower pattern, eventually turned into gray and blue, with peeled plaster. But the stained-glass window, typed from colored pieces of mica, is perfectly preserved. Dim rays of autumn sun through such a window seemed alive and cheerful, bright glare settling on all surfaces of the room.
The Wind of the North Page 5