Miriat watched her for a moment longer. Then she put the pouch away and nodded a curt thanks. Dola exhaled, and relaxed her shoulders. They both waited in silence until Trina appeared with three cups. One of them was missing a handle, and somehow the sight grabbed Miriat by the heart and filled her with a rush of affection mixed with guilt. Still, she saw the wisdom in Dola’s words and so she kept quiet.
They finished their tea in silence, then Dola stood up, massaging her aching lower back. “Well, you mustn’t dilly-dally any longer! It’s a long journey to the pass, and you don’t want to waste any more time chit-chatting and gossiping. Head on to Alma’s and then you should be on your way. I have some business of my own to attend to, and can’t spend the whole day with you two, as nice as the tea was.” She shot them a parting smile and waddled off.
“That was odd. Even for her.” Trina cast a look at Miriat, narrowing her eyes.
“I suppose awaiting her baby makes her more restless than most?” Miriat stood up. She once more slung her pack across her shoulder and straightened her cloak.
“Hmm…” Trina cocked her head to the side, watching Miriat. In the end, she only shrugged. “That doesn’t surprise me in the least. That woman is ‘more than most’ in many things.”
They walked briskly through the village, its inhabitants only just starting to light their morning fires and usher out livestock. Miriat and Trina stopped in front of Alma’s door, the smoke above her house signaling she was already up and about. Alma had always been an early riser, and like many early risers mistook a natural inclination for virtue.
Miriat raised her hand, but the door swung open before she had the chance to knock. Alma’s face showed little surprise at seeing Miriat. She stood in the doorway, barring the entry. Miriat couldn’t help but notice that Dran did not share his mother’s view on mornings, his loud snoring filling the house.
“You’re going to collect your daughter. Good. Saves me the trouble of sending people,” Alma said curtly, before Miriat had a chance to speak. “I suppose you’ll be taking Trina with you. Very well, report to me when you get back.” She hesitated. “I hope she’s well. Bring her home safe, Miriat.” Then the heavy door slammed in their faces.
They looked at each other confused. Trina shrugged off the inexplicable for the second time that morning and they started their long walk towards the pass.
CHAPTER 17
Salka opened her eyes and saw nothing but darkness.
She wiggled her toes and fingers and was relieved to find that she could still feel them. Falling asleep in the snow in the Heyne Mountains rarely ended well.
Something was digging into her chest and she shifted uncomfortably. She lifted her arm and pushed at what felt like several tree branches off her chest. They made an odd rattling sound before sliding off the side of the stone bridge. Salka suddenly remembered where she was and froze with a knot in her stomach. She was nearly in the middle of a bridge not even a yard wide, lying on her back in the deep snow. One false move would send her tumbling down.
She tried sitting up without turning over and felt a small tingle in her shoulder. The pale morning light blinded her as her shadow slid down her face and uncovered her body, leaving her shivering in the cold. Keeping her body as still as possible, she looked around. She froze as she realized what had been weighing her down. The wolf’s skull, clean of its flesh and gleaming white in the morning light, lay with a mirthless grin between Salka’s feet. Some of the wolf’s bones that hadn’t fallen off the bridge lay in the snow, with not a trace of skin or meat on them. Salka’s fingers touched her shoulder where the wolf’s teeth tore her flesh. The skin was unbroken, though the deep rusty stains on Salka’s ripped clothes proved it had not been a dream. Her right wrist, broken when she’d tried to stab at the wolf, was now whole again.
“Munu!” Salka called out suddenly and scrambled to get off the bridge on all fours as quickly and carefully as possible. Once on solid ground again, Salka ran to the now-empty spot where Munu had fallen the night before. A familiar screech welcomed her as the falcon landed in front of her. He nuzzled his beak in Salka’s belly, and she stroked his soft feathers, crying in relief.
“Oh Munu! I saw the wolf’s bones and I thought you’d be dead too! I don’t know how…” A sob escaped her, and she hugged Munu, who accepted it with grace. She felt the warmth of her shadow as it reached out above her hand and ruffled Munu’s feathers. To her surprise, Munu nuzzled its beak in the shadowy form.
“Let’s get ready, Munu. I want to get out of here. I want to go back. Surely it’s time to go back!” She offered Munu her shoulder and made her way to the hut. Her falcon, however, kept looking at Salka’s shadow, a dark stain in the snow forming a large train, rippling and twisting behind her.
CHAPTER 18
“So, are we going to talk about Dola’s visit this morning?” Trina asked without looking at Miriat. They were both focused on keeping a steady pace through the snow, and halfway through the day they were both pink with exertion.
Miriat stared straight ahead without answering.
“You’re right. Why would you confide in me? I’m only the best friend you have in this world.” Trina reached a large rock and slumped against it. “I think it’s time for a break. You take out the food and I’ll do the talking.”
Miriat longingly looked at the path ahead. She wanted nothing more than to keep walking and close the distance between herself and Salka.
“I know you want to keep going,” Trina said, reading her thoughts. “But you won’t get there any quicker if you collapse along the way. Now, eat.” Trina ordered and gestured at the pack on Miriat’s back.
“I’m sorry. I know you’re right. But I can’t muster an appetite,” Miriat said, fumbling to untie the food pack. The string holding it together was tight and her fingers were cold.
“Here, let me do it.” Trina reached out and took the bag from Miriat’s hands. “I don’t get as cold.” She smiled at her friend and took out two coarse bread rolls. “So, are you ready to tell me yet what Dola said to you?”
Miriat said nothing.
“Fine, keep your secrets.”
They ate their food in silence and watched the pale light on the red bark of the pines surrounding them.
“It’s about Salka,” Miriat said.
“Obviously,” Trina said without missing a beat. “Nothing else could make you clam up like that. What about her? Is she safe? Did Dola have a vision or something?”
“Dola seemed worried she might not be safe when she comes back to the village.”
“In what way?” Trina stopped eating and looked up at Miriat.
“Dola thinks Alma might be holding a grudge.” Miriat chose to reveal some of the truth. “That in the end, she might be planning to get rid of Salka.”
Trina finished her food and carefully picked out the crumbs from her coat and ate them. “I have no love for Alma. The bitch banished my daughter. But I don’t think she would hurt yours any further. Salka’s punishment has already been excessive, and there is little worry she will willingly spend any more time with Dran.” Trina stood up and straightened her tunic. She then set her calm brown eyes on Miriat. “When you’re ready, you can tell me the real reason you’re worried.”
Miriat hung her head.
The pair walked in silence for a few more hours Their shadows lengthened and they would have to stop soon and make camp, in spite of their desire to put as many miles behind them as possible.
Suddenly, Trina stopped with her hand up, signaling for Miriat to stay quiet. “Hide,” the striga said, and they both scrambled to hide behind tall bushes. The snow weighed down the branches, providing excellent cover.
A falcon flew above them with a loud screech. Miriat’s face brightened and she jumped out from behind the bushes. “Munu!” She reached out her arms greedily and the bird swooped down, landing on her forearm. “Munu, you sweet-feathered miracle! Where is my baby, where is she?” She stroked him affectionately.
“I’m here, Mama!” a small voice came from behind Miriat.
“Salka!” Miriat turned around and ran towards her daughter as Munu rose to the sky, startled. Miriat leapt towards Salka, and they both fell down into the snow, wrapping their arms closely around each other. “My heart, my precious, look at you! Oh gods, just look at you, you’re skin and bone! Your beautiful face! Your cheekbones look like they’re about to burst through the skin! But oh, you’ve grown!” Miriat laughed through the tears, her hands cupping Salka’s face. Salka’s eyes welled up and she threw her arms around her mother’s neck. They both sat there crying for a while.
Trina stood quietly, watching them, at first with joy, then with horror, as the shadow behind Salka towered above mother and daughter, no longer merely a shape on the ground, but a live creature, tethered to Salka, but watching the scene independently.
“Miriat, if you get started on setting up camp, Salka and I will go to collect kindling,” Trina said through gritted teeth.
Miriat looked at her in surprise and was about to object, but Trina raised her hand. “There is something I need to talk to her about. It’s a striga matter.”
Miriat opened her mouth, but Salka smiled at her. “It’s all right, Mama, we will have plenty of time to talk later.” She gave Miriat a kiss on the cheek and followed the sullen Trina.
Once Miriat was out of the earshot, Trina rounded on Salka. “You’ve been a very stupid girl,” she said, gesturing at Salka’s shadow.
“What?” Salka looked up at Trina sharply, but was softened when she saw tears in the older woman’s eyes. So she just shrugged her shoulders and said, “I did what I had to. You’d do no different. Or you’d die. That was also an option.”
They gathered firewood in silence. When Trina pushed back the hair from her face, Salka noticed there was more gray than brown in it these days. She felt a surge of affection for her mother’s friend, who had suffered so much.
“Have you heard anything of Maladia?” Salka asked softly.
“No. I tried to look for them, even going as far as the village in the north-side slopes of the Grim Sister. No sign of them.” Trina looked up as she heard Miriat approach. Salka saw the broad smile on her mother’s face disappear when she noticed the dark shape looming behind her daughter.
Trina nodded. “That what you’ve been keeping from me? Did Dola tell you to? You realize that there is not a striga alive that could miss this? The village will burn her heart out of her chest if they see it.”
Salka gasped in horror and Miriat unconsciously moved to stand between her daughter and Trina.
“Please, you think I want to do it?” Trina threw her arms in the air, outraged. “You think it would not hurt me too? I love your daughter, as well you know. And I love you too, though you clearly have less trust in me than I thought.”
Miriat turned to her daughter with an ashen face. “What have you done?”
Salka looked to the ground. “I didn’t do anything.”
Miriat closed the space between them with a couple of long steps. “What have you done?!” She grabbed her daughter’s arms and brought her face close to her daughter’s.
Salka pushed her mother away. “What I had to! I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t steal anything! I did nothing wrong!”
“Nothing wrong? Have you seen that thing?” Miriat pointed her finger at Salka’s shadow, which shifted and moved between them. Trina clutched her chest with one hand and tried to pull Miriat away with the other. But Miriat shook off her friend as fury darkened her face. “And this… this thing! Look how it stands between us! A threat? Are you threatening me, child? Me?”
Salka looked stricken. Her shadow instantly melted into the ground and reappeared behind her once more. “I’m not threatening you. I was angry and it just shows my anger.”
“You are angry?” Miriat grabbed her daughter’s face between her hands again. “What of my anger? Of my fear for you? Good grace and omens, child, I’m disappointed. All I’ve taught you, all you’ve seen and been told, and you listened to none of it! Not one of my lessons made you pause before you did this to yourself?”
To that, at least, Salka had an answer. She didn’t flinch this time, but set her eyes calmly on her mother’s, their faces inches from each other. “None of your lessons were what made me survive out here. My other heart did. I did what I had to do. I lived.”
Miriat took a step back, breathing heavily. Her hand twitched by her side as if she would strike Salka. Instead, she covered her eyes as tears rolled down her cheek.
Trina stepped forward, her eyes never leaving the dark shape by Salka’s feet. “But what do we do? Miriat, do you have an answer? Sniping at her now won’t help. Gods know I’m not sure anything will. But if Dola had an answer… Whatever she asked in return, it’s worth it.”
“She asked for nothing,” Miriat said. She and Salka were eyeing each other, each seeming ready to pounce. “But she did give me this.” She took the small pouch out of her pack. “This… can make it go away. Dola said it would.”
“What is it?” Trina looked dubious. “No herb can calm a stigoi heart.” She made as if to take the pouch from Miriat’s hand, but Miriat held it tight to her chest.
“Dola said this will starve the other heart. Weaken it, slowly,” Miriat said. She looked guilty, seeing Trina’s hungry expression. “Dola said it’s rare. Painful too…”
Trina looked at the pouch as if it were made of gold. “Then we must use it.”
Salka looked down. “Must we?”
“Salka!” Trina looked appalled. “We all hear our other hearts, but what you’ve done… It changes you. It will make you into something you’re not, something monstrous.”
“I don’t feel like a monster.” Salka kept looking at her feet. She looked so much like a child in the moment, Miriat felt the urge to wrap her arms around her. She resisted it. “And you say it’s painful? What will it do to me exactly?”
“What does it matter?” Trina shrugged her shoulders. “If it made your hair fall out of your skull and the teeth rot in your mouth, it’d be worth it! You’re a hair’s breadth from becoming a stigoi, Salka! Is there no shame in you?”
“I would have died,” Salka said.
“And you might yet, if Alma sees that thing you carry around.” Trina turned towards Miriat. “My daughter and Markus are likely dead. You know that. I suppose that’s why Dola told you to hide this from me. Maybe she thought I’d resent her hoarding such treasure when it could have helped save my child. And maybe I do. But I love you both and if this can free Salka from this horror then she must take it.”
Miriat looked up and remained motionless for a while. “It will dampen your powers, Salka. Deaden your other heart while you take it, so the change in you can remain undetected.” She reached towards her daughter but Salka recoiled.
“And after I stop taking it? What will happen then?” Her daughter stood up straight, and with a pang of regret, Miriat truly understood the change in Salka. The months alone in the mountains had altered her daughter, and though there were still signs of the girl she used to be, there was no mistaking the strength of those long limbs and the determination of the dark eyes, which were now flashing angrily.
“Dola told me your heart will remain silent.”
“As it is supposed to be then!” Trina said with an impatient wave of the hand. “I don’t see the point of this conversation. She must take it, or the other heart will consume her. The strigas will not let one of their own turn into a monster. Markus was banished, but he was nowhere near as far down the road as your daughter has travelled. You haven’t seen a striga have her heart burnt out, Miriat. I have. It’s brutal. And unpredictable. Salka has a chance at a good life. A proper life.”
Miriat stood motionless for a moment. She shivered and pulled her cloak closer to her body. She looked at her daughter and recognized the defiance in her. “It is a choice, Trina. But it’s not mine or yours. It is Salka’s.”
&nb
sp; Trina scoffed but she turned to Salka with a curt nod. “Well then?”
Salka slumped down onto a fallen log and looked to her mother. Something important just happened here, and she felt a sense of both gratitude and overwhelming dread. She looked at the shadow next to her, its companionable silence both a comfort and an unspoken threat. She reached out her hand, and only as she saw the sudden drop of her mother’s shoulders did she realize Miriat had been holding her breath. “Give me the pouch. I’ll do it.”
Her mother put the small pouch in the palm of Salka’s hand and smiled at her. But Salka couldn’t return the smile.
“I’ll attend the fire,” Trina said, “and make some tea so you can take it.” She turned around and walked off.
Miriat sat next to her daughter and put her arm around her. “Are you sure this is what you want?” she asked.
Salka sensed it was not a true question but a hope. So she gave the answer her mother wanted. “Yes, it’s the right thing to do.”
They sat there for a moment. “What’s it like?” Miriat finally asked.
“What’s what like?” Salka said, though she knew what her mother meant.
“Being a striga. Having two hearts, all of it.” Her mother gestured towards Salka’s shadow, though Salka noticed she never quite looked at it directly.
“It feels like… Losing it would be like losing an arm,” she said. “Or ears. I don’t know.” She sighed. “I can ask you what it’s like having your eyes, but you won’t have an answer either. I was never without it. And it might feel and look different to you now, but it feels to me like it was always there. Just because you can see it now doesn’t mean it wasn’t with me before. I’m learning more about it, and as I learn, it changes. But my body’s changing too, and you don’t seem to mind that.”
The Second Bell Page 11