The Republic of Birds

by Jessica Miller

  Father clears his throat. ‘The barometer is giving a reading of 1011. We can expect lighter cloud coverage, so travel should be possible as far as the eastern sector of the Borderlands.’ He, like Pritnip, points inside the strip of yellow. No one points to the orange part of the map.

  ‘Why aren’t you looking in the Republic?’ I burst out. ‘That’s where they’ve taken her!’

  ‘A foray into the Republic,’ says Father, ‘without the express permission of the Stone Palace would constitute an unauthorised invasion, and would frankly—’

  ‘But that’s where she is!’

  He puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘This is a delicate political situation, Olga. I don’t expect you to understand.’

  But I understand perfectly. ‘The birds have taken her beyond the Borderlands. They’ve taken her into the Republic,’ I say.

  Father sighs heavily. ‘I’ve had a communication from the Stone Palace, Olga. The Tsarina deeply regrets what has happened to Mira. But her orders are clear. We are not to enter the Republic. The search will continue tomorrow in the Borderlands, Pritnip,’ he says. Then he leaves the room. I hear his feet on the rungs of the ladder to the observation deck.

  The soldiers leave first, then the ladies, who wrap themselves in their shawls, ready to make their way back to the Beneficent Home. As Varvara passes me, she catches my wrist. ‘Here.’ She drops a small velvet pouch into my hand. It’s her memory bag. My arm drops under the weight of it.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It’s heavier than it looks.’

  ‘What should I do with it?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s a gift, of sorts,’ she says. ‘You might find it useful.’

  After the ladies and Pritnip leave, Anastasia goes to bed. The parlour is empty except for me and Father. He stands with his hands folded behind his back, looking out into the night.

  ‘I want to find her, too, Olga,’ he says. ‘Just as much as you do.’

  ‘Then look for her,’ I say. ‘Look for her properly! Go into the Republic and—’

  He whips around to face me and in the half-moon’s strange light I see deep black hollows under his eyes.

  ‘If it were that simple, Olga, don’t you think I would? I can’t risk sending Pritnip’s men into the Republic.’

  ‘You’ve risked sending them into the Blank!’ I say. ‘Why not the Republic?’

  ‘If I were to send Pritnip and his men into the Republic, I’d be ordering a military invasion of a hostile territory. I’d be putting more than their lives in danger. I’d be putting the entire Tsardom in danger.’ He sighs heavily. ‘I’ll find another way, Olga. We’ll bring Mira back.’ He puts a comforting hand on my shoulder.

  But I don’t want to be comforted and I shake him off. ‘You won’t bring her back if you don’t go looking for her,’ I say.

  ‘The search party—’ he starts.

  ‘The search party are looking here,’ I point to the Borderlands. ‘But they’ve taken her here!’ I forget, for a moment, that I am a yaga—that I need to conceal my strangeness. I place my hand on the orange-shaded patch of the map that shows the Republic, but instead of the map I feel frozen soil and I gasp, both from the cold and the shock of what I have done. Wind whips around me like cold water. When I look to see if a window has come open, I find I am not in the parlour at the Centre for Avian Observation anymore.

  An icy plain stretches out before me, dotted here and there with stunted trees. Wind tears across it—my clothes are thin protection against its bitterness. In the distance, the domes and turrets of a city are silhouetted against the sky. A pale sun glints off the golden tiles of the city roofs. And then, over the rush of the wind, another sound: the familiar beating of wings. The air is thick with birds.

  This is the Republic. This is where Mira is, I know it.

  I pull my hand away from the map, and the room falls into focus around me once more. Father is staring at me open-mouthed with a frightened, almost amazed look in his eyes.

  I realise what I have done at the same time as Father’s eyes narrow to blank, hard slits. He snatches the map away. ‘I never want to see such a display from you again, Olga. If you’re smart—and I believe that you are—you’ll understand how important that is.’

  He motions to the door, and I understand that I’m not wanted here anymore.

  I sit on the edge of my bed, shifting Varvara’s memory bag from one hand to the other. When the cloud drifts past, the moon shines on Mira’s bed. Her ballet shoes are tucked neatly under it. Her pillow still holds the dent of her head.

  Mira is gone and Father will not find her.

  I stand up and start to pace the room.

  Somehow, in my pacing, I have started to lace my boots. And I have decided.

  I’m going to the Republic.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Anastasia’s Snow-white Mink

  I GATHER EVERYTHING I think might be useful on a journey into the Republic. Two pairs of warm clean socks. Gloves and hat. And, because I can’t bear to leave it behind, Great Names in Tsarish Cartography. I want to take the map Father and Pritnip had on the observation deck, the one that shows the Borderlands in detail and precisely plots the edge of the Republic. But Father folded the map and placed it firmly under his arm. I look at the meagre collection of possessions laid out on my bed. I suppose this is it, then. Along with a few jars of pickled mushrooms I’ll pilfer from the kitchen, this is all I’m taking with me. Next, I need a bag. But the trunks we brought with us from Stolitsa are too large. I am considering improvising a rucksack out of an empty pillowcase when I remember Varvara’s memory bag.

  I weigh the memory bag in my hand. I am not sure this is exactly what Varvara had in mind when she gave it to me. I loosen its cord and peer inside. It does look surprisingly roomy. I start to fill it: socks, hat and gloves in first, then the book. But as I place the book in the bag, my hand slips into the chill pool of Varvara’s memories and I feel the ribbons of liquid flow around my fingers. The dark bedroom turns watery around me and I catch glimpses of bright twinkling light, coming from a chandelier. I hear the rustle of dresses and the hush of conversation.

  I am standing at the edge of a memory, but I don’t have time to wander through Varvara’s memories. I need to leave for the Republic. But then, through the murmuring voices, I catch a sentence that makes me stay.

  ‘Mark my words, the Tsarina will be dangerous with a firebird on her side. There’ll be nothing to stop her taking control of the skies. Our skies.’

  The voice is coming from overhead. I look up, and see two large dark birds, perched on a rafter.

  The second bird replies, ‘Which is why I put it to the Counsel that we must claim the egg for our own: the firebird is, after all, a bird. It belongs to us—it’s one of us!’

  The first bird dips its head in agreement. ‘Come,’ it says. ‘It’s nearly time.’

  Time for what? I wonder as the birds swoop, one after the other, down the corridor, where a crowd of people and birds mills outside a closed door.

  ‘I’ve heard it’s the size of a man’s head,’ says a woman close to me. The man beside her nods. ‘And as dark as a black diamond! Not long until we see for ourselves.’

  They’re waiting to see the egg. The egg that started the War in the Skies.

  The doorknob clicks and turns. And I am drawn in with the tightening crowd, and as the door opens we all pile into a small chamber with brocade-patterned walls.

  I can’t see the egg at first. It must be behind the row of human guards, standing with their rifles shouldered, and bird guards, sharp-beaked and beady-eyed. I squeeze my way forward, past ladies in gowns and men in grand suits, and finally I see it.

  It’s no bigger than my own clenched fist and its shell is a dusty charcoal grey colour. Even sitting on a gold satin cushion and surrounded by dozens of guards, it is underwhelming.

  ‘It’s smaller than I thought,’ grumbles a man with a long beard. ‘Can it really be the firebird’s egg?’

 
; ‘The Tsarina is certainly hoping it is!’ says the man beside him. ‘The question now is—’

  But the crowd closes in and I am pushed back away from the egg and I don’t hear anything more. Back in the corridor, I spot the rippled edge of the memory and I start to walk towards it when I notice three women, half-hidden behind a curtain. They are strangely familiar. One is young, with hair as shiny and red as an apple. The next is as old and wrecked-looking as an ancient crumbling monument. The last has hair as pale and crackling as a lightning fork and she smells powerfully of rain.

  ‘If you ask me,’ says the young, beautiful one, ‘it’s a lot of fuss over nothing. Let them squabble over it. We yagas have nothing to worry about.’

  Yagas! My breath catches, but I draw closer.

  The crumbling old yaga frowns. ‘You may be seven hundred years younger than me, Anzhelika,’ she says, ‘but that doesn’t excuse your silliness. It’s what’s inside the egg that should have you worried. If you ask me—’ she begins, and she tries to prod the younger yaga in the chest, but her finger falls off her hand.

  My stomach curls, but the yagas don’t seem concerned. ‘It’s there on the carpet, Devora,’ says Anzhelika, pointing to the dropped finger.

  Devora mutters to herself, and I watch in proper, skin-crawling horror as tiny spiders crawl in their dozens—in their hundreds!—out of the folds of her skirt and across the carpet. They lift the finger up and carry it to Devora’s outstretched hand, stitching it back in place with sticky cobweb. The old yaga flexes her hand until she is satisfied it’s attached.

  ‘Devora’s right,’ says the rain-smelling yaga. ‘You’re too young to remember the firebirds—they can be dangerous in the wrong hands.’

  ‘Oh, Basha, you’re overreacting.’ Anzhelika tosses her hair. ‘Firebird eggs take centuries to hatch.’

  ‘They take centuries to hatch,’ says Devora, ‘unless—’

  ‘Hush!’ snaps Basha. ‘Watch your words, Devora!’

  ‘I don’t see why I should hush,’ mutters Devora. ‘No one knows about the tail feather. And besides, none of us has a firebird’s tail feather to hand.’

  Basha glares at her. ‘I think it’s time we leave.’ She sweeps away and the other two follow.

  I watch them go. Could they be the Imperial Coven—the yagas who stole the firebird’s egg?

  I turn back to the place where Varvara’s memory is wobbly and rippled. And I step through and into my bedroom once more.

  I move quietly, careful not to wake anyone. But when I come into the kitchen for some jars of mushrooms, I find Anastasia is already up. She stands over the table, holding a pair of silver scissors. Their blades catch the lamplight. I cast around for some excuse to explain my appearance in the doorway fully dressed so late at night, but my mouth has other ideas. The words fall out before I can stop them.

  ‘I’m going into the Republic of Birds,’ I say. ‘I’m not coming back without Mira.’

  My plan, put into words, seems suddenly impossible.

  ‘I know,’ says Anastasia simply. ‘And it’s very cold out there.’

  The scissor blades swish open. Anastasia shears a strip from—

  ‘Your mink!’ I gasp and gather up the snowy white fur from the table.

  ‘Well,’ she says, as she cuts another strip away. ‘It wouldn’t fit you as it was. You’re hardly as slim as I am. But’—she straightens up—‘this piece will make a good warm collar for you. This one can line your boots, and this your gloves. And there is enough left over for a hat.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ I ask. ‘How did you know I would leave?’

  Anastasia closes the scissors and puts them down on the table. ‘Before I was the most famous and best-loved actress Tsaretsvo has ever known—’ She stops.

  ‘Yes?’ I prompt.

  ‘Olga, can you keep a secret?’

  I nod.

  ‘Well, don’t just nod!’ she says. ‘Promise me you’ll keep this secret.’

  ‘I promise,’ I say.

  Anastasia inhales sharply. ‘This could ruin my reputation if it ever came out, you know. The truth is…the truth is, I wasn’t raised by a herd of wild tarpan.’

  I cover my mouth with my hand to hide my reaction.

  ‘I know this is shocking for you to hear, Olga,’ she continues. ‘But I’d never even seen a tarpan until Krupnik had me ride one. It was all just a story. A pretty story made up by Studio Kino-Otleechno to make me seem more exotic. The truth is that Anastasia Krasnoyarska, daughter of the Wild Horses, sounds infinitely more appealing than Olenka Kravchuk, daughter of the drunkest fisherman in Molodizhne. No one would buy tickets to see Olenka. Here. Give me your coat.’

  I hand it over.

  Anastasia holds a needle up to the lamplight and expertly threads it. She sews the fur into the lining of my collar. ‘Olenka. That’s me,’ she continues. ‘I was born Olenka Kravchuk, in Molodizhne. Do you know Molodizhne?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The only reason anyone might—unless they had the bad luck to be born there—is if they stopped on the way to take the waters in Odets. As Boris Lavrov did, the week before my fifteenth birthday. I lived, then, in a one-room wooden house. The sea rose over the floorboards when the moon was full and the tide was high. I went out fishing every day. My hands were thick with fish guts when Boris Lavrov spotted me by the side of the pier. When he leaned down from his carriage to speak to me, I shoved them into my pocket, so he couldn’t see them.

  ‘The studio scrubbed the fish scales off me and taught me how to show my teeth when I smiled, how to walk in a gown without tripping over the damn thing and’—she snaps her fingers—‘I was a star.’

  ‘Well,’ I say at last, ‘there are no wild horses, but it’s still quite a story.’

  ‘Not a happy story, though,’ she says. ‘Not entirely. Of course, I was glad to leave Molodizhne. But I had a little sister. Galina. I loved her. I still love her. And I left her behind, too. Like she was nothing. I don’t know where she is now. But I know there’s no gown so beautiful, no film role so glamorous that it could ever make me happier than I would be to see Galina again.’

  She hands the coat back. I slip my arms into it and pull the collar around my neck. It is so soft and warm.

  ‘I was selfish then. And, well, you certainly try my nerves from time to time, Olga, but if there’s one thing you’re not, it’s selfish. You’re a better sister than I ever was.’

  ‘So, you won’t stop me going into the Republic of Birds,’ I say.

  Anastasia’s eyebrows shoot up so far, they almost disappear into her hairline. ‘It’s certain to be incredibly dangerous—all kinds of terrible things could happen to you! Just the thought of you going there is unspeakably awful—as awful as the thought that Mira might never come back.’ She finishes her sentence on a hiccoughing sob.

  ‘Then why?’ I say.

  She puts down the mink and looks into my eyes. ‘Could anything be more terrible than staying here while your sister is out there?’

  No, I think to myself. Staying here is unbearable. Impossible.

  Through the window, the sky is still dark, but its blackness is fraying. If I don’t leave now, it will be dawn and Father and Pritnip will stop me from going.

  ‘It won’t be dark much longer,’ I say, and Anastasia nods.

  ‘Come back soon,’ she says, handing me two jars of pickled mushrooms and a hurricane lamp. ‘For my sake. You’re both very dear to me, you and Mira. And for your Father’s sake, too. He loves you both, you know.’

  I nod. I do know, though I don’t always show it.

  I button my coat and gather my bag. I say goodbye to Anastasia at the top of the ladder, and she wipes a tear from her eye. I don’t know if she is crying for me, or for Mira, or for Galina. Perhaps she is crying for all three of us.

  I climb down the ladder and go out into the dark.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Feather Smugglers

  I START DOWN THE mountain
. The slope is slippery shale, made slipperier still by the scrim of ice coating it. I pick my way down in the wobbly pool of light my hurricane lamp casts.

  A rock gives way beneath my feet and I break my fall with an outstretched hand. I can feel that I am bleeding but I suck in my cheeks and keep going. In a way, I’m glad my path is so difficult. I can’t think about anything other than where I place my feet.

  I am halfway down the mountain when I notice the first glimmer of light. Can it be morning already? I’m exposed here on the bare side of the mountain. Even worse, the sky is clear and the wind is calm. Conditions are perfect for ballooning.

  I don’t have a lot of time before Pritnip and his search party take to the sky.

  The slope is threaded with thin veins of ice. I’ve spent most of my journey avoiding them, but now I seek one out and skid down it on my back, gathering speed as I go. When I reach the treeline, I connect feet-first with the trunk of a tree and come to a crashing stop. I can already feel bruises forming but there’s no time to stop. The slope is only thinly dotted with trees. I scramble down to where they grow closer together. When I am sure I’m well concealed, I look up to a patch of sky between the bristling fir branches.

  I wait for what feels like a long time.

  At last a balloon floats into view, then another, and another: there’s a small fleet of them, almost motionless in the air.

  They drift eastward, one after the other. I keep walking, staying safely out of their sight. Soon enough Father will discover that I am missing. Anastasia may be a talented actress but she won’t be able to cover for me for long. I scramble downhill, deeper and deeper into the shadows of the forest.

  Spring comes late in the north. In Stolitsa, the ice over the Neva will have already broken into shrinking islands. The trees will be covered in buds and the beginnings of pale leaves. Here, the trees are bare, all except the firs, with their thick cover of needles.

  I keep one eye on the sun as I walk, using the direction of its shadow to steer my way north. This is a trick I learned from Great Names in Tsarish Cartography. Golovnin used it when he traversed the Golden Plain.