by E. P. Clark
No! I have not had my vengeance yet.
“But you will, Vika. Your story will be set down and told, just like everyone else’s.”
It is not enough!
“What else would you ask for, Vika?”
Justice!
“What justice? Your lover is already long dead. The time for justice is past. The best we can offer you is truth.”
It isn’t enough! It’s…I don’t…I don’t want to…I am afraid. Even in Dasha’s head, the words sounded small and scared.
“Of course you are. But you saw how it was for the others. There was no pain, no fear, only peace. And a part of them remains with me. You will not be gone without a trace. You will be…what you were always meant to be.”
Dead? I was always meant to be dead?!
“We are all always meant to be dead. But I meant that you would be complete. At peace. Your story finished and told, and now ready to be retold and remembered.”
I…I…I… A faint wisp of mist, formless, barely more than a breath, appeared in front of Dasha. Tears dripped from it onto the ground. I’m not ready! There are still so many things that I wanted to do! That I will never do!
“Like what, Vika?”
I always wanted to see the sea. My mother would tell me stories of it when I was a little girl, and I always meant to journey to it one day, and wade in its waves. And now I never will!
“You will,” said Dasha. She held out her arms. “Come back to me, Vika. I will take you to the sea. We will go there together, and then, there, you can lay down your burden, and take up your rest.”
Do you really mean it, Tsarinovna?
“I do,” said Dasha firmly. “I will take you to the sea, Vika, and we will dive into it together.”
In that case… The wisp of mist disappeared. Dasha felt a queer cold feeling as it settled over her heart, and then that was gone too.
“Tsarinovna…” began Vlastomila Serafimiyevna. “Are you sure that is wise? She could draw you under the waves, and drown you.”
“I will have to have faith,” Dasha told her.
“There is a difference between faith and foolishness, Tsarinovna.”
“Yes,” agreed Dasha. “There is. But I could not have banished her against her will anyway. She would have fled me, only to haunt this sanctuary, or to come after me and haunt me. This way I have some defense against her.”
“If you say so, Tsarinovna,” said Vlastomila Serafimiyevna. She looked up at the bright moon, which was now ringed in the hazy promise of rain. “May they be at peace. Come. We should go inside.”
They turned to leave the garden. A chilling howl rose up behind them.
“Wolves?” said Dasha. “What objection do they have to our actions?”
“Perhaps you should ask them, Tsarinovna,” said Vlastomila Serafimiyevna. “They take objection to almost every action we take, these days. Come. Sister Yeseniya, please check the gates and the stables. I will escort the Tsarinovna inside.”
Dasha wanted to say that surely she was in no danger, and that the wolves were probably just howling at the moon, or preparing to hunt, and had nothing to do with them, but another howl rose, so close it sounded as if it were coming from just on the other side of the sanctuary fence. She jumped despite herself, the hair rising on the back of her neck, and hurried to follow Vlastomila Serafimiyevna. The bright shadows of the moonlight no longer seemed peaceful and welcoming, as they had when they had sent the water-maidens on to their rest. Now the light shone down harshly, threatening to illuminate anyone trying to hide, and the shadows were so long and dark that they could have been hiding anything. Another howl chased Dasha inside the main building, following her even after she slammed and barred the door behind her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Dasha’s sleep that night was punctuated by frequent howls. Judging by their dark eyes the next morning, so was that of all the sisters. Sister Bozheslava reported at breakfast that she had found wolf tracks all around the outside of the compound, as if they had been pacing around the fence all night.
“I should go to my father,” Dasha said.
“Is it wise to leave the sanctuary, Tsarinovna?” said Vlastomila Serafimiyevna. “Perhaps you would be better served by staying here another day, and continuing your training.”
“I can take an escort, if it would make you feel better,” said Dasha. “My training is important, yes, but I can only stay here another day or two in any case. There is only so much training I will be able to do.”
“You would be welcome to stay for longer, Tsarinovna. As long as you wished. And we would be honored to train you.”
“I thank you. But I think I am meant to return to my companions, and carry on to Pristanograd with them. Perhaps I will return here in time. But at the moment, I would speak to my father about the wolves.”
“It’s no more than we deserve,” said one of the sisters gloomily. “After what we did. They won’t be happy till they take our blood in turn.”
“I am hoping to prevent that,” said Dasha.
Vlastomila Serafimiyevna was still not pleased at the thought of Dasha leaving the safety of the compound, but once Dasha agreed to travel on horseback, and to take Sister Yeseniya, Sister Bozheslava, and Sister Bronislava with her, she ended her opposition to the plan. So it was in short order that they were all mounted, Dasha on Poloska, Sister Bozheslava and Sister Bronislava riding double on Pyatnyshki, and Sister Yeseniya on an elderly blue roan gelding she introduced as Sizenky, and leaving the compound by the main road.
Dasha sincerely hoped that they would encounter no wolves with predatory intent on their way to the cabin where the men were housed, since if they did, she was the only one who had any hope of evading them. Pyatnyshki was even slower than usual, weighted down as she was with her double burden, and Sizenky was if anything even older and slower than Pyatnyshki. They might have been faster and safer on foot. But Dasha said none of that, instead telling everyone of Pyatnyshki’s many excellent qualities, which were mostly centered on her placidity.
“She’ll have a good life with us, never you fear, Tsarinovna,” Sister Yeseniya told her. She reached over from her own mount and gave Pyatnyshki a pat on the neck. “A trip to the cabin is all we ask of our horses most weeks. Sometimes we hitch them up and take them into Lesnograd, but Lomovaya, our best sleigh horse, is still sound, and, the gods willing, will be for many summers yet. Pyatnyshki and Sizenky can just take it easy with us, as long as they wish.”
“I’m glad,” said Dasha. “I’ll be sorry to lose her, but a journey to Pristanograd—what was that?”
They all stopped dead in the middle of the road. Something large had flashed on the edge of Dasha’s vision, and then disappeared.
“If it was a wolf,” said Sister Yeseniya eventually, “the horses would have all spooked. Come on. The cabin is just around that bend.”
They started around the bend in the road. The horses, while not bolting, were walking slowly, their heads up and their ears pricked. Something flashed again, making Poloska twitch and dance sideways.
“It’s a…” Dasha broke out laughing. “There’s nothing to fear! It’s a deer. With—look! A fawn.”
The flashing she had seen resolved itself into a half-grown fawn, who had been gamboling back and forth along the edge of the road. She stepped out, completely unafraid, followed by her mother, who gave Dasha and her companions a single calm look, before following her daughter across the road and into the woods on the other side.
“All the wolves must be far away,” said Dasha. “Otherwise they never would have shown themselves.”
“I’ve never seen a deer so calm,” said Sister Yeseniya. “Not even here, in the prayer wood. Especially not since…Oh, there’s the cabin.”
“There’s a prayer tree next to it,” said Dasha.
“Of course, Tsarinovna. How else could our visitors leave tokens of their prayers? Look at all those ribbons!”
“I am,” said Dasha. She rubbed at her forehead. T
he prickling, which had not troubled her since she had released the water-maidens the night before, had begun again as soon as she had come into sight of the prayer tree. She hoped she wouldn’t have a fit in front of all the sisters. The prickling, which was spreading inexorably down the back of her neck, was telling her not to get her hopes too high. She shivered.
“Chilly, Tsarinovna?” asked Sister Yeseniya.
“What? Oh…yes. It’s still hardly like summer here. I swear I saw frost on the ground this morning when I got up!”
“Like as not you did, Tsarinovna,” said Sister Yeseniya. “We get frost on the ground one morning out of three till Midsummer, and even sometimes after Midsummer, too. There’s not a month that goes by when we don’t have frost. This is the taiga, after all, not your warm black earth district.”
Since even in Krasnograd they had snow on the ground six months out of the year, Dasha had never thought of the black earth district as “warm” before, but compared with Severnolesnoye, it certainly was. She rubbed the wool robe covering her arms, and wished it were thicker.
“Tsarinovna!” Alik came around from the tiny stable behind the cabin. “You’re here! Have you decided to come back to us?” He grinned. He was, Dasha thought, so ridiculously handsome that now, after two days away from him, it hurt to look at him. Pity…not that it mattered. She was still much too young for forming such alliances. Other girls did at her age, she knew, but she also knew she herself was still much too young. She wouldn’t be ready for…a while. So she could admire him safely from afar.
“Is my father here?” she asked.
“‘Course he is, Tsarinovna; where else would he be? He has all of us in the back, cleaning and mending and greasing everything. I’ll go fetch him.” Alik turned and trotted off back in the direction of the tiny stable.
“And that,” said Sister Yeseniya in a low voice, “is why we don’t allow men in our sanctuary. Imagine the fights that would break out if he were fall into our laps!”
Sister Bozheslava and Sister Bronislava both covered their mouths to stifle their laughter at the thought. “He reminds me of my lover,” said Sister Bronislava. “He had that Eastern blood marked strong on him too. So handsome he was!” She sounded wistful.
“Why didn’t you marry him?” Dasha asked. “I didn’t mean to pry,” she added quickly. “I just…”
“Wanted to know, Tsarinovna, and who wouldn’t? He broke his neck in a riding accident, the fool. Always galloping about, always challenging everyone to race him…and he always won, until one day he lost. It wasn’t anybody’s fault but his own, but I…after that I near wasted away from the sorrow, and I could never bring myself to look at another man, even though there were plenty who were worth more than him, I see that now. But I never wanted any of ‘em, even though they deserved me more than he ever had. But they deserved a woman who loved ‘em even more. So I came here instead. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Tsarinovna. Everyone thinks my story’s a sad one, and there’s sorrow in it, sure, but had he lived—had he lived, we’d’ve fought day and night, till all our love was burnt away and both of us were nothing but anger and bitterness. This way I still have my love to remember, and I am here, with my sisters, where I am meant to be.”
“I don’t know if I could be that brave about something like that,” said Dasha.
“It’s not bravery, Tsarinovna. It’s just…life gives us all things we’d rather not take, but take ‘em we must, anyhow. I’ve had a lot of time to sit in prayer and think on it, and there’s not one of us who hasn’t had something similar. All of us are here ‘cause we’ve lost husbands, lovers, children—all those people we said we couldn’t live without, and then we had to live without ‘em. Or we couldn’t find anyplace out in the world that would take us, that made us feel like home, ‘cause we were born already missing those people we couldn’t live without. All of us are like that, Tsarinovna; we just know it, while those outside in the world don’t. I’m better off where I am, and so are the rest of us. But that doesn’t mean that when I see a pretty face like that, one that brings up those old bittersweet memories, I can’t smile and sigh a little bit, and think about what might have been.”
“Might have been what?” asked Oleg, coming around from the back of the cabin with brisk strides.
“Your wife, in another life, Oleg Svetoslavovich,” said Sister Bronislava, shaking a finger at him. “Cursed to keep you in line.”
Oleg laughed. “The gods forbid!”
“And they did, Oleg Svetoslavovich, they did! We’ve brought you your daughter. She wants to speak with you. You’d best take her into the cabin and feed her, providing you’ve got something fit to give a growing girl, and the rest of us will graze the horses and keep a lookout.”
“A lookout for what?” asked Oleg.
“Wolves. Seen any?”
“Not today, no.”
“And last night?”
“We could hear them,” Oleg told them. “But we shut the stable and the cabin up tight, and didn’t poke our noses out till they were gone. Not that I’m normally afraid of wolves, but they had an uncanny sound last night.”
“That they did, Oleg Svetoslavovich. Well, we’ll leave you with your daughter. Whistle for us when you’re ready.” Sister Bronislava held out her hand for Poloska’s reins, which Dasha handed over to her before following Oleg into the cabin.
It was a tiny thing, even smaller than the stable, and all one room. The stove filled up what seemed like half the space, and was radiating heat, filling the cabin with a stifling warmth despite the coolness of the air outside. “It must be cramped in here for you,” Dasha said.
“My own home is smaller, you know.”
“How could a home be smaller?” Dasha asked, looking around. “There’s barely room for the chairs and table!”
“I have a smaller table, and only one chair,” he told her. “And my bed only sleeps one.”
“That sounds lonely.”
He shrugged. “When I’m there, I’m rarely alone, even if I have no human company. But much of the time, I’m not there. Tea?”
“Yes, please.” Dasha looked around again, and then cautiously sat down on a splintery chair. She was facing the bed. She had a sudden wild impulse to ask if this was the very bed she had been conceived in. Most likely it was. It certainly looked older than she was. Of course, they said you didn’t need a bed if you didn’t want one…Dasha wrenched her mind away from these thoughts before they embarrassed her so much she fell into a fit even sooner than she would otherwise.
“About the wolves,” she said.
“Yes?” Oleg said, filling the rusty kettle with water and placing it on the stove. “That’ll heat quick enough,” he said, turning and sitting down to face her across the small, splintery table. The chair creaked noticeably under his weight.
“Aren’t you afraid the chair will break?” Dasha asked.
“It never has yet.” He grinned at her. “I’ve been coming to this sanctuary since long before you were born, Dashenka, and it’s been protesting my presence the whole time, but it’s never actually broken beneath me. If it does, I’ll fix it.”
“Oh. About the wolves…”
“Gray Wolf was pleased with you,” Oleg interrupted her. “More than pleased. He told me he’d take you as his own daughter, if he could. And maybe he will someday, or so he said.” He grinned again. “Whenever you’re ready to run off and live with us in the woods, we’ll be waiting for you.”
“That’s very kind,” said Dasha. “But it’s the other wolves I’ve come to talk to you about, the normal ones. Only they’re not normal. They’ve been stalking—maybe ‘haunting’ is the better word—the sanctuary.”
“Oh?” Oleg frowned. “And what’d they do to bring that on?”
“They killed a wolf.”
Oleg frowned even more, his whole face creasing up so that for a moment he looked almost his true age. “Why’d they do that?” he asked. “They should know better. If anyone should k
now better, it’d be them.”
“They were having problems with deer coming into their garden.”
“Into their garden? Those must be some deer, to jump over that fence.”
“They used to leave the gates open.”
“So they did. Even so. It’s a bold deer who’ll come right through a gate and walk past an occupied building, especially one with that many people, and put himself in a place where he might be trapped like that.”
“That’s what was happening. Or so they say. And then wolves started coming in after them.”
Oleg frowned even harder. “Even stranger for a wolf than for a deer,” he said.
“I know. And then they killed them both—a wolf and a deer. And the wolves have been bothering them ever since.”
“That’s—” Oleg broke off to jump up and take the boiling kettle off the stove. He put a large pinch of tea into the pot, and poured the boiling water over it. “It’ll be weak,” he told her. “We don’t have much tea here. I should bring some more, the next time I come through.”
“Do you bring them provisions often?” Dasha asked. “They told me they have few visitors bringing them things now, and the sanctuary looks shabby, to be honest.”
“Does it? That’s not surprising. I know they’ve had fewer new sisters and fewer visitors of late. Everyone’s mad for the Sisterhood of Wolf, running through the moonlight barefoot and bloody, living in the moment and finding eternity through the lust of the hunt—and other things, too, or even the castrates, promising you immortality for a lifetime of infertility. Everyone’s mad for them now.”
“Maybe I should go to them,” Dasha said. “The Sisterhood of the Wolf, that is. Maybe they will know what to do.”
“Unlikely.” Oleg brought the pot over to the table, and then two cups. They had once been painted a rich red and gold and black, but now they were just two chipped wooden cups. “There’s no sugar or honey or jam,” he warned her, pouring tea into each cup.
“That’s fine. Why shouldn’t I go to the Sisterhood of the Wolf? Or why shouldn’t the sisters here ask them for help? It seems they would be able to help better than anyone.”