by K. Panikian
I stared at Grandpa Basil. The doorbell rang.
Chapter 2
The doorbell rang again. I started and got to my feet. Grandpa Basil waved his illusion away and gestured at Mom. “That’s them now.”
I heard the front door open and the unmistakable sounds of Aunt Sophia and Julian arguing. Julian’s muttered, “You know I have to…” echoed in the entry and then Uncle David’s deep voice cut through, “Get moving! It’s cold out here.”
I walked into the living room and saw a mass of people stripping off hats, gloves, and coats, and stomping snow off boots in the arctic entry. There was Aunt Sophia and my cousin Julian, Uncle Constantine, Uncle David, Theo, my great aunts Helen and Ariadne, and there, in the back wrestling with his scarf, was Uncle Alex. He looked up just then and met my eyes, his wrinkled face breaking into a smile.
“I’m here!” he called. Everyone stepped out of the way and he shuffled toward me with his arms open. He held me close and then kissed my forehead. “My Verena. Such a pretty girl. Why haven’t you called me lately?” His thin arms guided me to the couch and we sat closely together. “Zoe,” he called out to my mom. “Some cinnamon tea, please, for me and my great grandniece.”
I laughed. “I’ll get it, Uncle Alex,” I said and headed back to the kitchen. There, I helped Mom put together a pot of cinnamon tea while Dad got another pot of coffee going and Grandpa Basil sliced some black bread to put on a tray with butter and cheese. I heard voices raise and lower from the living room and then grow silent as the three of us carried everything into the room. Cups and plates were served and then all eyes turned expectantly to Uncle Alex.
Enjoying the attention, he made a show of patting his lips dry and putting down his tea. “I am 128 years old. I have lived through several lifetimes. I know that you,” he pointed in turn to me, Julian, and Theo, “have just learned some new information about one of those lifetimes.” The three of us nodded together like puppets on a string.
“We, as a family, did not keep this information from you with the intention that you would never know your history. The tradition has been to share the true story when a young person begins to think of settling down, finding a partner, and starting their own family. For obvious reasons, it’s important that our life partners understand fully what they are getting into with this clan: the magic and also the secrets.”
I shared another speaking glance with my father. When he married my mom, he must have loved her very much to accept such a story. I thought of some of my past boyfriends and knew that none of them would have stuck around if I showed them how I could levitate the remote while we ate popcorn on the couch.
“We are telling you early because a great danger has entered the world. Last night, which was morning in the Ural Mountains, a meteor exploded in an air burst over the Chelyabinsk region.
“I am the last surviving member of the original five. I am too old to travel to Russia. You,” and this time he pointed to me and to Theo, “must go. You must find the blast site and look for signs that someone, or something, has come through.” The emphasis he placed on “thing” had Grandpa Basil twitching his fingers to show the illusion of the bauk once more.
“You,” he said, this time spearing Julian with his fierce gaze, “will go to Paris.” Julian blinked. “We lost track of Aunt Irene for a time while she was traveling around western Europe, chasing down rumors of a creature with the hind legs of a horse, a human torso, and a dog’s head. When she died in 1960, the lawyers mailed us her journals from Paris, but some are missing. You must find her missing journals. She followed up on hundreds of reports of supernatural creatures all over the world before she passed. We need to know what she discovered.”
Uncle Alex stopped. The aunts and my parents looked grimly at Theo and me.
“You are young,” Aunt Helen said, “but you have been training all your lives. You have magic as well. We have full faith in you.” She turned to Julian, “Grandson, do not chafe at your assignment. It is gravely important and Uncle Alex has seen that it will not be long before you join your cousins.”
I sat back against the couch cushions and tried to organize my thoughts. First of all, I couldn’t go. I was in my final semester of my English master’s program. I was a TA; I had responsibilities. Second, the whole idea was ludicrous. I bet meteors blew up in remote places on a regular basis. Why this time did we have to drop everything and chase unknowns? Finally, I did not have faith that my magic would be any help at all on this sort of mission, quest, what to call it? I could barely do anything. Theo, at least could use his magic reliably. If anything, I would slow him down with my sparks and my levitating pencils.
“Why can’t Uncle Alex look at the blast site and check for monsters?” I asked.
“A great question, Verena. That is exactly what I have done the other times in this past century that we have heard of an air burst of some power. Unfortunately, this time, there is a haze over my Sight. It is this haze that has prompted my urgency. If something came through and is using illusion magic to mask its movements, we must know of it,” Uncle Alex stated quietly.
“But why is it our responsibility?” Theo asked, echoing the question that popped into my head next.
“Because we are the descendants of the dauntless Varangians,” said Aunt Sophia fiercely. “We are the only ones who can wield magic in this world. If something dark has come through the portal, human governments will try to capture it, to study it. If that happens, no one will be safe ever again. Some of the besy are very powerful and very compelling.”
Grandpa Basil’s hands danced in the air and this time a tall man appeared. No, not a man. The pupils of its eyes were slit like a goat and its hands had only three fingers each. It had tall horns on its head. We watched as it strode forward through a field of tall grass. A sword materialized in its right hand, glowing with red fire, and it swung the sword forward to strike down a modern soldier that appeared before him. The sword cut through the camouflaged fatigues lightning fast and the soldier collapsed. The demon kicked the soldier from the sword and raised the bloody blade high. Behind it a giant army roared.
I raised my hand and waved at the creatures hovering in the center of the room. “I hear what you’re saying and I see the necessity. But what about my degree? Theo’s school too? Julian’s job? We’re just supposed to walk away from our lives? How long are we talking about being gone?”
Uncle David nodded at me. “It’s a hardship, I know. I will do my best to smooth things over with your schools and your jobs. Please make me a list of your professors and close contacts and I will visit them all. It won’t be a long-term solution, but I think I can get you a few months. After that, they will remember. You will have to take your classes over again this fall, of course, but no one will miss you, I don’t think.”
Theo looked at his father with concern. I knew what he was thinking. Uncle David rarely used his magic. He would feel sick for weeks after using it this much. Delicately planting thoughts via telepathy required a very skilled practitioner. David learned the secrets from Agatha herself when he was a young man but that was a long time ago. If he had this level of talent, it was a surprise to me. It was a day for revelations. I look speculatively around the room to see if anyone else was going to admit to special magics.
Theo abruptly stood and walked to the entry. He grabbed his boots, coat, and hat and stepped outside, shutting the door sharply behind him. I stood as well and smiled at Uncle David. “I’ll go talk to him,” I said.
I snagged my coat, hat, and mittens, as well as a larger pair for Theo, and stepped into my bunny boots. I followed a set of tracks around the side of the house and saw Theo standing near the tree line. I walked over to him, handed him the mittens, and said, “Are you worried it’s too much for him?”
Theo was just three years younger than me and it still felt weird to have to look up to see into his eyes. They were blue, just like everyone’s on the magical side of the family, but while mine were a dark co
lor, almost navy, Theo’s were bright and generally sparkling with mischief. He had curly, dark hair and delicate, almost feminine, features with a pointy chin and sharp cheekbones. He was in a computer science master’s program in Seattle and, like Uncle Alex, had a very strong second sight.
We’d always been close friends. For instance, I knew that Uncle David had some health problems a few years ago with his heart that, after subtly questioning my parents, I knew he did not share with anyone else in the family. “How has he been feeling?”
Theo kicked the snow and pulled the mittens on over his long, thin fingers. “He’s been doing fine. He goes regularly for checkups and takes his medicine.” We started to walk along the edge of the yard. The snow squeaked. “I know that implanting suggestions is hard for him though, and I won’t be here to check on him. None of the others know about his condition. Since Mom died, I’m all he has. What if he pushes himself and he collapses again?”
I thought of Uncle David, tall and strong, his beard flecked with gray, and his sad eyes. “I think you have to trust him to know what he’s doing. The way he’s trusting you.”
Theo huffed out a laugh that sent the mist from his breath straight up into the air. “You’re right.”
I heard barking through the trees on our left and the neighbor’s malamute, Denali, raced toward us through the snow. His face was eager; his bark was happy. I whistled a cheery hello and he jumped around my feet, excited for pats. Theo’s face lost its pinched, worried look and he bent to pet the fluffy, sturdy body too.
Abruptly, Denali stopped romping and cocked his head. His ears and tail came to attention, his amber eyes focused, and a low growl snuck out. He stared at the edge of the yard where the fenced chicken coop sat. Theo and I turned to look as well and in the sudden quiet, I heard a snuffling sound from behind the coop. I knew what this was.
Quietly, I whispered to Theo, “Go into the house and grab the shotgun. It’s right inside the door. There’s a bear.”
Theo whispered back, “No way. I’m not leaving you out here. We’ll both go in.”
“I’m fine. It’s only interested in the chickens.”
Theo nodded and started slowly backing toward the house. He left my peripheral vision as I kept my eyes on the coop. A black paw poked at the fence from the bush closest to the tree line. A black bear. I could handle a black bear. A brown bear would have me following Theo into the house as carefully and quietly as I could. Brown bears in Alaska were very large and very dangerous. A black bear, however, would likely be scared off by a human, especially a noisy human. It was early for the bear to be out and about though. Break up was months away. Maybe something happened to its den and now it was awake, cranky, and hungry.
I whistled “stay” to Denali and started clapping my hands, trying to draw the bear’s attention away from the coop and scare it a little. The paw withdrew from the fence and a black nose on a long snout poked out of the bush. Dark brown eyes stared at me under small rounded ears. The bear rose on its hind legs to get a better look at me and stepped forward out of the bush. Hmm, just my luck, it was curious.
Denali didn’t like the forward movement and started barking again, very high pitched and aggressive. The bear shook its paws at us and let out a low growl. That was it. Denali launched himself from my side straight at the much bigger animal. Before I could whistle him off again, the bear leaned forward and cuffed the dog to the side, aborting his attack. Denali tumbled head over heels through the snow with a sharp snarl. I was suddenly afraid, not for myself, as I was still some distance from the bear, but for the dog. He got to his feet and I knew he was going to charge the bear again.
I put more force into my “stay” whistle and Denali looked from me to the bear. He whined but didn’t move. The bear, however, decided it was done having fun and with a grunt, dropped to all fours and charged the dog.
I didn’t know what to do. It would be incredibly foolish to get between the dog and the bear. I yelled as loud as I could, trying to distract the bear, and then desperately, I let out an earsplitting whistle. It was wild and shrill and so loud, I deafened myself for a moment. The bear froze in the middle of its charge, stared at me for a beat, and then spun around in the snow. It bolted for the tree line and in a moment, it was gone. I stared at the swaying undergrowth, nonplussed.
“Whoa,” I heard Theo say from the porch. I turned and he gave me a thumbs up, the shotgun over his shoulder. “Nice job. I wasn’t going to make it to you in time.” I gave him a wobbly grin and said, “It must have been playing all along, to be scared off by just a whistle.”
Theo gave me a strange look. “Just a whistle?” he asked and cupped his right ear. “I’ll be hearing that sound for the rest of my life.”
I chuckled and bent to pat the ecstatic-once-more Denali. “You better go home,” I told the dog and then whistled again, this time low and soft. He barked at me and then bounded across the yard and up the driveway.
I walked up to stand beside Theo on the porch. My legs felt a little wobbly and I staggered a few steps in the snow before I caught myself. “How long have you been able to do that?” Theo asked.
“Do what?”
“Whistle with magic.”
I started to snort but then stopped. Was that what I’d done? Did I use magic to scare the bear away? It didn’t feel like magic. Usually when I tried to access my magic, it took serious effort and a lot of concentration. My whistling, on the other hand, was just something I did for fun. It didn’t make sense that a whistle could be magic. I shook my head at Theo.
“Come inside,” he said. “And get the bag.”
Chapter 3
“In your Russian Lit class at school, have you read any folktales about the Nightingale?” Theo asked, sitting on my bed with the bag in his lap. We’d snuck past the family gathered around Dad’s laptop in the kitchen as they shopped for plane tickets and hotels.
I thought hard. “Maybe? Something to do with robbing people in the forest?”
Theo pulled a book out of the bag and handed it to me. “The Nightingale,” he said, “was a Russian monster that lived in the forest and robbed travelers by whistling at them. Its whistle was so powerful, it would knock people unconscious. In the stories, the good guy ends up cutting off its head, but not before the Nightingale causes some pretty serious destruction.”
I fingered the book cover and read the title: “Ilya and the Robber Nightingale and Other Russian Tales.”
“Do you remember that camping trip we took to Yosemite?” Theo asked. “I forget how old we were. Do you remember the man?”
Of course, I remembered the man. I remembered the trip pretty clearly too. I’d been 12 and so excited to go to California. We’d been camping all weekend and it was our last lunch before we got on the road to head to the coast. I was done being grubby and I wanted to hit the beach and see some sea lions. I’d been drinking Sprite all morning; I remember my hands were sticky from peanut butter and jelly and my hair smelled like campfire. All of a sudden, I needed to run to the bathroom. Theo followed me and we took off for the restroom at the end of our campground loop.
Right when we got there, a man stepped forward out of nowhere and grabbed my arm. He pulled me to his body and I smacked into his stomach. He stank overwhelmingly of bleach. His hand gripped me tightly and my bones creaked. I can’t remember his face, but in my memory, he had mean, angry eyes. He started to pull me toward a white truck that I abruptly noticed beside us and Theo yelled out. I had a moment of pure fear and then I whistled, peculiar and harsh.
The man staggered and let go of me, and then he crashed to the ground. Theo and I stared at him, and the blood trickling from his nose, and then we ran all the way back to the campsite, the bathroom forgotten. I was breathing so hard I thought I was going to be sick and Theo’s face was white as his t-shirt.
“We thought you’d killed him,” Theo said. “Remember? We decided not to tell the parents. Later, when we saw the ambulance pull up, we hid.” I nodded.
“I think about him sometimes,” I confessed. “I have a feeling that I did kill him, but it never made sense to me. I thought maybe I was remembering it wrong.”
“I didn’t remember it at all until recently. I had a dream about you and when I woke up, I remembered. Then I saw the book at my campus bookstore and I knew I needed to give it to you.”
“There’s also this,” he said and pulled out a long knife with a bird on the hilt. “This is from my family’s share of Aunt Irene’s weapon stash the lawyers mailed over after she died.” It had a 10-inch stainless-steel blade, a cast-metal handle, and a scabbard with a blackened finish. The handle and scabbard were decorated with a scale-like texture and intricate floral patterns in gold. On the hilt near the blade was a stylized nightingale and the same carving was on the flat pommel of the handle.
It was not a historic weapon, which would have been made from some other material, such as iron or bronze. Still, it was beautiful. And sharp.
“I don’t know where she found it or why she kept it. But after my dream and finding the book, I remembered seeing this in the basement and knew it was yours.”
“So, wait, what are you saying? You think I’m a monster like in this old Russian folktale?” I asked Theo. “And this is my robbing-people-knife?”
“No, of course not. You’re a human and you’re not a thief. But I do think you have powers similar to the Nightingale in the story. The portal that knocked our ancestors to the other world and the portal that exploded on our family were both located in Russia. There are a lot of pagan and Slavic monsters and gods in those old folktales. Maybe they carry some grains of truth.”
Theo was making sense. Still, I’d never heard anyone in the family mention magic that involved whistling. Really, the whole thing sounded a little too juvenile. Theo saw my uncertainty and said, “Okay, when you were whistling at that dog outside, it didn’t sound like a normal dog whistle. It sounded like you were talking to it. Your tone changed, the melody changed, and the dog definitely responded to you in a specific way. Did you notice any of that?”