by Alma Boykin
“Alex, if you die and leave me with the dirty diapers, I’m going to kill you,” a woman’s voice whispered, and he felt hot rain on his face. She’d have to get in line, Alexi thought. Then the world swirled to black and silence.
“Da?” He inhaled and exhaled, smelling green things and good soil. “Da, wake up, please.” Who called him Da? No one called him Da. Alexi opened one eye and saw stars. And he saw moonlight, which he took as a good sign. The other eye saw the same thing, and he blinked. A hint of woodsmoke tickled his nose. He sneezed.
It hurt. He cursed silently in Russian, Latvian, German, English, and added a few of those Pashto words his terp refused to translate. A deep breath hurt but not as much, and Alexi swallowed, mouth dry. “I’m awake,” he croaked.
“Thank God.” He could feel his arms and legs, and they moved at his command, although with a great deal of reluctance. “I think you have a few broken ribs, or at least cracked ribs, Alex, but everything else is just really badly bruised. You need to sit up.”
He needed to do something else too, but sitting up would be a good start. He counted to three and rolled forward. Then he closed his eyes and waited for the stars to stop spinning. “Ow.”
Something soft and white marched into his lap, plopped down, and vibrated. “Hey, cat, that’s my job,” Catherine Mary protested.
“Are you alright?” Alexi asked.
He felt her hand on his forehead, then she presented him with a small plastic cup of water. “Yes, and the children are fine. Peter doesn’t remember anything of the past three years.”
That might be a blessing, Alexi thought. “Where are we?”
“In a state park about two hours from Golden. Babushka will be here as soon as it’s light. She said she didn’t want to drive at night and if you are in one piece, she’s not worried.” Catherine sounded as if she hovered on the edge of hysterics. Well, she’d earned them.
“More water please?” It arrived and he felt someone trying to lean against his side. He looked over and his son looked up at him, eyes wide in the darkness. The boy pushed closer and fell asleep. Catherine lifted Peter away and helped Alexi stand so he could go take care of his other problem. They returned to the campfire. Alexi lay down, head on what looked like a saddle. Peter snuggled up against his father’s arm and fell asleep again. Catherine Mary fed Katie and lay down on Alexi’s other side, her head on his shoulder, baby in her arms. “It’s over,” he whispered into her hair.
She cried in silence.
Two days later Alexi leaned back in the chair on Babushka’s back porch and watched his son and grandmother working in her garden. Katie and Catherine napped in a hammock he’d rigged in the shade of the corner of the house and porch. Two cats dozed in a Ying-Yang pattern under the hammock. Alexi finished checking his messages and thumbed the phone off, leaned his head back and studied the white cloud towers massing behind the Front Range, the blessedly mundane afternoon storms of late summer. Officially, First Sergeant Alexander N. Zolnerovich had just left Ft. Bliss, Texas, at the start of three weeks’ leave before reporting to Ft. Carson. All paperwork and forms had their proper signatures, including his, and he wondered idly if there’d been a contest to see which forger in the platoon did the best job. He didn’t care too much. He was alive, his family was safe, and Baba Yaga was history, or at least was so terribly weakened that she could not threaten them any longer.
Alexi turned his attention toward the garden and wondered if he should get up and go act helpful. Babushka said something to Peter and the boy replied in Russian. Yeah, Alexi sighed, that would be priority number one: teaching his son English. He was grateful that Peter had emerged from his captivity intact and awake, doing what Babushka and the Internet assured him were four-year-old things. But he did them all in Russian, much to Catherine Mary’s frustration. And Babushka probably wasn’t the best person to be teaching Peter English. Alexi heard a yawn and the sound of claws against a collar bell. A grumpy Ivan glared at him from the shade, the black cat obviously displeased with his new collar.
“Sorry, dude, but my wife almost dropped Katie when she tripped over you. The bell stays until we leave. Its only two more days, promise.”
“Mrawp.” Ivan stretched and sauntered over to the porch steps, leaving Belle curled up in the shade.
Actually, as Alexi considered matters, having Ivan teach Peter English would be worse than having Babushka do it. Because Catherine Mary would then bring Peter home from pre-school and let Alexi know in no uncertain terms about her embarrassment at having to tell the administrators that her son spoke only Russian and house cat. Alexi could well imagine it. “Do you know what your son said? And then he tried to scratch his ear with his foot.” No, Alexi had better teach Peter English.
Alexi worked his bulk to the edge of the chair, then braced and stood. His ribs, hips, knees, shoulders, hell, it was easier to list what didn’t hurt. He looked as if he’d been dropped into a mixer full of blue and black and purple paint. By some miracle, his bones had remained intact. Vasili wondered if the little bit of the water of life that Alexi had drunk had protected him, but even the Little Humpbacked Horse had no further ideas. Alexi shrugged, stretched, put his phone away in a pocket and walked down the steps.
Babushka saw him. “Good. Hold poles. I tie,” she ordered in Russian.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered in English. She glared at him, then softened when he pointed toward Peter. “Peter, help me, please.” The boy gave his father a confused look, then scrambled over and grabbed the bundle of bean poles with more enthusiasm than strength. Together the guys held the sticks steady as Babushka tied the sprawl of bean vines into a bit more orderly collection.
That evening after supper the adults relaxed in the living room, adult beverages in hand, as the children slept. Catherine Mary leaned against Alexi, her eyes closed, beer held in a loose grip. He considered trying to rescue it, but remembered the last time he’d done something like that—he’d almost lost his hand. Instead he finished his own stout and set the bottle on the coaster with a dull clink. She blinked and rustled a little.
“So,” Babushka announced, in English. “What happen, Ekaterina Maria? From time depart with Vasili from Little House on Chicken Feet,” the old woman clarified.
Alexi’s wife took a deep breath. “Right. Vasili took off running, literally, headed west-ish. We’d gotten pretty far before he announced that the Sweeper was following us. I looked and could just barely see her. After a few minutes I looked again and she’d gained on us. Vasili was running as hard as he could, but the Sweeper was mad. I’m surprised she didn’t break the sound barrier. Maybe she did.
“Remember that I said that Gatta had insisted that I grab some things from the house besides the children?” Alexi nodded and Catherine Mary continued, “She started patting my leg from inside the basket-pannier and meowing. Then a corner of the towel appeared, like she was feeding it out from under the diaper bag.”
“Wait, love, you put Belle under the bag?”
She nodded. “Bag, baby, cat, my bag, lid. It worked, didn’t it?”
“Of course,” he said, fending off her angry look. “It worked beautifully. So she was trying to get your attention?”
“Yes. I pulled the towel out but wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with it. Just then the Sweeper threw something at us. Vasili ducked to the right and I grabbed the saddle horn and dropped the towel. Um, that’s what I was supposed to do—drop the thing. The towel turned into a huge grassland with rocks sticking up, and Baba Yaga vanished behind us. And a paw appeared, giving me, I guess you’d call it a low five.” She smiled and Babushka and Alexi chuckled. Belle and Ivan, both sitting on the recliner with their backs to everyone, swished their tails in unison and continued scrupulously ignoring the humans. Catherine Mary took a sip of beer.
“I thought that might be the end of it. I was wrong. The sun had dropped another five degrees, so an hour or so after I thought we’d shaken her, Baba Yaga reappeared. And V
asili started slowing down. Poor guy was tireder than I’d thought. Peter’s heavy!”
Alexi bit his tongue and said, “Yes, he’s a big boy.” Now was not the time to observe that his wife may have been adopted from India but she’d more than made up for it in terms of muscle and bone density. Babushka caught his eye, nodded a little, and winked. Was there anything in the house that didn’t read minds? Besides him, that was.
“So I thought well, if the towel had slowed her down, maybe the mirror would help, that she’d chase after it or something. I didn’t know a lake would appear!”
“It was big, too,” Alexi said. “I have no idea how long it took the red mare to cross it. And I thought I saw fish.”
Catherine Mary shrugged. “I didn’t look down. Climbing cliffs is one thing, but riding a flying horse? That scared the sh—” she caught herself, “the spit out of me. So Vasili ran out of steam and landed on the far side of the lake. I recognized the campsite, even though I couldn’t see the land behind us. Must have been something with the magic.” She stopped, finished her beer, and handed Alexi the bottle.
Babushka got up, collected the empties and took them to the kitchen, then came back. “And then?” the old woman asked, voice gentle.
Alexi felt Catherine Mary starting to shake and held her closer. “I, Babushka, I, I had a little of the water of life left. I’d used half on the rusalka, and had put the rest in the small bottle as we rode, in case the Sweeper tried to grab the big water bottle.” She swallowed hard. “The red horse dropped Alexi off, then backed away. Alexi challenged the Sweeper and I could tell he was tired. I needed to get the rest of the water to him, but poor exhausted Vasili couldn’t run with the children and Gatta if he needed to, he was so exhausted. I, Alexi, forgive me, I gave Vasili the water, all but a drop or two, so he could take the children away if you didn’t, if the witch kil—” Her voice choked off and she twisted, putting her arms around him and weeping into his shirt again.
She’d never been a crier, but Alexi decided that she’d more than earned another spate of tears. After all, she’d been the one worrying with a new baby and the cat, and that was before tracking down Baba Yaga and facing the witch on her own territory, then running like the wind with two children, the diaper bags, and the cat. He just held her and made what he hoped were soothing noises. “You did exactly the right thing, love, exactly right.” Babushka moved the tissue box closer. After a few minutes Catherine Mary recovered her aplomb and straightened up, blew her nose and finished her part of the story.
“I slipped the bottle under Gatta’s harness and pointed her at you. And you know the rest.”
Alexi stroked her back. “I don’t remember much between dropping the water of life on Baba Yaga’s arm and waking up at midnight.” He looked to his grandmother and the cats, now facing the humans and looking like raw and burnt bread-loaves with blue eyes. “The world exploded. And I hurt, and then there were stars and Peter calling me Da.”
His grandmother nodded. She’d traded her shocking pink garden kerchief for a barely more sedate royal purple kerchief over her cloud of white hair. “It is said, and only in the oldest of tales, the ones known in pieces only, that nothing evil or dark can tolerate the water of life.” She held up one hand. “I not know why helped rusalka but harm Baba Yaga. Perhaps heart of rusalka different from heart of Baba Yaga. Perhaps different magic between two spirits. I think Baba Yaga back in Russia with Chernobog, not truly destroyed but weak, as should be.” Ivan the Purrable nodded his solemn agreement. Belle slowly closed then opened her eyes, hopped down from the chair, made her stately progress across the floor and launched into Catherine Mary’s lap.
“Oof! You are not made of dust and starlight, Gatta.”
Alexi leaned around and looked at the smug white lump. “And you are wearing navy blue, so she looks stunning.” The white pile of fur sniffed, her tail sweeping across Catherine Mary’s legs and leaving shed hairs behind.
The adults fell silent, and a quiet whistle told Alexi that he’d better not move any time soon, at least not without waking his spouse.
“When return to war?” Babushka asked in Russian.
He closed his eyes, not wanting to think about it. “Don’t know. They say year, but war change, shift. Red Horse come again, that I know.”
“Warrior road hard road.”
She would know, having fought her own battle to get her family out of the Soviet Union after surviving the Great Patriotic War as a child. Alexi nodded and touched his St. George medallion with his free hand. Catherine Mary wore one with the Theotokos, a locket now holding three hairs from Vasili’s tail. That reminded him. “Babushka, why Catherine Mary able to call Little Humpbacked Horse? Is not Russian.”
“Not Russian but strong and determined. Mother strength, warrior strength, is own magic.” Ivan made a grumbling noise, like a smothered yowl. Babushka wagged her finger at the cat. “No discuss. Was for own good. No lady good enough for you. And no phone for week.”
Alexi blinked. “What did cat do?”
“Sign in to pet website and add catnip and tuna treat to standing flea spray and littler box fill order.” She glared at Ivan, who acted completely innocent. “Then tried to open box before I find. Bad cat. Cancel phone if try again.”
Ivan’s eyes flashed wide open. He sniffed, turned around on the chair and flopped out, acting as if he’d not heard a thing and had never bothered waking up in the first place.
Alexi looked down in time to see a smug Belle stick her pink tongue out at Ivan’s back before she curled tighter. Catherine Mary stirred a little, smiling, and rubbed her cheek against Alexi.
This was what he went to war for, what he’d risked everything for.
A faint whimper came from the guest room up the hall, followed by a louder cry, insistent and unhappy. Oh dear, he sighed, nudging Catherine Mary. Which end needed attention now?
“Da? Da, I’m thirsty,” joined Katie’s cries.
Babushka didn’t quite hide her smile fast enough.
Tale the Fifth: Alexi, Ivan, and the Hidden Heart
“Problem, Sergeant Z?”
Do you want the short list or the long list, sir, First Sergeant Alexi Zolnerovitch thought, looking at the messages on his desk. “I am not certain, sir.” He looked up at Captain Arturo Duran-Gallegos-y-Dubicki, the ROTC executive officer, leaning in his doorway. “Have you heard anything from a farmer about the cadets stealing fruit?”
Capt. Duran shook his head. “No, but I’ve been back home in Ojo Caliente. Wedding, two First Communions, and Abuelita’s 95th birthday, all in the same weekend. I came to work to get some peace and quiet.”
“That’s what my wife said last year during fire season, Sir. The fire lines are quieter than our kids.” And the cats, because Ivan the Purrable had just gotten his phone privileges back and seemed intent on making up for lost time. That or seeing how much mischief a cat and a smart phone could get into before Babushka cut off his access again.
“Has there been a complaint?”
Alexi wagged one hand back and forth. “Yes and no, sir. Pete fielded a loss claim from one Dionisio Griego over in the San Luis Valley, for cherries and apricots taken from Mr. Griego’s orchard. Supposedly by our cadets. Except the date came several weeks after the summer field exercises, Sir. Mr. Griego says he saw a strange light, like someone was using red and then blue-green filters, the same as the military uses.” Except the cadets didn’t use those, and they wouldn’t have night-vision gear unless they bought and brought their own, which they were not allowed to do even if they could afford it, which most couldn’t. Alexi ran through the arguments in his head, wondering what Lt. Peter Jones had told the farmer.
“If any of our cadets got that far away from the training area, we’d have caught them,” Duran added. “I’d be more worried about meth-heads or someone like that getting into the fruit, or someone stealing it to distill.” He grinned, showing a gold tooth, “Not that anyone in my family would ever home-brew, but I�
��ve read about it.”
Alexi grinned back. “Of course not, sir.” And his wife’s family never smuggled home-brewed plum and other brandies or ouzo back from Greece, although in Catherine Mary’s grandparents’ defense, cousin Stavros was a commercial distiller, so it didn’t exactly count. Or so Alexi hoped.
“Well, write everything that you have up and we’ll see what happens once Col. Eastman gets back from leave.” Duran leaned into the office and lowered his voice, “How’s he doing?”
“Better after four days of high-power IV antibiotics at a private hospital, Sir. The knee repair might not take, though. It’s still wait-and-see. Rumor has it he got MRSA.”
Duran crossed himself. “Ugh. Nasty stuff.”
“No argument here, Sir.”
Duran went back to terrifying late-arriving ROTC cadets and Alexi frowned at the little sketch map and GPS coordinates. The orchards were on the south side of the South Piñon Hills, irrigated, down near Alamocitas, almost within sight of New Mexico. Yeah, Alexi thought, the cadets would have had to hitch-hike a ride at least forty miles south of where the exercise had taken place. Although, if they’d come back while on break, it might make a little more sense, except they should not have known about the orchard. Oh, that’s right, the farmer’s cousin’s daughter was a cadet, thus the farmer’s assumption. No matter what, it was not something Alexi was going to go and investigate that evening, since the Colorado School of Mines sat on what had once been the edge of Denver in Golden, two mountain ranges and a watershed away from the San Luis Valley. He caught himself and corrected the thought “to probably would not go looking for the intruder,” because between his military career and his adventures with Baba Yaga and her associates, he’d stopped saying never.