Spells of Blood and Kin

by Claire Humphrey

  War was not what it had been. But apparently peace wasn’t, either.

  He stalked around the cattle car that held the koldun and saw the slats had been stuffed with cardboard and newsprint and rags. He found a gap and whispered into it, “What is happening here?”

  Someone sobbed within. Someone made a shushing hiss.

  “No one is about,” he said. “Only me. I am a stranger here, and I wish to know why you are prisoners.”

  “Only God knows that,” a woman whispered back.

  “I stole the silver from a church,” said another one.

  “Are you all thieves, then?”

  Dry laughter. “We are all children of God, and that is all we share.”

  “Except for this one,” said another voice. “Who is a child of Satan.”

  A blow or a push, then, and a hushed cry.

  Maksim slipped around to the door of the cattle car and broke the lock between his fingers.

  “Show me this child of Satan,” he said, and he slid the doors wide.

  Moonlight glinted from eyes and teeth and buttons: fifty women or more, huddled in sparse straw.

  They did not move at first. The woman closest to the door flinched away from him—or from the frosty air.

  “Show me this witch,” Maksim prodded.

  Someone hauled the witch to her feet and shoved her toward Maksim. “Take her and be damned.”

  “Someone has ill-used her,” Maksim observed. The witch’s coat hung open, most of the buttons torn from it, and her hair straggled down on one side.

  Silence, and a few averted eyes.

  “Koldun’ia,” Maksim said. “Point out anyone here who has served you an insult.”

  The witch raised her eyebrows. “Do you think I care about the scratches of cats when I am in the jaws of the wolf?”

  Maksim laughed at that. “This wolf has a healthy respect for witches,” he said.

  “I did not mean you,” said the witch. “We are in the grip of the Gulag. There are guards in the station office; they will take us north in the morning. They will put us to work in one of their camps, along with all the others impolitic enough to question them.”

  “Not you, koldun’ia,” Maksim said. “Unless you wish it, of course.”

  She tipped her head to one side. “I do not,” she said. “Though I wish to know the price of my freedom.”

  Maksim did not tell her right away, because he heard voices at the door of the station office and saw a lantern bobbing in the hand of a man.

  He killed the lantern bearer, the other two guards outside the door of the station office, and the three remaining within. For good measure, he killed the engine driver, the mechanic, and another man who had been playing cards with them.

  He returned to the cattle car to find that most of the women had departed, leaving only the prints of rag-wrapped feet in the frost.

  The witch waited for him with her arms wrapped tight around her body.

  “The price,” Maksim said. “You have been watching me, yes? You have seen what I can do. Someday … someday I might not want to do such things anymore. And I will need someone to make me stop.”

  The witch sighed. “Not yet, I hope. It is many miles to the border, and this country is full of madmen.”

  “Not yet,” Maksim agreed, smiling and wiping his hands with dirty straw.

  “How do I know you will not turn on me? Your kin are not known for constancy when your temper takes you.”

  “We are not,” Maksim allowed. “And I cannot promise. Yet I do not think it likely that my temper will run unsated in these parts.”

  “I suppose that is something.”

  “You remind me of home,” he said. “I think it will be enough.”

  And it was: enough to get them out from under the Gulag and all the way across Europe.

  When had it stopped being enough? When had the memory of home lost its power to calm him?

  Perhaps it had never been enough; perhaps it was only that he’d met Iadviga at the end of almost thirty years of warfare and that for much of his time with her, struggle was in constant supply.

  Perhaps the world had let him fool himself, year after year after year. Perhaps it was only a miracle that he had not gone fully mad much earlier.

  MAY 17

  WAXING CRESCENT

  Nick could see right away that this wasn’t going to go well.

  He had a bottle of pinot grigio on the table; he didn’t own an ice bucket, but he’d improvised with a plastic camping cooler. The place was cleaner than it had been in his whole tenancy, probably; he’d always been lazy about food in the past, leaving banana peels on the counter until he had ants, but now the smell of rotting fruit bothered him so much he’d given up on having any produce in the place at all.

  He’d washed all the counters, walls, and floors, first with cleanser powerful enough to make his nose smart and then with a ton of plain water to get rid of the cleanser scent. And he’d eliminated a bunch of musty-smelling things, like the curtains and his old armchair and his futon. He had no problem sleeping on a Therm-a-Rest until he could find a mattress that didn’t reek of chemical treatments.

  But it wasn’t the new spartanness of the place that had drawn his friends’ attention. It was the heavy bag he’d mounted from the ceiling.

  “That’s … different,” Jonathan said.

  “Can I try it out?” Hannah socked her fist into the leather. “Ouch.”

  “You let your wrist buckle,” said Nick. “You have to get your forearm straight, like this, and line up your knuckles.” He demonstrated, causing the bag to jerk on its chains.

  “How does your landlord feel about the ceiling?” Jonathan asked.

  “He’s not allowed to come in here without giving me twenty-four hours’ notice,” Nick called over the thunderous pummeling of a series of one-two punches. “I figure I can cover it up with something.”

  “What if you get a noise complaint?”

  “What? Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.” Nick finished off the bag with a right hook and stepped back. “I bought some of that iced tea you like,” he said to Hannah. “In the cooler over there beside the wine. I figure it will get me brownie points with the judge.”

  “Don’t be that way, Nick. We’re your friends.”

  “Sure about that? Because that message sounded more like a summons.” But he opened the iced tea for Hannah, seated himself on a pressback chair facing the sofa, and spread his hands. “Go for it. I’m ready.”

  “This isn’t a test, Nick,” Hannah said. “Really. I can see it feels that way to you, but think about it. You’ve known Jonathan for ten years. You’ve been in all kinds of trouble together, and he’s been right there with you. That’s why he’s concerned now.”

  “Then why isn’t he speaking for himself?”

  “Because I’m no good at that shit,” Jonathan said. “You got mad at me yesterday when I tried.”

  “Damn right, I got mad. You pulled all this hypocritical crap while we were supposed to be having a good time.”

  “That’s just it. The good times are going weird lately, Nick. And it’s not me that’s changing.”

  “The fuck it’s not. You told me you wanted Hannah to move in with you. That is some serious change, my friend.” Nick pointed a stabbing finger at Jonathan while he spoke and half rose from the chair.

  “What?” said Hannah. “You told Nick you want me to move in?”

  “It’s called growing up,” Jonathan said. “What Nick’s doing is fucking up.”

  “He didn’t tell me,” Hannah said blankly to Nick.

  “Maybe he’s not sure,” Nick snapped.

  “I just hadn’t got around to it! And don’t change the subject. I’m not the one with the problems here.”

  “Oh, seriously? You think you can just sail on and pretend to be a grown-up and play house with your girlfriend and forget everything you used to be? You think you can start, I don’t know, buying espresso makers and shit? What
are you going to name your fucking kids? Yeah, I didn’t think you’d thought about that yet. Ask her. I bet she’s got a boy and a girl name already picked out for you.” Nick paced around the chair while Jonathan and Hannah sat frozen on the sofa. “You aren’t that guy, Jonathan.”

  “Hey,” Jonathan said. “This is going off the rails. This might be news to you, but most people grow up to buy houses and have kids. Just because I haven’t got names picked already doesn’t mean I won’t be happy when the time comes.”

  “Happy,” said Nick. He wound up and punched the bag. “How can you be happy like that?”

  Jonathan covered his eyes with one hand. “I love Hannah. I like Toronto. We’ll buy a condo here when we have enough money. This is how life goes, Nick. When you’re normal.”

  “Maybe I’m not fucking normal!”

  “That’s kind of what we’ve been trying to say,” Hannah said softly. “Listen, just listen. I know you don’t like me. But I want you to know it’s not mutual. I like you, and you’re important to Jonathan, and I want you to be happy. So it’s kind of hard to watch whatever is going on with you.”

  “Of course I like you,” Nick said after a slack-jawed moment. “Where do you even get that?”

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “Your face is not subtle, Nick. But I’m glad you try to be nice, anyway. For Jonathan’s sake, especially. You’ve been friends for so long—I’d hate to be the thing that drives you apart.”

  Nick bit his tongue on a rush of pure hot fury. Drive me and Jonathan apart? I’d like to see you try. Only that was what was happening, wasn’t it? Nick growled in frustration. “I think you should leave.”

  “He’s right,” Hannah said to Jonathan. “All of us getting upset isn’t going to help anything. Nick, maybe we can get together again in a couple of days, once we’ve all had time to take a deep breath.”

  She led Jonathan out into the hall. Nick shut the door very firmly behind them, not quite a slam.

  “You see what I mean,” Jonathan said heavily, out in the hall. His voice came to Nick as clearly as if he’d been miked.

  “I wonder if he’s jealous of you,” Hannah said, a bit more muffled, as if Jonathan was embracing her.

  “I wonder if he’s trying to distract us so that we won’t ask him the right questions.”

  “Which are…?”

  “Hard drugs? I don’t know.” A sound of fabric sliding roughly against paint, as if one of them had leaned back against the wall. A sigh.

  “I’ll be happy to move in with you,” Hannah said after a while.

  “That wasn’t how I meant to ask you.”

  “That’s okay. I was going to ask you, if you hadn’t said anything by the time I needed to house hunt.”

  “Do you have names?” Jonathan asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “Our kids.”

  Nick stood stock-still, breath held, waiting for the answer to come amid the sounds of traffic and pigeons and distant streetcars.

  “Abby and Noah,” Hannah said finally. “Abby for my sister; it’s her middle name. And Noah—”

  “My grandfather,” Jonathan said. “Yeah. That’s nice.”

  Then the soft sound of a kiss. Nick wondered who’d made the first move, and then a moment later, he was disgusted with himself. Or with Hannah and Jonathan. Or with the whole fucking mess.

  He turned on the stereo and pressed play on his iPod, which was halfway through a workout playlist. He raised the volume until he couldn’t hear Hannah and Jonathan walking away. Then he uncapped the pinot grigio, took a long chilly swallow straight from the bottle, set the cooler near the heavy bag, and went to work.

  MAY 18

  FIRST QUARTER

  Maksim slowed to a stop on a stretch of dusty sidewalk in front of a nail salon, a municipal campaign headquarters, a pawnshop. He smelled toasting spices: delicious for a moment and then almost nauseating. He was soaked with sweat, his shirt wet all the way through, the waistband of his shorts chafing at his skin.

  A woman was coming toward him, a youngish Indian woman in pink and yellow. The glass bead of her bindi sparkled in the morning sun.

  Morning. Not too early, either: the sun was above the nearby apartment buildings, the street was lined with cars, and the sidewalk scattered with shoppers and baby carriages.

  Maksim had no idea where he was.

  The woman with the bindi was staring at him.

  He turned his face away casually, instinctively. Wiped sweat from his forehead beneath the rim of his cap. Saw her hesitate and then continue on.

  He saw a street sign on the corner and headed for it. Something was wrong with the letters: the shapes looked familiar, most of them, but they didn’t sort themselves into anything that made sense.

  He would ask someone for directions. He saw an elderly man crossing the street, bracing himself with two canes. Opened his mouth to call out. Found his voice knotted in his throat like a choke pear.

  He turned away and walked quickly down a side street, head hunched, hand pressed over his throat. He knew this feeling. His body took longer, sometimes, to come back to him than his thoughts did.

  What had he been doing?

  He had been running. Obviously. Running was fine.

  He sat down on the guardrail of a parking lot to look at himself. His shirt was one of the ones from his own gym, and apart from being sweat-drenched, beginning to stain with salt as it dried, it was unremarkable. No bloodstains, no tears.

  His shoes were on his feet. They were gray brown with dust, with all the running he had been doing lately. His calves were dusty, and the dust showed sweat trails through it. Sweat, nothing more.

  His knuckles were scabbed still from fighting with Gus. The bruises had darkened to green and gray purple. He flexed each hand in turn and felt no new stiffness.

  But there was yellow on his left palm: bright yellow like pollen, smeared across the central lines and the web of his thumb and up to the pads of his index and middle fingers. He sniffed at it. Not pollen: something synthetic but not strong-smelling, some kind of paint, maybe. He spat into his palm and rubbed it on his thigh. Nothing came off.

  In the sunlight, the color looked too vivid. So many of the colors did now. A house painted coral pink across the way. The subtly iridescent red of a stop sign. A car painted the same pearly green as the beetles Maksim used to see among the ash trees in eastern Russia, an age ago.

  He blinked his eyes. The sun jumped.

  His shirt was nearly dry now. When he ran his fingertips over his skin, he felt the fine grit of salt.

  He got to his feet and felt the ache of the long run halt his steps a little. There was a young man standing on the corner now, handing out leaflets. Maksim cleared his throat and approached.

  “Can you tell me which way is downtown?” he asked, pleased that his voice came out this time, hoarse but his own.

  The boy looked white-eyed at him and handed him a leaflet.

  Maksim began to repeat himself and then realized he was speaking Russian.

  He shied away from the boy when he realized, dropping the leaflet.

  “Are you okay, man?” the boy said in English.

  Maksim understood him; at least there was that.

  “You have a little…” the boy said, gesturing at his own upper lip.

  Maksim nodded. Got himself away.

  Safely around the corner again, he ran his fingertips down his face and felt the crust of dried blood below one nostril without much surprise. He rubbed at it until it seemed to be mostly flaked away.

  This was not good. The last thing he could really remember was before sundown yesterday. Maybe. He hoped it was yesterday. He’d awakened from a restless nap to a breath of fragrant air and headed out toward the park … maybe.

  Nothing in his pockets: nothing at all, in fact, no wallet, no cash. He still had the key to his flat, which he’d taken to clipping to a carabiner on his belt loop.

  Nothing at all to show him what he might have been d
oing except for the trace of blood crusting his nostril and the streak of yellow on his palm.

  And the sweat, and the thirst on him, and the dragging ache in his legs.

  Nothing to hint why he’d lost his voice, why he’d lost an entire language for a little while.

  He would have to go home. See if he’d merely left his things behind or lost them too, somewhere in his irretrievable night.

  He picked a direction and began walking.

  MAY 18

  FIRST QUARTER

  Lissa came home from work with her nose tingling from the smell of ink and heated paper and her own sharp sweat; the air-conditioning in the shop couldn’t quite keep up with all the printers going at once. She washed her hands with Ivory soap and let the fresh cold water run over her inner wrists for a minute or two.

  Stella wasn’t home. At breakfast, she’d said something about art galleries. Lissa stood still in the relative cool of the house, breathing the flat air.

  She had not heard from Maksim for several days; good news or bad, she was not sure. She should call him, she thought.

  Later.

  Now she just wanted a tall glass of sparkling water over ice and an hour to herself. She sat by the window in the front room, in the late afternoon sun, listening to bees in the lilacs outside.

  Her eyes passed over the pages of one of Stella’s Vogue magazines without taking anything in. She’d been fretting over Stella’s constant presence, and yet now that she had a bit of time alone, the silence in the house oppressed her. Everything still smelled like Baba. She wondered how long it would last. Already the upstairs smelled like Stella too, a breezy, rich scent composed of expensive facial moisturizers and hair silkeners.

  Lissa could not call this grief. Half-grief, maybe. As if Baba had moved to a far foreign country with poor telephones.