by CJ Cherryh
‘Warn her. Advise her. She listens to you.’
‘What do I know? At least 'Veshka had a father to look to. Mine was no good example. And your uncle Fedya was certainly no substitute.’
‘Master Uulamets was a lot of things; but he wasn't wise with his daughter—or with his wife.''
‘How can I advise her? How can I reason with her? I'm just an ordinary man. I don't understand. I can't hear, I can't see.’
‘Tell me, what would you have done if your father had decided you shouldn't be on the streets, and locked you in The Doe's basement?''
Appalling thought. ‘I'd have—’
‘Of course you would.''
First chance he got, up the chimney, or out the door. He would never have abided captivity. Never.
Sasha said, ‘If Eveshka's worried about her own nature in the girl, think about your own.’
What gives you the right? he had asked his father, every time Ilya Kochevikov had made a desultory attempt at reining him in. Where were you when I needed you?
‘I really think you ought to take her with you this next trip south,’ Sasha said. ‘Maybe to Anatoly's place. There might even be some young lad to think about.''
Some young lad. His heart went thump. ‘God, give her something else to worry about while we're about it! She's got enough to deal with!’
‘She's fifteen, Pyetr. She's never seen ordinary folk.’
‘What for the god's sake do you think I am?’
‘You're everything she knows of the world outside this woods, but you're not as ordinary as you think. She needs some sense of other people, a whole variety of people. When she wishes, she needs to have some vision of what and who she might be touching.’
‘Her mother's never been out of this woods. Her grandfather never—’
‘Yes, and it never helped them. It would be very hard for Eveshka to go, this late. She wouldn't know how to see things. She wouldn't have any patience with the Fedyas and the 'Mitris of the world.’
‘They'd be cinders.''
‘Not as readily as you might think. But Eveshka certainly does have a way of finding the dark in the world. And your daughter doesn't, yet. Your daughter just might look past people like 'Mitri and see, for instance, old Ivan Ivanovitch, or some nice young farmer lad.’
‘She'd have no idea how to deal with boys.’
‘So tell her.’
‘Tell her what?’
‘Whatever fathers tell their daughters. Tell her what you'd have told yourself when you were that age. Tell her what you needed to know.’
‘God, I wouldn't say that to her!’
‘Forgive me.’ Sasha was distinctly blushing.’But someone should.’ ,
‘She's still a child!’
‘Not in all points. What were you thinking about when you were fifteen?’
‘A drunken father. Money. Staying alive.’
‘And?’
A succession of female faces came to him, some of them nameless so far as he was concerned, one of them three times his age. Riotous living. Being drunk, on the rooftree of The Doe.
‘She's a girl!’ he said aloud, and then thought that it was all the more reason for worry.
‘She's still your daughter.''
Sasha knew Ilyana better than he did, too, Pyetr was sure. It was love for him that had made Sasha and Eveshka pack him off to far places whenever Ilyana had had some problem, for his safety, Eveshka had always said, and so had Sasha, whose parents had both burned to death the day his father had beaten a very frightened young wizard once too often. Lightnings might gather (literally) over the cottage. But bolts had never hit the house, and it had been a long time since Ilyana's last real tantrum. Perhaps their magic had won the day, or perhaps Ilyana had just grown old enough to think before she wished.
‘My daughter, yes, but, god, Sasha, I can't talk to her about young men—’
‘Should 'Veshka?’
‘Sasha, I don't know my daughter that well. I've missed so much of her life—sometimes it seems it's all the important parts. You're more her father than I am. You talk to her.’
‘God, no!’
‘Sasha, I'd botch it. I'd scare her half to death.’
‘Don't ever say that. Absolutely she'd listen to you. She tells me how very special her father is.’
‘Has she got the right fellow?’
‘Don't joke. Not about that. You're the sun and the moon to her. She loves you more than anyone alive.’
‘She has no idea who I am. Or what I was. Or what I did or might have done.''
‘I think she knows very well what you are. And you should remember one other important thing.''
‘What, for the god's sake?’
‘That I was about her age when I took up with you. That's what fifteen is.’
It was true, god, it was true, he had let the years creep up on him with no understanding how they added up: he had hardly figured his wife out yet.
But Sasha had indeed set out into the world at about that age—carrying a half-dead fool through the woods, sustaining his life on wishes and a handful of berries; a fifteen-year-old had fought ghosts and wizards for his sake before all was done—not to mention that Eveshka had eluded her father and gotten herself killed, hardly a year older than fifteen: that disaster, they had certainly been thinking of—and denying with every wish of their hearts.
‘She's growing up,’ Sasha said. ‘Whatever we've done hitherto, she's arrived quite naturally now at making choices of her own, choices that we won't always know about—nor should we. The child's due her day. She's smothered her magic so far—we've all encouraged that. But Eveshka smothers hers for more reasons than mothering: she refuses to let it out any longer. She thinks if she says nothing but no, a child is going to choose the same course and renounce magic. Maybe. But I certainly wouldn't bet on it; besides which, in doing that, she's not showing the child how to be responsible for her wishes—and Ilyana hasn't had the experience I'd had, nor the experience her mother had had by her age, either. Let me tell you, you may have missed a few scary moments, Pyetr, but for the next few years, you may be the most important influence in her life. She worships you.’
‘God.’
‘Don't put on a face like that. I'm very serious. Your wishes—if you can think of it that way—have as much power now with the mouseling as mine or Eveshka's will hereafter. She's had our teaching. She's had every piece of advice from us she can stand or understand. She's had two very different teachers, in magic. But more and more now our mouse is going to choose her own way, test her own ideas, put her fingers into the fire to see if it's hot. Didn't we both?’
That rang true. But he had never stopped at burned fingers.
‘She's your daughter,’ Sasha said. ‘In that much you already know the things she might do.’
‘God, no wonder Eveshka's worried.''
Her friend had not been there in the morning, when it had been easy to slip away. She had waited and she had waited by the river shore, and finally given up and walked the long way around, up the bank and into the woods the long circuit behind uncle's cottage, all so her mother would not see her coming from the riverside.
In the afternoon she wrote in her book, in which every wizard, her mother swore, had to keep faithfully all his wishes, all his reasons, and all the possible things those — wishes could touch.
Never lie to the book, her mother had told her: I'll never read it without your leave. That's a promise, Ilyana.
She did not trust that promise. Her mother might have told her so, but her mother might just as easily change her mind, when her mother was so unsettled as she had been lately— and while she had never caught her mother sneaking a look at her book, her mother was not that easy to catch. That her mother seemed to work magic very seldom might only mean that she very rarely let anyone know she was doing it.
So Ilyana wrote small stupid things in the book, like: I should help mother more; I shouldn't upset her—instead of the thoughts that we
re really on her mind, such as: What if he's harmful? What if he came and hurt my family? Could I possibly be mistaken about him?
But then she thought—I've known him all my life. Surely I'd have understood by now whether he's good or bad, and he's never hurt anything. If he's a rusalka or anything of the kind, it can't be true that all of them kill things. The leshys haven't been here for years—but uncle sees them. He walks with them in the woods. They would surely have warned us. Babi at least would have objected.
She filled a desultory quarter of a page with dull, dutiful considerations of why her mother had to be strict with her.
She thought that that would placate her mother if her mother was secretly reading her book.
Her mother was grinding herbs today, making the medicines for downriver, and when Ilyana finished her notes, she ground and measured and mixed until her arms ached, while her mother lectured her on why one should never use magic for housework, and told her how a wizard had to lead a thoroughly disciplined life. Her mother was very much on discipline, and Ilyana earnestly tried to listen, hoping for something new that would make the other things make sense—or only to hear something in a new way, as her uncle was wont to say, if her growing up were truly getting somewhere of a sudden.
But there was nothing but the same old lecture. Her mother said, for the hundredth time at least, ‘You don't want to fall into careless habits. Magic can't be a substitute for good work. Or ingenuity. Or caution. You can't want everything perfect. You make it perfect. Patience and discipline.’
It did not seem to her that her mother's patience was all that long; and as for discipline, it all seemed to be hers in this house.
Hut she most earnestly tried not to think that.
In the late afternoon her father came riding in with uncle Sasha, and she felt cheated, because being out on the trail all day on Patches would have been ever so much nicer than grinding herbs. And she had not found her friend in the illuming—about which she was not thinking, so she went back in the house and pounded herbs with a mallet until her mother came inside and complained about the racket.
'' Honestly,'' her mother said, ‘if you wanted to ride you should have gone riding. Temper is not what I want to see from you. Not under this roof, not elsewhere. God, Ilyana, what ever is the matter with you lately?’
'' Nothing,'' she said. And avoided looking at her mother.
‘Ilyana,’ her mother said, ‘all your father has to do is love you. And I'm always the one who has to scold you. It's my responsibility. I have to talk to you in ways you understand. I'm trying to do better with you than I had when I was a child. Don't sulk. It's not becoming.’
‘I'm not sulking.’
‘I know a sulk, young woman. Don't lie, either.’
‘Yes, mother.’ She wanted to pound the board to splinters. But she would never get out of the house today if she did that. ‘I try.'' Dammit, she was going to cry. She wanted not to do that, and that helped, and it stopped. ‘I'm tired. My arms ache.’
Her mother came over to her, patted her on the shoulder and said, ‘Ilyana, listen to me. Be wise. Be sensible. That's all I want you to do.’
‘Yes, mother.’
Her mother sighed and brought ajar for the spice to go in. ‘Let's clean this up,’ she said. ‘Time we started supper. There'll be yesterday's bread. Running a house doesn't happen while you walk in the woods, Ilyana. There's wood to be cut, there's a garden to be weeded, there's bread to be baked—the god knows your uncle Sasha is a dear, but he doesn't run a house, he lives in one. He lets the clutter pile up because he knows where everything is—but with three of us in this one I assure you we rapidly wouldn't. There's always work, if you're at loose ends. You're getting to be a young woman, and this house being as much yours as ours, I'd think you'd start showing some initiative in taking care of it—dear, don't let that get on the floor.''
‘I'm sorry!’
‘You have your father's temper. You sound exactly like him.’
‘Well, at least my father yells about things, he doesn't yell at people! I wish you'd—’
‘Think what you're doing, dammit! God!’
They were yelling. And her mother was right, she had wished at her mother, like a fool.
‘I'm sorry,’ she said. ‘I'm sorry, mother—god, you're driving me crazy!’
‘Maybe you'd better listen to advice! And don't swear, young miss! It's dangerous!’
‘I listen! I listen! But nobody ever listens to me!’
‘Just—’ Her mother put a hand to her brow and shook her head. ‘Just go outdoors for a while.''
Her mother wanted her quiet, her mother wanted her to do as she was told before they got to wishing back and forth ill each other, and most of all her mother wanted her to be happier than she had been in her life—surely her mother had nut meant her to hear that last. Her mother wanted her out of the kitchen now, this moment, her mother was trying not to think things that scared her—
‘Get out!’
Ilyana threw down the towel and fled the house as fast as her feet could carry her, not thinking, no, of anything but netting down the walk-up to the yard—
She stopped against the garden fence and caught her breath.
‘Ilyana?’ her father called out to her, from the stable.
She did not want to talk to her father right now, she did not want to talk to anyone: she was still trembling from that exchange inside, even if her mother had not wanted it to happen—
Only her mother thought it perfectly all right to wish at her and did not at all like it coming back, the same as her mother would cuff her ears when she had been too little to reason with and wish her No! so strongly she still felt the terror of it.
‘Ilyana?’ Her father had ducked through the stableyard fence. He was going to ask her what had happened; and hug her and make her safe again, but she had no desire to draw him into the quarrel or start a fight between her parents.—Mustn't wish at your father, no, Ilyana, it's not nice, it's not fair, he doesn't know you're doing it, and he can't wish I back, Ilyana—
Her father's arms came around her. Her father said, ‘What's the matter, mouseling? God, you're shaking.’
‘I'm all right,’ she said, ‘I'm all right. It's just mother.’
‘What happened?’
It was impossible to talk about it. She waved an ineffectual hand and shook her head. Her father hugged her tighter, smoothed her hair, told her her mother loved her—and that made her heart ache. Probably it was true, only they hurt each other all the time, because her mother wanted her to do everything she wanted, and never wanted to listen to anyone else's reasons, refusing to regard anything she had to say as important, or in the least sensible.
‘Poor mouseling.’ Her father lifted her chin and wiped her eyes with his thumb. ‘I'll talk to her. All right?’
‘She thinks I have no sense at all. She thinks I'm lazy. She thinks I don't try.''
More tears, which a wish stopped. She did not want to upset her father. Nothing was his fault, and he had argued with her mother last night as much as he could. Her mother ran everyone's lives, except uncle Sasha's. Uncle Sasha had had the good sense to move out and build a house up on the hill while she was still a baby.
And when her mother had had enough of her she had used to march her up the hill. Stay with your uncle, her mother would say. See if he puts up with you.
Her mother might make her sweets and show her cooking and teach her the names of flowers: those were the good things. But her mother did not like her off by herself, her mother did not want her doing anything exciting like clambering around on the boat down at the old ferry landing, or imagining she was sailing to Kiev, or doing anything, it seemed, but kitchen work and cleaning and writing in her book.
Which she was sure her mother read.
Her father said, ‘I really think you should have gone with us today. Baby mouse, your mother's not a bad woman. But she's a very serious woman. She takes responsibility for so very much�
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‘I wish she'd just have fun sometimes.’
‘So do I, baby mouse. So do I.’
‘It's not fair.’
‘A lot of things happened to your mother, things she wouldn't want for you—things that have made her afraid all her life, and she tries too hard to make sure you're safe from them. You know that Sasha's not really your uncle...’
She nodded. They had told her that. Maybe it was supposed to matter to her, but it never did, it never would. She had no uncle but Sasha, nor wanted any, and it made no difference she wanted to think about. Sasha had been a friend of her father's in Vojvoda. That was where her father and Sasha had both come from. But that was all they ever told her.
So what did it matter at all—if her mother never let her out of the house? Certainly she was not going to Vojvoda, ever, no long as her mother had anything to do with it.
Her father put his arm around her shoulders and walked with her along the garden fence, past the old tree that dwarfed the house. ‘Sasha and I met when he was about your age. He wasn't even sure he was a wizard then—he only suspected he might be, but he'd had no one to teach him, and he spent everything he had being careful. Which he was doing quite well at, for a boy who didn't have a mother or a father to teach him.’
That was a lonely thought. ‘Was he all by himself?’
‘Better if he had been. His uncle and aunt were scoundrels, both of them. And your uncle was a very good lad, not to turn them into toads—’
‘You can't turn anybody into a toad. You might make them think like a toad.''
‘Well, he didn't do that either. —And I wouldn't put toads beyond your reach, mouse. You're stronger than you know you are. That's one reason your mother is so set on you holding your temper. She knows if you made a really bad choice she might not be able to stop you. You see what I'm saying? You'd hate to make me a toad by accident, wouldn't you? You'd much rather intend it.’
‘That's not funny, father.’
‘—Or remember the night the filly came and you wanted to hurry things?’