by Lily Hyde
“You like cars, don’t you?” said Igor. “I’ve seen you admiring mine. Thought you might enjoy a go in the driving seat. See how it feels.”
“I would like that,” said Gena. He sat down slowly. The seat was bouncy and still warm, and gave off a rich dark smell of leather and smoke. The air in the car was metallic and cool. The dashboard had a walnut veneer and shiny silver fittings, and Igor’s array of talismans lined up incongruously along it. Gena found the buttons that slid the windows up and down. The driver silently showed him the air conditioning, the radio and CD player, the thing that squirted water at the windscreen.
“Enough to sell your soul for, eh? I dreamt about having a car like this for years,” Igor said tenderly. “It was what I always wanted. No one believed I’d ever be able to buy one. I’ll take you for a proper ride one of these days. Out on the highway, show you how fast she can go.”
“Oh, yes please,” said Gena. “What’s this?”
“Compass.”
“And this?”
“Horn. No – don’t try it.”
The driver leant in and gently took Gena’s hand away.
“Don’t want to go startling the birds,” said Igor. “Yes, we’ll make a day of it. My Anastasia, and Masha, we’ll all go on a trip.” He lit a fat cigar and sucked on it thoughtfully. “Does Masha like cars?”
“Not as much as me,” said Gena.
“But she’d enjoy a ride, a trip in the country, a picnic? Of course she would. Where is Masha, by the way?”
Gena looked at him pityingly. Did Igor really think a few minutes sitting in his fancy car was going to make him break his promise to Masha?
“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t seen her. What does this do?”
“Detects lies from dishonest small boys.” Igor puffed out blue smoke. “You must have seen her – how else have you got her rollerblades?”
“They aren’t hers; they’re mine.” Igor was sharp, thought Gena. Scarily sharp. “But yes, actually, she was here. Sorry, I forgot.” He climbed out of the coolness of the car, back into the other world of the stuffy afternoon. “Thanks a lot for letting me have a go. It was great.”
“My pleasure,” said Igor. “Don’t forget about that trip. Where did Masha go, do you know?”
“Oh, she didn’t say. But I think she went that way.” Gena pointed towards the river – the opposite direction to the one he had seen Masha take. “Yeah, that way.”
Igor dropped his cigar and lifted a foot to grind it out. “Yowch!” he shouted. A little silver object twinkled on the toe of his immaculately shined shoe. Igor had trodden on the mousetrap.
Gena giggled. Then he stopped, although no one had told him to. The driver turned a pair of mirrored sunglasses his way. Igor shook his foot furiously. It should have been funny, but it wasn’t. The mousetrap still on his toe, Igor got into the car and slammed the door. The driver followed suit, and the Mercedes started away with an angry spurt of sand. It drove silently down the track which led to the river.
The river was as grey as old metal and all the sunbathers had gone home. Masha sank down, disconsolate, in the hollow where she had found Nechipor with his boat last time. It was empty. She hugged her knees and thought fiercely about nice peaceful boring things, about Granny’s little cottage with its herby rafters, about picking gooseberries in her garden, about scratching the back of the neighbour’s pig with a sharp stick.
It’s my second birthday today! she told herself desperately. Something nice has to happen!
It was horribly still. Not a leaf, not a grain of sand stirred. It felt like the air had turned into some hideous thick woolly jelly – you can’t have woolly jelly, Masha told herself sternly. And not a sound. Not one single sound. All the crickets had fallen silent; it was as if the endless thread they had been winding in had knitted itself into a huge grey stuffy jumper and now the whole world was wearing it – you’re being very silly, Masha said to herself in Ira’s schoolteacher voice. Just sit here and Nechipor will come soon. Of course he will. She wondered if there was something wrong with her ears. Silence blocked them up painfully. She scratched in the sand with her finger, scratch-scratch. Oh, thank goodness, she could hear that; she hadn’t gone deaf. And now she heard too the soft pad-pad of huge paws away in the distance; it was the storm tiger, come to terrify her.
“Hello, Masha,” said Igor. He was standing at the edge of the hollow, holding out a hand to her. The driver was beside him, his sunglasses like grey holes in his face. “You’ve nowhere to run to now, have you? Except the island, and that’s where we’re all going.”
He took her hand and pulled her slowly to her feet. “Come along, it’s time.”
Pad-pad came the paws, nearer and nearer. A big drop of warm water fell on Masha’s cheek. She wasn’t sure if it was rain, or if she was crying. She walked slowly up the sand bank, Igor on one side, the driver on the other. The black Mercedes was parked at the top. As Masha looked at it, it went white. The sand was black, the trees were white against an ink-black sky. The tiger opened its mouth and roared.
Out of the roar came something rattling and banging and crashing. It was Icarus the trolleybus, black with livid white stripes, and he drove right smash into the back of Igor’s Mercedes. The car buckled and howled. The trolleybus door scraped open.
“Next stop, Ivana Kupala,” bawled the tinny voice.
“No!” Igor shrieked. He was staring at his car in horror.
Bang! came the rain. Boom! went the thunder. Masha pulled her hand free, ran forward and jumped through the open door of the trolleybus.
The door crashed closed. There were terrible crunching and groaning noises from the wrecked Mercedes. Icarus shuddered and heaved and with a final huge wrench drove forward into the storm.
Chapter 20
I won’t be scared, I won’t be scared. Oh no, oh no. Everything is fine – except the Mercedes. Oh yes, oh yes, Masha sang idiotically in her head. Icarus, thank you for saving me. Oh yes, oh yes. (Crash!) But, Icarus, where are you taking me? (Ouch!) Oh no.
It was more like being in a ship in a storm than a trolleybus. Icarus seemed to lurch up huge waves and smash down the other side of them and roll in the vast furrows in between. Masha pulled herself over to one of the beds. She crouched there, holding on to the frame for dear life and shivering with cold. Icy raindrops slid from her wet hair under her T-shirt and down her back. The curtains flapped like dim ghosts at the windows. Outside looked as black as night. The lightning illuminated floods of water and – wasn’t that a fish?
I won’t be scared, I won’t be scared, drummed the tune in Masha’s head. She dragged out the blanket from beneath her and wrapped herself up in it. It smelt of Granny. Masha closed her eyes so tightly she began to see green and blue lights. And then it all went sickeningly white, because the lightning got even here, inside her eyelids, inside her head.
When her fingers were stiff and aching from clinging to the bed frame, the trolleybus gave an extra-huge jolt and tipped her neatly onto the floor. Luckily the blanket softened her fall, but still, tears of pain started to her eyes. She was so entangled in the blanket she couldn’t get up. She rolled helplessly across to the door of the driver’s cabin, weeping furiously.
Something hit the window with a smack! and stuck there. It seemed to be wet and scaly, and from the middle of it a round, rolling red-veined eye stared in. Below it, a gleam of teeth appeared, grinning. Masha shot out of the blanket and into the driver’s cabin, slamming the door behind her. In front, through the wide watery windscreen, all was red. A burning brilliant red. It was raining fire and Icarus was driving right into the heart of it. Masha shut her mouth, closed her ears with her hands and screwed her eyes tight shut, because there was nothing else to do.
And inside her head, this time, it was warmly dark and peaceful. Dum-dum, dum-dum, said her blood – at least, she guessed that was what it was. She listened to its comforting rhythm for a while. Her hands slowly uncurled and dropped to her sides; her eyelids ge
ntly lifted. Her mouth fell open in wonder.
It wasn’t fire at all; it was the loveliest sunset, pink and orange, making her feel warm just looking at it. The sun basked high in it like a great glowing fruit, and its light furred the grass and the trees with gold velvet. Slowly, slowly, Masha backed away and opened the cabin door. The trolleybus stood still, the main door open, inviting her to step outside. The river murmured to itself through the trees. Mingled with it she heard a humming of contented, dreamy voices that floated through the evening air and drew her towards them.
A crowd of people was gathered on the riverbank, building wood into a big bonfire. Others were picking flowers and twisting them into crowns, or tying posies and ribbons to the branches of a young birch. The sun shone through the trees in long level beams; when Masha looked up into them she saw they were full of golden dust whizzing dizzily, silently, out from the warm meadow to the coolness of the river. The whole air was rushing away, and yet the meadow was still and fragrant and the colours of the grass and water were so rich she felt she could almost taste them.
A woman sitting in the grass holding a bunch of flowers turned and saw her. She held out her hand and drew Masha down beside her. The others looked up and murmured friendly greetings. They all seemed to have known her for years and years, because no one asked any questions. One of the women, Masha realized after a while, was her form teacher from school. Over there, on a grey horse whickering softly down its nose, sat Fyodor Ivanovich. And this girl in a white smock, her long hair crowned with flowers, was Anastasia.
Smiling, Anastasia gave her another, half-finished crown, and Masha started to thread in the many flowers, yellow and purple, white and pink and blue, that grew all around.
The evening began to come alive. Insects buzzed and chirred and whirred in the grass; blundering brown-winged beetles zoomed like clumsy aeroplanes. At the river edge the frogs set up their hooting and roaring and creaking. Masha finished off her crown, a fluffy, feathery circlet that smelt of spices and pepper and honey.
“That’s right,” said the woman who had first greeted her, placing it on Masha’s head. Someone else reached down and pushed a boiled egg into her hand. It was Nechipor, grand in a new embroidered shirt.
“Hungry?” he said in his booming voice. “I should think so. I could eat a horse, hooves and all. No offence,” he added to the grey horse standing quietly by, Fyodor Ivanovich smiling down from its back. “But a Cossack must think of his stomach, especially when it’s as big as mine.”
He led Masha over to a large white cloth spread on the grass. There sat Granny, and a lot of other people, making sandwiches of cheese and ham and salo, slicing up vegetables and poppy seed buns. She sat and ate, and drank some sweet, fruity drink, and the talk and laughter washed over her like a dim, mysterious, yet comforting wave. The women began to sing, and then gradually they got up from the ground, and they began to dance. The flower crowns turned their heads to angels’, to monsters’; their shadows wove long fantastic ribbons through the golden grass. In the twilight under the trees, a fair-haired boy began tuning a violin. At first Masha thought it was Gena, then she wasn’t sure. The long notes and chords wavered into tune, achingly sharp and sad.
The sun slipped down, pulling the blanket of the horizon over its head. The upper air was like warm gingerbread, but a new layer of cool, night-time fragrance flowed up from the ground, tangible as water filling a clear dark glass. Near the river a bright rose bloomed. It was the fire, just coming alight.
Everyone was dancing to music from the violin and an accordion, and the people sang as they circled the fire. Masha watched them, holding hands, now stepping left, now right, bending and swaying like birch trees. The fire burned up, up, until it was a brilliant hot pyramid flinging sparks into the darkening air.
The music swung faster, more lively, sparky and a bit dangerous like the fire. There was more stamping than stepping now in the dance; a rhythm was building with heels and palms. The dancers tossed their heads and put their hands to their hips as the music rocked through them; their faces gleamed hot and red and gold in the flames. The singing was hard and brilliant and at the end of each phrase the women flung high notes like sparks merrily into the air.
And then they dropped down to their heels and the revel really began. Wild, ecstatic Cossack dancing. They crouched and leapt, spun and wheeled in and out of the firelight. Faster, faster, furious, glorious.
“Come on!” said a voice in Masha’s ear. She turned and it was her friend, the little Cossack girl. “Come on!” she said again, and together they romped into the whirling, whooping dance.
Calling voices rang out from above on the hillside, where a group of men stood. A wheel of fire suddenly blossomed among them and rolled down the slope, leaving a wavering trail in the grass that flared up and twinkled and then disappeared. A second blazing circle wheeled down, and a third; they rolled to the river and plunged in with a violent hiss. Specks of flame lingered on the water, bending to look at their reflections. The women on the riverbank pulled the flower crowns from their heads and tossed them into the water after the wheels. They floated there, circling idly, and began to drift away downstream.
The fire’s voracious roar took on a satisfied purring sound. The music rollicked on, and a shriek of happiness went up from the people. A man and woman holding hands ran and jumped right over the fire. They landed on the other side, hot and laughing, and carried on into the trees.
Another couple jumped over, another. And suddenly everyone was leaping across the flames. Masha found her hand seized by the little Cossack girl. They ran forward, faster; the fire was a hot terrible golden creature lying in wait ahead. Masha jumped and her friend jumped beside her. The fire grabbed at their feet, half playful, half dangerous, and then they had passed right through its heat and flames and were flying down to land on the cool dark other side.
She jumped across again with the boy who had played the violin. The third time she leapt it was by herself alone, to prove she could do it, and she did.
Chapter 21
The fire had died down to its hot embers. The music had finished. People were wandering away, leaving only their voices floating, languid and profound, from the shadowy groves. The sky was dusky but the river seemed to have gathered all the light of the sunset and the fire into it, because it still glowed pink and orange, and the wading bodies of men and women were silhouetted black against it, dipping into liquid fire, liquid sunset.
For a moment, Masha thought she had been left alone. But then the Cossack girl touched her shoulder.
“Let’s go, Masha. It’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time to find the enchanted place.” It was Nechipor, materializing on her other side. “Are you ready, young fellow – er, lass? Lasses,” he added rather doubtfully, surveying the Cossack girl.
“Ready,” said Masha.
“Time to find the magic fern flower and your birthday present, your heart’s desire,” said her friend. “Are you ready?”
“Ready,” said Masha.
They set off together into the dark maze of paths between the allotments.
“Three sets of eyes to look out for three things,” said Nechipor. “Cossack number one, look left for the deacon’s dovecote. Cossack number two, eyes right for the church dome. And Cossack number three – that’s me, in respect of my greater age and experience – will guard the rear for old hairy-legs himself should he take it into his pumpkin head to interfere. Forward march!”
Masha obediently turned her eyes to the left. There was no one in sight, but all around the night was alive with rustling, with whispers and giggles and sighs. The sky still held the milky paleness of midsummer, and the few stars shone faintly. There was a glow of golden-white light ahead of them: the moon was rising.
“I can see the dovecote,” Masha whispered. She hadn’t meant to whisper – it just came out that way. She tugged on Nechipor’s sleeve. “Look!”
And there it w
as, poking above the trees.
“Well done,” boomed Nechipor, clearly not constrained by the mysterious need to whisper. “We’ll track down our treasure tonight, you bet we will, by my grandmother’s whiskers, God rest her soul. And the devil can just go and stick his head in a sack—”
He broke off rather suddenly. Because the dovecote seemed to have jumped out of the distance and was right in front of them, perched perkily on its one wooden leg. Masha looked more closely. Was that a chicken’s leg?
A long high cackle of laughter rang out, and the little house, on what definitely was a chicken’s leg, hopped right round and presented them with a small wooden door. The door popped open, a ladder unfolded with a snap, and skipping down the ladder came a dreadful old lady with a nose curving down and a chin curving up till they almost met like a pair of nutcrackers.
Nechipor’s mouth fell open. He even seemed to have turned rather pale. The old woman hobbled rapidly towards them, her knobbly stick tapping busily.
“Good evening! How good of you to come and see me, my dears,” she piped in a terribly refined voice. “Oh, how delightful to have guests! Do come and sit down. I don’t have cucumber sandwiches to offer you and the tea is a little stronger than you’re used to, I expect, but we are so, so happy to have you for dinner.” And she put one hand politely in front of her mouth and tittered behind it. Then she seized Masha’s wrist and in a moment she had dragged all three of them round the dovecote to a long table in a clearing lit by skulls on sticks.
They really were round human skulls on the sticks, with bright torchlight shining out of their eye sockets and between their grinning teeth. The cheerfully ghastly light illuminated the white cloth on the table, which appeared to stretch for ever, spread with a vast array of plates and cups and old-fashioned china teapots. Round the table sat a huge crowd of women. There were old ones and young ones, all with bright lipsticked mouths, thickly plastered eyeshadow and long artificial lashes. They seemed to be having a fantastically good time. They laughed and sang and gossiped and smoked and chomped on huge mouthfuls of food and sipped tea out of dainty china cups holding their little fingers elegantly crooked.