by Anna Kashina
“You are right about me.” He smiled. “I am not a fool. I am thinking only of myself. In all my travels, the only thought that keeps me strong is the thought that my home always lies behind, just the way I left it. I cannot bear to lose that. And if I have to risk my life to keep this feeling, I will gladly do it. For if my homeland goes to waste, there will be truly nothing left for me in the world.”
She looked at him for a long time. Flickers from the fire danced in her yellow eyes.
“You’re even crazier than Ilia was,” she said thoughtfully. “I always told Kashchey that one day his hunger for power will bring about his doom. He can easily control normal people, true. But sooner or later one of you crazy ones will run across his path and leave him with no escape.”
Wolf stirred in his corner. His eyes caught the firelight and glowed like two coals. He bared his teeth.
“What is it?” Baba Yaga asked.
The beast got up and walked over to Ivan. Silently he grabbed the corner of Ivan’s collar and pulled. The thin linen tore.
“Hey!” Ivan exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “That was my best shirt! Why have you—”
Baba Yaga stared. She wasn’t looking at Ivan’s face. Her eyes were fixed on his left shoulder. Just above the heart.
Even the hut stopped its squeaking and rustling as if the house, too, had a pair of eyes fixed on Ivan.
“I see,” Baba Yaga said slowly.
“What?” Ivan asked. Nikifor the Healer had looked at him in the same way, when the man had first seen the gaping wound in Ivan’s chest. The power of that look had caught him up on death’s doorstep. And now, this look made him shiver.
“Why didn’t you two tell me?” Baba Yaga asked Wolf.
Wolf gave her a look.
“Sorry,” she waved her hand. “Never mind that.”
She got up and started rummaging around the hut. From a dark corner she produced an old beaten broom.
“You stay here, boy,” she said. “I won’t be long.”
She grabbed the empty vial off the table and stuck in into her apron pocket.
“Where are you going?”
“To get you the Water, of course,” she snapped. “Don’t be a fool, boy. Fools waste their time with silly questions, and time is too precious to waste. You only have three days before the Solstice, am I right?”
“Yes,” Ivan said, dazed. “But why—why did you change your mind?”
“You were eloquent enough to convince me. And this is all you will hear from me. If you want to know more, ask your four-legged friend here. Although, if he hasn’t told you already, he probably won’t tell you now. I’ll be back before dawn. Don’t even think of sleeping on my lezhanka. You can make a bed for yourself over there on the floor. Don’t mind the furry ones—they don’t bite. Normally, at least.”
She leaned out of the doorway and whistled through her teeth. The wave of sound flattened the grass on the glade and rippled the water in the brook. Ivan’s ears went numb. Dazed, he watched a giant wooden mortar stumble into the glade and come to a standstill in front of the hut’s open door.
With broom in hand, Baba Yaga clambered in and tucked her dress neatly into the mortar’s opening.
“Can I go with you?” Ivan asked from the doorway.
“Don’t be a fool, boy,” she snapped. “The Stream doesn’t reveal itself to mortals, remember? How exceptional do you think you are?”
She swept the air with her broom. The wind, raised by the motion, whistled through the glade. The hut’s door banged against the logs of the wall. The hinges wailed.
The mortar lifted off and was gone in a cloud of dust.
“Thank you,” Ivan called after her.
He turned and walked back into the hut, carefully closing the door behind him.
“Now,” Wolf said. It was so unexpected to hear his voice after the long silence that Ivan jumped. “Let’s go and catch some more rabbits. The old hag’ll be hungry when she comes back. You don’t want to end up in her kettle.”
“I thought we were past that,”
“You think too much, boy. Move. Go.”
“How is it that you didn’t tell me about your curse before we came here?” Ivan asked following Wolf out onto grass damp with evening dew.
“I did tell you,” Wolf snapped. “You just didn’t listen, as always.”
Ivan sighed. Wolf did say Ivan would have to do all the talking. If he’d understood what that meant, though, he could perhaps have prepared better. But, it was useless to argue with Wolf. Besides, it hardly mattered anymore.
The wolf’s gray tail blended with the shadows on the far side of the brook. Then came the sound of cracking, and a short squeak. A moment later Wolf reappeared, a limp furry shape hanging from his mouth.
“One,” Wolf said, laying the kill at Ivan’s feet. “Get yourself busy. We’ll need at least nine this time.”
Ivan sighed and settled down to clean the meat.
Marya
My dream tonight was much more vivid. Except when I stepped through the forest hedge to enter the glade by the Sacrifice Pool, it was suddenly dark, and although the man turned to face me, I could not make out his features in the dim light. Then, we were no longer by the Sacrifice Pool, but in my chamber. He was in front of me, beckoning. Unsure, as if sleepwalking, I followed him to the dark quadrangle of my bed that I could sense more than see in the depths of the circular room. I longed to see his face, I was not afraid anymore, but all I could see was a pale oval in a frame of black hair.
“You must sleep now,” he whispered, and I felt his hands search for the ties that undid my dress, I felt the silky cloth slide down my shoulders, sweep across the skin of my stomach and thighs, and collapse in a heap around my feet. I felt his hands run along my naked body in a way that made my skin rise in goosebumps. This was not the touch of a man who wanted to soothe me to sleep. This was the touch of arousal, and my body responded to it.
Part of my mind wanted to protest, but another, stronger part, longed for this closeness. I gave in to the excitement, ready for whatever was to come.
He took his hands off me and stepped forward to turn down the cover of my bedding for me. I slid under it. And then, he took off his garments and slid under the covers after me.
I opened my mouth to speak, but his hand covered my lips, stifling the words. His face was so close that it almost touched mine. His breath was cool but it burned me as he whispered:
“Hush, my sweet Marya. You must relax now.”
I shivered as I felt the smoothness of his bare skin next to mine, the closeness of his body. Something about it was unthinkable, yet in some other way it seemed right. Unable to control myself, I sank into his arms, feeling that I belonged there, in this embrace that was better than the caresses of all the lovers in the world.
My burning body yielded to the touch of his cool hands with the thirst of a wanderer stranded in a desert. My mind, a separate entity at the edge of my consciousness, screamed something that I didn’t want to hear. I let it go, I shooed it away like a bothersome fly. I gave in to the bliss no man in the world could give me.
Until now.
My arms reached out in response to his caress, but he gently pressed them down to my sides. He whispered in my ear, but I couldn’t hear the words. Only the coolness of his breath, the way it touched my burning skin, bringing a tension that coiled inside me until it broke loose in intense desire.
My mind circled somewhere above, flapping its silly wings.
His hands drove me to the edge of ecstasy and kept me hovering there until I could feel my body no longer. I was all ecstasy, a pure essence held together only by my lover’s immense skill. Just a little more and my ecstasy would be released and I would disappear.
I longed for it. I wanted us to become one, stone and moonlight, coldness and fire, but he skillfully held me at the edge, touching me with nothing but his hands, his whispers in my ear sweet, senseless and tender like a lover’s talk.
&nb
sp; Once I opened my eyes and saw him, his onyx-black eyes glowing in his pale face, indistinct in the darkness of my chamber. He leaned forward and kissed my eyes closed, but as I searched for his lips with my hungry mouth, they were gone.
I wished he would ravage me like my father did with his women, satisfy his wild passion for young pretty flesh on me. I knew he wanted it too, for his hands faltered in their controlled movements and he held me in an embrace that was no longer designed to please me, but to quench his own thirst. And then, as his passion echoed through me, as I felt his quivering muscles, his manhood pressed tight against my body, I finally came undone, my ecstasy releasing itself in a surge of such power that for an endless instant I forgot who I was.
I did not remember what came later, or how he finally left me, dazed, empty of every feeling except my devotion to this man and his greater cause. I am Marya, Mistress of the Solstice, daughter of Kashchey the Immortal, the best man in the whole world. With that thought, I sank into a deep sleep…
The dream went on. Again, I walked to the Sacrifice Pool and again I saw the dark man sitting, crouched by the water. But this time a feeling of joy engulfed me and I stepped through the forest hedge and called out to him, my lover.
He turned his head.
It was Kashchey.
My mind screamed in agony, but I smiled.
His lips smiled in return, but his eyes were cold.
Once again, I forced my mind to retreat and gave in to the happiness of seeing him here. It overwhelmed me, leaving no room for cold. I ran to meet him. He jumped up and lifted me in his arms, circling the glade with me.
I wanted to hold him, but I could not. I held something important clenched in my hand, though I did not know what it was.
I searched for a place to put it down, but Kashchey stroked my body with such passion that I forgot.
“I was waiting for you, my love,” he whispered.
He lay me gently on the grass and stretched next to me. My heart quivered with bliss as I watched him undo the strings of my dress until his hand found its way inside to caress my swelling breasts.
“Someone will see us,” I whispered. “We should go inside.”
He leaned over me and this time there was a smile in his onyx-black eyes.
“No one ever comes to these woods,” he said. “And I can’t wait. I want you now!”
He pulled my dress open all the way, leaving me naked below the sky.
I closed my eyes and gave myself to the touch of his hands. The forest stood still around us and the slow river followed its endless course.
There was nobody else in the world.
Nothing else mattered.
The strange, oval object I had been clenching in my hand rolled out of my open palm and disappeared in the tall grass. It rolled to the edge of the water and I heard a splash as it disappeared into the amber depth of the lake.
I never learned what it was.
As I opened my eyes, I saw Praskovia standing by my bed. It was very early, but the first beams of the morning sun had already crept in through the narrow stone window.
The day of the Solstice.
The longest day of the year.
As Praskovia handed me my morning drink, I saw her hands tremble as they clenched the clay mug. I sat in my bed and sipped the hot herb brew, studying my handwoman.
Her face was pale and her eyes red. If I didn’t know her better, I would have thought she was crying.
“Praskovia?” I asked handing her back the empty mug.
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Are you feeling well?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
I stood up and pulled my silky black dress over my head.
“You can’t fool me, you know.” I peered into her eyes. “You must tell me what’s wrong.”
For the first time in memory, she avoided my gaze.
I heard wings flap behind me as Raven flew in through the open window.
“Leave her alone, Marya,” he said. “She’s under orders.”
“Whose orders?”
“Your father’s.”
“She is my handwoman,” I said, angry. “What business does my father have to give her orders to hide things from me?”
Raven flew over to a stone ledge to face me.
“What did you and your father do last night?” he asked.
“We—we looked in the Mirror to find out more about the boy. Just like you suggested.” I felt something stir at the back of my mind, but I dismissed it. What did last night have to do with it?
“And then?”
“My father left and I went to sleep.” I felt treacherous color creep up to my cheeks. My dreams. Surely, Raven couldn’t know them, could he?
“Where did he go?”
I opened my mouth and stopped. Your father will set things right, he had said. He also said he knew who else was helping the boy, besides the Gray Wolf.
I knew my father all too well.
“What did my father do?” I demanded. What has he done?
“He found the one to blame.”
“Who?”
“No,” Praskovia said. “Stop it. You mustn’t know, Mistress. Please.”
Chills crept up my spine.
“You will do that, Praskovia?” Raven said. “You will choose Kashchey over your own fa—”
“Stop it, I said!” Praskovia exclaimed. It was a command. But, more than that, it was a plea.
“Your own…father?” I whispered.
Praskovia was suddenly busy, walking over to my trunk and reaching in to rummage inside.
“Come, Mistress,” she said. “It’s a big day. You must be ready.”
“But—”
“It’s her choice, Marya,” Raven said. “You can’t interfere.”
“It seems that I can, since my father is involved.” I pushed Praskovia aside and strode out of the room.
The servants’ frightened glances led me away from my father’s chambers, which were empty, down the narrow stairway to the side of the castle, and eventually, after much searching, down another flight of spiral staircase that seemed as if it would never end, into the damp, moldy space underneath the castle.
The dungeons. I had only been there once in my entire life and I didn’t cherish the experience.
I took a burning torch out of its sconce and followed a winding passageway toward a flickering light far ahead. The cold dampness encompassed me with the smell of decay. In the uneven shadows, the walls seemed to creep with things I didn’t want to think about.
Down here, I was no longer powerful. I was a frightened young girl, just like the first time I’d wandered here, when I was ten and saw things that I had been told to forget—an order I found impossible to follow.
The stone walls opened into a larger space. A torch flickered in the corner, throwing uneven light onto a dark cloaked figure—my father?—and something else…
I edged forward, the torch suddenly heavy in my weakening hand.
My father turned. “Marya? What are you—”
I looked past him at the old man sprawled on the wall. His arms and legs, spread wide apart, were pinned to the stone by crude iron daggers, surrounded by black splotches of dried blood. His long white hair and thin straight beard were disheveled, his bare chest splayed with blood that almost hid the gashes beneath. His face was so pale it seemed more gray than the stone behind him. Yet his eyes, blue like waters in a summer lake, shone brighter than jewels on his drawn face. The man’s body was broken, but his spirit was still intact.
“Release him, Father,” I whispered.
“Who told you?” my father demanded. “It’s Praskovia, isn’t it? I’ll have that woman—”
“You will not, Father,” I said. “You will release this man and let my servants see to his wounds. And, you will leave Praskovia alone. She told me nothing. I was looking for you and I found you here, that’s all.”
“This man helped the boy get to your tower. He told the boy about your traps
. He also told the boy that we cannot harm him if he asks for your hand. He gave our enemy weapons against us!”
I shook my head. “Torturing this man won’t undo what he’s done. Release him, Father. Do it now.”
“You can’t give me orders, Marya.”
“Today,” I said, “is the Summer Solstice. The day of Kupalo. This is the only day of the year I can give you orders, Father. And you must follow them if you want to see the Solstice through. Today is my day and you know it.”
I turned and saw frightened faces peering out from behind the bend of the stone wall. Praskovia and her maids—Lubava and Nastya, I believe. Pavel, the stable man. Some more people I barely knew.
“Release this man,” I said into space. “Take him to the servants’ quarters. Dress his wounds. See to his needs. Today he is mine. Tomorrow my father and I will decide his fate.”
I felt my father’s gaze burn the back of my neck, but I ignored it as I strode through the crowd hastily parting before me, and made my way back upstairs.
Ivan
As the thicket concealing Baba Yaga’s lair fell further behind, the walking became easier. Sticky branches no longer grabbed at Ivan’s legs in an attempt to slow him down. Hazel leaves didn’t try to slap him in the face. Instead, the welcoming shapes of slender birches rose ahead, letting glimpses of sunlight through their airy crowns.
It was unusual for Wolf to trot behind Ivan instead of leading the way. As they walked, Ivan threw quick glances over his shoulder at the gray shape. He itched to ask a question, but he knew better.
As the trees became scarcer, Wolf finally came up by Ivan’s side. “You have a question, boy?”
“Yes.”
“Then ask. I can stand no more of your fidgeting.”
Ivan turned to face the beast. “What did you do to make Baba Yaga so angry with you? Why did she curse you out of your speech?”
There was a pause. For a while Ivan thought he wasn’t going to get an answer. Then, for a while longer he thought of worse things that could happen if he went too far with Wolf.
When Wolf finally spoke, his answer came as a dart out of nowhere. Ivan almost jumped at the sound of Wolf’s familiar voice.