Yvgenie (v1.1)

by C. J. Cherryh

  You knew better, she wanted Sasha to know, while Pyetr was staggering from the bedstead to the wall to the door, with every intention of riding after Ilyana, immediately, this instant.

  She followed Pyetr into the kitchen, watched him gather supplies in an achingly random, confused way, while the blood traced a thin trail down his cheek. He was not upset with Ilyana, that was the hurtful thing. He believed it was his fault: Ilyana was only an innocent misled by a scoundrel—maybe not even a thorough-going scoundrel, at that, only a most desperate and unhappy ghost. Pyetr’s capacity for forgiveness outraged her sense of justice and was such gentle sanity when she borrowed from him—

  But that borrowing was like the other borrowing, the killing one; and it reminded her that she could have the strength to stop her daughter. She could have it at any moment she wanted to take it...

  While in the same reckless way Pyetr forgave Ilyana and Kavi, Pyetr forgave her, too, for things that, dammit, were not even true; and never had been. But how could one possibly refuse forgiveness for sins one had not done, when there were so many worse she contemplated?

  He said, glancing around at her in shock, “God, where’s Sasha?”

  “On his way.” A tear spilled down her cheek, all unexpected. His innocent dread made a complete wreck of her calm constructions. She wished not. She wished the whole business not, but that was mortally dangerous, oh, god, it was—

  He flung his arms about her, hugged the breath out of her and said, “ ‘Veshka, ‘Veshka, they’re just young fools. I scared her. It’s all my fault. She thinks she’s protecting the boy, that’s all. Don’t panic. We’ll get her back.”

  “She’s protecting him? Don’t! Don’t argue with me! You don’t know what they’re thinking, and I don’t want to wonder. Please—pleasel”

  He caught her face between his hands, wanting her to look at him. “Wife, I was a handful. I know what she’s thinking. We locked her in and we locked her out, and she couldn’t breathe, that’s all. I would have run, in her place—and dumped my father on his head, too, if he was trying to stop me—but she didn’t mean to hurt anybody, ‘Veshka. You know she could have done much worse—”

  “Pyetr, dammit, she’s not all your daughter! Wishes are her mother and her father, and we even don’t know whose! I never knew why I had her!”

  “She wanted to be born, that’s all, the same way she wanted the filly. Two fools like us hadn’t a chance.”

  She caught his hands. “Don’t joke, Pyetr! God, don’t joke, you don’t understand what you’re saying, you never have understood me! She shouldn’t have been born… She shouldn’t exist, Pyetr, I don’t know how I ended up carrying her, to this day I don’t know!”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Pyetr, you don’t feel it, you don’t feel the silence out there. She’s pulled a curtain around her, she’s invisible, she’s the whole damned woods. Pyetr! God, I love her, but love’s not enough!—I should never have left you with her!”

  He took her wrong. She hurt him. He turned away to his packing, saying, “I’ll get her back.” And, god—she all but wanted to want him to understand her, but he already blamed himself for losing her, and she was too confused to know what was right to want of him—

  Meanwhile Sasha was on his way up to the porch, a very sore and repentant Sasha, who opened the door and said, cheerfully, “Well, she certainly did it, didn’t she?”

  She restrained what she thought. She bit her lips on what she thought of Sasha’s damnable levity and Sasha’s choices thus far, until she tasted blood.

  And thought of thorns.

  Sasha said, “They’ve taken the filly, that’s all. We can overtake them.”

  She said, “I’ll take the boat. And I’m not a fool, Sasha. Let’s have no arguments. You know my opinions. I’ll allow you yours. But for the god’s sake don’t tell me nothing’s wrong!”

  Pyetr said, desperately, “Let’s not for the god’s sake quarrel. You pack. I’ll get after her. There’s more than one horse, Sasha. His showed up. ‘Veshka, do you have any clear idea where she’s going?”

  “North. And you’re not going after her alone. She has no idea what she’s going to do. I have no idea. She’s never fought us like this.”

  “Then she’s damned scared, is all! Hell, ‘Veshka, maybe we should all just let her alone, let her think! If we all take off after her—”

  “With him, let her alone?”

  “Hush,” Sasha said. “No. I agree with both of you. We shouldn’t press her, but we shouldn’t let her go off on her own either. There’s too much come loose the last few days— more wishes than hers are involved here, and she doesn’t know what she’s going to do: she doesn’t even realize what she can do—that’s the worst danger. She could have killed you, Pyetr, with a less specific wish.”

  “Then she’s smarter than that. She knows what she’s doing, she’s doing exactly what you predicted she’d do—what anybody would do, who’s cornered… For the god’s sake, it’s Ilyana we’re talking about—”

  “—in Kavi’s company,” Eveshka cried. “Is that what you want?”

  He looked at her in distress and she was sorry she had shouted at him, she was sorry for wanting him to listen to her opinions. She put her arms about him, wanted him well, wanted him to understand her fears, at least. “Love’s no defense,” she whispered. “God, protect yourself.”

  He said, his chin against her hair, “Love’s not a defense; that’s the entire point, isn’t it?”

  He terrified her. He went at fear the way he went at fences, headlong. And if what he loved had no concern for him—

  “Ilyana’s being selfish,” she said, as reasonably as she could. “She’s scared, yes. We’re so easily frightened. Everything’s so unstable to us. When your feet are sliding—it’s very hard to love anyone but yourself.”

  “She’s your daughter,” he said. “And you do.”

  “Don’t trust me, dammit!” She pushed away from him, and realized Sasha’s embarrassed presence. “God, you reason with him!”

  She ran for the door, ran down from the porch and across the yard.

  “ ‘Veshka!” she heard Pyetr shouting after her, afraid for her, angry at her, she did not want to know. She wished she had kissed him goodbye. She wanted to run back now and do that, which would only make leaving him harder, and lead to arguments. She wished instead to welcome him home, sometime yet to come, which was as close as she dared come to wishing for their lives and this house—

  But even that wish might have a darker side. Anything might. Everything might. Don’t trust me, was the safest wish for them: don’t love me, she had tried for years.

  “ ‘Veshka!” Pyetr shouted furiously, and maybe it was a wish that anchored him to the porch, maybe it was his own knowledge that his effort was foredoomed—but he had a sure notion which when he felt Sasha’s hand fall on his shoulder. Sasha said, “Let’s get packed. She’s had a good start.”

  He shook the hand off, and was sorry he had done that. Sasha knew more than he did about what had happened, probably knew more than he did about Eveshka’s intentions at the moment and Sasha had made no attempt to stop her. “What’s she up to? What’s she going to do when she finds them? Reason with them? Not damned likely!”

  Sasha said, “Come on. Let’s get what we need in the house.”

  “She’s the one we ought to chase down! Why aren’t we stopping her? Is it your idea? Or mine? Or hers?” He slammed his hand onto the rail. “God, I’m going crazy!”

  Sasha said, “I think it’s because neither of us can keep her here. And she could be right. We don’t know who wanted Ilyana to be born. It wasn’t ‘Veshka’s idea.”

  Heat stung his face. Anger welled up. “Babies do happen without magic, Sasha, and once they’re started, they do get born!”

  “Not to wizards.”

  No damned time or place to argue that point. He muttered,

  “To wizards the same as anyone else, unless th
ey wish not,” and started into the house to get his coat, his sword, provisions—

  “The point is,” Sasha pursued him at the door, “she’s surrounded herself with protections for her life and her way. It shouldn’t have just happened—”

  “Protections against what?” He turned around, stopping Sasha short in the doorway. “Against the fact we love each other? Is that safe, Sasha? Is that even sane? She loves the mouse!”

  Sasha said faintly, “She knew the hazards, too.”

  “The mouse isn’t a damned hazard! She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to us!”

  “There were others who could have wanted it. That’s the point, Pyetr. That’s what she’s scared of.”

  “All right, all right, let’s say it, shall we? Her mother. Draga. Draga’s influence is what she’s afraid of. But Draga’s dead!”

  He saw it coming, knew he had been the fool before Sasha even said the obvious: “So is Chernevog.”

  Babi had come with them, trotting along with a slight disturbance of dead leaves, upset and growling all the way.

  Which might tell you something, mouse, her uncle would say to her. She had wanted Babi to stay with her father to be sure he was safe until her mother got home (and afterward) but Babi had turned up by Patches’ feet as she led Patches out the gate—and now at the edge of dusk Owl joined them, too, flying ahead of them through the dark, a gliding wisp of white with black barring.

  “What’s that?” Yvgenie asked anxiously.

  “Only Owl.”

  “He’s not a real owl,” Yvgenie objected, meaning, she supposed, that he was not a live owl. She said, distractedly, wishing silence close about them: “He’s real. Ghosts are real.” Yvgenie made her think of her father, so deaf to wishes, and so patient and good-hearted despite his weariness. She wanted to help him, but worrying about him or her father was dangerously distracting to her right now, and she longed for Kavi to speak to her again, but that was not fair. It was even dangerous to Yvgenie—

  She thought it and Yvgenie’s head began to nod—perhaps that her wish had done it, perhaps that Yvgenie had grown too weak or too weary to care any longer about overhanging branches. “Stay on,” she wished him, riding Patches close where there was room among the trees. She pushed at his shoulder. “Please don’t fall off.” She had had enough of bumps on undeserving heads for one day, please the god, when she dared not even wish her father well now, dared not reach back into the house where her mother’s wishes hung so thick and so stiflingly strong.

  Wishes in that house had been directing their lives from generations before she was even born or her father or Sasha had ever come to live there. Magic in that house was all about her, attached to the china, the doors, stitched into the clothes she wore—magic there must always be more convolute than she knew, different than she could possibly understand. She could feel it tonight reaching even into the woods—and most of it was her mother’s, she knew that now. All her life her mother had told her not to use magic, but her mother had been doing it all along, so subtly no one could catch her. Her mother had expected evil of her; her mother was afraid of anybody who wanted something in the least different than she did, that was the trouble with her mother: her mother wanted every living thing in the world to do what she wanted forever, to live all their lives as she wanted—that was how her mother’s presence felt in the house, now that she had felt its absence.

  Her mother did not want to be known, uncle had admitted to her: her mother would never give her heart to a child, in any sense—because, for one thing, no one ever did anything good enough for her mother. No one could: her mother trusted no one. Her mother’s magic would strangle her, snarl her in its tangled threads and smother her father and her uncle if they tried to protect her, unless she could find somewhere a place those wishes had never reached—

  Don’t trust her, papa, don’t listen to her, she’s so scared, and so strong, and she wants, papa, she wants, stronger than I can deal with—stronger even than uncle can deal with—

  The mouse could never hurt anyone. But her mother had always believed she would hurt her father—and now, dammit, mostly thanks to her mother, she had done that, in every sense. Beliefs, she meant to write in her book, can come true like wishes, when you put them on people.

  But her father and her uncle had refused to listen to a child. They had only worried about her mother’s feelings, and her mother’s hurt, and never, ever thought their fifteen-year-old daughter might understand a danger everybody older had failed to see.

  The mouse was running away now, because she could not stay the mouse anymore, not after her mother had wanted her father to kill an innocent boy only for being near her. A wish like that could come true years from now, and they would never, never know when, or how, even if her father might like Yvgenie and never want to harm him: he could still, within that wish, be responsible for an accident.

  She would find her Place, she would make a house of her own, the way her uncle had had his house on the hill (and still that had not proved safe). She had no idea whether her mother had had anything to do with that storm, but she had her suspicions and she meant to keep a further distance than her uncle had if it was only a lean-to in the woods. She would have this boy and Babi and Patches and the white mare, and once things were settled and she was sure her wishes were strong enough to protect them, then her father and her uncle could visit her house and say how well she was looking; and he would cook supper for them, yes, and ask how her mother was, and whether her mother was speaking to her yet—

  Her mother was loosing the cable that bound the boat to the dock. Above the steady creak of saddles and the jingle of bridle rings came the sinister lapping of water and the groan of old timbers—

  Ilyana, come out of the dark and the silence, Ilyana, you’re wrong. Listen to me while you still can listen. You’re making wrong choices. He’s already led you to hurt your father.

  She didn’t want to hear. No! She made her silence back again, but anger was a flaw, wondering about her father was—

  Your father trusted you, and now he can’t believe you: that’s the first thing you’ve done. You hurt him and you hurt your uncle, who could have been seriously hurt, young miss, and you’re not thinking about anything right now but your own way. That’s wrong. Look at what you’re doing. Are you acting like the daughter we taught?

  “No!” she screamed aloud to the dark, struggling to keep her wits about her, and not to hear the river or the reproach in her mother’s voice. “You don’t love anything! You don’t care! You’re the one that’s selfish, mother, you’re the one that’s taking over everything and killing everything! I’d talk to you if I could, but I can’t, I can’t trust your promises! If I came back we’d fight, and that wouldn’t be good, would it, mother, because somebody might stop you from having your own way, somebody might tell you how you’ve hurt my father and my uncle all my life! Papa can’t laugh with you. But he can with me, mother! Stop wishing at him! Don’t tell me who’s hurting him!”

  “God,” Yvgenie whispered, as the wind skirled round them and caught at the horses’ manes and sifted leaves down through the branches. Patches sidestepped and Ilyana held her in: her mother called that wind and wanted the horses to take fright and leave them. Her mother wanted harm to Yvgenie; but she wanted not. Patches was hers, Yvgenie was hers, the white mare was his, and her mother could keep her distance.—Dammit, just let us alone! Give me time! Give me room, mother! If you ever want to hear from me again, give me room! Patches shivered under her. The smothering feeling went away, like a cloud passing the moon, and Owl glided close, making an entire turn about them.

  “Yvgenie, it’s all right. It’s all right. Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not afraid,” he said, and added, with a stammer, “except of wizards. And ghosts.—Can your mother really hear you like that?”

  “She can hear me,” she said. “But she’s not listening.” She wished not to shed the tears she found in her eyes. “She nev
er listens.”

  Yvgenie said, faintly, “Maybe we should go back and talk with your father. Even if he’s not happy with me right now.”

  “No!” She shook her head and wiped her eyes and lifted her chin. “Someone’s needed to tell my mother no for a long time. Papa can’t. Uncle can’t. But I have. And by the god I will.”

  “I don’t get a sense of where they are at all,” Sasha said as Pyetr came down from the porch with the baggage. Eveshka was already down at the shore—well away by now, Pyetr was sure.

  “Fine,” he said, handing up Sasha’s baggage to him on Missy’s back. “In the woods. That’s where they are. Going north, with a long head start.—Where are the leshys? What’s Misighi doing, for the god’s sake? If she’s holding a silence out there, haven’t they noticed?”

  “Not that I can tell. But I did hear her—just a moment ago, and I don’t think she intended that. I don’t really get the idea we’re unwelcome to follow her, either. It’s a very odd feeling. A spooky kind of feeling, to tell the truth.”

  “It’s her mother she doesn’t want to meet,” Pyetr muttered. He flung two of their heavier bags up onto Volkhi’s back and tied them down tight. “I can’t say I blame her, all things considered. Sasha, if you get another chance, tell her I’ll come ahead and talk to her, myself, alone, no magic, nothing of the sort—”

  “That wouldn’t be wise to do.”

  “Wise, hell! She’s my daughter, Sasha, not some outlaw!”

  “She’s not alone, either.”

  “Fine, Chernevog’s with her!” He finished the ties. “I’m sure that gives me much more peace of mind!”

  “I’m not putting you in Chernevog’s hands, not twice. We’re only lucky he’s on good behavior.”

  “Good behavior.” He gathered up Volkhi’s reins while Sasha was securing his own baggage to Missy’s saddle. “It wasn’t good behavior that brought him here in the first place, it wasn’t good behavior that made trouble between my daughter and my wife, if you haven’t reckoned that. It damned sure wasn’t good behavior when he killed that boy!”