Rosa and the Veil of Gold

by Kim Wilkins

  Daniel helped Em to the ground. “There’s no need for that. Em will rest, and then we’ll move on.”

  “I insist,” Rima said. “Wait right here. I’ll be back in no time.”

  Daniel felt a twinge of concern as Rima’s white figure disappeared into the dark, her melancholy song dwindling to nothing on the summer breeze.

  Em was resting her head on her knees. “I’m sorry, Daniel. Maybe I was wrong.”

  “Get some sleep, Em,” he said, smoothing her hair. “By the time you wake, she might be back with mushrooms.”

  “I don’t trust her.”

  “Poisonous mushrooms, then,” he joked.

  She lifted her head and smiled wryly. “I’d still eat them.”

  He nodded wearily. “So would I.”

  Em lay on her side in the long grass, and Daniel sat close beside her, huddling under the fur. No warmth to take comfort in from Em’s body. He watched her as she fell asleep, then cast his gaze over the wide dull nothing which surrounded them. A breeze tickled the grass, sending ripples of grey movement across the plains. He rested his chin on his knees and waited for Rima.

  Em rose slowly to consciousness. Her hands were folded beneath her head and shoulder, and she felt something hard under her fingers. A rock? She moved her fingers to brush it away, but it was stuck to her.

  She sat up, rubbed her shoulder. The hard lump was her bone, jutting through skin. Daniel was sitting, his back to her, watching the clouds dissolve on the dawn sky.

  “Daniel?” she said.

  He turned. “She didn’t come back.”

  Em could have wept. No wild mushrooms, no juicy roasted rabbit, no honey, no clean water.

  “We shouldn’t have trusted her,” she said.

  “If we wait here…maybe…”

  Em shook her head and brushed stray hair from her eyes.

  “We headed north-west, Daniel. The sun’s rising there…” She jabbed her finger towards the intensifying glow in the east. “That means we’re now facing south-east. She led us in circles. She got us lost on purpose. We’re probably right back where we started.”

  Daniel sagged into his knees. “Why did we trust her, Em?”

  “Because we’re desperate,” Em said, brushing grass seeds off her clothes.

  Daniel turned his gaze back to the sky, and Em noticed he was squinting and drawing his brows down, then shaking his head as if to clear his vision.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Ever since I woke up from the russalki’s enchantment, my eyes have been doing strange things.”

  “What kind of strange?”

  “It’s as though…” He squinted again. “It’s as though I can see an extra layer of air. With colours. Now that the clouds have gone, I can see the sky has streaks of gold through it. Can you see that?”

  Em looked at the sky. It was more violet-hued than the sky at home, but there were no streaks of unusual colour. “No.”

  “I wonder what it is,” he muttered, turning his hands over in front of his eyes and peering at them. “It’s strange.”

  “Something the russalki did to you? To see underwater?”

  Daniel’s head jerked up. “Oh. I remember. Lobasta wanted me to see the bear, in the rock pool. She said…” He drew his brows down in concentration. “So much of it is a blur.”

  Em glanced away discreetly. She had seen and heard too much of what the russalki did to Daniel, and didn’t want to see his embarrassment if he remembered too.

  He fell silent. She turned back.

  “Daniel?”

  “She said she was giving me a second sight.”

  Em drew a breath, then smiled. “And with second sight, you can find a crossing.”

  “I can find a crossing.”

  Em felt laughter bubbling up. “We can find a crossing. You have second sight. We can probably find other things, too. Turn it on…go on. Can you spot any food out there? Which direction should we go?”

  Daniel spun in a slow circle, squinting like a schoolboy at a multiplication problem. “Food…water…come on.” He returned to his original position and shook his head sadly. “I don’t sense anything. Maybe it’s not working right.”

  “You probably need to practise. Just try to find the direction we should travel. Just turn off the thinking part of your brain and see what happens.”

  “That way,” he said, without hesitation, indicating east.

  She nodded. “Good work.”

  “Em, are you okay to walk?”

  She wasn’t okay. She could feel her body starting to close down, her poor heart protesting, her muscles and bones trembling. But there was nothing else she could do.

  “Let’s move for a few hours and see what happens,” she said. “We might be closer to home than we think.”

  While the rain intensified outside, the comfort bubble around Papa Grigory’s cottage stayed warm and dry. Night did come, but it was soft and forgiving, not the miserable cold of a windy, rain-soaked Russian night. Rosa sat at the wooden table while Grigory told Totchka a long story about Princess Vasilisa the beautiful.

  Rosa was warm, comfortable, hopeful, and a little impatient.

  Finally, the little girl dragged under by sleep, Grigory joined her at the table.

  “She is a beautiful child, isn’t she?” he said, sighing, his gaze still attached to Totchka.

  Rosa didn’t reply. In truth, she thought Totchka grim-faced and unfriendly, but parents were always blind to their children’s faults. She indicated the collection of dolls lined up at the end of Totchka’s bed. Their linen heads were faceless. “Why don’t her dolls have faces?” she asked.

  “She’s superstitious. Her mother once told her that bad magic could get into dolls with faces and make them come alive.” He shook his head, smiling. “She doesn’t outgrow her childhood fears, even though I’ve promised that nothing of the sort could ever happen to her here. I protect her from everything bad.”

  “Like rain?”

  “Sometimes I let a little rain in. I’m thinking of opening the sky tonight. The garden needs watering.”

  “How do you do it?”

  Grigory turned his attention to her, twitching his eyebrows comically and feigning an ominous voice. “Magic. Haven’t you heard the tales about me?”

  Rosa laughed. “That’s powerful magic. You have the bubble around the cottage the whole time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t that exhausting?”

  “How else do you think an ageless creature like myself has aged so dramatically?” he said. “For centuries, I resembled a man of forty. In the short time I have been blessed with Totchka’s love, I have grown wrinkled and spotted.”

  “Will you die?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t die.”

  Totchka stirred and his eyes were drawn back to her. “My immortality once made me fearless. I never realised until I met Totchka that one could fear something much more than one’s own death,” he said. “I love her so dearly. It grows every day.” He smiled at Rosa. “Impossibly.”

  “You must adore her to expend so much energy on magic sunshine.”

  “The circle of light protects us from more than inclement weather, Rosa. Skazki is dangerous. It teems with hungry spirits, and Totchka is defenceless. She wouldn’t survive a week without it, without me.”

  Rosa’s eyes went to the window, but all she could see were reflections: the warm glow of candlelight, her own pale face. “How long would I survive, Grigory?”

  “That would depend. Are you going to set Anatoly free?”

  “Eventually.” A bump and buzz in her stomach. “Though he doesn’t deserve it. I have no magic of my own now. It’s all gone.”

  “Then you would be almost defenceless in Skazki too.”

  “Almost defenceless. But my own death couldn’t find me.”

  “Well now, Rosa. What about these questions?” Papa Grigory said, but his expression betrayed no puzzlement. “What do you w
ant to tell me?”

  “Nothing. Just yet.” She tapped her fingers on the tabletop. “I’m keen to go. Must I wait until morning? What if Daniel needs me before then?”

  “We need to make preparations.”

  “We spent all day baking bread and packing.”

  “You need to rest. You can have my side of the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  Rosa glanced at the warm bed, the sleeping hump of the little girl’s shoulder. It did look inviting, and she was tired.

  “Go, Rosa. Sleep. I have a few things to take care of.”

  Rosa woke in the dark, her head too full of thoughts to regain sleep. Totchka slumbered on, untroubled. Rosa sat up and allowed her eyes to adjust to the dark. She could make out the shape of the table and the chairs. The stove popped and cracked softly. Papa Grigory was nowhere in sight. She quietly folded back the covers and rose, stopping to smooth the blanket over Totchka’s shoulder. The little girl muttered in her sleep, then settled.

  Rosa tiptoed across the cottage to the front door, then stole out into the garden. Rain fell lightly, warm drops on her cheeks and nose. She couldn’t see Grigory anywhere, but movement outside the bubble caught her eye. Was that him in the trees? Hesitantly, she took a step outside the protective circle. Cold, wet wind on her right leg; sweet, balmy rain on her left. She almost drew back inside the bubble. It was late and she was tired, but she was curious. The freezing downpour soaked her in two seconds. Arms crossed over her chest against the cold, she called, “Papa Grigory?”

  “Over here,” he said.

  She followed his voice into a broad stand of trees, and found him bent over a large dark shape. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Grigory straightened. His hair was soaked. She could see, now, that he stood next to a huge pile of deadfall. Branches and twigs and leaves piled to shoulder height in the middle of a ring of trees.

  “You can help,” he said. “We have to clear this away.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s something underneath it that you’ll need for your journey.” He bent over the pile again, throwing off debris.

  “Can’t we do it in the morning? Or when the rain lets up?”

  “It’s good to suffer from time to time, Rosa,” he said, heaving a branch onto the ground. “It reminds you you’re alive.”

  Rosa helped him in dragging branches from the pile, parting overgrown vines and clearing heaps of leaf matter. Her hands were muddy, her clothes were soaked, but her heart was pounding from the vigorous activity.

  “So what are we looking for under here?” Rosa asked.

  “A sleigh,” said Grigory, not pausing from his work.

  “A sleigh?”

  “You can’t go on foot. You’ll never catch up with them. Only I have the power to collapse the crossings. And I’m not leaving Totchka.”

  “And what’s going to pull it?”

  “It pulls itself through the sky.” He braced himself and began to roll a huge log out of the way. “Come, Rosa, help me with this one.”

  She moved to the other side and put her shoulder to the log. Rain ran down her cheeks and her neck, her hair clung to her face. She pushed as hard as she could, straining the muscles in her arms and back, and the log began to give.

  “There!” said Papa Grigory, and the log rolled, pulling a veil of vines and dead leaves behind it. Beneath, exposed now to the rain, was the front end of a black sleigh. Its curved bow was painted with two enormous bird eyes, and came to a black point which resembled a beak.

  “This is Voron,” he said, stroking the curves lovingly. “Raven son-of-Raven. He’s been in my family for years.”

  Rosa nodded, peeling back some more vines. “It’s beautiful. Doesn’t it get damaged out here?”

  “No, it remains always new.” He scratched a smudge off the bar. “This sleigh will take you wherever you want to go.”

  Rosa cleared debris from around the skis, unable to hide her pleasure. A magic sleigh to travel a land of wonders.

  “Voron pleases you, Rosa?”

  “Oh, yes. I can’t wait to go.”

  Grigory suddenly stopped what he was doing, his head snapping up. “Can you hear that?” he asked.

  “What? No.” Rosa tuned into the darkness, could only hear rain.

  “Totchka. She’s crying.” He dropped his handful of twigs and started towards the cottage.

  Rosa hurried behind him. “What do you think is wrong?”

  “Her cough sometimes wakes her up. What I wouldn’t give to make her better.”

  Rosa followed him in the dark, thinking about Anatoly and his daughter. Elizavetta may even be dead by the time Anatoly returned. She felt a twinge of guilt.

  “I’m sure she’s all right,” Rosa said.

  “If she wakes and I’m not there, it panics her,” Grigory answered, as they stepped back into the bubble and out of the heavy rain.

  Totchka was at the door in her nightdress, looking thin and frightened. “Papa! Where were you?”

  “Hush, child. All is well. Return to your bed,” he said, ushering Totchka back into the warm cottage.

  “I can’t sleep now. I’ll have nightmares.”

  Rosa closed the door behind them.

  “Then let me change into some dry clothes and I’ll tell you a story.”

  Totchka, sniffling, agreed to this. Grigory gave Rosa one of his shirts to change into, and she hung her own clothes by the fire and climbed into bed next to the little girl.

  Papa Grigory pulled up a chair and he stroked his beard and made hums and hahs of consideration.

  “Which story, now?” he asked.

  “The French king!” Totchka said. “Mother Moist Earth and the French king. You know it’s my favourite.”

  “Very well,” said Grigory. “Lie still and listen quietly.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “In a certain land, at a certain time, there lived a great and noble Tsar named Aleksandr, who ruled over his people wisely and lovingly,” Papa Grigory began.

  “Aleksandr,” Totchka breathed with a rapturous smile, pulling the blankets up to her chin. “He was very handsome,” she said to Rosa.

  “Aleksandr was so special,” continued Grigory, “because he was the half-blood prince of a magic kingdom. In days long ago, a beautiful magical princess had come and blessed his family. His ancestors had rejected their magical blood, but Aleksandr did not. He was thrilled by it, and he kept close by his side a Golden Bear which had been made in the magic kingdom.”

  “Tell me more about the bear,” Totchka said, her eyes widening as though she really wanted to know and really wanted Grigory to keep it from her, too. Rosa thought she’d very much like to hear more about the bear, but Grigory was dismissive.

  “They are stories for another time, Totchka,” he said. “Not for such a little girl as you.”

  Totchka whined and pouted, and Rosa had the distinct sense that this particular game had been played out between them many times.

  “Now, Aleksandr honoured his magic blood by installing at his court a wise and powerful man from the magic kingdom. What was his name, Totchka?”

  “The Secret Ambassador,” Totchka replied solemnly.

  “Indeed it was,” Grigory said, reaching out to smooth her hair.

  “Tell me about where Aleksandr and the Secret Ambassador lived, Papa,” Totchka said.

  “Aleksandr lived in a grand and beautiful city on the gulf, called St Petersburg. Its avenues were broad and clean, and the stone buildings were painted in gorgeous hues. Nowhere in the world were there larger parks, more beautiful ironwork, brighter canals or more glittering domes and towering spires. What a city! Aleksandr’s palace was the crowning glory, adorned inside with so much gold, so many fine objects and precious things that it cannot be told in a tale, or written with a pen.

  “The Secret Ambassador had his own special lodgings at this palace, and consulted with Aleksandr nearly every day. Not for more than a thousand years had an ambassa
dor from the magic kingdom had such intimate and powerful influence in the affairs of the kingdom of men.

  “But bright lights produce dark shadows, and there were many close to Aleksandr who thought the Secret Ambassador a mystical fool. Especially one wicked, wicked woman, the Tsar’s own sister.”

  “Ekaterina!” Totchka said with a scowl.

  “Yes, Ekaterina. She was the most beautiful princess in Russia. When she opened her window to look at the bright day, even the wind sighed in longing. When she grew sad, even the rainclouds cried. Everyone was in love with her, even Aleksandr himself, her own brother.

  “He mooned over her, wrote long love letters, trembled at her disapproval and jumped like a pup at her good grace. ‘Ekaterina Pavlovna,’ he would say, ‘what would you have me do to make you love me?’

  “‘Dear brother,’ she replied. ‘I already love you, as is fit for a sister. But, should you wish to please me further, you can tame a little bluebird to sit at my window, so I may be greeted by him every morning.’

  “Aleksandr duly arranged her wish: he found a bird-tamer and a bird, and the tamer spent weeks and months at the task. Then, when it was complete, Ekaterina only huffed and said she was no longer fond of bluebirds.

  “‘Well, then, Ekaterina Pavlovna,’ Aleksandr said, ‘what would you have me do to make you love me?’

  “‘Dear brother, I already love you, as is fit for a sister. But, should you wish to please me further, you can build me a garden seat of larkspur and jessamine, so I may sit on it on sunny afternoons.’

  “And so, Aleksandr hired a carpenter, bought the flowers and the lacquer, and the craftsman spent weeks and months at the task. Then, when it was complete, Ekaterina only huffed and said she was no longer fond of larkspur and jessamine.

  “‘Well, then, Ekaterina Pavlovna,’ Aleksandr said, ‘what would you have me do to make you love me?’

  “‘Dear brother, I already love you, as is fit for a sister. But, should you wish to please me further, you can assemble me an orchestra of beautiful virgins playing silver instruments so I may listen to the purest music there is.’