Yvgenie (16 page)

So, one day maybe years later, along would come a whirlwind; or somebody to pick up that stone and throw it. Or a passing horse might kick it. And it would fly. But a storm or a person or a horse would have had to go out of the ordinary way to do that, which might cause something else and something else forever, to the end of the kingdoms of all the tsars in the world;

A lot of wizards had grown up around this house, it turned out, and terrible things had happened here, that could make even a grown wizard wish without thinking. Wishes attached to objects, wishes on the gates, the yard, her own room
—

All the things uncle had told her began to come together of a
sudden
and assume shapes that made her—on the one hand—feel better, because maybe there
was
an explanation for her mother acting the way she had: maybe her mother was not after all so awful as she seemed. Being killed could certainly make one anxious about the place where it happened. And maybe she could do something right for once,
maybe one single wise wish would satisfy all the old wishes that might exist hereabouts: that was how to untangle a magical mess, as her uncle called it, just like looking through yarn for the master knot that snarled the little knots.

But—on the other hand—it was not all that simple: her parents certainly had never found that knot; and going down to the river tonight to ask the one other person who might have something important to say was not safe:
she
trusted her friend, but rusalki killed people, if she was mistaken; or even if she just said the wrong word to her uncle right now and he gave her the wrong answer and she believed it and made a wrong wish—something terrible could happen.

She was afraid to move when she thought that. She might be the only one in the house in a position to see the answer, the one person everyone ought to trust, and the very people she most wanted to protect could tell her no and wish her not to do things and
lie
to her, that was the scariest thought.

Her mother had been running things and wishing things in the house for a hundred years, her mother and Kavi both had, as seemed—not even mentioning her grandfather who had lived here before her uncle and her father had come. And her grandmother, who she supposed must have. And that was a lot of wishes—a
dangerous
lot of wishes that her uncle as well as her mother might not know about.

Not to mention her mother was the one her uncle said was fighting that magical
thing,
whatever it was, that was so easy to use again.

If her mother had been dead a hundred years she could hardly have kept her book current. So her mother had broken one of the first rules she had ever learned: to write down exactly what she had done, in all its shapes. Kavi, who could not move the foam on the river, certainly had no means to write down his wishes—what was more, he had come back as a little boy: little boys hardly had good sense, rusalki could hardly help themselves; and if a rusalka could still do magic—god, what might a young one have wished?

‘
Uncle?
’

Her uncle was squatting with the hoe against his shoulder, patting the earth along the radishes by hand. He looked up at her.

‘
If Chernevog's dead—what happened to his book?
’

Her uncle went a shade of white against the flecks of mud on his face, but she felt nothing but her own careful thought. He was good: he truly was very good.
‘
What put
that
question into your head, mouse?
’

‘
I just realized
…
ghosts don't write things down. And wizard-ghosts could get in a lot of trouble that way, unless they remember things better than live people do. Couldn't they?
’

‘
They don't. They're worse. God, mouse. Did you think of that all by yourself?
’

‘
I think I did.
’

‘
I think you did, too. You're a very astute mouse. Yes. I've thought of that; and I assure you your mother has. It worries her.
’

‘
So where is his book?
’

Her uncle got up and brushed his hands off on his trousers.
‘
As happens, mouse, I have it.
’

‘
Have you read it?''

‘
Yes. I've read it very carefully. That, and your grandfather's book; and on one occasion, your mother's.
’

‘
Do you think she reads mine?''

That question seemed to give him pause.
‘
I don't think so. I think I'd have known. And we agreed between us not to do that.
’

That was different than she had thought. Her mother might lie to her: anybody might lie for good reasons; but her uncle wouldn't have
that
particular expression on his face when he did, or be as easy to overhear as he was at the moment.

He was thinking: 'Veshka might have. But she's curiously moral when you least think she will be.

Her uncle had not meant her to hear that. She felt herself blush; but she was also glad she had heard it: it made more
sense of her mother in a handful of words than anything
she
had ever heard.

She said,
‘
Would you let me read those books?
’

Her uncle did not like that idea. No. He took a breath, and said,
‘
I think they'd disturb you right now, to be
honest.
There are some few things left for you to learn before you'
re
grown—things also more serious than the porch was; and I want to explain them to y
ou the right way, before you read
other people's mistakes.''

‘
So explain them now.
’

‘
I don't know
how
to explain them.
’

‘
God!
’
She threw up her hands, her father's expression, she realized it even when she was doing it; and she looked at him the way her father would.

‘
I know, mouse, I know. I can say this much: some
of
Chernevog's reasons
and
your grandfather's
…
weren't rig
ht
ones. You can learn from those books. But you have to realize where their mistakes were—and what they were, because the reasoning that led them to those mistakes looks very sound, if you don't see certain things a youngster might not know. And you can't learn them all at once, this afternoon.
’

That was at least the sanest no she had ever gotten. But i
t
was a no. And it was still frustrating.

Her uncle said,
‘
You're like your father. 'Why' is his word.
’

‘
To you?
’

‘
To the whole world, mouse, 'Why?' and 'Why Not?' He doesn't believe easily—not until he sees a thing happen. Which could be a very bad habit—except he doesn't believe a thing
can't
happen, either, including the chance that he could be wrong. He's stayed alive: he's kept me alive. And I was a very foolish young wizard.
’
Her uncle took up his hoe again and gave the radish row a thumping down with the flat.
‘
A very small dose of skepticism is a healthy thing in magic. And your father would add—a sense of humor is the most important sense. More precious than your eyes or ears.''

She looked across the yard to where her father was sitting,
planing down a board. She thought: How lonely he must feel, with mother and me both having tantrums.

She thought, I should have gone riding with him. I really should have.

She leaned her hoe on the garden fence, and went and hugged her father and told him that she was sorry, could they go riding in the morning?

‘
I suppose we can.
’
He pursed his lips, peeled another curl from the board, and looked at her sideways from under his hair as if he was keeping just a little of his doubt back
—
in case she was up to something. That was not at all the effect she wanted.

She said, to cajole him out of that idea without magic:
‘
Will you teach me how to jump Patches this afternoon?
’

Eyebrows went up. ''Your mother would—''

—kill me, he thought. She heard that completely by accident, saw him clamp his lips.

‘
I think I'd better teach you to ride by more than wishes, then, mouseling: staying on's not enough.
’

She's a great deal calmer, Sasha wanted Eveshka to know, before he opened his book that night. I've gone back up to my house, my own bed, you know. God, Pyetr's a restless sleeper.

He could feel the loneliness
in her asking: How is he? and h
e answered her with all he knew—which he hoped was some measure of reassurance; about the talk he had had with her daughter, how Ilyana was not rebelling, was not going back to the river
—

Be sure, Eveshka said, and almost—he felt it and wanted that thought
quiet,
quickly and thoroughly. Please, he said. She's sleeping. She's beginning to believe she can talk to you. Don't undo it all. She does love you. She will want you back—in not so long, I think.

Refraining from anything she had an opinion in was very hard for Eveshka. Refraining from her daughter was the hardest thing she could do—save one.

She said, Tell Pyetr I love him.

I will, he assured her, and wished her well.

It was quiet then, in his heart, in the house. Just the
cluttered
tables, the shelves, the little spot of light the candl
e
made. He dared open his book then, separate of that
trou
bling presence, and uncap the inkwell.

Damned lonely little house, never mind the bed was comfortable. The fire in the hearth, neglected last night, had gone out again, and the night chill reached his bones. He wa
s
alone up here. Eveshka was alone on the river. But he had laughed today, dammit, laughed so hard he had pulled a stitch in his side; Pyetr had—until the tears ran; and, god, yes, part of it was pain. They had been on the knife's edge for years with the child, Pyetr was desperately worried—and here were the two of them fooling about with that silly horse, playing games like the boys they had once been—

Because for that moment the years had not been there; and Pyetr had been himself; and he had. Not wise, not careful, considering all the things they had taught themselves to be, weighing every word and every wish—

They had laughed, and so had the mouse, thank the god— which gave him hope that, as much sense as the mouse was showing about what she was learning, there might be the day they could do that again, with Eveshka home. That was the wish he wrote in his book. That would make him happy—having his family back together, he was sure of that. A most definite wish—

The circle of light seemed very small tonight. Perhaps the wick had burned too fast for a bit, and drowned in wax. The untidy stacks seemed to close in on him—books and papers, books and papers, oddments that comprised his whole damned life.

No more mouse to make toys for. No more little girl to come up to his house and make messes with his inkpot.

She was growing up, his mouse was. Not for him. The thought had indeed crossed his mind that they might be each other's answer—but he could not give up that little girl, could
never change what had grown to be between them, or change her uncle Sasha in her eyes—they would both lose by that. Immeasurably. He could not think otherwise.

But he did think sometimes—of, as Pyetr had joked with him once, not really joking—sailing downriver with marriage in mind, to find himself some beggar girl, Pyetr had said, who would think him a rescue.

When once they had joked about wanting tsarevnas, each of them.

But, fact was, he thought, making Ilyana's name carefully in his book, the fact was, while there had been one woman in the house down there, there were getting to be two, who had difficulties as it was—and somehow he did not think bringing some stranger into the household
and
dealing with an ordinary woman in the midst of magic was going to solve their problems this year or next.

Which meant that his own house just stacked up higher and higher, a pending calamity of stacks ready to crash down—and somehow he just could not care about the house he lived in:
that
was his house down there, dammit, that was his family, and up here was just where he spent his nights and kept his papers.