Yvgenie (5 page)

Certainly a young wizard would make a few mistakes along the way. The vodka jug was one of his. So were the wishes that had brought Volkhi to them, and Missy; and the god only knew what calamity their flight might have caused in Vojvoda. He still did not know, nor wish to know, exactly what had set them free.

And generally, as tonight as he opened his book and began to write, in a house that had neither domovoi nor dvorovoi, nor any feeling of home—

Generally he did not think at all about Vojvoda, or his family. He, most of all of them, did not want his life to change—and he had to be careful of that, appended as he was to Pyetr's household.

Odd uncle Sasha. Sasha the maker of toys, for the last child he might ever see. He thought, If I'd stayed in Vojvoda, if I'd married, if it had really ever been a choice to be ordinary
—

He wondered what had become of the aunt and uncle who had brought him up. He wondered—

But he sternly forbade himself such thoughts. The god only knew what disasters they could lead to, and as for what had become of his relatives in Vojvoda, who his cousin Mikhail had married, or whether he had a horde of younger cousins by now—it was as good as in the moon, that life, and never that close, any hope of an ordinary family, not for Sasha Misurov. He had the finest any man could dream of, and that should certainly be enough
—

Even if the
h
ouse was dark and lonely at night, and even if it made sounds that had nothing to do with a domovoi, and everything to do with emptiness.

It was so hard not to think—but one dared not, dared not dream or think at all under this roof, with her mother on the other side of the wall.
Ilyana
lay abed under coverlets her mother had sewn, furiously concentrated on the patterns of the lamplight on the wooden ceiling. God, the nights she had counted the joints, the pegs, the knotholes, and discovered the animal shapes in the wood of this room—while she tried not to listen to the words that strayed out of her parents' bedroom or to wonder what they were arguing about or why her name figured in it.

Most of all she dared not think of the pattern that reminded her of Owl—nor recall her friend waiting on the moonlit river shore.

But it seemed—it seemed something very like his presence brushed the edges of her mind tonight, so vivid a touch she could imagine him standing at her bedside.

—But that can't happen. He can't come into the house. He daren't come here. It's only my imagination.

A ghost would have to belong here, to get inside, isn't that the rule? And surely he doesn't; and surely the domovoi would never let him in without so much as a sound— Rusalki can kill you just by wanting to. So he doesn't need to get into my bedroom if he did mean any harm, and it's stupid to be afraid of him. If he's a ghost he's been one since I first knew him, he's no different than he ever was, and if I don't stop thinking about him right now, mother's going to hear me.

Something still seemed to
lurk in the shadows by the ward
robe, and of a sudden—

Babi turned up as a weight on her feet, eyes slitted, chin on manlike paws. When her heart settled, then she dared sleep.

When her heart settled, then she dared sleep.

2

‘
Get her out of the house,
’
Sasha said to Pyetr as they were riding through the woods, while birds sang like lunatics in the cool dawn.
‘
That's my opinion, whatever Eveshka says. Take her downriver with you. You don't spend enough time with her.
’

Pyetr thought instantly of crises developing on that trip, weather, meetings with people ashore, some of them ill-mannered or merely fools.
’
God, Eveshka would never have
that
.
’

‘
Eveshka's far too strict with the girl. Yesterday evening every truant from here to Kiev must have run home to his mother—instantly. Thieves and burglars in all the Russias must have mended their ways. Our mouse had reason to be upset.
’

An ordinary man could not hear such storms. But he could certainly see and feel their effects in people he loved.

‘
I've talked with 'Veshka.
’

‘
And she said?
’

‘
Owls.
’

‘
Owls.
’

‘
She dreamed about one. She said an ordinary man—no, that's not fair—
’
The plain truth was that he did not remember exactly what he had said to 'Veshka or she had said to him last night: when they argued, he tended to forget exactly what he had said and what he had thought to himself; but when a man was arguing with a wizard, saying and thinking were very little different anyway.
‘
It's that season, that's all. One can't help but remember—
’

Sasha said:
‘
She's certainly on edge. I can feel it in her.
’

An ordinary man also had to accept that his best friend knew more about his wife than he did, and constantly heard things from her that went past him.
‘
So what can I do about it?
’

‘
Warn her. Advise her. She listens to you.
’

‘
What do I know? At least 'Veshka had a father to look to. Mine was no good example. And your uncle Fedya was certainly no substitute.
’

‘
Master Uulamets was a lot of things; but he wasn't wise with his daughter—or with his wife.''

‘
How can I advise her? How can I reason with her? I'm just an ordinary man. I don't understand. I can't hear, I can't see.
’

‘
Tell me, what would you have done if your father had decided you shouldn't be on the streets, and locked you in The Doe's basement?''

Appalling thought.
‘
I'd have—
’

‘
Of course you would.''

First chance he got, up the chimney, or out the door. He would never have abided captivity. Never.

Sasha said,
‘
If Eveshka's worried about her own nature in the girl, think about your own.
’

What gives you the right? he had asked his father, every time Ilya Kochevikov had made a desultory attempt at reining him in. Where were you when I needed you?

‘
I really think you ought to take her with you this next trip south,
’
Sasha said.
‘
Maybe to Anatoly's place. There might even be some young lad to think about.''

Some young lad. His heart went thump.
‘
God, give her something else to worry about while we're about it! She's got enough to deal with!
’

‘
She's fifteen, Pyetr. She's never seen ordinary folk.
’

‘
What for the god's sake do you think
I
am?
’

‘
You're everything she knows of the world outside this woods, but you're not as ordinary as you think. She needs some sense of other people, a whole variety of people. When she wishes, she needs to have some vision of what and who she might be touching.
’

‘
Her mother's never been out of this woods. Her grand
f
ather never—
’

‘
Yes, and it never helped them. It would be very hard for
E
veshka to go, this late. She wouldn't know how to see things. She wouldn't have any patience with the
Fedyas and the 'Mi
tris
of the world.
’

‘
They'd be cinders.''

‘
Not as readily as you might think. But Eveshka certainly does have a way of finding the dark in the world. And your daughter doesn't, yet. Your daughter just might look past people like 'Mitri and see, for instance, old Ivan Ivanovit
c
h, or some nice young farmer lad.
’

‘
She'd have no idea how to deal with boys.
’

‘
So tell her.
’

‘
Tell her what?
’

‘
Whatever fathers tell their daughters. Tell her what you'd have told yourself when you were that age. Tell her what
you
needed to know.
’

‘
God, I wouldn't say that to her!
’

‘
Forgive me.
’
Sasha was distinctly blushing.
’
But someone should.
’
,

‘
She's still a child!
’

‘
Not in all points. What were you thinking about when you were fifteen?
’

‘
A drunken father. Money. Staying alive.
’

‘
And?
’

A succession of female faces came to him, some of them nameless so far as he was concerned, one of them three times his age. Riotous living. Being drunk, on the rooftree of The Doe.

‘
She's a girl!
’
he said aloud, and then thought that it was all the more reason for worry.

‘
She's still your daughter.''

Sasha knew Ilyana better than he did, too, Pyetr was sure. It was love for him that had made Sasha and Eveshka pack him
off
to far places whenever Ilyana had had some problem, for his safety, Eveshka had always said, and so had Sasha, whose parents had both burned to death the day his father had beaten a very frightened young wizard once too often. Lightnings might gather (literally) over the cottage. But bolts had never hit the house, and it had been a long time since Ilyana's last real tantrum. Perhaps their magic had won the day, or perhaps Ilyana had just grown old enough to think before she wished.

‘
My daughter, yes, but, god, Sasha, I can't talk to her about young men—
’

‘
Should 'Veshka?
’

‘
Sasha, I don't know my daughter that well. I've missed so much of her life—sometimes it seems it's all the important parts. You're more her father than I am.
You
talk to her.
’

‘
God, no!
’

‘
Sasha, I'd botch it. I'd scare her half to death.
’

‘
Don't ever say that. Absolutely she'd listen to you. She tells me how very special her father is.
’

‘
Has she got the right fellow?
’

‘
Don't joke. Not about that. You're the sun and the moon to her. She loves you more than anyone alive.
’

‘
She has no idea who I am. Or what I was. Or what I did or might have done.''

‘
I think she knows very well what you are. And you should remember one other important thing.''

‘
What, for the god's sake?
’

‘
That I was about her age when I took up with you.
That's
what fifteen is.
’

It was true, god, it was true, he had let the years creep up on him with no understanding how they added up: he had hardly figured his wife out yet.

But Sasha had indeed set out into the world at about that
age
—carrying a half-dead fool through the woods, sustaining his life on wishes and a handful of berries; a fifteen-year-old had fought ghosts and wizards for his sake before all was done—not to mention that Eveshka had eluded her father and gotten herself killed, hardly a year older than fifteen:
that
disaster, they had certainly been thinking of—and denying with every wish of their hearts.

‘
She's growing up,
’
Sasha said.
‘
Whatever we've done hitherto, she's arrived quite naturally now at making choices of her own, choices that we won't always know about—nor
s
hould we. The child's due her day. She's smothered her magic so far—we've all encouraged that. But Eveshka smothers hers for more reasons than mothering: she refuses to let it out any longer. She thinks if she says nothing but no, a child is going to choose the same course and renounce magic. Maybe. But I certainly wouldn't bet on it; besides which, in doing that, she's not showing the child how to be responsible
f
or her wishes—and Ilyana hasn't had the experience I'd h
a
d, nor the experience her mother had had by her age, either.
Let
me tell you, you may have missed a few scary moments,
Pyetr
, but for the next few years, you may be the most important influence in her life. She worships you.
’