Which notion far from reassured him.
They had supper—fish and turnips again, but honest fish and turnips. The trick was to keep the fire hot enough to overpower the drizzle—and not high enough to come back on a gust of wind and catch the canvas, which they had stretched from several makeshift poles and pegs to make a shelter: smoky from time to time, but the smoke meant warm air, and it was actually pleasant despite the sting it brought to the eyes. With a hot meal and a little measure of vodka afterward they were tolerably dry and comfortable—sitting on the wooded ridge, not by the pool, to be sure; and with the heat and light of the fire between them and Eveshka, Sasha had seen to that, having set up the shelter while Pyetr was gathering wood.
Not that he completely disbelieved the rusalka’s good intentions. But he had marked how pale Pyetr seemed by dusk, how clearly exhausted.
And he was not much better after supper.
“How are you feeling?” Sasha asked.
“All right,” Pyetr said. “I truly apologize. The stupid thing was, I knew at the time it was stupid.”
“Did you know I was behind you?”
Pyetr nodded. “But I had this feeling of something else behind us. And I couldn’t explain it. I don’t know why I couldn’t. It was altogether, irredeemably stupid—”
“That’s how strong she is. I couldn’t stop her. Or you.” He reached out and shook at Pyetr’s arm. “Be careful. I don’t think, I truly don’t think she’s after us, or we wouldn’t be sitting here right now, but that doesn’t mean she won’t change her mind.”
“She doesn’t mean us any harm,” Pyetr insisted, with a conviction that did nothing to ease Sasha’s misgivings; and Sasha shook at him a second time.
“Listen to you, Pyetr Illitch. It’s her. You know exactly what she’s making you know. Don’t start believing it. Maybe she’s on our side, maybe she wants to help her father, but she’s not alive, and you are, and that’s what she needs. Don’t be stupid. Don’t let her close to you!”
Pyetr gave a kind of shiver, staring into the fire. “That’s not easy.”
“I know it’s not easy. You’re white as a ghost tonight. Don’t let her touch you.”
Pyetr took a drink, swallowed hard, and nodded. “I know. I know that. I’m not being stubborn about it.”
“Listen, if she doesn’t tell us tomorrow morning where she thinks her father is, or what’s going on here, or what we’re going to do about it, I think we’d do best to turn south, just start walking out of this woods—”
“I know where Uulamets is,” Pyetr said, and made a motion of his hand to the general direction he had been going. “She does. He’s being a fool. I suppose wizards can be that the same as the rest of us. She’s upset about it.”
“Is she talking to you?”
Pyetr shook his head. “I just think that’s where she’s taking us.”
“Maybe we’d still better go south,” Sasha said, afraid now, wishing he had long ago listened to Pyetr when he was sure it was Pyetr’s own idea. He could only see Pyetr slipping deeper and deeper, and of that he could only see one conclusion. “We can get to the house, float a log across if we have to—”
“Hwiuur,” Pyetr reminded him, and Sasha’s heart thumped an extra beat at that name, here, where they did not want attention.
But Pyetr had no power to wish up a thing.
“Then we just walk all the way to Kiev,” Sasha said. “I’m sure there’s a ferry. And too many people around for things like him to try anything. I don’t think magical things like too many people around. I don’t think wizards do. But I don’t mind going there.”
There was long silence.
“I don’t think we’ll get there,” Pyetr said. “I don’t think we’ve a chance.”
So they were face about in their arguments. “We can try!” Sasha insisted.
And Pyetr slowly shook his head.
“What does that mean?” Sasha asked.
Pyetr did not answer.
“Pyetr, why not?”
“We won’t get there.”
Sasha stared at him, helpless, being far from him physically to make Pyetr do anything—and he did not want to wish him into it; which was immediate failure in itself.
“Feels better here,” Pyetr said. “A lot better than the boat, crazy as it sounds.”
“It’s not crazy,” Sasha said. “It is better.—But do you know—like you knew leaving me was stupid—that it’s stupid to believe her?”
After a moment Pyetr nodded, then said, “But I just have this feeling—I think it’s her, talking to me: telling me grandfather’s alive—that he’s in some kind of trouble; that if we don’t get him back something dreadful’s going to happen—something I don’t understand, but I don’t understand any of it anyway. Nothing new for me.” He reached down for the jug and started to unstop it.
And yelled and grabbed for his sword, nearly taking the shelter down as he leapt up—
—because something was skittering along the bushes near them.
Sasha tried to get out of Pyetr’s way and miss the fire at the same time; but whatever it was circled to the side behind the fire and vanished into a bush.
With a hiss.
“Babi!” Sasha exclaimed, and caught Pyetr’s arm. “Don’t scare him.”
“Don’t scare him!” Pyetr retorted; but a round black head had poked out of the brush and blinked at them.
It showed shiny white teeth, a huge row of them.
“Babi?” Sasha said.
It crept out into the firelight and the drizzle, a very abject and flat-to-the-ground Yard-thing.
“It can stay out there!” Pyetr said. “Throw it something to eat. We don’t need it in here with us.”
It crept closer, chin on ground, and folded its little manlike hands in front of its face, staring up at them.
A very diminished, very sad-looking Babi.
“Where’s Uulamets?” Sasha asked of it, and it growled.
“Pleasant as always,” Pyetr muttered, not about to put his sword away.
“But it is Babi,” Sasha said. “I’m sure it is.”
“One Thing probably looks a lot like another,” Pyetr said. “It can keep its distance!”
It crept a little closer, flat to the ground.
“That’s enough,” Pyetr said; but—
“Don’t hit it!” Sasha said, and grabbed up the food basket, found a turnip and tossed it.
Small black hands seized the offering, turned it. Babi sat up and gnawed at it with delicate, busy bites, darting little glances at them. Then it gulped the turnip in one gape of its mouth, scuttled into their shelter and grabbed Sasha around the ankle.
“Damn!” Pyetr exclaimed. Sasha yelped with the instant thought of those teeth and his leg. But it simply held on; and Sasha gingerly bent down and patted its head.
It grabbed his wrist, then, and held on as he stood up.
“Be careful!” Pyetr said.
“It’s all right,” Sasha said, trying to hold the creature in his hands. But it jumped for his chest and scrambled for his neck and ducked around behind him as Pyetr grabbed for it—after which it was still, arms locked around his neck, Pyetr in front of him with his sword lifted, and Sasha thought it a very good idea not to alarm either of them. “It’s behaving itself,” he said, calmly trying, pulling at one wiry arm, to persuade it to let go of his neck. “Come on, Babi. Let go.”
It rose up against his ear and hissed at Pyetr.
“God,” Pyetr muttered.
“It’s all right,” Sasha said, sat down on the log inside their shelter and carefully pulled Babi’s hands loose.
Babi hissed again, bounded down onto the log and down to shelter under his knees.
Pyetr stood with his sword in hand and finally, with a scowl, ran it into its sheath and rescued the jug, which fortunately had landed unbroken.