“I do. You’re not listening.”
Pyetr gave him an angry look, and asked, “What’s this about hearts? What’s all this about hearts the leshy was saying?”
Sasha shrugged. He had no wish to go deeply into that with Pyetr tonight, or to try to explain it—knowing well enough Eveshka would seize the chance to confuse things: to confuse Pyetr, more to the point. A boy with a girl on his mind might be close to his understanding, but Sasha had no notion what to do with a man whose intentions were muddled up with a girl who was not only dead but dangerous, with feelings he had a deep fear might not be the rusalka’s own idea in the first place.
How did one explain that possibility to Pyetr—reasonably?
“That Thing,” Pyetr insisted, “said, ‘She hasn’t any heart, she’s taken your friend’s.’ What was he talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can somebody take somebody else’s heart, for the god’s sake?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know everything. Your supper’s getting cold.”
“I want to know what you did, Sasha, don’t give me that! I want to know what’s going on.”
“I don’t know, I’m telling you! I don’t know everything in the world, I wasn’t born knowing. I don’t know what the leshy’s talking about—”
A wizard who lies is one thing; a wizard who lies to himself—is another…
“You’re not missing anything,” Pyetr asked, “are you?”
“I’m fine! I’m doing quite fine. Better than I was, as happens. I kept you going, didn’t I? That’s real magi?, Pyetr, not just wishing…”
“So what have hearts got to do with anything? What was that creature talking about? What was the River-thing meaning, that morning, about Eveshka losing hers?—Has she taken anything from you?”
“No!” That part came through to him’ and joggled things like pots on a shelf, so he was afraid they would fall and break if Pyetr kept nattering at him—nattering was what aunt Ilenka would call it, aunt Ilenka would say: Shut up, Pyetr Illitch! you’re giving me a headache!
He was.
“What did you mean about getting things from the forest?” Pyetr asked. “What were you doing, that made the leshy mad? And why did it let us go? Why did it say it had no choice?”
Sasha swallowed a tasteless lump of stew and looked at Pyetr with a feeling that might have been fear if he could have reasoned it out. It came down to a sense of things dangerously out of order, with his thoughts racing in various directions trying to find an answer, whether he had made a mistake beyond what had angered the leshy, a wish that might have flown much too far…
“I don’t know why,” he said.
“So what are you doing?”
“As little as I can! I’ve made mistakes by worrying about things, that’s one thing I’ve learned, I’ve been worrying about stupid little might-happens, till I can’t see what I’m doing just by hoping things don’t happen, do you see what I mean?”
“You mean you’re not worrying about things. We’re in the middle of this forest and we can’t find Uulamets and you’re not worrying!”
“That’s not what I mean!”
“I think you’re going crazy. Stop it.”
“I’m all right!”
Pyetr finished his stew with a last bite, flung the spoon into the dish and wiped a hand across his mouth, staring at him anxiously in the firelight. “That doesn’t make me feel better.—If Uulamets is in this woods, wouldn’t a leshy know it? If he’s here, why couldn’t it just save us a lot of bother and tell us?”
Sasha tried to remember, but even that much of his thinking about the leshy kept going sideways, just out of his reach.
That told him that worry might indeed be in order, if he could hold on to his misgivings long enough, but holding on to that particular memory and trying to compare it to Hwiuur was like gathering sand in a net.
“Sasha. What’s going on?”
He lost it again, the thing he had just gotten the shape of in the back of his mind—
Pyetr set his plate down. The spoon clattered. That seemed equally important with everything Pyetr was asking. That was the trouble. In a situation so full of chance everything was equally important and there was no way to balance things without understanding. He was losing the threads of things he had tied together—
Pyetr got up and stepped around the little fire to grab him by the shoulder and shake him hard. “Sasha, dammit!”
He felt that. Like everything. Pyetr walked off, and he watched where Pyetr was going.
Not where he wanted. He thought he ought to stop him if he could sort it out of all the other things that were happening, from the snap of the fire to the rustle of the leaves.
Danger, he thought vaguely.
His thought took shape again.
Eveshka had color this evening. The leshy had fed her enough for days-She was stronger than she had ever been tonight. Much stronger, brighter, more solid in the world…
“Pyetr,” he began to say. But Pyetr was already at the stream-side, Eveshka was already turning her head to look at him… a lifelike gesture that itself said how substantial she had become. He wished… and the effort cost him, so that his heart raced and he was aware of the rush of blood in his veins and the rush of wind in the leaves—like the sound of water…
The fire actually cast light on her tonight, picking up subtle color in her gown, and the trees along the brook touched her with shadow, making her real—a girl, no more than that, vulnerable and uncertain as she cast a glance over her shoulder.
“Pyetr,” she said, turning to him with arms outstretched.
He stopped. He took a step backward when she came toward him, and she came no further, looking at him with wide, hurt eyes.
“What did you take from Sasha?” he asked harshly, which was what he had come to ask. “What was the leshy talking about?”
“I love you,” she said.
He backed up another step, because somehow she had taken one he did not notice; he was aware of her eyes and aware of how the shadow bent around her cheek. “That’s fine,” he said, sweating, struggling to keep his thoughts together. “I’m flattered. Try answering me.”
“Don’t hate me.” She reached toward him. He knew his danger, he knew he ought to back up and for one heartbeat he wanted to fail—wanted her to touch him and prove she was, after all, harmless, and not to be responsible for that failure—
“Stop it!” Sasha said, from somewhere behind him. A shadow crossed between them and the light. “Pyetr!”
He really regretted his rescue. What he was feeling was more powerful than wanting to live. But Eveshka drew back her hands and clenched them under her chin, her eyes full of pain.
“Get away from her,” Sasha said, as if he were the boy, the absolute, heart-shaken fool, and grabbed him by the arm so hard it hurt. Probably Sasha meant it to. Not even that seemed enough. Probably Sasha was wishing him to use his wits; and that was not enough either.
“Stop it!” Sasha said harshly, not to him.
Tears brimmed in Eveshka’s eyes. “I won’t hurt him. I didn’t.—Sasha, don’t do that…”
“I’ve no pity for you,” Sasha said. “You should know that.”
“I know,” Eveshka whispered. “But I do. And I won’t let anything happen to him.”
“Then don’t talk to him! Let him alone!”
“I came to her,” Pyetr said, Sasha having gotten that part wrong, at least. “I want to know what’s going on.”
“Her looking to have her own way is what’s going on,” Sasha said. “There’s nothing else, there’s never anything else in her thinking.—Leave him alone!”
Tears spilled. Eveshka looked at Sasha a long moment, and then turned her shoulder and walked away to the side of the little stream.