The open eyes blinked once, but that was all. Vasya felt a moment of panic; she forced it down. Irina and Anna knelt side by side before the icon-corner, praying. The tears slid down Irina’s face; she wasn’t pretty when she cried.
“Hot water,” snapped Vasya, turning round. “Irina, for God’s sake, praying will not keep her warm. Make soup.” Anna looked up with venomous eyes, but Irina, with surprising quickness, got to her feet and filled a pot.
All that day, Vasya sat at Dunya’s side, hunched atop the oven. She packed blankets around her nurse’s shriveled body and tried to coax broth down her throat. But the liquid dribbled out of her mouth, and she would not wake. All that long day the clouds drifted in, and the daylight darkened.
In the late afternoon, Dunya sucked in a breath as though she meant to swallow the world, and caught at Vasya’s hands. Vasya jerked back in surprise. The strength in her old nurse’s grip astonished her. “Dunya,” she said.
The old lady’s eyes wandered. “I did not know,” she whispered. “I did not see.”
“You will be all right,” said Vasya.
“He has one eye. No, he has blue eyes. They are the same. They are brothers. Vasya, remember…” And then her hand fell away and she lay still, mumbling to herself.
Vasya spooned more hot drinks down Dunya’s throat. Irina kept the fire roaring. But the old lady’s pulse faded with the daylight. She ceased to mutter and lay open-eyed. “Not yet,” she said to the empty corner, and sometimes she cried. “Please,” she said then. “Please.”
The feeble day flickered, and a hush fell over house and village. Alyosha went out for firewood; Irina went to tend to her peevish mother.
When Konstantin’s voice broke the silence, Vasya nearly leaped out of her skin.
“Does she live?” he said. The shadows lay across him like a woven mantle.
“Yes,” Vasya said.
“I will pray with her,” he said.
“You will not,” snapped Vasya, too weary and frightened for courtesy. “She is not going to die.”
Konstantin came nearer. “I can ease her pain.”
“No,” Vasya repeated. She was going to cry. “She is not going to die. As you love God, I beg you, go.”
“She is dying, Vasilisa Petrovna. This is my place.”
“She is not!” Vasya’s voice came wrenching from her throat. “She is not dying. I am going to save her.”
“She will be dead by morning.”
“You want my people to love you, so you made them afraid.” Vasya was pale with fury. “I will not have Dunya afraid. Get out.”
Konstantin opened his mouth, then closed it again. Abruptly he turned and left the kitchen.
Vasya forgot him at once. Dunya had not wakened. She lay still, her pulse a thread, her breathing barely felt on Vasya’s unsteady hand.
Night fell. Alyosha and Irina returned; the kitchen filled briefly with a subdued bustle as the evening meal was served. Vasya could not eat. The hour drew on and the kitchen emptied once more until it was only they four, Dunya and Vasya, Irina and Alyosha. The latter two dozed on the oven. Vasya was nodding herself.
“Vasya,” said Dunya.
Vasya jerked awake with a sob. Dunya’s voice was feeble, but lucid. “You’re all right, Dunyashka. I knew you would be.”
Dunya smiled toothlessly. “Yes,” she said. “He is waiting.”
“Who is waiting?”
Dunya did not answer. She was struggling for breath. “Vasochka,” she said. “I have something your father gave me to keep for you. I must give it to you now.”
“Later, Dunyashka,” said Vasya. “You must rest now.”
But Dunya was already fumbling for her skirt pocket with one stiff hand. Vasya opened the pocket for her and withdrew something hard, wrapped in a scrap of soft cloth.
“Open it,” whispered Dunya. Vasya obeyed. The necklace was made of some pale, glittering metal, brighter than silver, and shaped like a snowflake, or a many-rayed star. A jewel of silver-blue burned in the center. Anna had no jewels to equal it; Vasya had never seen anything so fine. “But what is it?” she asked, bewildered.
“A talisman,” said Dunya, struggling for breath. “There is power in it. Keep it hidden. Do not speak of it. If your father asks, tell him you know nothing of it.”
Madness. A line formed between Vasya’s brows, but she slipped the chain over her head. It swung between her breasts, invisible under her clothes. Suddenly Dunya went rigid, her dry fingers scrabbling at Vasya’s arm. “His brother,” she hissed. “He is angry that you have the jewel. Vasya, Vasya, you must…” She choked and fell silent.
From without, there came a long, savage chuckle.
Vasya froze, heart hammering. Again? Last time, I was dreaming. Then came a scrape: the soft sound of a dragging foot. Another and another. Vasya swallowed. Noiseless, she slid off the oven. The domovoi was crouching at the oven-mouth, frail and intent. “It cannot get in,” said the domovoi, fierce. “I will not let it. I will not.”
Vasya laid a hand on his head and crept to the door. In winter, nothing smells of rot outdoors, but on the threshold, she caught a whiff of decay that turned her empty stomach. There came a flare of burning cold where the jewel lay over her breastbone. She made a low sound of pain. Wake Alyosha? Wake the house? But what was it? The domovoi says he will not let it in.
I will go and see, Vasya thought. I am not afraid. She slipped out the kitchen door.
“No,” breathed Dunya from the oven. “Vasya, no.” She turned her head a little. “Save her,” she whispered to the empty air. “Save her, and I care not if your brother comes for me.”
WHATEVER IT WAS, IT stank like nothing else: death and pestilence and hot metal. Vasya followed the track of the dragging footsteps. There—a quick movement, in the shadow of the house. She saw a thing like a woman, hunched down small, wearing a white wrapper that trailed in the snow. It moved crabwise, as though it had too many joints.
Vasya gathered her courage and crept nearer. The thing darted from window to window, pausing at each, sometimes reaching out a flinching hand, never touching the sill. But at the last window—that of the priest—it went taut. Its eyes gleamed red.
Vasya ran forward. The domovoi said it could not get in. But a swipe of a bloodless fist ripped the ice from its mooring in the window-frame. Vasya saw a flash of gray skin in the moonlight. The trailing white garment was a winding-sheet, and the creature was naked beneath.
Dead, Vasya thought. That thing is dead.
The grayish, weeping hands seized the high sill of Konstantin’s window, and it—she, for Vasya caught a glimpse of long, matted hair—flung itself into the room. Vasya paused beneath the window, then followed the thing up and over. She pulled herself through with brute strength. It was pitch-black inside. The thing crouched, snarling, over a thrashing figure on the bed.
The shadows on the wall seemed to swell, as though they would burst out of the wood. Vasya thought she heard a voice. The girl! Leave him—he’s mine already. Take the girl, take her…
A pain in her breastbone goaded her; the jewel was burning with a fiery cold. Without thinking, Vasya raised a hand and shouted. The creature on the bed whirled, face black with blood.