She nodded, sobered.
Her uncle said, leaning on his hoe, “All the ones that will lend their magic seem connected to something—in that place Babi goes to when he isn’t here. Maybe there’s more than one place. But whatever it is, it’s not like here. And if you go borrowing magic—it’s like pulling on a little string that turns out to be tied to a snake, but the snake’s got his head in deep water, and he’s holding on to something else, something that’s pulling back very strongly, do you understand me? That’s what it feels like.”
A little shiver went over her skin. Her uncle went on:
“A rusalka’s not quite that. A rusalka borrows life: the same kind of mistake: it only happens to kill people. But a wizard wishes nothing outside of nature; while a sorcerer when he uses magic borrows something I can’t even put a name to, maybe something alive: your mother thinks it is. I’m less sure of that, but I do believe it’s at least self-interested; and as far as any of us understand, it doesn’t seem to have any law or limits the sorcerer doesn’t give it. Pretty soon he can’t remember what he’s changed and he’s thinking how things are connected—he can fix things, right? Pretty soon it’s making the decisions, or the total of his wishes are—and he’s not. That’s a feeling you don’t ever want to have, mouse, not ever in your life. Once you’ve gone that brink every choice you make to stop yourself is an uphill climb. Every fear you have and every knotty problem face, it’s so easy to remember the quick solution and to forget the mess it got you into. You lose your wisdom. You lose your sense. Thank the god I could step back again to safe ground. Your mother went so deep in that it’s very easy for her to slip back: your mother fights on that slanting ground all alone, for the rest of her life. No other wizard can get into her heart and help her. I’ve tried.”
“She’s hurting my father!”
“Your father loves her without her wanting him to, and in spite of everything, it’s his decision. Yes, she hurts him. And she knows it. She even tried to send him to Kiev, so he’d forget about her. Foolish thought. He got himself in trouble. He nearly got himself hanged—your father can be a very reckless man when he’s at loose ends, and the plain fact was, he didn’t care about his own safety when he was apart from your mother and you. He was desperately unhappy, he got into a dice game with some people, and he drank too much. And I’ll tell you the rest of it when you’re old enough not to wish the tsarevitch to break out in hives, or worse. Your mother did enough to him.”
Her parents had dimensions she had had no idea of. They had done things she had no conception of. There had been a whole world going on she had not seen while she was growing up. Of course she remembered the year her father had gone to Kiev. But she had thought that was because she had had a really awful tantrum and her mother had just told him to go further away than usual.
It was the time she had decided once for all she had better grow up and stop having tantrums, because she had figured out that every time she had one her mother sent her father away.
And she hated him being gone. Uncle was better company than mother was, but she wanted—
God, she had never figured out how much she had been wanting her father back—after her mother and uncle wished him out—exactly the kind of wickedness she had been about to accuse her mother of doing. She wanted her uncle to know she had just figured that out, and that she was truly, truly embarrassed.
“Children do that sort of thing,” her uncle said. “Grownups have to think very carefully what their wants do to other people. You’re very definitely growing up, mouse. Some people never do get that grown-up.”
—But I’ve got to think what else I’ve been wanting from people—
—like for my parents to love me and my mother to stop yelling at me. But my mother and my uncle can wish me to mind my own business. Wishing at my father… that’s really unfair.
Her uncle said, “The test for whether it’s right to want something of someone, mouse, is not whether you think it won’t hurt them, and not even whether you think it’s for their own good—but whether you’d want them wishing it about you. You figured that out very well a moment ago. But don’t worry about wanting your parents to love you or your father to stay—although I do think you ought to watch that, and remember that it’s a lot better to let go and trust someone you love to do the right thing on his own.”
That was what she had been trying to say. Her uncle found it for her. She said, “My mother doesn’t trust me. She won’t let me out of her light. And I’m not a baby anymore.”
“Your mother had almost learned to trust herself when you came along. And knowing you were magical, and loving you and your father, both, she’s grown more and more afraid of a little girl she might have wanted—at some time—far too much and at far too great a risk to things as they were. You were a change, a really major change, the sort every wizard’s afraid of. Once she had your father and once she had you, she wasn’t on her own anymore. She couldn’t assure herself you could take care of yourself the way your father can— because of course a child can’t. And that’s precisely where you can help your mother: she’s been looking out for you through some very scary years—and now she has to learn to trust your judgment.”
“Should I wish her that?”
“Wish, yes—and do, mouse. Doing is of equal importance. What, besides your friend, upset your mother when she saw you on the river shore?”
“I don’t know.” A lecture was coming. Her uncle could be so kind talking to her; and then he could frown and scold her. She hated this part.
“You weren’t supposed to be down by the river. Personally, I don’t think it’s a reasonable prohibition—but she made it; and you’d slipped down there in secret, and you were doing something your mother didn’t know about. Maybe she had told herself she could trust you, and what she saw shook her so badly—”
“I don’t think I was doing anything wrong!”
“That’s because you’re making choices for yourself, a lot of which don’t go wrong, and in your own best judgment, you didn’t think this one would. You’re not a baby who’ll fall off the porch anymore and I don’t honestly fault you for making a decision. Nor even for making the decision not to tell us. It may, for one thing, have been his wanting you not to tell—”
She had not even suspected that. God! “—But really, outside of the danger he is to you, the hurt he’s dealt your mother is very real and very serious. He didn’t tell you all the truth about your mother, and about what he did. Possibly he remembers only up to a point—possibly he has his own interests. She is your mother, and your father loves her, and I think you can figure out from here what you ought to do. Can’t you, mouse?”
“That’s a dirty trick, uncle. No, I don’t know what to do!”
“It certainly is. And I don’t either, except that you’ve figured out now that getting your mother to trust your judgment is a very important point, because hers in his case is very complicated—but I’m not going to wish you into it. You don’t become grown-up at midday on your birthday. It’s not a day, it’s a progression of days, and it never quite stops—I’m still growing up. Your mother is. So’s your father. But there is, step by step, a point that your mother should trust your judgment on grown-up matters, the same way she watched you and gradually decided you wouldn’t fall off the porch if she let you play there on your own.”