“No. But wishes can ride right over a boy who happened to be in their way. Anyone’s might have—even mine. Mine might still do him harm, I don’t know. Maybe wishing us well, I’ve unintentionally wished this poor boy into the brook that night.”
Dreadful thought. Paralyzing thought. A man couldn’t move who thought such a thing. “Sasha, that’s damned foolishness. You’ve never wanted anybody to die.”
“Hush,” Sasha said hoarsely. “Please, Pyetr.”
“Well, hell, leave your thieving uncle Fedya out of it! Reasons count for something, don’t they? And yours don’t kill innocents. Let’s not for the god’s sake sit and wait till everyone’s sure, shall we? Let’s wish my daughter to use the sense she was born with, first! Let’s wish she’d stop worrying about her mother and worry about herself—and talk sense into the young fool that’s running away with her. Hell, wish her to talk sense into Chernevog, while we’re about it!”
“I’ve done that.”
“And tell her I’m not upset about her dropping me on my head. It’s far too hard to hurt. Make her understand that!”
“I’ve tried.”
“ ’Veshka wouldn’t hurt her or the boy. Not when it really comes down to it—I’ve proved that, more than once. Oh, hell, never mind explaining everything. Tell her stop and wait for me. Tell her I won’t lay a hand on her or the boy.”
A damned lot of baggage to slow them down—only reasonable, Pyetr told himself: wizards needed books and herbs, und Sasha had needed time to gather such things out of the cellar—all of which had put them further behind, while Eveshka took a lead on them, not mentioning Missy’s slower pace giving the mouse that much more continual advantage over them.
Small blame he could pass to Sasha or ’Veshka for the mess. He had made the essential mistake: he had had his head bounced off the side of a substantial bedstead onto an uncompromising floor—not the first time in his life that had happened, the god knew, but certainly the most deserved. He had yelled at the mouse, he had scared his daughter like a fool, and the mouse had no more than protected herself. Absolutely it had been their mouse whose wish had dropped him on his head—he could think of no sane reason Kavi Chernevog would have delayed to put a pillow under his head mid a blanket over him, or waited while Ilyana did it, if he were in charge.
Besides which the mouse was terribly upset at leaving him behind. A man associated with wizards learned to trust his most unreasonable convictions as wizardous in origin—
In which light he knew the mouse had felt that crack on the head far worse than he had. It was entirely like a young wizard not to realize that a man wished asleep on his feet might fall onto the furniture—and, a former scapegrace him— he was even proud of the mouse for having the presence of mind afterward to take her book and her inkwell, to pack food and blankets, all very foresighted behavior for a youngster, never mind she had filched every last single sausage in the house, the pot of kitchen salt, and half the flour, but, by all they could figure, not a smidge of oil to mix it with. That was absolutely a youngster in charge. Then she must have caught Yvgenie Pavlovitch down by the stable fence, where he had found bits of severed rope and drops of blood in the dirt—appalling discovery, except that Chernevog directing matters would have taken all the horses—at very least opened the gate and run off Volkhi and Missy. The mouse had an unarguable naive honesty in her choices—and that gave them the chance they had.
He led Volkhi out of the yard and let Missy and Sasha pass the gate—latched it, out of habit, though there was no Babi to mind the yard while they were gone. Babi was probably frightened, Babi had probably gone to that Place Babi went to—
Which was well enough for Babi, but that place was trying to swallow up his daughter, too, in a place no living creature belonged, and he had his mind absolutely made up when he swung into the saddle.
“I’m going to ride ahead.”
“Pyetr—”
“I’m not afraid of Chernevog. God knows, we’re old acquaintances. We can talk. The two of us together can make more sense than some people I can—”
“No!”
“Sasha—” He shook his head to clear the cobwebs out, and rubbed his eyes. “Dammit, stop it. Tell her! Or just wish me to find her before trouble does.”
“It’s far too dangerous!”
“Tell me what’s too dangerous, with my daughter headed off into hills in the dark with Chernevog!”
“You haven’t any way to feel what’s going on!”
“My daughter’s in trouble out there! Let me go, dammit!”
“All right,” Sasha said, “all right, but—”
Sasha yelled something after him, but he reckoned he would hear that while he was riding—or if the silence swallowed him up, he reckoned there was nothing to do but what he was doing.
Yvgenie said, quietly: “We’re lost, aren’t we?”
“No. Of course we aren’t. I know where we are.”
“So where are we going?”
“North.”
“To what?”
“Where I want to go.” She was far from lost in the woods; and she was far from alone even in the silence: things near at hand were always talking to her, telling her where they were, even though the whole woods felt quiet and scary and pricklish with silence. She knew where home was, she knew where her mother was, and she would know her Place when she got there.
But if being lost meant missing supper and wanting a warm fireside, and being scared the way Yvgenie was scared, and having everyone in the whole world upset with them, they certainly were.
Yvgenie asked, “Where is that?”
“We’ll know, I said.” It was Yvgenie asking, she was sure. It was getting dark, he was beyond exhausted, and she had no idea how to answer him in terms ordinary folk understood—she had no idea what he did understand or how to reassure him: she trusted her friend for that; but her friend’s long silence worried her, as if—
He said, faintly, “I think we should stop and make a fire if we can.”
Something was singing in the brush, a lonely, eerie sound. A wolf had howled a moment ago. If she were on foot she might have been anxious herself. Things did not feel entirely right, now that he distracted her. Which might be her mother’s doing.
Some animal crashed away through the brush. Patches jumped, and Bielitsa did.
“It’s just a squirrel or something.”
“I really think we should stop.”
“Are you afraid?”
“No. Of course not.”
Another wolf called, in the far distance.
“That’s another one,” he said. “There must be a whole pack out hunting.”
“Wolves don’t hurt you. They’re very shy.”
“Wolves aren’t shy!”
“Have you ever seen a wolf?” She wanted not to be angry with him, but he kept worrying at her.
“I don’t know, I don’t know if I have and I don’t even know what I’m doing here!” He was frightened, he was angry at her, and she wished not: she wished herself safe from him—
But that was stupid. He could never harm her with his wishes, and now she had stolen his anger away from him, which was wrong, terribly wrong—
Talk to me, her father would say, when people forgot and wished at him:
Say it in words, ’Veshka—
God!
Pyetr meant to be careful, with his neck and Volkhi’s; but he put Volkhi to a far faster pace than old Missy could possibly sustain, down the hill behind Sasha’s ruined house, and under trees and over the next rise, into thicker woods, where the night had already begun to settle.
North. Owl’s grave was there—the leshys’ ring, where Owl had died, days north of here: a rusalka might haunt such a place, and be drawn there, against all reason—and whether their destination was Ilyana’s choice or Chernevog’s, it was certain at least that she would not follow the shoreline path, within reach of her mother.