She rubbed her eyes and thought no. It was a trick and a trap, and it would not be that way again, it never could be. She was not the child she had been and she could not go back and live as if nothing had happened. But she missed her father and her uncle, and worried about them, of a sudden; and caught a muddled unhappiness, a sense of secrets and things out of place in the world…
That was definitely her uncle, she thought: uncle was upset and thinking about her: uncle could feel that secretive and confused at once. She wanted him not to be distressed about her, she had achieved that much of calm. She said to him, Uncle, don’t follow me any further. Please argue with mother. I’m all right, Yvgenie and I are all right, if you’ll only not push us any more. This isn’t a good time. He’s so tired, uncle. We’re all so tired, please don’t chase us any more—please don’t let mother chase us.
—Uncle, I’m so scared…
The mouse was there for a moment, clear as if she were standing next to him, and Sasha said, “Mouse?” without even thinking—and felt an exhaustion and an anxiousness that turned his blood cold.
What you’re feeling is dangerous, mouse, it’s terribly dangerous, please listen to me. Stop and wait for us. We won’t hurt you or him…
But she caught some hint of wrongness, and fled him, then, wary and elusive as her namesake. Eveshka was walking near the river, he knew of a sudden, Eveshka was vastly upset, thoughts darting this way toward them and that way toward the mouse, violent and demanding—
No! he wished her, as Pyetr, riding beside him, said, “Sasha? Can you hear her? Can you make her listen?”
He was shaking of a sudden. He remembered that feeling,he remembered all too clearly, nearly twenty years ago, a wanting so nearly absolute—
Rusalka. That was the way it felt.
Pyetr wanted an answer, desperately wanted good news. He realized he was staring into nothing, and said, “She just tried to tell me she was all right.” But he could not lie to Pyetr, not in something going so desperately, persistently wrong. “I didn’t get that impression.”
“What? That she’s all right? That she’s not? What does she want?”
He looked at Pyetr, at Nadya behind him on Volkhi, two faces so like—both with reason to want an answer; and to dread it.
“We’ve been pushing them hard,” he said: Pyetr might understand what he was saying, Pyetr if no one else alive. “They’ve been pushing themselves. The boy’s exhausted— “
“Yvgenie?” Nadya asked faintly. “Do you know where he is?”
“Ahead of us, and going further now, as fast as they can.— Pyetr, I don’t like this, I’m sorry, but I’m desperately worried—”
“You’re worried. God. Did you ask her to wait?”
“She wouldn’t. She’s scared now. She knew I was holding something back from her.”
“Nadya,” Pyetr said heavily.
He knew now he should have told the mouse about Nadya. Immediately. He might have protected Nadya against the mouse’s startlement, might have caught the mouse’s curiosity and drawn her to them by that very means. But Eveshka had so overwhelmed him with that feeling of strength, and need—
I wanted Pyetr back to that moment eighteen years ago and other things were inevitably tied to it: what ’Veshka was then, what I was—god, a young fool, that’s what I was then! I’ve sent Eveshka back and done the god only knows what to myself in the bargain—
I was fifteen, I couldn’t read or write, I didn’t know what to do with magic except to be scared of it—
“Sasha?” Pyetr said. “Sasha, you’re white as a sheet. What’s going on?”
He had to get down. He had to stop moving and stop things from changing around him. Missy stopped and he slid off, taking his bag of books and the bag of herb-pots with him. He needed quiet. He needed to get hold of things. He went off looking for a place to sit down and catch his breath and heard Pyetr saying, faintly:
“Better get down.” And Nadya’s quiet, frightened voice: “What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know.” Pyetr said. “Something. Hush, don’t ask him questions right now.”
“Is it magic? What’s he going to do?”
“Hush!” Pyetr said. “Yes, and don’t bother him.”
He was grateful. Pyetr was upset, he knew it, but there was no reassurance to give him and he could not afford the distraction of lying. He was not sure what he had felt from the mouse and from Eveshka a moment ago, that was first trouble; he could not totally be sure which feeling he hail gotten from which place north of them: he knew Yvgenie might be a source of that disturbance, the same as Eveshka; and he was not sure of the accuracy of his memory even moments ago: magic could be like that, escaping recollection as quickly as water from a sieve. When a wizard wanted not to think certain things, the wizard in question could very well get his wish, and forget the unpleasantness that could be happening and believe some false thing more palatable, if he was an utter, self-deluding fool…
He found a flat rock to sit on, he set his bags down on the leaves and pulled out a book at random. He opened it and knew it then for his own.
Draga destroyed Malenkova. But Malenkova was too much for her. The beast took her and Draga became its purpose… ultimately that’s all Draga was in the world…
Pages back from that: Owl should not have died—
A sword should not have been able to kill a wizard’s creature. Pyetr’s had done it, in spite of all the wishes that should have protected Owclass="underline" Pyetr had killed the creature that held Chernevog’s heart, and Chernevog’s heart had necessarily come back to him—
But how? Chernevog’s wish? Chernevog had grieved for Owl, if for nothing else in his life. Chernevog had not wanted his heart, and tried immediately to put it elsewhere…
Leshys all around us, watching as Owl died, and Chernevog got his heart back, watching to see what wizards in their midst might do.
And when and where did the threads of Owl begin? When Chernevog was a boy—Draga had wanted him to find Owl, and bestow his heart on Owl, because she had a hold on the creature—
“Damn!”
—Pyetr wanted to kill Chernevog and couldn’t. So the leshys took him, held him asleep three long years before they let him wake—if they let him wake. Owl was Draga’s before it was Chernevog’s. And where is Owl, now, that’s another important question.
Owl’s with him, I much fear, with him and with—
Get away from that thought!
He made his eyes see the place he was in; and saw Pyetr trying to put a fire together nearby.
“Pyetr, I think I know something.”
“What?”
“Who’s sustaining Chernevog.”
“Which ‘him’? Who?”
“Chernevog. I very much think it’s leshys. They brought us Nadya. They had Chernevog asleep for all those years. And I think they killed Owl.”
Pyetr looked as confounded as Nadya did. He stood up. “They killed Owl. Why?”
“I don’t think Owl’s a safe place to have put a heart. I don’t think he ever was. I think they destroyed Owl, because they wanted Chernevog to have his heart back. I think—” One became aware of the whisper of the leaves, of the forest all around them, alive, self-interested, listening to everything that moved. And caution seemed of utmost importance.
“So we shouldn’t worry? I don’t think so, Sasha!”