Yvgenie (14 page)

‘
She's making wishes to protect the house, she's making wishes for all of us to be wise—even her mother. Winding them around like yarn. That's the way she's thinking of it. Don't push her
—
to do anything, even to enjoy herself. That's the real point, isn't it? Let her think.
’

The mouse came out with
ink stains
on her fingers and reddened eyes. Tears as well as ink on that page, Sasha thought, and put his own pen away and folded his book. She had done
all that crying withou
t disturbing the house—in any sense.
No small feat.

‘
A very good mouse,'' he said.
‘
I didn't even hear
you '' Where's my fathe
r?
’

‘
Trimming horses' feet. Or weeding the garden. O
ne or the
other.
’

The mouse came very quietly and sat down opposite
him at the kitchen table.
‘
Uncle, what made me so mad was—
nobody even asked if he'd done anything wrong.
Nobody
ever
asks my opinion.''

‘
You mean no one asked you this time.
'Ever' is quite large word.
’

‘
It feels
like ‘ever
.'
‘

‘
I'm distracting you. Yes. We were upset. I'll tell
you,
Che
rn
evog was a very strong wizard. And one could suppo
se
he's old enough to know better than what he's doing:
we
didn't have to explain to him why we were upset—he kn
e
w that when he came here. But I do agree with you: you weren
’t
consulted. It had to scare you; it certainly scared me—I knew Che
rn
evog. If he'd wanted a fight, it could have been bad down there—very bad.
’

She had not tried to say anything. He left a silence for ho to think about that. Finally she said:

‘
I think I'll go help my father. Is Babi with him?
’

‘
Last I saw.
’

She started for the door, turned around again with a lift
of
her chin.
‘
Have you been talking to my mother?
’

He shook his head.
‘
No. But she's all right, I'm sure.
’

‘
There's a vodyanoi out there. She should be careful.
’

‘
She can handle the old Snake. No question.
’

A very good sign, he thought, watching her go out the door. And the inevitable afterthought, considering the blond braids and that outline against the sun: God, she looks like her mother.

Old Snake had not a chance if he crossed Eveshka r
ight now, no more than Kavi Chern
evog had had when, clinging
to
a
scrap of life, he had drifted toward the only friends he
had
had in the world. And found Ilyana.

No. Not Chernevog as he had died. The boy who loved
O
wl had found Ilyana; and Ilyana had found someone to play with. And to love.

God help both of them, he thought, sick at heart.

But that was not the worst thing about the affair. The worst t
h
ing, the thing that haunte
d Eveshka and that haunted him and
Pyetr, too, so far as Pyetr's understanding went—was
that
fifteen years ago they had patched something very wrong
in
the world; things once associated were always associated—and if there was a way for it to get back into the world it was through Kavi Chernevog or it was through Eveshka—

Or, likeliest of all, Ilyana.

It proved one thing, that they had not been safe all these years: thin
gs had begun going
wrong very naturally, very quietly, from the very time they had left that place upriver, where Chernevog had died.

Baby mouse, Misighi had called her, lichenous, patch-hided old Misighi, no little crazed from the death of the previous forest. They had been so relieved when Misighi had found no harm in Ilyana as an infant, when he had cradled her in his gnarled arms, smelled her over and said, in that rumbling voice of his—new growth.

But after that, Misighi had not come to the house. A few leshys had. A very few. And he had asked why, in his wanderings in the woods—asked Wiun, for one, who was a little mad himself.

Wiun had said—A new wind, young wizard. A new wind will come.

And more and more rarely they would be there, leaving their backward, tracks on the riverside. Sometimes the orphans of some storm would turn up near his porch, or on it, sometimes a nest of birds—a young squirrel.

But none lately. None last winter. The woods had a lonelier, cruder feeling this spring.

He had written it in his book, and worried about it, and
worried that perhaps Pyetr's going to Kiev had been a mistake, coming home again with, perhaps, too much of the outside clinging about him—too much of tsars and tsarevitches and the noise of marketplaces and the smell of smoke. Pyetr declared he would not go to Kiev again: and suddenly that statement seemed ominous—as if all along their suppositions had been wrong, their fears misplaced: Pyetr could never have been in danger from Ilyana among the leshys. They would have kept him safe from harm—by means a man
might not lik
e; but he would have been safe.

Instead they had sent him south—and the leshys had ceased
to visit them. They had made a choice of some kind, without
knowing they were choosing.

God. Why didn't we see it? Why did we ever think of
it
as waiting? Everything was going on around us. Misighi,
Misighi, do you hear me, old friend?

Where did the years go? W
e thought it was your time being
so long—but we're the one
s who've slept too long. Come
back and see the mouse now, Misighi. She's grown so. And
she's not wicked, she never was. You knew that when you
held her.

But what's in Chernevog's heart? What does he want, but life he can't have again, Misighi? Have you known about him, all this time, and not said?

All those times we met through the years—and you nev
er
once mentioned him? Or couldn't you? Or couldn't I
once
have suspected he wouldn't die?

At least there was a sort of peace in the day—even if her filly managed to figure out the gate again, and got
into her moth
er's garden. Ilyana even f
ound herself laughing—and laugh
ing and laughing with tears in her eyes as Patches raced around and around the yard with a carrot-stem in her mouth, while her uncle and her father and Babi chased after her Uncle could have wished Patches back into the stable yard, she could have done it herself except she was laughing so hard, but uncle and father and Babi were all enjoyin
g
themselves, certainly Patches was, and meanwhile Missy es
ca
ped out the gate that uncle was trying to get Patches into
and
trotted straight for the garden.

She could not chase horses anymore. She was laughing so
ha
rd she was bent double, and finally, as they were about to not Patches in, her father yelled at her to get the gate. She managed to do that, then sat down on the bottom rail, holding
t
he gate shut with her arm, and gasped and wiped her eyes, thinking that somehow something had just broken loose inside, and it might have been pain and it might have been
la
ughter. Maybe it was both, because it could not be funny enough to make her stomach hurt.

Her father and Sasha wer
e both out of breath from laugh
ing and running and the Missy
—
chase was going slower and slower, until Missy was just trotting around the yard ahead
of
them.

Her father finally waved at Sasha, saying, between gasps, '' for the god's sake, wish her
in.
’

Missy arrived, Ilyana got up and opened the gate and shut i
t
behind her, and leaned on it.

Her father tousled her bangs. All three of them leaned panting on the gate.

Her father gasped,
‘
God, why don't we go riding now?
’

And that set them all off again.

She had never laughed so much in her life. She felt better.
An
d feeling better after what had happened felt like betraying
her
friend—but she could at least feel guilty now, instea
d of sca
red and mad. She did not, truly
did
not want to die. She wanted the rest of her life, now
, because it seemed there were thi
ngs to lea
rn
—

Like finding out her father and her uncle could laugh like
tha
t. It was wonderful and it was scary—completely beyond uncle's power to stop it, and beyond hers, which she had
alw
ays understood was terribly dangerous for wizards—

B
ut it
was
funny, dammit, and surely laughing like that
could
never be wrong.

That was what the house felt like without her mother. She
s
aw for the first time in her life what her mother's
presence
did, and what her mother's shape was in the house
—a sad
and frightening shape, that right now had no house to
be in
tonight.

She asked her uncle, while they were smoothing ho
rse
tracks out of her mother's garden,
‘
Is my mother really
a
ll right?
’

‘
Why should you think not, mouse?
’

‘
Can you tell her something from me?
’

‘
All right.
’

‘
Tell her I'm not mad at her anymore. I don't want her
to
come back yet. And I can't talk to her right now. But tell
her
I—
’
Want her to be happy? Was that bad to wish?
‘
Tell her—no, ask her
... if she wouldn't please want herself
to
be happier.''

Her uncle looked at her as if that surprised him, but no
t
that much.
‘
That's very kind of you, mouse.
’

‘
I wish—god, I can't
stop
myself today!
’

‘
That's all right. You're old enough to let loose a few wishes—you're old enough to use your father's axe, too,
if
you'll get him to teach you how.
’

Her uncle meant that wishes were like that axe, a very dangerous thing to use badly. She thought about her
mother
and said,
‘
I think my mother is so scared. What of?
’

‘
There's a thing, mouse—I'm not even sure it's a thing: maybe it's just the place magic comes from—that she
dealt
with once, in a way she shouldn't have. She still knows how to reach into that place. If she ever loses her good sense, she might get scared enough to do that; and if she did—she could become what your grandmother was. That's enough to give anyone nightmares. Your mother killed people. I think she could forget that—if she didn't know she could do it again and that she could
want
to do it again.''

‘
She can want
not
to do it again!
’

‘
Oh, she does. She does. But she can't believe it. The fact is, mouse, once you've used that kind of magic, it starts using you. It's like drinking too much vodka. Only you don't
get silly. You get dangerous. I'll tell you something—I've done it. I've done it very bri
efly, and in a very minor way, a
nd
I
got away from it as fast as I could. Your mother—
’

People always stopped in the middle of important things. She wanted the rest of it, she
needed
the rest of it now, dammit!