by Karah Sutton
Their mother had said the forest was so large that a wolf could run for a hundred days and not reach the other side. We should run, Zima said.
Grom stopped in his tracks. You, Grom said, giving his words the weight of a boulder, want to run?
Zima answered with her body language—her tail upright, her ears forward.
Yes.
It was the only way to protect the pack.
And when the humans follow, what do we do then? Grom asked. Do we keep running?
His tail flicked. No, Grom said. I have another plan.
A lump of disappointment rose in Zima’s chest. He hadn’t even considered her suggestion. But she swallowed, hoping to crush the feeling flat. What is it? she asked, trying to sound eager.
Perhaps I will tell you, he said slowly. But not now. He turned to her, and there was almost an apology in his eyes. I need to know that the witch has not altered you, that I can still trust you.
A human’s arrow could not have pierced Zima’s heart as deeply as her brother’s words. Trust, honesty…that was everything to a pack. The canyon had widened so far between them that Zima could never hope to leap across it.
Zima lowered her gaze. She wanted to argue, but heartbreak held her rigid.
Grom’s growls still swam through his words as he said, For now, you are not to go near the others. You are not to venture from the home place. When I have decided I can trust you again, I may reconsider. And—he paused, preparing to add even more to the weight of dishonor he had heaped upon her—if I ever find out you have spoken to that witch again, you will be banished from our pack.
Zima thought she detected a hint of sorrow in his words, but whatever she heard was gone in an instant.
Now, let us return to the others, said Grom. He leapt forward and disappeared into the shadows.
Part of her wanted to stay behind. But instead, she followed close at Grom’s tail as he led the way to their home place.
* * *
—
As soon as Zima caught the familiar scent of the home place, Grom signaled for her to keep her distance. For the rest of the night, Zima was left to herself. She couldn’t play or hunt, and was forced to sit alone listening to the hooting chorus of nearby owls. Grom had taken Potok and Leto away from the clearing, out of sight and earshot of Zima. Her heart sank lower. Whatever plan he had for protecting the pack from Baba Yaga and the humans, he meant to keep Zima out of it.
Somewhere within her, lightning flashed. This wasn’t fair. She’d spent her whole life protecting the pack. When Grom became their leader, she’d followed his every rule, believing that it was for their safety. Backing down now, letting the others work to protect the pack while she sat and watched and did nothing…it was unbearable.
She’d start with Potok. He was less headstrong than Leto, and hated violence. The two were the same size and age but could not be more different. If she could find a moment with him alone, maybe she could get him on her side. He would be overjoyed at the thought of running from the humans.
Finally, the sky began to lighten, and it was time for rest. Zima nestled her chin on her paws. As the others returned to the clearing and everyone drifted off to sleep, her last thought was to will herself awake before anyone else. Potok’s certain excitement at hearing her plan sang in her ears, drowning out all sounds of her family’s snores.
As Nadya dipped her hands in the cold water of the washbasin, a shadow fell over her. She looked up, expecting Katerina to chide her for the scratches and scrapes she’d earned in the woods, but instead found herself staring at Mrs. Orlova, the mistress of the orphanage. She was not an old woman, but there were hard wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, like canyons that had been worn into rock over time.
“What will I do with you once Katerina is gone, hmm?” she said, though it didn’t seem as if she actually expected an answer.
Nadya wanted to respond that Mrs. Orlova wouldn’t have to do anything, that she would leave the orphanage for the woods before long, but she kept her lips pressed tight together and instead finished washing her hands. She yelped as the woman reached out and took Nadya’s wrist, holding her hand up so that the wet palm glistened in the candlelight. The tree she touched in the forest must have been poisonous, because the red marks had begun to swell and blister.
Mrs. Orlova frowned. “I only want to find each of you girls nice families. But I can’t help you if you don’t want to help yourself. Wandering off into the woods, neglecting your chores and sewing…you’ll never impress a family by being disobedient,” she said, examining the wound. “Katerina knew this. She tried to get you to understand. At least you sometimes listened to her.” She let Nadya’s wrist go, and Nadya pulled her hand close to her chest.
Mrs. Orlova sighed. She patted her dark hair, which was slicked back into a severe bun. “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” she said, “but Mr. Demidov needs a new servant. It might be time I send you to him.”
The pulse in Nadya’s wrist quickened. Mr. Demidov lived west of the village, miles away from the forest. Working as a servant was undesirable enough, but if she went to him, escaping into the woods would be almost impossible.
Regret flitted across Mrs. Orlova’s expression like a moth. “At least this way, you’ll have a future.” The expression vanished, and her features were once again in their usual stern arrangement. “I will write him tomorrow.”
The woman’s quick footsteps were already thumping against the wooden floor toward the door. Mrs. Orlova blew out candles as she passed, hushing the other girls, who were huddled under blankets in their shared beds. Nadya opened her mouth to call after her, but only a croak came out. When the door closed, Nadya was swallowed by darkness.
She could leave. It was sooner than she’d planned, but it was an opportunity. If she waited, how long would it be until Mrs. Orlova sent her to Mr. Demidov and cut off her access to the forest completely? She crept toward where her cloak hung on a peg, her fingers itching to snatch it so she could leave this very night.
The door creaked open again, making Nadya jump, but the soft footsteps, light as a cat’s paws, soothed her with their familiarity.
“Nadya?” said Katerina’s voice, and light from her single candle blossomed in the darkness. “Is that you by the basin? I thought you’d be asleep by now.” Unlike Nadya, Katerina was allowed to come to bed later, along with the other older girls. But Nadya wasn’t ready for sleep, not after Mrs. Orlova’s proclamation.
Nadya had known Katerina since she was two years old, when an illness had swept through Nadya’s old village and claimed her family. Katerina had been at the orphanage since she was a baby, abandoned by no one knew who. All the girls looked up to Katerina as almost a big sister or a teacher. In those first few years, when Nadya cried to soothe the ache of missing her parents, only Katerina’s songs could stop the tears.
Katerina moved to sit on Nadya’s bed, and motioned for Nadya to settle beside her. She’d brought some herbs and medicines with her, and she spread them out on her lap. With gentle but assured swiftness, she took Nadya’s hand and examined the cuts across her palms. Katerina dabbed a salve over the blisters, holding tight to each wrist so that she could work even as Nadya flinched from the burn. Nadya hated it when Katerina babied her like this, but the salve did soothe. And wounds dressed by Katerina always seemed to heal faster than when Nadya took care of them herself. At last, Katerina wrapped Nadya’s hands in soft bandages and let her go.
She gave a sigh. “I was so embarrassed, Nadya, at the tsar having to rescue you today.”
“He didn’t rescue me!” Nadya snapped, even though that wasn’t quite true. Katerina’s words stung, but not as much as the tears that pricked at the corners of Nadya’s eyes.
Katerina sighed. “I’m sorry, that was unkind,” she said. “I only…” She paused, and there was a rustling of fabric as she smoothed her skirts. “I used to wander into the forest too. You probably don’t remember—you were still a baby, but when I wa
s younger than you are now, a family wanted me.”
It surprised Nadya to see a tear slide down Katerina’s cheek. Had she ever cried before? “I gave them a gift,” she continued, “a flower I’d found in the forest. I didn’t know it was poisonous. It should have killed me to touch it.” She glared out the window, an angry crease between her brows. “I lost my best chance at a home, but from then on I knew to stay out of the forest. And you should too, Nadya. It curses everything it touches.”
Nadya squeezed her fists, her fingers pressing into the bandages. She didn’t have a chance for a loving family like Katerina did. Families found Nadya reckless, disobedient, useless, just like Mrs. Orlova did. If perfect Katerina couldn’t find a family to love her, what hope did Nadya have?
No, her only hope was to escape into the forest, and every minute that Katerina sat talking to her was a minute that Nadya wasn’t preparing herself for the journey. She pinched her eyes closed.
But Katerina hadn’t finished. “Mrs. Orlova wants to send you away. So I’ve asked”—she paused, and Nadya felt a hand take hold of her shoulder—“I’ve asked Tsar Aleksander if you can come to the castle with us.”
Something warm filled Nadya’s insides, like soup trickling down her throat to fill her stomach. She? Join Katerina and Tsar Aleksander at the castle?
Katerina’s next words shattered her thoughts. “But he doesn’t like that you go into the forest alone. So he has agreed that you can come to us on the wedding day if Mrs. Orlova says you have behaved as you should from now until then.”
The warmth that had briefly filled Nadya turned ice cold. Not go into the forest? Behave as she should? Convincing Mrs. Orlova that she deserved to go and live in the castle would be impossible.
Even if she did manage to convince the tsar, could she continue to behave that way in a new life at the castle? She would be expected more than ever to always know what to do, how to act, what to say. She would feel the eyes of many more people on her whenever she had dirt smudges on her nose or wrinkles in her dress.
She started to shake her head, but Katerina squeezed her shoulder. “Just think on it, please?” said Katerina softly. “It would be a comfort to have you with me.”
It was a feeling Nadya couldn’t remember ever having before: feeling wanted. Katerina’s fondness, with all its scoldings and criticisms, flowed deeply enough to invite Nadya to join her at the castle. And if she didn’t go, what then? Would that fondness snap like a dry twig? Would she lose the closest thing she’d ever had to family?
Those feelings, that wanting, was a string knotted around Nadya’s waist. And as Katerina went to bed and the slow music of her soft breaths finally filled the room, that string tied Nadya to the orphanage for one more night.
A pointed roof peeked through the trees as Baba Yaga neared her hut. Her memory had not faltered—she could still remember the way, even if her senses had worn a little with age.
She lifted her hands into the air, palms facing the hut. Like the eyes of a creature asleep, the hut’s windows were dim, and smoke drifted from the chimney in faint snoring breaths.
“Little hut,” she said, calling to it as a friend, “turn your back to the forest, and your front to me!”
The hut stirred. It shifted, jostling dry leaves from the branches brushing against its walls. Sleepily it turned, steps lowering from between its dim windows. The door creaked open to welcome her home.
Her hut would help her in her plan. In her centuries of life, everything always seemed clearer from the inside, next to the fire.
She was tired. So tired.
It was tempting to stay inside forever. To forget the dangers that awaited her, to hide from the world and its evils. All she needed was someone to do the work that was expected of her. Who would take up the task so that she could rest?
The other girls in the orphanage buzzed with excitement as they went about their chores. They seemed to swirl and swarm around Katerina, leaving Nadya in what should have been peaceful solitude. For the first time, no one was paying any attention to her. On any other day she would have been delighted at the change, enjoying the silence and the lack of anyone telling her what to do, but today it left her alone with too many thoughts.
If she stayed at the orphanage, behaved as perfectly as Katerina always had, then there was a chance that on the morning of the wedding in a week’s time she would have a new home at the castle. If she didn’t manage to impress Mrs. Orlova, then she’d go back to her old plan to escape into the forest. She could live in the woods, or travel beyond to the city. Either way, she’d be free to do things as she pleased and not as others demanded.
Grain danced in the pails that she carried to the chicken coop behind the orphanage. The handles pressed against her bandaged palms, but she managed to deliver the grain without dropping a single kernel. That was a first step toward proving that she deserved to join Katerina at the castle.
The cheers and bustle of villagers could already be heard along the road that wound behind her. From what she’d been told, the road skirted the edge of the forest, all the way north to the castle a few hours’ walk away.
Sunlight gilding the birch leaves made the forest appear inviting, despite the poisonous plants and fearsome animals within. But going to the castle would certainly be safer than the forest. She would never want for clothes or warmth or a bellyful of honeyed pancakes and gingerbread from the castle kitchens….
Maybe she could be as graceful, as polite, as faultless as Katerina. And the castle could feel like a home, with Katerina and Tsar Aleksander like her family.
Movement caught her eye, and she turned to find a lump of brown fur leaping toward her. She laughed as her wolf pranced in friendly greeting, his one eye bright and his tail wagging like a puppy’s. His other eye was sealed shut by a jagged pink scar that ran from his ear to his snout. This was her wolf, the wolf who had long visited her to play and beg for treats. He was the first to show her that she need not fear the forest.
“You’ve come just in time!” she said to him. She ducked into the chicken coop and reemerged with a couple of eggs, which she tossed to him. He caught them in his mouth and crunched heartily.
“Nadya! What are you doing?” The voice broke through her cheered daze like a rooster’s crow. Her insides tensed, and without thinking, she shooed her wolf away. He watched her in confusion for a moment, lifting and setting down his paws as though uncertain of what to do, but when Nadya glanced behind her at Katerina’s fast approach, he seemed to understand. In a flash he disappeared into the safety of the trees.
“Was that…a wolf?” said Katerina as she came to stand at Nadya’s side.
“No,” Nadya lied quickly, hoping Katerina hadn’t gotten a good look.
But she had, of course she had, and the crease between her brows appeared.
“You can’t lie to me,” she said. “The tsar will never allow you to join us if he knows that you lie.” In celebration of her journey to the castle, Katerina was dressed in what must have been a gift from the tsar. Silver threads glinted in the sunlight and the fine sapphire blue fabric flowed like a stream. The clothes suited her, as though she belonged in them. They would never look so well on Nadya.
Katerina moved to stand in front of Nadya, blocking her view of the trees. “That was very dangerous,” she said gently. “That wolf is not your pet.”
The hope of joining Katerina at the castle battled with her fears of never entering the forest again and—at the same time—not being good enough to be accepted. She had to try. If she ever wanted a home and family, she needed to do what Katerina asked.
“I will try harder,” Nadya said. “I will make you proud.”
“I know you will,” said Katerina, pressing a palm to Nadya’s cheek. Then she reached into her small travel bag and withdrew a carved wooden doll, its grass hair wild and untamed. The crooked smile on its face looked as if it had been painted on by Katerina herself when she was very small.
“I’ve had this d
oll all my life,” said Katerina. “Will you keep her safe for me?”
Nadya let Katerina place the doll in her hands, but grumbled, “I’m too old for a doll.”
Katerina smiled. “You’re the brave one. I need you to keep her safe.”
No one had ever given Nadya anything before. It would have been a lot easier to say goodbye if Katerina had left with a scold or reprimand instead of a gift. Nadya mumbled what she hoped sounded like a thank-you and pulled the doll close to her chest as Katerina’s soft footsteps padded away.
But from the road Katerina turned and said, “Make sure to put on your warm wool. You can’t run around without it just because I’m not here to remind you. I expect snow soon.”
Nadya narrowed her eyes. That was the Katerina she knew. Before she could think of a response, Katerina had disappeared around the front of the orphanage.
Voices cheered and cried in the distance. Katerina and the tsar must have been saying their final goodbyes to the other orphan girls.
Nadya looked behind her, hoping that she might find her wolf staring out at her from the edge of the forest. But he was nowhere to be seen. If she succeeded in joining Katerina in the castle, she would lose him, and no one would understand the heartache that would cause.
She stood alone, picking at the bandages on her hands. The fabric had begun to unravel a little, and she tugged the strip off to examine her wounds. The skin was smooth without a hint of redness. As she bent and flexed her fingers, she could still feel where the wounds had been, as though the forest had marked her, but no sign of the cuts remained. Katerina’s salve had worked wonders.
