The Republic of Birds

by Jessica Miller

  ‘Today, we learn about Baba Marisha: ‘the yaga of the Northern Plain,’ Baba Mijska tells us. ‘She lived a long, long time ago, when the skies were ablaze with flocks of firebirds…’

  I look longingly to the glass cabinet where my map is stowed with all the other yagas’ mediums. At the blackboard, Baba Mijska drones on and on. I am too busy agonising over the time I am wasting to pay any attention to her. At last, Mijska’s voice breaks in on my thoughts.

  ‘…and took it,’ she says, ‘for safekeeping, into the Unmappable Blank. Of course, had they wanted to, the yagas of the Imperial Coven could have done what neither the Tsarina nor the Avian Counsel could manage to do—they could have hatched the firebird’s egg. Does anyone know how?’

  Mijska’s question is met with silence. At last, a girl sitting near the front of the room raises her hand.

  ‘Yes, Nikita?’ asks Mijska.

  ‘I…I think it’s something to do with a feather. If a yaga has a firebird’s tail feather, she can use it to hatch the firebird’s egg. But it has to be a yaga. A tail feather won’t work for just anyone.’

  ‘Very good,’ says Mijska. ‘And besides that, the story goes that as long as she has the feather in her possession, the firebird will do as she bids. Now firebird feathers are notoriously…’

  I sigh and prop my chin in my hands. My gaze drifts back to the map in the glass chest. It’s so close and yet so far from my reach.

  Later, when night has fallen and all the other yagas are sleeping, I remember that there is another map I can practise on. I creep from my bed, out into the hall and through Bleak Steppe’s labyrinth of corridors, opening every unlocked door and peering through the keyholes of every locked one. I walk through rooms filled with hourglasses and rooms filled with mirrors. I walk down a corridor lined with portraits of yagas. I find a gramophone playing a mazurka behind one door; behind another door is a lake—a real silt-smelling lake, with water-weeds at its bottom and whiskered trout swimming in it. I stand in the doorway, gaping, until I realise that the lake is leaking out into the hallway and soaking the carpet.

  I close the door and follow a corridor, which soon splits into two corridors and, when I take the left-hand one, four more appear. Londonov himself would have trouble mapping Bleak Steppe, I think. But just as I am about to give up and turn back, I see the familiar bear-shaped brass doorknob. I reach carefully for it. The bear’s eyes open. It looks at me and snarls.

  I pull my hand away. Mijska whispered to the bear before she opened the door, so I lean down close and I say, ‘Please let me in. It’s…important.’

  The bear snarls and nips at my thumb. I try again. ‘I just need to see the map,’ I say. ‘If you would only let me in…’

  My hand is too close. The bear sinks its teeth into the flesh of my palm.

  I gasp with the pain, but I try again, and again. I need to get to the map in Baba Basha’s library. I just want to use it to see Mira, to make sure she is all right.

  My hand is bloody and pocked with toothmarks by the time I trail slowly back to the dormitory.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Thunderstorm in the Room of Mirrors

  AT THE NEXT morning’s lesson, Baba Mijska frowns at my bloodied hand. ‘Be patient, Olga,’ she says, ‘and you’ll soon reach your potential. With time, you’ll be able to pluck things from the map—walk right through it, even, and find yourself somewhere else entirely.’

  My head spins with possibilities. Of course, there’s a way out of Bleak Steppe. Of course, there’s a way to Mira. It’s been right in front of me this whole time and I can’t believe I didn’t see it.

  ‘I could walk through the map?’ I ask Mijska. ‘And come out somewhere else?’

  If I could walk through the map into the Republic, I could pluck Mira out and bring her home.

  ‘Well,’ says Mijska slowly, ‘you might be able to do that. With a great deal of time and an even greater deal of practice.’

  Could it really be true that the only thing that stands between me and Mira is a piece of paper?

  ‘Don’t try to do too much too soon, Olga,’ says Mijska. ‘If you push yourself too far, you’ll end up pushing all your magic away. You could lose it altogether.’

  ‘I understand,’ I say. But in my head, I am already in the Republic, already on my way to Mira.

  As soon as Mijska’s back is turned, I press both palms onto the Republic of Birds on the map. I feel paper beneath my hands and beneath the paper, the floor, and nothing more. But I stay where I am and I wait.

  At last, the feeling of paper falls away: I feel air, cold and flecked with snow. I feel myself weightless in the cold air, and I have to breathe deep to stop myself from becoming dizzy. I remember Mijska’s words this morning: a map is a collection of impressions and memories and I need to follow them. I stay as calm as I am able, and pay attention to the feel of the air on my skin. It is cut through with sharper gusts of wind and, after a while, I feel something fine and misty brushing my face—a cloud. I remember how I passed through clouds with this same feeling of shivering damp as I climbed the ladder to the Centre. Sound starts to creep in next. The tearing of wings through the air, squawking and shrieking. I know this sound. I’ve heard it over and over again in my head. I’ve felt it over and over again in the pit of my stomach. It’s the sound the birds made when they came down out of the sky and snatched Mira away.

  And with that, the rest of my surroundings fall into place. I smell the clean antiseptic smell of a winter sky, tangled through with the smell of woodsmoke. I taste smoky damp on my tongue. Finally, I see a plain beneath my feet and above me a grey sky, crisscrossed with soaring birds. And before me, I see the city of Ptashkagrad and the nests atop its towers and roofs the city. I know that Mira is in one of those towers. I start walking.

  But moving is difficult. Each step leaves me disoriented, and I have to concentrate twice as hard to stay inside the map. I can’t seem to make any progress. I look to Ptashkagrad and I think hard. Its domes have tiles like the scales of the fish that swim in barrels at the Gribny Street fish markets in central Stolitsa. The cloud settled over its rooftops looks as thick and white as Anastasia’s mink.

  A sharp pain starts behind my eyes and spreads, ringing through my skull. My fingers are trembling. But I don’t let myself lose focus on Ptashkagrad.

  The scene around me jolts and stutters and, for a moment, falls away, and I am suspended in blankness. I blink and concentrate, and I am back in the Republic again. Only this time, Ptashkagrad is closer.

  My headache is sharper. I feel weak and strangely empty. But I look to Ptashkagrad again, and I focus on moving forward.

  But the tastes and smells and textures of the Republic are harder to recognise and remember. The noises around me grow muffled. Ptashkagrad is closer than ever but it looks flat, two-dimensional. Like something drawn on paper. I taste nothing. I feel nothing. It’s like walking through a void. And then I feel the awful blank emptiness outside of me take hold of my insides, too. It starts to creep through me, winding between my bones, eating away at my thoughts—

  Two hands grip tight around my arms. With a jerk, I am pulled out of the map. Slowly, the classroom at Bleak Steppe forms around me again. Mijska is standing over me, frowning. ‘Do you care to explain yourself, Olga Oblomova?’ she says. Her voice is tense. She is doing her best to seem irritated, but underneath it she looks afraid.

  ‘I was…in the map,’ I say. It takes a while for the words to come. I am still feeling dull and blank. ‘I was trying to move—’

  ‘Well you were trying too hard,’ she says. ‘Don’t try to push beyond the limits of what you can do, Olga. Your medium can’t be forced. You could lose it. Do you want that to happen?’

  Do I want to lose my magic? I am only just beginning to understand it, and already it feels essential. She might as well ask me if I want to lose my limbs. I am trying to find the words to say this, but when I see Mijska’s face, I know that she already understands
.

  ‘Well, then,’ she says, and she softens. ‘Try something a little less strenuous for the rest of the class.’

  Something less strenuous. I unroll the map and study it carefully. I place my hand over the Unmappable Blank but, predictably, I see nothing. I hear nothing, feel nothing, smell nothing, and taste nothing. I guess my magic only works on mappable territories.

  I look at the map some more. Finally, I choose the High Stikhlos. They make a jagged seam along the north of the map, and I spend the rest of the lesson trying to find my way into their peaks and crags.

  At last, I coax a small peak out of the paper, then another, and another.

  I pull my hand away and the peaks dissolve. The ground beneath my feet turns flat and steady.

  Soon, I have all but lost the emptiness that took hold of me when I tried to move beyond the limits of my magic. But I haven’t forgotten Ptashkagrad, and Mira, and that I was almost there.

  Around me, the other girls break into chatter and laughter. The lesson must be over.

  Evgenia goes past with her heavy lock in her hand. ‘We’re finished, Olga,’ she says. ‘You can put your map away.’

  I stand up and fold the map. ‘I’ll be just a minute,’ I say.

  I hang back as the other girls place their sugar pots and inkwells and birch branches and dolls and bees back in the glass chest.

  I hold the map behind me and leave the classroom keeping my back to the wall. Once I am safely out of sight, I tuck it into my pocket.

  For the rest of the day, I can feel the map close to me. I walk slowly so its rustling doesn’t give me away. I pretend to smooth out my skirt, just so I can check it is still safely hidden.

  That night, I wait until the others are asleep. Then I creep out and down the corridor lined with paintings of yagas. I slip into the room of mirrors. No one will see me or hear me here. I unfold the map and, in the mirrors that line the walls, my reflections unfold the map, too—hundreds of girls unfolding hundreds of maps.

  I’m going to use the map to walk into the Republic of Birds. I’m going to see it and hear it and taste it until it is real and solid. More real and more solid than the cold stone floor I am kneeling on now. I’m going to find my way to Mira. And then—

  Well, I don’t know what will happen, then. But I know I must go to her, and I must go now.

  I place my hands on the map, and a crisp wind hits me almost immediately. But I don’t find myself in the plains outside Ptashkagrad. I am in a stunted forest that clings to the side of a mountain. At the top of the mountain is a strange building perched on stilts.

  My breath catches. It’s the Imperial Centre for Avian Observation. How did I misjudge the map? My mind fills with memories of the Centre: the taste of mushrooms, the cold seeping up from between the floorboards, the warm, sweet smell of porridge.

  The map moves around me, and I am in the Centre’s entranceway. The kitchen door is ajar. The stove is burning low. Father sits at the table opposite Anastasia. They stare at each other in grim silence. After a long while, there is a noise at the door and Pritnip steps in. His face is ashy grey and his eyes have a weary glaze. ‘I’m sorry Oblomov,’ he says, ‘but it’s impossible. Every time we try to push into the Republic, the birds push us back. Do you see?’ he wiggles a finger through a hole in his jacket. ‘My men have been pecked to exhaustion. This rescue mission, it’s’—he sits heavily in a chair—‘it’s folly.’

  ‘Folly!’ blazes Anastasia, staring at Father. ‘Well you certainly know a thing or two about that, don’t you, Aleksei.’ She pushes her chair back and goes to the window. Her fingers turn white where they grip the sill. ‘It was folly to try to find the firebird’s egg. And see where that folly led you? You’ve angered the Republic. And you’ve—we’ve—paid the price.’

  Father has sunk his face into his hands. ‘If I had only known,’ he says, ‘I would never have acted so rashly. So stupidly.’ He is silent for a long while. When he speaks again his voice is hoarse. ‘I just want them back. My girls,’ he mumbles through his fingers. ‘My girls.’

  I have never seen Father so sad. It is too much to bear. I pull my hands away from the map and take a deep breath. I know I must try again.

  This time, I’m aiming straight for Ptashkagrad. It happens just the way it did in class this morning. I am standing in the icy wastes outside the city. I can see it glinting in the distance. I will myself to move closer. The map shifts around me and the city grows closer and closer. But the closer I come to Ptashkagrad, the less I can see. There are blank, empty patches around me. I try to push on, but the longer I stay in the map, the larger they grow.

  And then, the blankness turns inwards and I feel it creeping through me. I am so close to Ptashkagrad now, but I know I need to stop.

  I pull away from the map, breathe deeply, let my thoughts fall back into order. I am about to try again when a rumbling noise shudders the walls of the room and sets the mirrors shivering.

  A drop of rain plunks onto the floor. Then another. And another.

  I look up.

  Just beneath the ceiling, storm clouds have formed. I watch as, in the far corner of the room, a storm takes place in miniature. Wind rattles the walls and rain comes down in thick sheets. Lightning forks the room and the hundreds of reflected rooms, and thunder crashes through the air.

  ‘Come here,’ says a voice that seems to be made of thunderstorm. I stay where I am, in a stupid daze.

  ‘Come. Here,’ says the voice.

  I gather up the map, come to my feet, and edge closer to the storm.

  The rain keeps falling, heavier and heavier. I am fixed to the floor. I want to run but my feet don’t budge. I realise the rain has taken the shape of a person. A few seconds more and the rain has stopped. A woman stands before me. She is tall and thin, with skin the colour of frozen water. Her hair is lightning-white and, though the rest of her is very still, her hair crackles with electricity. I have seen her before in Varvara’s memory. She is one of the Imperial Coven. Baba Basha. At last!

  ‘Olga Oblomova,’ says Baba Basha. She swishes her rain-blue skirt and then sits down in a large, cloud armchair. ‘I am Baba Basha, Headmistress of Bleak Steppe. I’m pleased to meet you at last. Perhaps you could tell me what exactly you are doing.’

  I look down at the map in my hands and consider making some kind of excuse, but I don’t think Baba Basha will be easily convinced by whatever story I might come up with. There is something about her calm expression that makes me feel it is a thin covering for great depths beneath. I can tell that she is not to be trifled with.

  ‘I took the map from class,’ I say. ‘I know I shouldn’t have. But there’s somewhere I need to go—’

  She nods. ‘The Republic of Birds. I am aware that your sister is being held there.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘I thought I could use the map to get there.’

  ‘You’re right, you know,’ she says. ‘You could use the map to get there. Tell me, were you close just now?’

  ‘I was close!’ I say. ‘But I need to try harder. I need to concentrate more.’

  ‘Were you very close?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘Be honest, now,’ she says.

  I think. I was close. But the further I went into the map, the looser my grip on myself became.

  ‘You’re a yaga, Olga,’ says Basha. ‘You have abilities you haven’t even dreamt of yet. But it would be the work of years to step into a map and come out somewhere else, let alone bring something, or someone, back with you. I believe Mijska has already told you this.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘But I thought—’

  ‘You thought that if you needed it to happen badly enough, it just might?’

  I nod miserably.

  Basha’s face softens. ‘If you push yourself too far, overstep the limits of your ability, then you could lose your medium. But you already know that.’

  I nod.

  ‘And that’s why you stopped, isn’t
it?’

  I nod again.

  Basha lets out a deep sigh. ‘I see great potential in you, Olga,’ she says. ‘Were you to stay at Bleak Steppe, one day you’d be able to walk through the centre of the globe, to spin the world around on its compass points. You’d be able to go through the map into the Republic of Birds as easily as walking through a door. But there’s no time for that.’

  ‘No,’ I say sadly, wishing with all my heart there was enough time. ‘There’s not.’

  ‘And yet,’ she says, ‘you’ve learned where your limits lie. The journey to come will test those limits sorely, Olga. When the time comes, I think you’ll know what to do.’

  I unfold the map and study it. ‘Where is Bleak Steppe?’ I ask and Basha points with an ice-blue finger. There’s so much distance between where I am now and the Republic—and it’s dotted with forest, zig-zagged by river, jagged with mountains. How can it be so far away when I was there—or almost there—only minutes ago? I want to cry with the unfairness of it.

  But crying won’t take me any closer to Mira. I take a deep breath instead. ‘Baba Mijska says only you can decide when I can leave Bleak Steppe,’ I say.

  She nods.

  ‘So, what can I do to persuade you to let me go now?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ she says, ‘all you have to do is ask.’

  Lightning cracks from the ceiling and its white flash bounces through the mirrors. For a moment, I can see nothing but light. When my eyes adjust, I see Basha is holding my coat in one hand and Varvara’s memory bag in the other. She gives them to me.

  As I am buttoning my coat, I ask, ‘When all this has finished, can I come back?’

  She smiles. ‘Even if you’re not at Bleak Steppe, you’ll always belong here.’

  It’s not until she has shut the door behind me that I realise she didn’t answer my question.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  In the Footsteps of the Great Cartographers

  THE BLEAK STEPPE gates swing open and Basha marks my path through the trees with a bolt of lightning. Gusts of rain-soaked wind speed me on my way and cushion the ground beneath my feet. For the first few hours after I leave, I’m not really walking at all. I’m being carried along in a damp, windy cocoon.