by E. P. Clark
“You’re not eating anything,” she said to Gray Wolf. “Do you want something?”
You offer me food?
“Yes, of course.”
Ah, little Tsarinovna! You even seek to rule me!
“I’m not trying to rule you. I’m just offering you food, since you don’t have any of your own.”
Amongst wolves, it is the rulers who offer the others food from their kills.
“Well, we’re not amongst wolves, are we? It’s just you and me.”
True enough, little Tsarinovna. Dasha thought he was smiling. I will take a piece of your bread, then.
Dasha held out one of the chunks of bread on her palm. A mouth that could have swallowed her head whole opened, and fangs longer than her hand brushed against her skin as his soft lips delicately picked up the bread. He gulped it down even faster than she had, and then said solemnly, I thank you, little Tsarinovna.
“Do you want more?”
I think that was sufficient, little Tsarinovna. I rarely favor bread as food, and you need it more than I do. I can go without eating for many days, if I must. Now curl up against me and go to sleep.
Dasha curled up on the soft moss, resting her back against his belly. She thought she would never be able to sleep in such strange circumstances, especially with the birds, whose joy at the morning apparently overcame their fear of Gray Wolf, making such a racket, but even so she soon drifted off to sleep.
***
When she awoke it was still early in the morning. Her neck was painfully stiff from her curled-up position, but she didn’t want to leave the warmth and the coziness of being snuggled up against Gray Wolf’s belly.
Get up, little Tsarinovna, he told her. We have far to go today.
“Why?” she asked, pushing herself stiffly to her feet and turning her head this way and that to try to shake out the stiffness. A sudden crack, followed by tingles running down all the way to her fingertips, and she could move her head normally again.
Because I go far every day. Take some food, and then climb onto my back.
Dasha obeyed, offering Gray Wolf half of her small store of apple slices, but he turned them down, saying he was not yet nearly hungry enough to eat something like that.
“Don’t you like sweet things?” Dasha asked.
Don’t you like fresh, bloody meat?
“Fair enough,” Dasha said. “Where are we going?”
Through the forest. And with that, they were off again.
The day was much the same as the night before. Gray Wolf would ask Dasha what she could sense, and she would tell him. The only difference was that Dasha was becoming slightly better at it, especially once she stopped asking him where they were going or when they were going to go to the sanctuary. When they stopped for a midafternoon rest, Gray Wolf told her that she had made excellent progress, and that he would return her to her companions that evening.
“But I’m not very good at it!” she protested.
A sure sign of progress, Gray Wolf told her. Recognizing your failures is the first step to success. You have learned a tiny grain of humility. And patience. Now it is up to you to keep learning these things, and everything else I have tried to teach you.
“I don’t know that I’ll be able to keep learning without you to guide me,” Dasha said.
Another sign of progress. Keep trying. You do not need me to tell you to stop fretting about what might be and start paying attention to what is. You know that already.
“But I can’t seem to do it without you! Especially when everyone around me seems to want me to do the opposite.”
Try, little Tsarinovna. Even only a moment a day is success, and those moments will come upon you when you least expect it, if you make yourself open to them every day. If I did nothing but lie under a tree, I would not be able to walk, but because I walk every day, many, many versts, each step is light and easy. And yet even I feel tired sometimes. So it will be for you, if you practice.
“If you say so,” said Dasha.
I do. And if you ever have need of me, you can always call for me.
“Even in Krasnograd?”
Even in Krasnograd. I can go anywhere there is wildness, and there is wildness even in the heart of Krasnograd. Call for me, and I will be there in the blink of an eye.
“How?” asked Dasha.
Gray Wolf turned back to look at her, and grinned, his giant mouth gaping open wide. I am not so bound by the earth as you are, he told her. I am not so bound by what seems to be there, by what you would call reality.
Dasha wanted to say that that didn’t make any sense at all, since he had just been talking all night and all day about sensing what was really there, but she held her tongue. Probably he would just start explaining to her again about how everything she thought she knew was wrong, or something like that, and she only wanted to hear it so many times. Even worse, he might decide that she hadn’t actually learned the lessons he had wanted to teach her, and keep her for another night, and she was out of bread and apples. He had assured her several times that a day or two without food would not kill her, which she knew from her own experience anyway, but she was still hungry and tired and dirty, and the chance to steam away the dirt and eat proper food and spend the night in a real bed was too wonderful to jeopardize by starting an argument she wasn’t going to win. So she thanked him humbly, and then said nothing at all for at least two versts.
She only broke her silence when the prickles of warning, which had left her blissfully unbothered ever since she had set off with Gray Wolf, suddenly bloomed out from the back of her neck and ran around to her throat and jaw, before spreading with alarming speed across her shoulders and back.
“I’m going to have a fit!” she cried.
Gray Wolf stopped. Slide off my back, Tsarinovna, he commanded.
She obeyed. Her teeth were chattering, and little shivers were spreading out from her stomach. Even her ears itched and burned from the prickles that were now running all over her body.
Look around you, Tsarinovna, Gray Wolf said. What do you sense?
“What! I can’t do that right now! I’m about to have a fit!”
Why are you about to have a fit, Tsarinovna? Look around you. What do you sense?
Dasha uncurled herself from the ball her body was trying to force her into, and looked around. There…just beyond those trees…there was another tree, one that had funny leaves…it was a prayer tree. There was a prayer tree just on the edge of sight, and the road was just beyond it.
“Was it the prayer tree?” Dasha asked. “Is it causing my fits?”
A question for the priestesses, I think, Tsarinovna. Now let the fit take you, and we will continue.
“I can’t just have the fits whenever I w—AKH!” Dasha screamed and convulsed, her head snapping back and all her limbs jerking. A heartbeat later, her whole body was flooded with a blissful sense of peace, and, just as she always was, she was sure she would never have another fit again.
You see, Tsarinovna? That was not so bad, said Gray Wolf, but Dasha thought that, for the first time since she had met him, he sounded worried. Now climb on my back, and before you know it, you will be reunited with your companions, and in the care of the priestesses. They have been waiting your entire life to meet you.
***
The sanctuary, when they arrived, looked like a large waystation, entirely surrounded by a stockade fence. And prayer trees. Their ribbons fluttered at Dasha, and she fidgeted on Gray Wolf’s back as the prickling spread out across her scalp, and a sharp pain stabbed her just above her left eye. Gray Wolf stopped just in front of the closed gates.
This is where we part, little Tsarinovna.
“Where are the others? Where are my father and Alik and Mitya?”
Over there, little Tsarinovna. Gray Wolf turned his head and pointed his muzzle in the direction of the road leading away from the gate. In the cabin for travelers.
“I should go to them.”
You should
go to the sisters. They have been waiting for you for much longer. Word can be sent to your father that I have returned you safely.
Dasha tried to object, but her words were drowned out when Gray Wolf threw back his head and howled. The sound made a shiver run up Dasha’s back till it connected with the prickling of her scalp and sent her into another fit, one so strong that she screamed and fell off Gray Wolf’s back.
Little Tsarinovna! Are you injured?
“I think my pride is bruised,” said Dasha grumpily, hauling herself upright by pulling, maybe a little more sharply than necessary, on Gray Wolf’s fur. To her relief, she was already on her feet by the time two sisters flung open a small window inset into the gate and peered out.
“Gray Wolf!” cried one. “Whom have you brought us today?”
“Do you often come here?” Dasha whispered. “They don’t seem surprised at all to see you. I thought you didn’t generally show yourself to people.”
I show myself to people all the time. Just not very many humans. But when I find a human in need—and I am not too hungry—he grinned at her—I bring them to the sisters here.
By this time the sisters had shut the little window and were dragging open the gates. “Our apologies, Tsarinovna,” said the one who had spoken before. She was at least Dasha’s mother’s age, Dasha guessed, and tall and thin under her sanctuary robes, with a long lined face and a long gray braid peeking out from the cowl of her worn gray robe. Despite her lanky leanness and the fact that she resembled a particularly strict tutor Dasha had once had, she had a friendly smile on her face, and Dasha thought she might be trustworthy, although probably just as strict as her sister in appearance from Dasha’s childhood. “We should have recognized you from afar. The trees have been telling us that you were on your way.” She finished pulling the gate, which was heavily weathered and dragged on the ground, wide enough open for Dasha to step through, and bowed down to her boot tops. “Please come in, Tsarinovna,” she said. “We are honored. Vlastomila Serafimiyevna will be overjoyed that you have finally come to us.”
Dasha looked back at Gray Wolf.
I have done my part, he told her. I will not follow you into that cage, and you will have no need of me, anyway.
“Will you go to my father, then, and tell him where I am?”
If you wish, little Tsarinovna.
Impulsively, Dasha stood up on her tiptoes and threw her arms around Gray Wolf’s neck. Her hands could barely meet at the crest of his neck. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry I was such a slow learner.”
Slow? No slower than most humans, and faster than many. You learned enough, little Tsarinovna. Enough to set you on the path to wisdom, if you will take it. Now I must go. But this is not goodbye. We will see each other again, many times, I am sure of it.
“Can you see into the future, too?”
Knowing that we will most likely meet again requires no special foresight, little Tsarinovna. I know it because I plan—he grinned at her again—to seek you out. And remember: all you must do is call for me, and I will come.
“Fare well, then,” she told him. She thought he lipped her ear as he slid out of her embrace, and then turned and loped off without a backwards glance.
“Come, Tsarinovna,” said the tall woman, once Gray Wolf had stepped into the shadows of the trees and, just like that, disappeared from view. Dasha wasn’t sure whether he had used some special magic, or merely the ordinary magic of wolves. “I am sure you wish for a steam. I will take you directly to the bathhouse, and have clean robes brought to you while you steam. We have already eaten, but we will have food ready for you when you are finished.” She began leading Dasha off deeper into the compound, while the other sister, who had not yet spoken, wrestled the gate closed and barred it from the inside before hurrying to join them. She was short, barely up to Dasha’s shoulders, and appeared under her voluminous robe, which was even more worn and patched than her sister’s, to be round and plump as a ball. Dasha could barely make out her face at all, not even enough to guess at her age.
“You may be wondering why we shut the gates, Tsarinovna,” said the tall sister, even though Dasha had taken it as a given that they would keep the gates shut, and had been wondering no such thing. “We always used to keep them open, day and night, for anyone who would come to us seeking sanctuary, but of late…” she lowered her voice, “of late we have been having problems with wolves.”
“With wolves?” said Dasha, surprised. “Would not Gray Wolf prevent them from molesting you?”
“He claims that is not in his purview, Tsarinovna. In truth, we believe that he could intervene if he wished, but that he thinks we have brought this upon ourselves.”
“Upon yourselves? How?”
“We killed a wolf, Tsarinovna,” the other sister put in suddenly. Her voice was unexpectedly deep and rough for such a short woman. She pulled back her hood, revealing a young face, no older than Vladya’s, if Dasha was any guess, with a long blonde braid and big blue eyes.
“If you were defending yourselves….” Dasha began.
“We thought we were, Tsarinovna, but I don’t think he sees it that way,” said the short sister.
“Deer had been coming in, you see,” said the tall sister. “Coming in and eating our garden. At first we were distraught—how would we feed ourselves?—and then we realized game was just walking itself straight to our door, and began hunting them. But they kept coming, and with them came wolves. Three times we found wolves prowling in our very gardens, lurking outside our hen coop and stable, and even outside our own cells, waiting for a sister to step out by herself in the middle of the night. When one of them lunged at Vlastomila Serafimiyevna herself, we declared enough was enough, and killed it.”
“Only now even more have been coming,” said the short sister. “And so we keep our gates closed, to keep out them and…other things.”
“Oh,” said Dasha. Before she could say anything more, or ask what those other things were, they came to a large bathhouse that had once been pleasant and well-built, but was now slightly shabby, just like everything else Dasha had seen of the sanctuary.
“Here we are!” declared the tall sister brightly. “Sister Bozheslava, won’t you go fetch some clean clothes and towels, while I stoke the fire?”
The short sister, who must have been Sister Bozheslava, hurried off. The tall sister fetched an armful of wood from the woodpile behind the bathhouse, rejecting all Dasha’s offers to help carry it, and then led her into the bathhouse, where she told her to get undressed while she lit the stove and fetched water.
“I could help you fetch the water,” said Dasha.
“No-no, Tsarinovna, you wait here and make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back in the blink of an eye.” And the tall sister left her before she could come up with another excuse to avoid being left alone in the bathhouse.
Nothing untoward happened to her as she undressed, however, and both the sisters returned from their respective errands before she was able to imagine more than half a dozen terrible things that might happen while she was alone in the bathhouse. Dasha tried to convince both the sisters to stay and steam with her, but Sister Bozheslava only shook her head and bowed before running off again, and the other sister, whose name Dasha still didn’t know, told her, “Oh no, Tsarinovna, it’s very kind of you, but I have to go prepare something for you to eat. Come join us as soon as you are done. You are safe enough here, now that the gate’s closed,” before running off as well.
Once she was alone, Dasha looked around the large steaming chamber. It had many benches, all worn smooth by years of use. The shadows under the benches were too thick and dark for her taste, but after she watched them till all the steam had cleared from the chamber and nothing revealed itself to her, she concluded, cautiously, that she might be alone in there after all. She threw another ladleful of water onto the stove, and lay down on the nearest bench to try to steam off all the grime properly.
The sweat was now runnin
g freely from her whole body, soaking her towel so much that she had to wipe herself off and get a fresh towel to lie on. That towel was soon soaked through too.
How can I possibly be sweating that much? Dasha asked herself. That must be dangerous. She sat up, and then promptly had to lie back down as her head swam, and her vision became clouded with black.
Of course your head is spinning; you’ve hardly slept or eaten or drunk at all since yesterday, she told herself. Next time, sit up more slowly.
Taking her own advice, she slowly, using the wall as a handhold, pushed herself to sitting, and then stayed there, leaning back against the wall, which was uncomfortably hot against her bare back, for support. When she felt she was no longer in danger of collapsing in a slump onto the bench, she opened her eyes.
The chamber was still full of steam, which was roiling as if disturbed by a draft, even though the only thing Dasha could feel on her own skin was the prickling that heralded a fit.
Not again! was her first thought. It doesn’t just mean a fit, was her second.
“Who’s here?” she called out, wishing she could sound as strong and confident as her father, instead of like a scared little girl.
I didn’t know you were the Tsarinovna.
“Vika!?”
The billowing steam resolved itself into the figure of a girl. Even transparent and colorless as it was, Dasha could recognize the form as Vika’s.
“You’re still here!” she exclaimed.
I didn’t know you were the Tsarinovna.
“That doesn’t matter.”
It does.
“Well…as you will. I thought I had…I thought you were gone. More or less. But you’re not. Where have you been? Have you been riding inside me, all this time, still as yourself?”
Yes.
“Why?”
Because you took me, Tsarinovna.
“But I also…set you free. Returned you to the earth.”
Some of me. The part of me that was of earth. Water-maidens can never truly be freed. We are of water, and water is eternal.
“Do you want to be freed?”
I do not know, Tsarinovna. Yes…and no.
