The Breathing Sea II - Drowning

by E. P. Clark

  “Through the garden door,” Sister Yeseniya was saying, interrupting Dasha’s confusion. “It’s just creeping in through the cracks, but…when I went by it, I felt cold all over, colder than I’ve ever been, and I knew…so I came straight to you.”

  “You did right,” said Vlastomila Serafimiyevna. “I will go directly. Stay here with the Tsarinovna. No. On second thought: Tsarinovna, would you do me the honor of accompanying me?”

  “Of course,” said Dasha, brushing the borshch off the front of her robe as best she could, which was not very well. The only good thing was that Vlastomila Serafimiyevna seemed so concerned by the news Sister Yeseniya had brought that she was paying no attention to Dasha’s appearance. “What are we going to do?” she asked, slipping the book into her pocket. “Is it a water-maiden? Are they trying to come in and…I don’t know, steal our life force?”

  “Yes, Tsarinovna,” said Vlastomila Serafimiyevna, leading Dasha at a brisk pace out of the chamber. “They are…hungry, I guess you could say. And they have come for us. I will tell you more later. First we must send this one back outside.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Dasha asked, half-trotting, half-skipping in order to keep up with Vlastomila Serafimiyevna’s quick strides.

  “I…” Now Vlastomila Serafimiyevna appeared unsure, and even paused for a moment. “I’m not exactly sure, Tsarinovna,” she admitted. “I think you can help, in fact, I think you are the only one who can, but I only have a vague notion how. Quite frankly, I am hoping that an idea will come to you.”

  They rounded a corner and came to the garden door before Dasha could voice even one of the myriad objections she had to this plan. The door was shut, but just as Sister Yeseniya had said, tendrils of mist were slipping in through the cracks and around the hinges, and pooling into a single pool on the floor. It was still formless, but both it and the tendrils that were slowly flowing in and joining it had an uncanny air of intent, of consciousness, that caused prickles of magic and horror to start spreading out across Dasha’s scalp. When she inhaled, she thought she could catch the scent of deep water, of the dark places under the banks of a slow-flowing stream.

  “What now?” she whispered.

  Vlastomila Serafimiyevna made no answer, and when Dasha turned to her, she saw that she was standing there with her eyes closed, apparently lost in prayer or contemplation. But the tendrils of mist kept slipping in, and the pool on the floor was growing larger and larger, and thicker and thicker.

  “What should I do?” Dasha asked. The pool of mist was now knee-high, and was beginning to swirl, as it attempted to form into a shape, a shape that already seemed vaguely human.

  Vlastomila Serafimiyevna made no answer, but continued to stand there silently, her eyes closed. Cold tingles were spreading out across Dasha’s jaw, and her hands felt like ice. A shudder ran down her spine, and she feared that any moment she would fall into a fit.

  “What now?” she said more loudly. The shape the mist was forming into was already more than waist-high, and was definitely that of a young woman, rising out of the pool of mist as if from a pool of water.

  “Who are you?” Dasha shouted at her, growing more and more frustrated. “Who are you, and what do you want from us?”

  Mila, said the young woman. Lyubomila. She was now nearly shoulder-height on Dasha. Her long hair had fallen out of its braided crown, and was dripping real drops of water onto the floor. Her arms, when she lifted them up and held them out towards Dasha, were scratched and bruised, and her sarafan and shirt were torn in half and gaped open. Come to me, she said.

  “Who did this to you?” Dasha asked.

  Why do you care? No one has ever asked this of me before.

  “Well, it’s time, don’t you think? Who did this to you?”

  It is not your concern! Mila’s face, now level with Dasha’s own, was twisted into a grimace of pain and rage, and water, real water, ran out of her ghostly mouth and spilled onto the floor. You don’t care! Nobody cares! Nobody knows! Nobody knows, and nobody cares!

  “I care,” said Dasha. “Who did this to you, Lyubomila?”

  It is not your concern! You don’t care! Nobody cares! They drive me away, they accuse me of lying and they drive me away!

  “Come here,” Dasha said. Beside her, she heard Vlastomila Serafimiyevna gasp and start to object, but she ignored her. “Come here,” she repeated, taking a step towards Lyubomila and holding out her hands. “Come, take my hands.”

  Lyubomila hesitated for a moment, and then swooped down on Dasha like a striking snake and snatched up her hands. Hers felt cold and icy, like river mud in early spring.

  “Tell me,” Dasha commanded. “Tell me who did this to you.”

  It was…it was…

  “Yes?”

  It was him!!!!

  “Who is ‘him,’ Lyubomila?”

  Lyubomila shook her head and looked away. A cold lassitude was flowing up Dasha’s arms towards her heart. All she wanted to do was curl up, right here on the floor, and close her eyes. Forever. And even if she tried to fight it, she thought it might happen anyway.

  “Who is ‘him,’ Lyubomila?” she asked again. “Was it your lover?”

  Lyubomila shook her head.

  “A neighbor? A friend?”

  Lyubomila kept shaking her head. No, no, you’ve got it wrong, you’ve got it wrong just like everybody else.

  “Was it…” Dasha could feel her lips twisting in disgust as she tried to bring out the words. “Was it your father?”

  No! NO! He is not my father! He was never my father!

  “Was he your stepfather?” Dasha guessed.

  Her heart convulsed painfully, and the floor lurched under her like a boat struck by a wave. The book in her pocket banged against her side.

  “He was your stepfather,” she said more certainly. “But no one ever believed you when you told them he was hurting you when you were alive, and when you came back and tried to tell them after he had killed you, they drove you away.” The heat of rage was now spreading up Dasha’s chest, replacing the painful convulsing of her heart. When it met the prickles spreading out from her scalp, she and Lyubomila both gasped.

  What are you…my hands! My hands! Lyubomila jerked her hands out of Dasha’s, which were now wreathed in dancing flames. Lyubomila’s own hands were steaming like a vat of laundry.

  “I am sorry,” Dasha told her. “It is for the best.” She reached out and plunged her hands into Lyubomila’s chest, where her heart would have been if she had been made of flesh and blood rather than mist and sorrow.

  The warmth! The peace! The warmth! A great cloud of steam rose off Lyubomila, and when it cleared, she was gone.

  ***

  “You see?” said Vlastomila Serafimiyevna, once it became apparent that they were alone, and no more mist was attempting to come through the door. “You did have an idea after all. Well done, Tsarinovna.” She reached out and took Dasha’s hands in hers, extinguishing the flames that were still dancing from finger to finger.

  “They didn’t believe her at all!” Dasha cried. “No wonder she became a water-maiden! It was the only way she could get anyone to listen to her!”

  “Indeed, Tsarinovna,” said Vlastomila Serafimiyevna, extinguishing the flames that had sprung back to life on Dasha’s hands. “A common story, I fear. There are far too many people who would rather believe the pleasant lie than the painful truth, even if the sufferer as a result is their own daughter. Especially if it is their own daughter, in some cases. Much better to let your new husband’s lies lull you to sleep than wake up and see the suffering you are causing. I would not say that all our problems would be solved if women could love their daughters as they love their lovers, but…there is a reason there are only sisters here. Come: let us return to your meal. I fear it was rudely interrupted,” she smiled, “and you must be starving. I take it you took no harm from your actions?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Dasha, following Vlastomila Seraf
imiyevna back to the dining chamber, where the borshch that remained in her bowl was no longer steaming, and the pies, which must have been baked that morning and reheated for Dasha that evening, were already growing cold and leathery. Dasha’s stomach was now twisting and gurgling, and she was unsure if eating was a good idea. She sat down and took a cautious sip of the borshch. Eating was definitely a good idea. She gulped down three more spoonfuls of borshch before she remembered that Vlastomila Serafimiyevna was there with her, and that she had questions for her.

  “Why are the water-maidens coming here?” she asked.

  “That is your first question? Not what you did to free Lyubomila?”

  Dasha hastily swallowed down another large mouthful of soup. “I think I know what I did to Lyubomila,” she said. “What you told me about fire and water—yes, they’re opposites, they can’t exist together—except as steam. As steam they’re one. So I turned her into steam.”

  “And all that just came to you like that?” asked Vlastomila Serafimiyevna. “You thought of all that so quickly?”

  “Well…” Dasha said. “I think the book told me.” She fished it out of her pocket and placed it on the table.

  “Ah,” said Vlastomila Serafimiyevna, nodding in understanding. “Spirits of the North. Much wisdom is contained within those pages.”

  “And much confusion,” Dasha said.

  “How so, Tsarinovna?”

  “Well…” Dasha wished she had said nothing. “It doesn’t always seem to be the same book,” she explained.

  “Most books do not, Tsarinovna,” Vlastomila Serafimiyevna told her. “The book that you read is the one in your heart, not the one made of ink and paper.”

  “Yes, but…that must be it,” Dasha agreed. “That must be it.”

  “Perhaps,” said Vlastomila Serafimiyevna. “So what made you able to take what is in this changeable, uncertain book and come up with what you needed to do, all in the blink of an eye?”

  “I had faith,” Dasha told her. “I had faith that I would do the right thing, and I did.”

  “The gods spoke to you, then, Tsarinovna?”

  “I don’t know.” Dasha paused to gulp down a large bite of pie. It was stuffed with new cabbage. “It didn’t feel like that. There weren’t voices in my head or anything. I didn’t even have a vision. I just…had faith that I would know what to do, and then I did.”

  “That is…that is good, Tsarinovna,” said Vlastomila Serafimiyevna. “Often that is how it is, you know. Not loud voices or bright visions, but a quiet knowledge of what to do, which way to turn.” She paused for a moment, contemplating Dasha, who was chewing through the cabbage pie as quickly as possible. “You asked why the water-maidens were coming to us,” she said.

  Dasha nodded, unable to swallow and speak her agreement.

  “It started a year ago, more or less. A year ago in the spring, on the first day of spring.”

  Dasha nodded again.

  “A young woman had come to us that winter, asking for sanctuary. We had not had many, or any, new sisters join us in some time. We are growing shabby and worn, as you may have noticed. We are not in fashion right now. Women seeking sanctuary turn their thoughts these days to the Sisterhood of the Wolf, off to the East of Lesnograd. It is more…vigorous, more exciting, and they allow lovers. Or even the castrates; they are becoming ever more popular. We are plain and boring by comparison. We do not glory in the hunt, in blood and pain and a quick terrible sacrifice. We live our quiet lives, and tell our sisters that true glory is not in what you do once, but what you do every day. Not in a glorious, painful death, but in a gentle, patient life. Which for many is more painful, more frightening, than the knife, the spear, the bow, than all those sharp edges and sudden welters of blood. When we do have new sisters join us now, they are older, and have left their foolish, giddy youth behind. But this woman who came to us was young, perhaps no older than you.”

  There was a long silence. Dasha’s mouth was still too full for her to speak, and Vlastomila Serafimiyevna seemed unwilling to say more. Just as Dasha had swallowed—rather painfully—the large lump of pie she had in her mouth, and was struggling to get the air she needed to speak, Vlastomila Serafimiyevna said, “She came with a story, a story about a water-maiden who was haunting her.”

  Dasha nodded.

  “I listened, of course. We all listened. We of all people know to believe such things. Many of us had even encountered water-maidens before. But she claimed that the water-maiden was following her, was tied to her rather than to the pond where she had drowned. That, none of us had ever heard before. Water-maidens are tied to their pools and streams, and can only come out when the water is flowing and clear of ice. Everybody knows this. They lure people to them, rather than following them around. Everybody knows this.”

  Dasha nodded.

  “Even so, we listened to her story with a sympathetic ear, and gave her a place amongst us. And that winter she seemed happy enough. But when the snow began to melt…”

  Dasha nodded again.

  “When the snow began to melt, she became more and more despondent. She made wild claims that the water-maiden was following her, was dogging her every step, speaking to her in her sleep and haunting her when she was awake. Only none of us could see this water-maiden. We took turns sharing a cell with her, watching over her while she slept, and someone was always with her when she went about her duties and her prayers during the day, and no one ever caught so much as a glimpse of this water-maiden. Until one day…”

  The pain in Vlastomila Serafimiyevna’s voice stopped Dasha from nodding, and she merely listened in stillness and silence instead.

  “One day, on that first day of spring, she went out, she went out to start the spring planting, and she…she kept on going. She walked right past the garden, right past the stable, and right out the back gate and into the woods. The sister who was with her—Sister Bozheslava, in point of fact—tried to stop her, but it was as if she had the strength of ten women, she said. She shook off Sister Bozheslava’s restraining hand, and turned a deaf ear to her pleas to turn back. And so Sister Bozheslava followed her out to a prayer tree, where she dropped to her knees. Sister Bozheslava thought she had come out to pray, and knelt down to pray with her. But as soon as she did, she felt a terrible fear, telling her that something dreadful was about to happen. She tried to jump to her feet, but the tree reached its branches down and wrapped her in its ribbons, the prayers of our sisters and our seekers coming down and threatening to strangle her. And as she struggled, the young woman stood up and strode off, strode off as if she finally had found a purpose. And when Sister Bozheslava was released, and ran after her, she found her. She found her body. Floating in the stream. It appeared she had thrown herself in, or…by her tracks, she must have thrown herself in. And then held herself under the water until she drowned. The stream was barely more than knee-deep at that point. She should have been able to walk to safety in two steps. But she didn’t.”

  “I am sorry,” said Dasha.

  “For what, Tsarinovna?”

  “For all of you. Sister Bozheslava must have been distraught.”

  “She was, Tsarinovna. You might not know it to look at her now, but she used to be such a merry thing, always with a smile or a song on her lips. But now she hardly speaks at all. And then…then that night…that night, after we had buried our poor unfortunate sister’s body, and were praying at her graveside, she…rose. It was a cold misty night, and the mist…it rose from her grave, and then she was standing right before us, clear as life, even though she was made of nothing but mist, and we could see right through her.

  “Do you see me? she asked. Do you see me now?

  “We all told her that we could.

  “Then why could you not see her? she cried, and pointed to the edge of the graveyard. Where there stood another figure, made of mist just as she was, like enough to be her twin sister.

  “‘We see her now,’ we told her.

  “
Not soon enough, she said. No one saw her soon enough to save either of us. But now you will. Now you will see both of us, and more besides. Now you will never stop seeing us, in payment for your blindness before.

  “And then she disappeared, the mist disappearing and blowing away in the wind, but the next night we saw her again, this time not in the graveyard beyond our walls, but inside, by the garden. The garden was her favorite place in life, and she continued to spend her days and nights there after her death, her and her sister. And soon more and more of them came, they kept coming all summer, till we were all afraid to set foot outside this building after dark. They did not kill any of us, but I would not say that they would refrain, if the opportunity presented itself. Several of the sisters were…fed upon, I suppose you could say, fed upon till they were so weak they could not walk for a week, and several of our goats and hens were killed. They stopped troubling us once winter came and all the ponds and bogs and streams froze over, but once spring returned, so did they.”

  “How many of them are there?” Dasha asked.

  “At least half a dozen, I believe. It is difficult to be sure. Sometimes they will lie low for days or weeks, and they never reveal themselves all at once. We think they want vengeance—all water-maidens want vengeance—vengeance on us for not seeing them, not saving them, and vengeance on those who killed them—but that is not something we can give them. And then there were the wolves.”

  “Because of them?” Dasha asked.

  “We are not sure, Tsarinovna. More likely because of us, because we killed one. But now we are trapped in our own sanctuary, and the gods are deaf to our prayers for deliverance. Or maybe not.” She smiled at Dasha. “Perhaps you have been sent here to deliver us.”

  Dasha smiled wanly in return. She had to admit to having similar thoughts, but the thought made her heart squeeze almost as much as Lyubomila’s touch had.