Echo North

by Joanna Ruth Meyer

  I hugged him, because I knew he’d picked the room out specifically for me.

  We tramped back down to the main floor. “Can we really afford it, though, Papa?”

  He smiled. “I signed the papers this morning.”

  This wasn’t quite an answer, but I reasoned with a little careful planning and penny-hoarding, we could make it work.

  We walked back to the bookshop in the gathering dark, discussing what needed to be done to make the cottage livable. It started snowing again, but I hardly felt the cold, warmed by my father’s love for me, and knowing that not even a stepmother could take that away.

  AFTER WEEKS OF WORKING ON the house in shifts—mostly my father and me, with Rodya helping when he could—my father finally deemed the cottage ready for Donia’s approval. Rodya took the afternoon off from the clockmaker’s, and the three of us waited at the bookshop for her to join us. I was nervous and jittery. This would be the first time I’d really met my almost-stepmother. I’d invited her to dinner on several occasions, but she hadn’t been able to come, too occupied arranging the sale of the bakery to pay for her late husband’s debts.

  She swept into the shop all bright and bustling, an expensive-looking fur coat fastened around her shoulders, a gold-embroidered sarafan just beneath. She reminded me of an arctic bear: tall and broad, with rosy cheeks and strong arms from years of kneading bread and shoveling loaves in and out of ovens.

  She greeted my brother and father, and then approached me with her arms outstretched. “Echo! Dear!” She embraced me in a careful manner, like she wished to give the appearance of affection without getting overly close to me. She kissed the air on both sides of my face. “Well. Let me look at you!” Her tone was too bright. Her eyes swept me up and down, lingering at first too long on my scars and then too briefly. She repeated: “Echo. Dear.” It was in a more false-sounding voice than before.

  My father’s glance flicked anxiously between us, and I tried to smile to put him at ease. “Shall we go and see the house?”

  We left the shop, my father and Donia leading, me and Rodya behind. It was Sunday, and winter was beginning to fade from the world. The air held the faintest hint of springtime—everything should have seemed fresh and new and hopeful. But my heart was a tumult of unease.

  We climbed the hill that looked down onto the cottage, and Donia gasped in delight. “Oh, Peter, how lovely!”

  She was more subdued once we actually entered the house. Her eyes swept around the rooms with relentless scrutiny, lingering especially long on the curtains I’d sewn and the rug I’d bought from the town seamstress and lugged all the way from the village. We followed Donia up to the attic room, where I had a sudden moment of panic she would claim it for her own.

  But my father came to my rescue. “I thought this would do very well for Echo. What do you think, my dear?”

  Donia glanced about again and gave a regal jerk of her chin. “I can’t think the room would have any other use—it’s far too inconvenient. Yes, Echo may have it.”

  I looked aside at my father in time to see him wink at me.

  Back downstairs again, Donia took one more turn through the lower floor, nodding as she rejoined us by the hearth. “It will do, Peter, it will certainly do!”

  My father breathed a sigh of relief, suddenly all smiles.

  Donia beamed at him. “It only wants a woman’s touch. The curtains will have to go at once, of course—they’re perfectly dreadful—and that rug, too. We’ll need furniture.” She raised her hand to forestall my father. “Not the furniture from your apartment, dear. New furniture, and new linens and carpets. We will have to manage with just that for now.”

  “Just that?” My father studied her quizzically.

  “I’ll need a writing desk eventually, all new wallpaper, certainly, and a piano. I was quite the songbird, you know, when I was small. I’ve longed for a piano these many years—”

  “The wallpaper is new,” I interrupted.

  Donia fixed her dark eyes on my face. “I beg your pardon, Echo?” Her tone turned her meaning to: “How dare you speak to me!”

  “The wallpaper is new,” I repeated. “I picked it out myself, and I know where to get more to match, when we can afford it. I sewed the curtains—I thought they brightened the room considerably. I’m sorry you don’t like them.”

  Donia frowned. Her dislike pulsed toward me with the intensity of a heatwave, but she only said in a mild tone, “You ought to have consulted me first. They are not at all to my taste.”

  “Though I’m sure Donia greatly appreciates your efforts,” my father put in, gently.

  Donia glanced at him, then back at me. Her jaw tightened. “I’m sure I do, however misguided. Now, Peter. About the furniture.” And she turned her back to me.

  Rodya tugged me firmly outside.

  We paced around the back of the house and sat on the stoop. I stared at the patch of earth where I’d spent a whole afternoon pulling out brambles, planning to grow vegetables when the weather got a little warmer—if Donia allowed it, that is.

  Rodya bumped my shoulder with his. “Don’t mind her, Echo. She’s just jealous of Papa’s affection for you.”

  I chewed on my lip and stared into the woods, straining for glimpses of green on the bare, black branches. I thought I saw a flash of white between the trees, the sudden gleam of an amber eye. But then I blinked and there was nothing there. “She hates me because of my face.”

  “That isn’t true.”

  “Of course it is.” I tugged my kerchief off my hair, closing my eyes and leaning into the wind. The scars still hurt sometimes, a twinge of pain when the weather was turning.

  “You have to stop disparaging yourself. No one gives a damn about your scars.”

  “I give a damn,” I said fiercely.

  “Then stop. There isn’t a single thing you can do about them, and you’re too brilliant a person to waste your life bowing and scraping to dimwits in the bookshop. No matter how much you might deny it, Echo Alkaev, you are extraordinary. You have been since the moment you were born.”

  I reached up to touch my scars, but Rodya caught my hand and laid it in my lap again. “Write to the university. Please.”

  I refocused on Rodya, tracing every line of his dear face, and hope sparked inside me. “I’ll write them,” I promised.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE DAY MY FATHER MARRIED Donia, spring bloomed in earnest across the countryside, verdant leaves bursting bright, birds trilling jubilant choruses from the treetops. It was also my sixteenth birthday, which my father had momentarily forgotten when fixing upon the date—Donia hadn’t let him change it when he did remember.

  I rose early, creaking open my tiny window to let in the fresh air, brushing my hair and braiding it. I had a brand-new sarafan that my father had refused to tell me the price of: it was a soft orange brocade embroidered with gold thread down the front and around the hem. I slipped it on over my white blouse, which lay cool and delicate against my skin, and buttoned all twenty-five buttons. I slid into my felt boots and stepped out into the hallway to peer in the circle mirror hanging on the wall. I avoided mirrors as a general rule—I didn’t have one in my room—but that day I stood studying my reflection for quite a long time.

  My eyes stared back at me, the deep blue echo of my mother’s. My hair was dark. My scars were white, pulling up the skin of my face so I almost looked like I was sneering.

  For the first time since the bandage had come off, I lifted one hand to cover the scarred side of my face, looking at the smooth side, the perfect side. I wondered what my life would have been like if the scars had never existed. If I concentrated hard enough I could see myself: unscarred, untouched.

  And then I moved my hand to cover the right half of my face, and forced myself to stare at those ugly white lines. That was what I was. All I ever would be.

  “You look lovely, Echo.”

  I jumped and turned to see my brother watching me from his room. He looked
tall and handsome in his new shirt, embroidered in red, his dark hair combed neatly and the beginnings of his beard shaved clean.

  I dropped my hand, ashamed of myself.

  We walked together to the brand-new wooden chapel on the outskirts of town, and I couldn’t help but think of the crumbling stone chapel on the hill where my parents had been wed, barely a penny between them. Somehow that seemed more romantic than newly hewn wood, the paint hardly dry.

  The ceremony was simple. Donia looked exquisite in her glittering gown and impossibly elaborate veil. I focused on my father’s face, on the joy shining out of his eyes when he saw her.

  The celebration that followed filled nearly the whole village. There was food and music and dancing, and the afternoon spooled quickly away. Rodya offered to dance with me, but I didn’t want to monopolize him, and retreated to the outskirts of the festivities. I sat in the grass under a huge old oak, nibbling shortbread and watching Rodya flirt with the village girls and dance with the ones he particularly fancied.

  The dancers whirled past me in shimmering skirts, their quick-stepping feet keeping time to old man Tinker’s violin. I wished I was among them, but none of the boys asked me to dance—and why would they? I was little more than the cloud on the horizon no one wanted to see.

  I slipped away without wishing my father and Donia well on their honeymoon. I told myself it was just weariness, that I longed for solitude. But really the villagers overwhelmed me, with their whispered words and lingering glances. My loneliness and shame threatened to swallow me.

  The afternoon was beginning to turn toward evening by the time I arrived at the cottage. I went to sit on the back stoop, hugging my knees to my chest and trying not to feel forgotten.

  The wind teased through my hair, and it smelled of earth and wood and springtime. Ahead of me the forest teemed with life, and away to the west the sun began to slide down the rim of the sky. I was staring into the woods, my eyelids growing heavy, when I caught a flash of movement between the trees. All at once I saw a huge, white wolf staring at me from the border of the forest, and I swear to God in heaven that his eyes met mine, that his eyes knew mine. I had the sudden wild thought that it was the same wolf I had rescued all those years ago from the trap, and I rose involuntarily to my feet.

  I took one step, two, toward the woods and the wolf. He didn’t move or blink or even seem to breathe, just watched me. I wasn’t afraid and I didn’t know why—the thought that I should be afraid didn’t even enter my head.

  I stared at him, and he at me, and we were frozen there together for one moment of time that seemed to stretch on into eternity.

  And then a twig snapped behind me and the wolf jumped and whirled round. In the span of an eye blink, I lost him among the trees.

  I turned to see Rodya coming toward me, his hands in his pockets. “Echo!” he said, concern pressing into his forehead. “Are you all right? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I glanced back to the wood, straining for one last glimpse of the wolf, my pulse still raging. But there was no visible sign he’d ever been there. I drew in a deep breath and forced a smile for my brother. “I thought I saw something in the woods, but—” I shook my head, “It was nothing. I promise.”

  He put one hand on my shoulder. “If you’re certain. Come inside, won’t you? I’ve something to show you.”

  I followed him into the house, and tears sprang into my eyes when I saw he’d laid out cake and tea for me on the red rug in front of the fire.

  “Happy birthday, Echo,” said Rodya, smiling.

  I hugged him tight and then we sat down and ate every crumb of nutcake and drank every drop of tea. Rodya lit a fire, as even in the heart of springtime the nights were still chilly. He stretched out on the rug and fished something out of his pocket that was wrapped in a square of cloth. He handed it to me.

  I unfolded the cloth and my mouth dropped open: in my palm lay a delicate clock on a chain, gears whirring and hands ticking softly, all encased in a gold-plated shell engraved with a compass rose. “Oh, Rodya,” I breathed.

  “Do you like it? I made it for you.”

  I nodded, at a loss for words. I couldn’t stop staring at it. As I watched, the hands whirled around the clock far too quickly and then jerked to a sudden stop.

  I glanced up to see Rodya frown.

  “It’s never done that before,” he said. “I’m sorry, Echo. I’ll take it back to the shop and fix it for you.”

  “No, no, I’d like to keep it awhile, please? I don’t mind about the time.”

  He laughed. “Oh all right, I’ll fix it next week. Here.” He scooted behind me and fastened the chain around my neck. The little clock hung solid and cold through the brocade of my sarafan.

  “The best part is, if you open it—” Rodya pushed a little pin down on the side of the clock face so that it sprung open to reveal a tiny compass inside. The needle pointed steadily north. “So that wherever you go, you’ll always be able to come back to me. At least that’s still working.”

  I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him.

  He extricated himself from my embrace, laughing, and asked me if I’d written to the university yet.

  When I admitted I hadn’t, he pulled ink and paper from his shoulder bag. “I thought not,” he said gently. “Let’s write it together.”

  So right there on the red carpet in front of the barking fire, we composed the letter, and my hope swelled nearly to bursting.

  TWO BLISSFUL WEEKS PASSED, during which I was mostly left to my own devices. I kept busy running the bookshop and overseeing the delivery of Donia’s furniture, making sure it was placed in the correct rooms in the proper arrangements as she had specifically instructed me.

  Every evening, I strayed a little into the woods, deep enough to be just out of sight of the house, but not so far I wasn’t certain of my way back. I felt drawn there, like a string had been tied to my heart. I couldn’t stop thinking about the white wolf, about the comprehension in his eyes as he stared at me, at the connection I felt between us. I thought maybe the string was tied to him.

  The night before my father and Donia were scheduled to arrive home, I paced a little deeper into the woods than usual, and settled myself beneath an ancient elm that was knotted and gnarled yet still bursting with leaves. I rested my head awhile against its trunk, and when I looked back into the clearing the wolf was there, not ten paces from me. His eyes were amber, flecked with gold, and the edges of his white fur ruffled in the light wind. He came toward me, his back leg dragging a little behind. He was near enough when he stopped that I caught his scent: wild honey and deep grass and dark earth.

  As before, he simply stared at me and didn’t come any closer.

  “What are you?” I whispered, and his ears twitched at my voice. I wanted to reach out to him, sink my hand in his thick fur as I’d done as a child, but I stayed where I was.

  Around us the forest faded to the deep silvery-blue of twilight. Somewhere I heard an owl cry, the sudden rush of wings in the growing dark.

  The wolf dipped his head to me, like he was bowing to a queen, then he turned tail and slipped away into the wood, leaving me to stare numbly after him.

  I stumbled home in the dark, the stars obscured by the trees and a thick layer of clouds, to find smoke coiling up from the chimney.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MY FATHER AND DONIA WERE HOME earlier than expected, and hard on their heels, in a rattling wooden cart, came a piano.

  “A wedding present from your father!” Donia explained, beaming at me, as two men with bulging muscles carried the thing into the house.

  I was shocked. I had no idea how my father could possibly afford such an elaborate instrument. It took up half the parlor, with ornate scrollwork on the legs and stand and a brightly colored painting detailing all the angels of heaven on the underside of the lid.

  Donia sat down and started playing immediately, and I had to choke back my surprised laughter—if she’d e
ver possessed any skill, she had clearly lost it.

  My father winked at me as Donia stumbled up and down the keys, hitting so many wrong notes it was hard to imagine there were any right ones. I was glad I’d be away at the bookshop most days so I wouldn’t have to hear her practicing.

  Rodya’s visits to the house dwindled down to almost nothing after my father and Donia’s return. He popped in frequently at the bookshop to ask if I’d heard back from the university, and would apologize profusely for not coming more often to the cottage. One particular afternoon, when spring was slipping headlong into summer, he hung his head and admitted sheepishly: “I can’t stand that woman.”

  I laughed. “She’s not that bad.”

  “Liar,” he retorted.

  It was true, so I laughed even more.

  I found the evenings at the cottage increasingly difficult. Donia was an excellent cook, but her taste in ingredients ran as expensive as her taste in everything else, and I was forever trying to persuade her to buy cheaper ones.

  On the rare occasions I was home and Donia was not, I sat down at the piano and experimented with trying to play. I taught myself one of Donia’s pieces and made the mistake of playing it for her and my father one evening after supper.

  I stumbled over a few notes, but for the most part the tune came out nicely, and I could tell my father thought I had done well. Donia, however, was livid.

  “I don’t recall giving you permission to touch this delicate instrument!” She jerked up from her seat, stepped over to the piano, and slammed the key cover down, narrowly missing my fingers. I snatched them out of the way just in time.

  I sat there on the piano stool, trying not to hate her. “I’m sorry, Stepmother. You like music so much I thought it would please you to hear me try.”

  My father left his seat and came over to us. “Donia, my dear, there’s no harm in letting Echo learn to play a little. You could perhaps even teach her some things.”