Nevertell

by Katharine Orton

  After a pause, Vadim spoke again. “Sacrifices have to be made here, Gleb.” He laughed. “Unless you’d rather take their places, that is? You do eat a lot for a scrawny old man.”

  Old Gleb whimpered and said no more.

  With her heart thundering in her ears, Lina gave Bogdan a rough shake and whispered, “Bogey. Wake. Up.” His eyes snapped open, but she clamped her hand over his mouth before he could speak. Then she hissed, “They’re going to kill us. We’ve got to go.”

  “Mmf!” Bogdan’s eyes flashed wide in the dark.

  “We’ve got to go right now, or we’re goners.”

  Bogey shot upright and Lina pointed to the sack containing the few vegetables they’d managed to save from the trees earlier, now at their feet where she’d wedged it in. Together, they crawled over to tug at it. The material was caught on the spiky branches of the shelter and wouldn’t budge. There was a horrible scraping, tearing sound every time they pulled.

  “Shh,” Lina said.

  Outside, Vadim, Gleb, and Alexei fell silent. They must have heard. Lina and Bogdan stopped moving and waited, holding their breath in the dark. If Alexei and the others came to their shelter now, they’d be trapped.

  It felt like a long time before the three men picked up their conversation again — this time in low murmurs that were impossible to make out.

  Bogdan reached behind the sack to free it from the branches. He gave Lina a nod. With a final tug from both of them, the sack of vegetables came loose.

  Lina edged to the exit and poked her head out.

  The fire had reduced to embers. The last of the wood made loud whip-cracking sounds, sending up puffs of dark, acrid smoke.

  The three men were silhouetted around the dying fire, their backs to Lina. A bright moon illuminated the forest in an eerie blue glow, so she could just make out Old Gleb, slumped like a sack of bones next to the huge figure of Alexei. The fur trim on Vadim’s coat and on the ushanka on his head ruffled in the ice-cold breeze. She knew that the minute the embers faded and the heat died, they would come. Lina and Bogdan had mere moments before that happened. If that.

  Lina crawled out of the shelter. The frozen earth at the entrance twinkled like a sky of stars but made little noise. Once out, she signaled for Bogdan to follow and then took a step forward. A branch cracked under her foot. They both froze. Lina tasted metal on her tongue — the taste of panic. She risked a glance at the three men.

  They hadn’t moved. The crackling embers had masked the sound.

  Lina winced by way of apology while Bogdan passed her the vegetable sack, and then he clambered the rest of the way out. The snow around them was marked with dry branches and pine needles. Walking on it would be noisy.

  All Lina knew was that, if they couldn’t be quiet, they would have to be quick. She took Bogdan by the hand and tugged him in the direction Old Gleb had pointed out to her earlier.

  They ran.

  There was no mistaking their boots crunching on leaves and branches now. There was no mistaking the rage in Vadim’s voice, either, when he screeched, “Stop them! They’ve got our food!”

  Lina ran as fast as she could in the dark, dodging tree trunks. The cold air sliced through her lungs. A cluster of ribbons tied into the branches whipped across her face. Bogdan kept pace, slipping behind every so often, then racing ahead. Sometimes she dragged him; sometimes he dragged her.

  Neither of them would be the first to let go of the other’s hand.

  “Run, kids!” Lina heard Old Gleb shout out to them. “Run for your lives!” Vadim and Alexei would be angry with him when they got back to the campfire, that was for sure. He may have just sealed his own fate.

  Behind them, the pounding of feet got closer. Vadim and Alexei were chasing them. It was Alexei who Lina feared most. They couldn’t outrun a man of his size. Not in this. She could hear his shallow breathing as he caught up with them. She tried not to think of him edging ever closer with his long strides, his hunting knife . . .

  The vegetable sack bashed against a tree and then her leg. It was too awkward to hold on to. Lina dropped it. Onions spilled out behind them with a dozen little thuds. If it was the food the others wanted, they could have it. But Alexei kept on coming. Gaining ground. Why did he always have to try to get the better of those he felt had injured his pride?

  One long, ear-piercing howl rang out. Then from all around them came yelps and snarls. Lina gasped. Were there lights appearing from behind the trees? Yes, there were — from glowing lamps, but there was no one there to hold them, so they were floating like fireflies. Impossible . . .

  Hot air blew against Lina’s cheek and she smelled the rank breath of an animal. At the same time, something metal and sharp swished over her head and missed: Alexei’s knife. Right behind her, Alexei cried out.

  Lina and Bogdan kept running. Way back at their abandoned shelter, they could hear other yells and screams. It was Old Gleb — it had to be. Had he finally come face-to-face with his ghost hounds?

  Lina glanced over her shoulder and got a fright. Vadim was right behind them now, though his face was a mask of fear: so white that the tattoos crawling up his neck looked completely black. He’d given up chasing. Now he was running with them.

  Not for long.

  He fell suddenly and was pulled backward into the shadows, as if something had dragged him away. A distinctly animal snarl came with it. Where Vadim had once been was nothing but a swirl of dirt and glittering frost.

  Bogdan jerked Lina to a halt. Lina tried to pull him along again, but fear had made him strong, and confusion had made her weak. He held fast.

  A loud growl rose out of the darkness in front of them. She could smell the breath of a meat-eating animal on her face again. It came in hot huffs, like the air from bellows. Maddeningly, she could see nothing but the outline of trees.

  “Stay back, mutt,” she called out. “Or I’ve got a boot here with your name on it.” Lina had never hurt an animal, not even for food, and in normal circumstances, she wouldn’t dream of kicking one. But these weren’t normal circumstances.

  Bogdan yelped. “It’s got my arm!”

  Lina barged in front of him. She felt coarse fur against her hand, cold as frozen pine needles, and pushed with all her might.

  “I said, back off!” To her surprise, the invisible furred body shifted against her hand, the hot breath evaporated into mist, and the next growl came from a few paces away. It had actually obeyed her. Why weren’t any of them attacking?

  “There’s nothing there,” said Bogdan. “I felt it on my arm — its teeth were so, so cold. But I can’t see them. Any of them.” His voice sounded strangled by fear.

  It was true. There was nothing there but the yellow glow from the strange flickering lights dotted amongst the trees — and the trees themselves. Hundreds of them. For miles.

  Or was there?

  As they watched, what had at first looked like a tree started to change. To move. A tall figure rose as if from the darkness itself — or the air. It wasn’t a hound or a wolf. It was a woman.

  Lina could make out little more than her silhouette in the moonlight: the woman’s long, straight hair and fitted clothes. She towered over them. She may even have been as tall as Alexei.

  From either side of the woman came snarls, growls, and more hot breath. No matter how hard she strained her eyes, Lina still couldn’t see the creatures.

  The woman stepped closer, and her face emerged from the deeper shadows, lit by the distant lamps, which appeared to have moved closer. She looked down her straight nose at Lina and Bogdan. There was no pity or warmth in that pale face. Her scowl reminded Lina of Commandant Zima’s.

  She said, “Tell me why I shouldn’t have you wolf-bound, just like your comrades.”

  Whatever “wolf-bound” was, it chilled Lina’s blood. It had to be something to do with the invisible animals she could still hear, snarling at them. The stone against her chest was hot again, as if it were on fire — though in the pa
nic of the chase and her desperation to get away, she hadn’t even noticed until now.

  Lina tried to speak but stuttered into silence at the woman’s appearance. She had to be around her mother’s age, or younger, and she looked so healthy — so clean. Even more so than the guards at the camp. Her clothes were pristine and her cheeks didn’t sink inward, like Old Gleb’s and the others’. Her dark eyes glimmered and her hair looked long and heavy and soft. But there was something odd about her features. She could’ve been carved from ancient stone rather than made of living flesh.

  Lina took a breath to try to speak again. She needed to choose her words carefully. That much she knew.

  “With respect, they’re not our comrades,” she said. “They were going to kill us.”

  The woman’s mouth curled in disgust. “What monsters would slay children? Humans are disgusting.”

  “If it hadn’t been for you, they would have caught us. You and your . . .” Lina didn’t know what to call the beasts that were there, but not there.

  As if hearing her thoughts, the woman said, “In truth, there’s something about you that my wolves don’t like.” She frowned at Lina curiously. “This has never happened before. Who are you?”

  It struck Lina that not many of the people her wolves hunted probably had the chance to introduce themselves.

  “I’m Lina,” she said. “This is Bogdan.” The sooner the woman knew their names, the more likely she was to see them as people — and treat them better. The same had been true at the camp. If the guards didn’t know you, you could bet you were in danger. Same if they knew you but didn’t like you. Unfortunately if they didn’t like you, you were out of luck.

  Lina hoped that she could make this person like them. Fast.

  “And what’s your name?” Lina asked as politely as she could.

  Before answering, the woman dismissed the animals with a wave of her hand. The snarling stopped and the rank smell faded into that of leaves and soil.

  “Svetlana is the name given to me,” she said after a pause. “Here they call me the Man Hunter.”

  A shiver skittered down Lina’s spine at the words Man Hunter, and she glanced at Bogdan, who looked just as terrified.

  Meanwhile, Svetlana watched them intently. “My wolves have never refused to bind a human before,” she said. “You must come with me so that I can learn the reason for this.” Svetlana held out her pale hand. Her fingers were slender and covered in silver and gold rings. She smiled at them. It didn’t make her look friendly.

  Svetlana shone with a cool radiance that took Lina’s breath away. Yet she found herself thinking of her mother again. Svetlana was obviously powerful. Maybe if Lina did as she asked, she might agree to help free her mother from the camp. Still, Lina hesitated.

  When neither of the children took her hand, Svetlana’s smile became a scowl. She snapped her fingers. Lina glanced at Bogdan. They both placed their hands in one of hers. With her other arm, Svetlana drew her dark cape over them. The material seemed to grow — to spread around their shoulders, then down toward their ankles. Lina was sure it had only been waist length before.

  One thing was certain: She’d never felt anything softer. This was nothing like the scratchy burlap sackcloth they slept in at the camp or the rough cotton of the standard-issue clothes she’d worn her whole life. The material was as soft and as cool as a breeze — so gentle against her skin it was hardly even there.

  Pinpricks of light winked into life under the black cape, one by one. Lina gasped. She realized with a start that they were stars. Her heart skipped with excitement. Was Bogdan seeing this too?

  The cape was gone. It was as if they were standing in the sky. They were surrounded by stars — all around. Even below. Her knees turned wobbly and she grabbed on to Bogdan for dear life, sinking her nails in like claws. “Aargh!” he complained. And then, “Ahh!” when he too took in the view, followed by a long, slow intake of breath as the wonder of it hit him.

  What was she standing on, if not thin air? Yet whatever it was felt hard underfoot. And then Lina understood. It was an enormous frozen lake, so sheer and smooth that it reflected the sky like a mirror. And just ahead, at the center of the lake, was a pinnacle of ice as high as a mountain. Had it broken away from a glacier at some point?

  Lina blinked and looked again. It wasn’t ice. It was a grand, tapering tower — nothing at all like the squat, rectangular buildings in the labor camp or any of the houses she’d seen in pictures.

  Did Svetlana actually live there? Out on this frozen lake?

  Lina took a step. The surface underneath her groaned. She could even hear the dark water lapping at the underside of the ice. As she watched, something else moved beneath it. She froze.

  It was something big.

  Just as she started to think she’d imagined it, Lina saw it again: the flank of some giant creature as it arched up through the water. The ice itself bulged under the pressure, creaking, before the thing sank away again. Into the depths. Out of sight. The image of what she’d glimpsed burned into Lina’s mind. Huge body, silver scales, and a fish’s tail.

  Her sense of calm broke. She gripped Svetlana’s arm like she wanted to crawl up it.

  “You needn’t worry, child,” said Svetlana. “That was Pechal, who guards this place. Nor will this ice crack. Not with me here.”

  Still, all Lina could think about was falling through. The chill that would pierce her skull as she sank. She’d be knocked out cold and would sink, deeper and deeper, only to be caught in the mouth of that giant thing — with its glassy eyes and its needle-sharp teeth. It was all she could imagine until they reached the strange tower.

  The door was smooth, silvered, and narrow. It looked more like a mirror than a door, with no hinges or handle — just carvings of trees, flowers, and fruit around the edge. Svetlana simply put her palm against it and pushed lightly. It opened. “Go in,” she said.

  Lina hesitated. She caught Bogdan’s eye. Bogdan frowned and tilted his head toward the door to say they should go in. Lina frowned too and shook her head. But it wasn’t like they had a choice. Finally, Lina shuffled through the door, followed by Bogdan. Svetlana swooped in behind them.

  The hallway walls looked just like layers of ice, one frozen over another, and another, and tinged a translucent pale blue.

  Lina was stunned. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” she whispered to Bogdan. Unlike her, he’d grown up beyond the camp. Perhaps this place was normal . . .

  Bogdan just shook his head and carried on staring at everything, his mouth hanging open. So did Lina. Awe swelled in her chest at the flecks of silver and gold that glinted from inside the walls whenever they caught the light from the oil lamps. These elaborately decorated lamps were clustered around the walls — seeming to hang all by themselves, all at odd heights and unequally spaced. Were these the same as the lamps she’d seen in the forest?

  Lina hadn’t noticed Svetlana light them. Had they already been lit when they came in? Even stranger than that was how the lamps swayed and moved — as if following them through the hallway. Were they actually following them?

  They reached the bottom of a gold staircase, where there was a doorway into a new room. Svetlana shrugged off her dark cape and slung it across the ornate banister of the stairs.

  Underneath she wore a high-throated bodice and trousers. Her clothes were smart, woolen, and well fitted, though the gray color reminded Lina of her own prison overalls.

  Svetlana turned on Lina and Bogdan without warning, clipping the heels of her black boots together. Staring into that radiant face, Lina felt her skin prickle. For the first time since the forest, she realized the stone was white-hot against her chest again.

  “There is no way to leave this place — not without my say-so,” said Svetlana. “If you try, my wolves will alert me. They may refuse to bind you. For now. But that doesn’t make you safe from me.” She glared at them in turn. It was as if she were daring them to give it a go — right now.
Her gaze lingered on Lina, who squirmed inside.

  “However,” said Svetlana. “Just to be certain . . .” She flicked her hand. The oil lamps from the hallway crowded around Lina. She drew her arms in, afraid she’d get burned by the hot metal. Beside her, the same thing happened to Bogdan.

  “Go with them,” ordered Svetlana.

  There was nothing else to do. Lina let the lights usher her down some narrow, spiraling stone steps and into a room. Every time she turned her head, she thought she saw shadowy figures beside her, holding the lamps. But when she turned to look directly at them, they merged with the shadows of the hallway. They were always just at the edge of her vision.

  The lamps retreated and the door banged shut behind them.

  A shiver ran up Lina’s spine. They were trapped.

  What is this place?” asked Lina, now that she and Bogdan were alone. She looked around the small, windowless space. Or cell, more like. And yet even the cell was incredible. These walls were the stone gray of permafrost, rough to the touch, and sparkling with what looked like silver veins. At the center of the room stood an ornate table with chairs on either side, and on top of that sat a rusted lamp. A tiny moth fluttered around it, making the light flicker. “I mean, how is this real?”

  “How is any of it?” he said darkly, laying his hand against the silver-streaked stone walls. “Those invisible creatures in the forest? The way we got here? None of it’s possible.”

  Lina rubbed her arms, despite the relative warmth here compared to outside. Like Bogdan said, none of it made sense. Those floating lamps just now — or anything about Svetlana. Even Lina’s own stone necklace shouldn’t have been able to do the things it did.

  They searched the room for exits: hidden doors, loose panels, weak points in the walls. Over in the corner of the room, dark-blue curtains with silver-and-gold embroidery framed beds with soft duvets. Lina’s eyes widened at the heavy, shimmering curtains, the beds. Did everyone live like this outside of the camp? Not in magic towers, obviously — but surrounded by such comfort? Svetlana’s home was what Lina imagined the former czar’s palace must have looked like.