Nevertell

by Katharine Orton

  The beds were all they found, however. No windows. Not even a hint of natural light filtering in from anywhere. The door was locked from the other side and there was no way to wrench it open.

  There was nothing to do but to wait.

  First Lina sat at the table. Then, when no one came, she crouched in the corner of the room. Bogdan was lying against the wall with the unfinished map draped across his chest, staring up at the ceiling. Unlike her, he barely moved. He seemed to be lost in thought.

  Were they here to be interrogated? Lina had met people who’d been interrogated before. They weren’t the same as the other prisoners.

  “D’you think she’s a sorceress?” said Bogdan suddenly, looking at Lina. “Or a witch?”

  Lina shuddered. “Like Baba Yaga, you mean? I don’t think so.” Svetlana didn’t look a thing like Baba Yaga was supposed to, and Lina definitely couldn’t imagine her tower sprouting chicken legs. She shook her head. Then again, there were the invisible creatures that Svetlana commanded and the cape that had transported them here. “Maybe a sorceress, though,” Lina added. Even as she spoke, she thought about Svetlana’s lucent skin, her look of almost being carved.

  Was Svetlana human at all?

  Lina’s stomach cramped with hunger. She didn’t know whether it was the fact she’d barely eaten, the adrenaline from the chase, or the aftereffects of the cold, but she’d started shaking. “Either way,” she said after a pause, “I hope she feeds us.”

  Bogdan nodded, resting a hand on his own stomach. Still he was lying against the wall.

  The stone against Lina’s chest warmed her until her shaking stopped. Then she pulled it off over her head and studied it again. She ran the odd-size beads through her fingers, counting them. Until she came across one that was different.

  It was wooden like the rest — but bigger. She turned it around in her fingers. It had a second hole chiseled into it and, by its appearance, something stuffed inside. How had she not noticed it before? “Hey, Bogey,” she said. “Look at this.”

  “Hmm?” Bogdan stretched around to look at her with doleful eyes.

  Lina fished inside the bead and pulled something out with the nail of her little finger.

  A tiny slip of paper.

  It was yellow with age and tightly rolled. Bogdan was next to her in an instant. “What is it?” His voice by her ear, so unexpected, almost made her drop it. Lina gave him a glare, then unrolled the paper carefully and read the words written on it.

  “My darling Anri, I give you the gift of my heart.”

  Lina almost dropped the whole thing. Again. This time in horror. Was it not a stone after all, but some sort of shriveled-up, mummified human heart? No — of course not. Get a hold of yourself, Lina thought. The note must mean something else.

  “Whose writing is that?” asked Bogdan. “Your mama’s?” He flinched after he said it. It was obvious that he wished he hadn’t mentioned Lina’s mother.

  Lina brushed it off as best she could, because she didn’t want to make her friend feel bad.

  “Dunno,” she said. “But Anri was my grandfather’s name, so . . .” She looked at Bogdan, wide-eyed. “I’m guessing my grandmother wrote it?”

  “Your grandmother?”

  Footsteps clip-clopped outside: the sound of stiff leather boots against the flagstone corridor. “We can’t tell her anything,” said Bogdan in a hurry. “She definitely can’t be trusted. If she asks us anything about anything, or anything, we’ve just got to lie. If she’s a sorceress and she doesn’t like what we say, she might turn us into something horrible.”

  “No way, Bogey. If she is, I don’t think it’s safe to —”

  The footsteps stopped right outside the door. Lina rolled the note up again and tucked it back in its bead, then pulled the whole necklace over her head and stuffed it under her clothes.

  Just in time. The door swished open as if of its own accord and in walked Svetlana. The door closed behind her, and she sat at the table. She beckoned to Lina and Bogdan to take a seat too.

  The last thing Lina wanted to do was face Svetlana across that little table. She couldn’t show her fear, though. That would be the worst thing either of them could do.

  Lina and Bogdan sat down opposite her. The ragged bronze-tipped moth danced around them but quickly drew back to circle the lamp.

  Svetlana clasped her hands on the table. Her silver and gold rings glinted on her fingers in the flickering lamplight. The rings were designed like flowers and vines. Leaves and tendrils. Feathers.

  “Where are you from?” asked Svetlana. “What were you doing when I caught you?”

  Lina and Bogdan glanced at each other. “We were —” Lina began.

  “On an errand,” said Bogdan. “An official one, for Commandant Zima of Prison Camp Nine. That’s Lina’s father. He’s a very important commandant.”

  Lina stared at him, aghast. She hadn’t wanted to lie — Svetlana didn’t seem like the sort of person who’d respond well if she found them out. Lina wished they’d had more time to discuss it. And why, oh why, had Bogdan made it such a hurtful lie — of all things, about the commandant being her father? She hadn’t even realized he’d heard the rumors. They’d never spoken about them. Yet he must have known how much they would upset her.

  She’d never let him forget this.

  Svetlana frowned. “What possible errand could you have been entrusted with?”

  “Getting supplies,” said Bogdan. “For the officers’ winter banquet . . .” He looked at Lina as he spoke, wild-eyed and virtually pleading. It was as if he were signaling to her that he could no longer control his own mouth.

  Bogdan had pitched their hopes on a gamble. An extreme one, at that. But what was it her mother always said? Life is a gamble. Lina couldn’t tell the truth now without getting him into serious trouble. It was all or nothing.

  Lina took a deep breath. “It’s true,” she said. “All of it. So you’d better be careful, because the commandant will be looking for us. He’ll be angry if he thinks we’ve been badly treated. We’re only here because our escorts decided to betray the comman . . . my father, and escape instead.” She couldn’t help thinking of Old Gleb, who’d done everything he could to help them.

  “You’re the daughter of the camp commandant and yet you’re dressed in prison clothes?” Svetlana raised an eyebrow.

  Lina shifted uncomfortably in her seat but gave no answer.

  Svetlana opened her mouth as if to ask more, so Lina said quickly, “Please, what does ‘wolf-bound’ mean? You said in the forest that’s what you’d done to the men. Are they alive?”

  Svetlana waited. The only sound was the tapping of the moth’s tiny wings against the lamp beside them. Then Svetlana said, “They are alive. In a sense. The wolves have infected them now. Clouding their minds. Their memories. Dulling their senses. They don’t understand what’s happening or even who they are.”

  She brushed a dark strand of hair out of her face and went on. “A long time ago, I brought my wolves into this world from another. First they came to protect me, but now their purpose is to help me find what I’m seeking. They are excellent at tracing a scent. If any humans should get in their way, that is unfortunate. Once humans are bitten, a slow change will begin. They become vacant. Confused. They stop craving nourishment from food, water, and rest — and yet are compelled to keep walking.”

  Beside Lina, Bogdan clutched his arm, as if remembering the wolf that had grabbed him — the one Lina wrestled off. Svetlana noticed too and narrowed her eyes. “Don’t worry, child — my wolf didn’t bite you hard enough to begin a binding.” Her gaze flicked from Bogdan to Lina as she continued. “Eventually humans who are bitten will just fade into shadows, capable of nothing but following the most basic of orders. That’s when I decide whether to let them roam or bring them here.”

  “That’s cruel,” said Lina before she could stop herself. “They’re people and they’re suffering.”

  A flush came into Svet
lana’s cheeks. “There’s more suffering and deceit in this world caused by people than by my wolves. Besides, what can truly suffer without a mind capable of understanding such a thing? Humans take pleasure in hurting one another. Not my wolves or my shadows. I give the shadows a purpose — an honorable one, under my guidance — beyond causing misery and pain.”

  “And what’s that?” asked Bogdan in a shrill voice.

  “To aid the hunt,” she said simply. “Whether it’s alongside the wolves, reporting to me, or simply serving me here.”

  Lina remembered the lights she’d seen between the trees as they ran from Vadim and Alexei. So Svetlana’s shadows had been in the forest too. Reporting on them. Is that how she’d found them there? Or had her wolves tracked their scent?

  Something else was bothering Lina. “But what are you hunting for, exactly?” she asked. Svetlana’s response surprised her. She frowned and looked distant, not saying a thing.

  The moth landed on the table with a tiny thud, bringing Svetlana back to herself. Svetlana watched it awhile, coolly. “Little pest,” she muttered under her breath. For a moment, Lina thought that Svetlana was going to squash it. She didn’t. The moth flipped itself right side up and went back to its relentless fluttering against the lamp.

  Svetlana leaned in suddenly, pushing her face toward them. “Why won’t my wolves bind you, Lina?” she asked, still ignoring Lina’s earlier question as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “Are you entirely human?”

  Lina looked to the side, trying not to think about the pulse of heat she’d felt travel through her so often in the greenhouse and again in the forest. Or the way the branch had grown beneath her touch. She couldn’t help but see it all over again, in her mind’s eye.

  “The commandant will be expecting us back soon, and if we’re not, he’ll come looking for us, just like Lina said,” chipped in Bogdan, filling the silence.

  Svetlana sat silently, studying them both. Her glare made Lina worry. As if Svetlana could see everything she was thinking about. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

  “When you next sleep, your words will leave you and become part of the other world,” Svetlana said. “When I find them, I will know if what you’ve told me is the truth. And understand this: It won’t take me long to find out.” Svetlana rose from her chair. “Don’t for a moment doubt that I will get at the truth. Or that I’ll find a way to put you to use. No one can find you here unless I want them to — not even your ‘father.’ My tower is entirely hidden, tethered to the world only by my and Pechal’s life force.” She raised her chin and looked down her straight nose at them. “Wolf-bound or not, you will give up your vile human ways and serve me, as these shadows do. I promise you.”

  Lina’s blood chilled. If Svetlana really could do what she said she could — find their words while they dreamed and see their truth — then what chance did they have? They’d told a huge lie. A lie almost the size of Siberia.

  And they could only fight sleep for so long.

  Lina sank farther down in the chair. This was a disaster. All of it.

  She risked a glance at Bogdan, then wished she hadn’t. His expression was frozen somewhere between panic and guilt. “Bogey, why’d you lie to her?”

  Bogdan folded his arms and huffed. “Oh, stop it, Lina. How was I to know what she’s capable of?”

  Lina drummed the table with her bony fingers. “All right, all right, you couldn’t have known. But this does complicate everything.” She stopped drumming the table, curled her fingers into a fist, and sighed.

  “Yeah, I know.” Bogdan spoke more quietly this time and shifted his chair closer to hers. “She’s really scary and I panicked. Thought if we had more time, we’d work something out.”

  “Yeah. I guessed.”

  Lina listened to his wheezy chest for a while — the churning of breath in and out. Was it actually clearing a bit, after a couple of days free of the choking air in the mine? She broke the silence first. “Never mind, eh? We’re here and we’re alive, aren’t we?”

  Bogdan half smiled, but it was soon replaced with a frown. “What are we going to do, then?” He shifted closer again and lowered his voice to a whisper this time. “You think all that stuff about seeing our lies when we sleep is true?”

  Lina ran a hand through her tufted hair. It could do with a trim, and there were tide lines of dirt caked onto her scalp. “Dunno,” she said, picking at a bit of the encrusted mud. “I don’t understand any of this — or what she is. Let’s stay awake as long as we can, just in case. And try to work something out, quick.”

  “Reckon she’d hand us back over to Zima in a heartbeat if she could,” said Bogdan. “Don’t you? Or find some way to have us ‘wolf-bound.’ ”

  Lina nodded. “She’s certainly dangerous.”

  For a while, they sat in silence.

  “Bogdan?” Lina said. Bogdan raised his eyebrows at her use of his full name. “You know what you said about Commandant Zima being my father . . . ?”

  Bogdan winced. “Yes?”

  “Why’d you say it?” Her voice came out louder than she’d meant. “I know you were making it up, but . . . do you think the rumors are actually true?”

  Shadows cast by the moth’s wings danced across Bogdan’s face. Already Lina dreaded what he might say next. Bogdan sighed. “Listen, my friend. I don’t know. Your mama — and him? I can’t see it myself. But someone must be your father. What about that doctor she works with — Vasily? Maybe he’s your papa. Though you’ve got to say it’s odd, how the commandant kept you around.”

  He was right. None of the other prisoners who’d had children at the camp had kept them. They were taken away to orphanages soon after they were born. Why had her mother been allowed to keep her? The commandant must have permitted it.

  “Plus,” Bogdan added, “you’ll admit . . . you’ve got his hair.” He must’ve seen the dismay on her face, because he squeezed her arm and said hurriedly, “Look. Who cares if Commandant Zima is your father, or if he isn’t? You’re nothing like him. Nothing. That’s what counts, eh?”

  “You’re right. Who cares, even if he is.” But it did matter. As soon as Lina had been old enough to understand the rumors, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about them. The older she got, the more she thought about it, and the more her dread grew. Bogdan’s stories of his papa — kind, generous, fair — filled her with both wonder and heaviness at the same time. Surely that’s what a father should be?

  “Lina?”

  “Yes?”

  “Happy birthday.”

  Lina smiled. The pair sat still on their chairs, in silence. A familiar smell wafted into their cell. They both recognized it: cabbage soup.

  Sure enough, when the door next opened, two bowls of the rank watery stuff and two hunks of black bread came in on a platter, surrounded by the oil lamps.

  It all came in on its own.

  Lina and Bogdan locked eyes in amazement. But then Lina noticed something else. If she stared straight at Bogdan, not at the lamps, she could see things moving at the edges of her vision. It had been the same with the lights that had brought them to this room. Again, by not focusing directly on them, she could make out something dark and fluttering in the corners of her eyes, like a bird’s beating wing. Shadows? The shadows of Svetlana’s “wolf-bound”? She could tell by Bogdan’s face that he could see the same thing.

  “Who d’you think they are, these shadows?” whispered Lina when she could catch her breath to speak. “Or were?”

  Bogdan raised his eyebrows high into his hair and let them drop. “Around here? Herders and farmers. A mix of people from the smaller towns, maybe — even the odd big city. Probably all the prisoners who’ve ever escaped from the camp . . .”

  This was what Old Gleb, Vadim, and even that thug Alexei would eventually become. It was what Svetlana wanted to turn them both into, as well. Lina shuddered at the thought.

  Some oil lamps hovered by the door, guarding it. Growls gave away the prese
nce of wolves too. The wolves may not be able to bind them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. Bogdan had felt the jaws of one on his arm in the forest, hadn’t he?

  The shadow people set the tray down with a clatter, sending one of the hunks of bread skittering onto the floor. Keeping her gaze straight in front of her so she could still see the shadows, Lina swooped down to pick up the bread. She hesitated a moment. Instead of eating it, she held it out.

  She had to know if what Svetlana said was true: that they really did no longer think, or feel, or want — like a person.

  “Here,” she said, holding the bread at arm’s length. “Are you hungry? Take it.” Bogdan squinted — trying hard to look without looking. Lina too kept her head very still. “You must be hungry,” she said, addressing the room. “Don’t you eat?”

  The oil lamps drifted out of the room. All the shadow people left. All but one.

  It was small — only up to Lina’s shoulders in height — and it stood next to the bread. A whisper hung in the air. It felt as if it had grown there, like a piece of fruit, rather than having been spoken. “Nevertell . . .”

  Then the small shadow person slipped away and the door shut tight.

  Lina lowered her arm. She still held the bread in her hand.

  “What did that mean?” asked Bogdan, frowning. “‘Nevertell’? Never tell what?”

  Lina had no idea, but she knew one thing now, at the very least: Svetlana’s shadow servants weren’t as mindless as Svetlana thought.

  There had to be some way out. Surely.

  They searched the room a second time, but just like before, they found nothing. It was no good. Lina and Bogdan were stuck.

  They had vowed to stay awake until they had a plan. But the floor and the chairs were so uncomfortable they eventually decided that sitting on the beds would be better. And as the room was so chilly, they soon climbed under the blankets — just for a bit of extra warmth. Snuggled between the soft mattress and duvet, Lina knew deep down that staying awake was no longer going to happen. This was like lying on clouds compared to what she usually slept on. She couldn’t help but utter a small sigh of delight.