Lina gritted her teeth through the pain in her legs. Just a short sprint and they’d reach the bank. Safety. With a flash of tail, Pechal turned. Was he going back?
This time, Lina wasn’t going to look around to find out. A weaker slam against the ice shook them, but not enough to knock them down. It had been some distance away — she knew that much. Pechal had retreated. Finally they’d lost him.
Lina couldn’t keep going any longer. Her legs gave way. Bogdan’s grip on her was wrenched away. She sprawled forward into the mist, into nothingness.
The mist had grown so thick that Lina couldn’t see her own hands or feet, but beneath her was soft, heaped snow: solid ground. Relief surged through her. They had reached the edge of the lake. Groping around after her fall quickly led her back to Bogdan. They helped each other up and clung to each other as they stumbled through the fog. He was her lifeline now: the only way she could be sure that anything around her was still there. He, at least, was real.
“I don’t like this.” Bogdan sounded panicked. “This isn’t right.” He’d been so self-assured a moment ago. Now his fingers gripped too hard and his hand started to sweat. Lina didn’t like it either, but for Bogdan — the boy of maps, of direction — this nothingness had to be torture. The emptiness must scare him as much as the thought of falling into the lake had scared Lina.
“It’s just a mist bank, Bogey. It’ll clear.” That was rubbish and they both knew it. There was nothing normal about this sudden mist, totally surrounding them. But then, there had been nothing normal about Svetlana or her ghost wolves — or her impossible tower either.
“What if we’re going in circles?” asked Bogdan, breathing fast. He squeezed and squeezed her arm.
“Doesn’t feel like we’re going in circles. Feels like we’re going straight. Look, it’s got to shift soon.” Was she trying to convince him or herself? Both. Holding each other even more tightly, Lina and Bogdan hurried in the direction they hoped would be the right one.
Lina fought down her own panic. She dreaded the mist finally clearing to reveal they were back at the tower — that they had come around in a circle, just as Bogdan feared. She couldn’t tell him that, though.
What if the mist never cleared?
Just as she thought it, Lina caught a glimpse of the snow-covered earth — and her own boot. “It’s clearing. It is, Bogey. Look!”
Another patch opened up around them, and now she could see Bogdan’s face again, damp with cold sweat. When she saw the relief in his grin, she knew it mirrored her own.
The mist cleared as suddenly as it had come. When they looked back, they could see nothing but a white haze. No tower at all. It couldn’t be. Lina scowled. “There’s no chance that huge tower could be hidden. We’d at least see the top.”
“Nothing was right about that place. None of it.” Bogdan shuddered.
Did Svetlana control that mist, so no one would find her tower? What was it she’d said? That the tower was hidden, tethered to the world only by “my and Pechal’s life force.” Had they actually crossed a boundary — between worlds?
Around them danced tiny snowflakes. Beyond those, Lina could see for miles. Snow-cragged mountains and ice-filled valleys to the left and right, bluish and hazy on the horizon. Far ahead, vast forests covered everything. Their current path opened into a wide white plain. Lina gasped. Her pale breath faded instantly, as if it too felt humbled by the vastness of this place.
Lina couldn’t help casting a glance over her shoulder again. Still no sign of the tower — not even the mist now. Only a wide, snaking river farther off, gleaming bright white where fresh snow covered its frozen waters.
Bogdan clamped a hand on her shoulder. “The Yenisei!”
“The what?” said Lina.
“That river, there. I bet it’s the Yenisei. It flows from Tuva, where my papa’s from. That’s got to be it.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Well, I can’t be totally sure, can I? But if I’m right, that means . . .” Bogdan fumbled around in the back of his boot, searching for his maps. “Yes! That’s it. Look. Look at the way it curves on the map, and then at the curve of the river.” He shoved one of the maps under Lina’s nose and pointed so hard she thought he might poke a hole through it.
“Bogey, there are hundreds of rivers on that map. And they all curve.”
He ignored her. “We’re somewhere along here, that means. Between the Central Siberian Plateau and the West Siberian Plain. So we’re getting closer, Lina. Svetlana might actually have done us a favor, transporting us under that cape.”
Lina tried to get involved in his calculations, but he was busy murmuring and measuring, then scribbling things down on another sheet with the stub of his pencil. Lina left him to it. She stared at the bluish mountains in the distance and tried to ignore the crushing feeling in her chest. It was that same feeling she’d been used to at the camp. She didn’t know why, but she felt certain they were being watched. A feeling that, despite this great wilderness, they weren’t alone.
She could just ignore it. It had been with her since they escaped from Svetlana’s tower. It was probably nothing more than adrenaline. But then, the same thing had happened on the night of the escape, when Bogdan followed them. If she’d ignored her feeling then . . .
A high-pitched screech rang out: the unmistakable cry of a falcon. Call it paranoia, but before the stone against her chest had even started to get hot, Lina was on the move.
So was Bogdan. “Get down!” he hissed, just before he barreled into her. They ducked under the cover of a large snow-heaped rock and peered out to watch the sky.
A giant falcon soared overhead. Bigger than any natural falcon. And it was definitely looking around. Hunting. For what? For them, thought Lina. She felt it in her bones: It was hunting for them. It had to be something to do with Svetlana. Another one of her strange servants? Lina remembered the falcon she’d seen circling them just after they left the mine — back when they were with Old Gleb and the others. If she remembered rightly, it had also appeared just before the ghost wolves had chased them into the forest.
The falcon scanned the ground, its feathers whistling and rustling under the strain of keeping that giant body aloft. Both the rock they were under and the snow cover worked a magic of their own, however. The falcon passed by, then soared far into the distance until all Lina could see of it was a dark smudge against the clouds.
“Lina.” Bogdan tugged at the sleeve of her jacket — formerly his.
“What?” She took her eyes off the falcon and looked where he was pointing. Something stirred beyond a small rise of land, sending up a plume of mist and snow. Heavy footsteps — and lots of them. They sounded too large and too regular to be human. Something with lots of feet, then.
It rose over the ridge and crunched toward them — a white fur-covered beast with a pot belly, four stubby legs, and a long gray face with the blackest eyes. Its hair framed its face, just like a human’s might, but tracked all the way down a long, thick neck. It wasn’t human, that much was clear. A knot of fear formed in Lina’s gut. Would a beast like that hurt them?
She now noticed with surprise that it had a human rider. A person covered head to toe in animal pelts.
The rider pulled their face covering to the side. A girl peered out of the fur, which twirled around her face in the bitter breeze. She had to be older than Lina by a few years, with high cheekbones and dark eyes that sparkled when she grinned. She said something in another language before switching to Russian.
“If I were you two,” she said, pointing at the sky, “I wouldn’t let that thing catch me.”
Snow quickly filled in around Lina’s and Bogdan’s feet as they spoke with the girl — named Tuyaara — but Lina hardly noticed it. She’d never seen a creature like the one Tuyaara sat on before. “What is it?” she asked, mesmerized, but felt her ears get hot when the other two stared at her in surprise.
“A horse!” said Bogdan, once he could do
more with his mouth than gape. Perhaps it hadn’t crossed his mind that Lina would never have seen one, growing up in the camp.
“Not just a horse. It’s a Yakutian horse,” Tuyaara told them proudly as she dismounted.
So this was what a horse looked like. Lina only knew of them from stories. She gazed into its brilliant dark eyes, itching to run her hand over its soft-looking fur. But she held back. It looked powerful. Especially its legs, which it might use to kick.
Tuyaara patted its side and eyed Lina curiously, as if wondering what kind of strange person had never seen a horse before. “Its fur’s extra thick, see, so it can survive the cold. No need to be afraid of it. It belongs to my parents, so it’s part-tame. My family are herders and farmers, here in Sakha.”
The horse shook its head from side to side and showed the whites of its eyes, making Lina jump back. Tuyaara made a puzzled sound. “She seems wary of you two, though. What are you doing all the way out —?”
Bogdan cut her off. “Did you say Sakha?” he said, aghast. “As in, the Yakut ASSR? That river over there — that’s not the Yenisei?”
Tuyaara laughed. “What? You’re way off course if you think that’s the Yenisei. It’s miles over that way. Listen, you’re obviously lost.” She looked over Lina’s thin jacket, her gray prison overalls. “You’d better come home with me so I can help you find your way.”
Tuyaara seemed trustworthy enough. And what was the alternative?
Lina and Bogdan followed a little ways behind Tuyaara, because any time they got close to the horse, it stopped and wouldn’t move or shook its head and tried to rear up. “Something’s really spooked her,” said Tuyaara with a shrug and a look at Lina and Bogdan. “Maybe it was the bird. My father would take one look at that thing and say it came straight out of the Lower Worlds. He’d want to get you checked over by a shaman immediately in case you needed spiritual protection. Probably an Orthodox priest too, to be extra safe.” Tuyaara chuckled. “He does like to keep traditions alive however he can, in these challenging times.”
“Are there shamans near here?” Lina asked. Perhaps the shamans might be able to explain what had happened to them. They might even know who Svetlana was.
“That depends who’s asking,” said Tuyaara. “I wouldn’t want to get anyone in trouble with the authorities for any sort of banned religious practice . . .”
That went for the Orthodox priests as well as the shamans, no doubt. Almost every religion had suffered under Stalin’s laws, his horrific purges. Lina knew a lot of former priests in the camp — and those were the lucky ones, because they were alive.
Tuyaara walked instead of riding — that way, she said, she could talk more easily.
“What’s your story?” Tuyaara asked over her shoulder. She looked them up and down again. “You’re wearing prison clothes, I see.”
“It’s a long story,” said Lina, glancing sideways at Bogdan, who was still staring at the snow, frowning.
“You can speak freely with me,” said Tuyaara. “We’ve had our share of difficulty with dear Comrade Stalin out here. Besides, I know a boy who’s also in a forced labor camp. They took him away for criticizing our dear comrade’s methods. He’s the son of family friends. I’ve known him since I was four.” She pulled her furs across her face and turned away from them for a moment.
“It’s nice to talk to people who aren’t just the same old villagers or my brothers, actually,” Tuyaara went on, a little more quietly this time. “It’s a small farming collective we’re part of: us and just a few other families. It’s been weeks since I’ve gone to a town or seen any friends there. I met prisoners like you when a bunch got brought here to build roads and things. I haven’t met any escapees before, though.” She turned to look at them again, eyebrow raised. “I mean, I’m guessing that’s what you are?”
Lina hoped they could trust Tuyaara. Her words had hinted that she was willing to protect others, even if they might be on the wrong side of the law — just as they were. It probably meant they’d be safe with her. But then, nothing had been the way it seemed since she started this journey. Lina chewed her lip. The stone against her chest wasn’t giving out any warnings. “You’re right,” she said, glancing at Bogdan again for reassurance but getting none. “We broke out of Prison Camp Nine just a few days ago.”
Tuyaara stopped walking and stared at Lina. “Prison Camp Nine? I’m sure that’s where my friend is. Do you know Keskil?”
“Keskil?” Lina asked. Did she mean Keskil who shared his quarters with Bogdan?
Even Bogdan now looked up. “We know a Keskil.”
“Tall,” said Tuyaara, staring from one of them to the other. “Sixteen. Always trying to solve other people’s problems. Pretty handsome . . .”
“Yes!” Lina laughed. She couldn’t believe it. “Yes, I think we might know your Keskil.”
They chatted for a while about their mutual friend before Lina’s thoughts came back to Svetlana and their escape. “Do you really think that big falcon is what scared your horse?” she asked. “Because we think the bird might have something to do with a woman who captured us. It seemed like she could do things . . .” She hesitated, then said: “Things that should be impossible.”
“Right,” said Tuyaara with a grin. She didn’t sound convinced, but she didn’t seem to totally disbelieve them either. “You should tell my brothers all about that. They love a good story. You know, some people around here do say this place is troubled by a bad spirit.”
“A bad spirit? Really?” Lina remembered what Old Gleb had told her. Poor, mad Old Gleb. Always teased because of his “fairy tales.” Where was he now? Where were the others? Alexei and Vadim. Had they all turned into those shadow people already, or were they still lost and wandering, in what must seem like a nightmare?
“That’s right. They call it the Man Hunter,” said Tuyaara. “They reckon the spirit comes here to hunt, and it captures anyone it comes across. So the story goes, anyway. I thought it was just a fairy tale.”
Lina scanned the horizon where that giant falcon had been. The Man Hunter. That’s what Svetlana had called herself on the night she captured them. But what was she?
The stone warmed Lina as they trudged, and the warmth moved around her body to the tips of her fingers and toes — until her cheeks felt hot and pink.
Tuyaara brought them to a log cabin, with a single funnel for a chimney rising from the center. It was her family’s balagan, she explained — where they lived in order to farm with the rest of the collective in winter.
Inside, it was warm, with rugs on the floor and a fire crackling at the center. Tuyaara stripped off her furs, smoothed out her silky black hair, and introduced her family — her youngest brother, still a baby, her mother, and her father.
“They’re from Prison Camp Nine,” Tuyaara told her parents, straight out. “They know Keskil.”
Tuyaara’s father reached out to clasp Bogdan’s shoulders. “Keskil? Is it true?” He was clearly eager to know whatever they could tell him, although Lina noticed Tuyaara’s mother withdraw a little, a stern frown on her face, despite the happy chubby baby wriggling on her hip.
While Bogdan and Tuyaara’s father talked, Lina couldn’t stop staring all around her. Everything was wooden: the walls, the seats, the table. Bright tasseled tapestries hung from hooks and a large radio covered in knobs and dials, like the ones the guards at the camp had, sat in the corner. The delicious smell of cooking tinged the warm air — something milky but savory. Ornaments and keepsakes were clustered on shelves — and in full view. These people didn’t need to hide their belongings, Lina realized, because what belonged to one belonged to all of them. But it was more than that: They trusted one another. They were a family. Lina immediately thought of her imaginary Moscow apartment. Her heart ached with a wonderful hurt.
Tuyaara frowned. “Are you crying?”
Lina wiped at her face. “It’s just the change in temperature making my eyes water.” But she couldn’t help an inv
oluntary sob into her sleeve.
After Tuyaara’s father and Bogdan had spoken awhile, Tuyaara’s mother beckoned Tuyaara away, and the three family members retreated to the stove, where they murmured to one another in low voices. Perhaps they were trying to work out what to make of these two escapees. Perhaps they were even worried about being punished by the authorities for helping them. Who wouldn’t be? A stab of guilt ran through Lina’s heart at the thought of bringing this family trouble. She exchanged a look with Bogdan, who’d been examining the radio. Perhaps they shouldn’t have come here.
“I know you couldn’t leave them out there, sweetheart,” she overheard Tuyaara’s mother say, “but we have a problem now because of your rashness. They’re fugitives, after all. The other villagers we can trust, but are you sure no one else followed you?”
“Oh, Namiya, my love! Can we worry over practicalities later?” came her father’s frustrated voice.
Lina occupied herself by playing with her necklace, while Bogdan took his maps out. They were both trying not to listen anymore.
Tuyaara’s other two brothers had been out rounding up the horses for the evening when they’d first arrived, but soon they came home and Tuyaara introduced them too. The eldest, Michil, wore a fur ushanka balanced high on his head, which made him look very tall, and a wide grin just like Tuyaara’s. The other, Dolan, had flushed cheeks and seemed serious and shy.
Michil and Dolan wanted to know every detail of their encounter with Svetlana and listened with solemn frowns while Lina and Bogdan explained what had happened. Lina kept expecting them to laugh — but mockery never came.
“She’s taken Yakuts and many others as well,” said Michil. “Her and her spirit wolves. Shamans and Orthodox priests have both tried to deal with her, in their own ways — even to help her — but she’s a stubborn one. She won’t budge. But the longer she stays here, the more bitter she gets. That’s what they think. It’s bad news when a powerful spirit gets like that.”
Nevertell Page 10
