Nothing.
“You sure you heard something?” said Bogdan. “I can’t. Oh, wait! Hang on . . .” They looked at each other, wide-eyed. As he was speaking, Lina had caught the noise again: that same swishing, tinkling sound.
“There it is again.” Lina heard it a third time as she spoke — and gasped. “It happens when we talk. Without a doubt.”
“Aah,” said Tuyaara. Awe and fear mixed in her eyes. “The whisper of the stars.”
“The what?”
“It means it’s cold enough for our breath to freeze,” she said. “Look.” She cupped her gloved hands in front of her as she spoke and then showed them what she’d collected: tiny, sparkling grains of ice.
“You caught your own words?” Lina gazed at the glittering grains. “Imagine actually being able to keep what you say. Better make it something important . . .”
Bogdan stretched out his arms and cupped his hands dramatically. “One day, I WILL find my parents again,” he said. He showed them the words, sparkling in his mittens, and grinned.
Tuyaara laughed. “My turn,” she said. She pouted and put on a funny voice. “I will move to the city and teach.”
“What about you, Lina?” said Bogdan. “Aren’t you going to try?”
Lina cupped her hands a little ways in front of her mouth as the others had done and paused. It felt very serious, all of a sudden. She closed her eyes and an image of her mother sprang into her mind, vivid and overpowering. “I will find my grandmother and get help to rescue Mamochka,” she said. The words froze in the air and tinkled into her palms.
She gazed at the collection of twinkling little crystals. The words had shuddered through her like a wave just now, and though she couldn’t explain how, it felt like they’d carried the image of her mother with them, out into the world. Was it her imagination, or for one split second did she see her mother’s face flash across each surface of the ice grains, just as Lina had pictured it in her mind just now? No — that wasn’t possible. It had to have been her own reflection, if anything. She carefully tucked the ice grains into her pocket.
“As fun as that was,” said Tuyaara, “if we can hear the whisper of the stars, it means it’s already too cold. We’ve got to reach my uncle’s before this storm hits.”
Or it won’t just be our words that get frozen solid was what Tuyaara was thinking, but she didn’t have to say it. Lina understood.
They raced on. The clouds darkened and so did the gloom around them. Frozen wind drove ice dust at their faces. They covered all but their eyes and kept going. Then came the snow.
“I can see their house,” said Tuyaara, her voice muffled under layers of fur. “We have to get the dogs inside. Now.”
Lina could see it now too — another log cabin, like Tuyaara’s, on the horizon. As they charged closer, the silhouette of a man — Tuyaara’s uncle, perhaps — waved at them, urging them on. Lina knew by how frantically and forcefully he flapped his arms that they were in trouble if they stayed out a moment longer.
By the time they reached the balagan, thick snow, driven on the wind, stuck to them horizontally, head to toe, and kept on coming at them like a solid wall. Everything looked dark gray to Lina, except for the white snow slashing across her eyes.
By then, Lina could no longer tell the ground from the sky.
Tuyaara’s uncle ushered them onto the raised porch at the front of the house, while his children rushed out and took the horse and dogs to shelter around the back. At the door, Lina glanced one last time at the snow behind her.
In the midst of the storm, a dark-haired girl reached out toward Lina from the plains before the wind-driven snow obscured her. Lina let out a cry of shock. The girl couldn’t have been more than four years old. She wore no coat or furs. Her face had been bunched up into a cry and she held her arms out in front of her, begging to be held.
“There’s somebody out there — I just saw her! A tiny girl,” she shouted, gripping Bogdan’s arm.
Bogdan looked between Tuyaara and her uncle, fast. “Is someone missing from inside? From another home, maybe?”
“There are other families nearby. Children, possibly,” said Tuyaara sternly, hovering between them and the warm hearth of her uncle’s home. “Show me where.”
Lina pointed to where she’d seen the girl.
Tuyaara frowned. “I can’t see anything, Lina. I’m not my brother, but I have a bad feeling in my gut about this. Don’t trust your eyes.”
Lina’s stone pulsed with heat. She couldn’t be sure what it meant. Something was definitely wrong. It could be a trick of Svetlana’s. What should she do?
Then Lina remembered all the times she’d cried for her mother with her arms held up to her like that. How small, selfless acts — of fellow prisoners, of Tuyaara’s family — had no doubt saved her life. The child’s sob carried on the wind. It wrenched at her. What if it wasn’t a trick?
She couldn’t leave her to freeze in the storm.
Lina strained her eyes to see the girl again and thought she caught a glimpse of dark hair whipped by the wind. “She’s just over there,” said Lina, looking at Bogdan. “I’m sure of it. If I run quickly, I can grab her and bring her inside.”
Tuyaara shook her head. “Lina. Bogdan. My friends. Don’t do it.”
Her uncle said, “No, please stay. There’s nothing out there but your own deaths.”
Just as doubt crossed Lina’s mind, the child’s cry came again, clear as anything, carried by the wind. “I’ve got to,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Lina! Bogdan!” called Tuyaara.
But Lina wasn’t listening anymore — and Bogdan was right beside her as she dashed into the swirl of the storm. If she could just grab the little girl and carry her indoors, she could save her. But where was she now? The girl had been just there. She was sure of it.
All Lina could hear was the howl of the wind. All she could see was a blur of white and gray. Her own breath, blown back at her, turned to ice when it touched her skin, pulling tight and pinching as it froze.
Bogdan grabbed her arm. He shouted something, but she couldn’t hear over the noise of the storm. He had frost flowers blooming across his cheeks. It felt as though they were being buried alive.
Lina glanced behind them. Snow and haze and darkness obscured the house. No doubt Tuyaara was pacing inside, by the hearth, raging because she knew she couldn’t help them, her uncle and aunt trying hard to comfort her but failing. Lina shouldn’t have run out here like this. She ought to have listened. It was a hard truth — and made worse because she couldn’t tell which way was which anymore. She couldn’t go back to the house even if she wanted to.
Lina fought against the wind and flailed her arms to keep from being buried by snow. Forward, backward, up, down — direction lost its meaning. The safety of the balagan was gone.
Fingers slipped around Lina’s upper arm and gripped tight. For a second, Lina couldn’t breathe — a scream rose in her throat and froze there. Coldness seeped from the fingers through Lina’s furs. First she looked at the hand — bony, covered in papery pink skin. Then at the owner’s face — that of an elderly woman.
A second wave of shock jolted through her. The woman looked just like her imaginings of Baba Yaga — one of Russia’s oldest fairy-tale villains. Fear left a tingle in her arms and legs. The coldness of the old woman’s touch reached Lina’s bones.
They’d come for a young girl. They’d found an elderly woman. This was Svetlana’s work. It had to be.
But even as Lina thought it, the idea seemed to evaporate on the wind.
“Please,” said the woman, her voice cracking, “help me. My home is just over there, but I can’t make it alone.”
Her words were clear despite the wind’s roar, as if carried through Lina’s body along with the coldness. Lina saw that the woman held Bogdan’s arm too.
They shared a look. Bogdan seemed as doubtful, as confused, as Lina was.
“Wait. Have you seen a young girl
out here?” Lina asked.
“No, no young girl, child. Only me here. Only me for miles.”
Lina knew that wasn’t quite true — Tuyaara’s family was nearby — but she let it go. It didn’t seem to matter anymore.
“Come, my home is this way,” the woman said. “Help me walk and I’ll give you shelter until you can find your friend.”
Lina moved as if in a dream — unable to stop herself. It was a struggle just to think, to focus her mind — those cold fingers clouded everything — and then, a new certainty settled over Lina. The woman was so light and so frail. The bare skin on her wrists, folded tightly around her bones, had started sparkling and cracking in the cold. They had to help her to safety.
But there was something that Lina was trying to remember. A name. Svetlana? She could barely remember who that was . . .
The large, dark shape of a circular hut loomed out of the haze, snow plastered up one side and stuck like mud. They’d be there in moments if they could just keep going straight and resist the force of the wind. Lina struggled to breathe, but she quickened her pace anyway. Stopping now meant dying on the doorstep.
Linked together, all three of them burst through the door as one.
The elderly woman was the first to rise from the floor where they had collapsed.
She shook out her white hair and straightened her back. She looked much taller than she had before, hunched against the wind. “Your kind act will be rewarded,” she said in a much stronger voice. “I promise you.”
She barged the heavy door shut with her shoulder and pulled curtains across it. The winds still wailed and howled, but the heavy tapestries draped over every wall dampened the sound. Lina’s head swam. She felt numb inside, but her nerves jangled — like the feeling returning to a deadened limb. Panic fluttered in her chest. Who was this old lady? She’d felt only concern for her moments ago, but now a creeping sense of distrust slithered over her skin.
Lina scanned her surroundings for clues. She couldn’t tell what the hut was made from, but it had a stone hearth with a fire already burning inside. Every time the wind rose, a cloud of black soot billowed down from the chimney. The rugs echoed the patterns of the tapestries hanging on the walls: fruit and flowers, suns and moons, animals and birds. They had a Georgian look to them, Lina thought, remembering the stories her mother had told her of the family’s home in Moscow.
Lina’s head felt oddly empty, though. She could remember the stories of her grandparents. She could remember her mother, of course, and the escape from the camp — but little after that. It felt like something important was missing.
While Lina took in the room and tried to gather her thoughts, Bogdan spoke up warily. “I’m Bogdan, and this is Lina. So . . . what do we call you, Babushka?”
“Babushka. Ha! Babushka will do.” The woman sneered at them the way Vadim used to as she moved back toward them. “Here. Take off those cold furs, or you’ll be soaked through.”
Lina’s insides lurched. That sneer gave her the urge to crawl to the farthest end of the room. This “Babushka” resembled the Baba Yaga of her mother’s most terrifying bedtime stories so much — even down to the one sharp tooth occasionally peeking out from behind her thin lips — that it took all her control not to run out into the wilds again.
Where would she go, anyway? For as long as that storm raged, they were trapped here. Besides, Baba Yaga wasn’t real. And it was dangerous to say otherwise. Fairy tales like those were not allowed.
Still, this old woman made Lina uncomfortable. To hide her nervous shakes, Lina busied herself unbuttoning her coat and hood. The chill in her blood started to thaw. At the same time, her memories came back to her in flashes. Vivid, alarming memories. A falcon circling. Wolves howling — and a tall woman with a cloak. The images were hazy, unconnected, but fear pushed its way into Lina’s heart. The stone necklace radiated heat. Whether it was still fighting the dire chill of the storm or trying to warn her, she couldn’t tell.
She had to take off her things so they could dry out, but she didn’t want to lose sight of where they were — just in case she needed them again in a hurry. Nor did she want to show how afraid she was.
“Have you lived here for long, Babushka?” asked Lina, trying to sound breezy. “It’s lucky we found you out there.” She glanced at Bogdan. He stared back, open-mouthed. As Lina looked at him, it all came to her in a rush: the journey from Tuyaara’s house, the little girl in the snow, the old woman, and . . . Svetlana! She gave a gasp. But was this Svetlana? Or another like her? How many beings were there with these kinds of abilities?
The babushka slung their clothes over her arm and began laying them around the hearth. “Yes, yes,” she said. “Lucky. Who knows what would have become of me in that blizzard if you two rebyatishki hadn’t helped me.”
They sat by the fire, covering their mouths and noses every time a cloud of black smoke billowed around them. The feeling was just about returning to Lina’s face, feet, and hands, which stung like they’d been slapped with sticks. Inside, her anxieties writhed and wouldn’t be still — made worse somehow by the unnatural calm that had repressed them until now. At her side, Bogdan wrung his hands.
The babushka bustled into another room and came back wrapped in a bundle of dark-blue silver-trimmed shawls. “No need to look so afraid, little ones. I just want to help you, as you helped me. I’m heating water so that you can wash, and I’ve laid out some new clothes for you on the beds. They belonged to my children,” she added when they looked at her, puzzled and afraid. “A boy and a girl, who are now fully grown.”
“I don’t trust her. Not a bit,” hissed Bogdan the minute he and Lina were alone in the bedroom. There were more tapestries in here, as well as beds covered in blankets and, just as the woman had promised, a change of clothes. She’d even filled tin buckets with steaming hot water, one for each of them, so they could clean up. It took all Lina’s strength not to dive straight in.
“Doesn’t it feel like we’ve met her before?” Bogdan went on.
Lina rubbed the back of her neck. “Could be,” she whispered. “Do you think Svetlana can change her human form?” Given everything else she could do, Lina could believe it.
Bogdan chewed his cheek and nodded.
“We can’t know for sure who or what she is,” Lina whispered even lower. “But I don’t trust her either, so let’s stay on our guard. Try not to let her touch you, Bogey, because that’s how she tricked us into coming here. We’ll just keep close to our coats. If we have to, we’ll grab them and run.”
Bogdan agreed. “Might as well get changed into the clean clothes, though,” he said. “No harm in that, eh?”
Lina found her outfit neatly folded on one of the beds next to her coat, which had had a chance to dry. Bogdan picked up his clothes from the other. There was a moment of fluster and blushing until they realized they could pull a curtain across the room between them for privacy.
Once behind the curtain, Lina stripped off — laying the stone carefully on the bed within sight — stood in the bucket, and splashed herself with the hot water. She rubbed it into her face and hair. Grime ran down her legs in rivulets. Then she dried herself and put on the new clothes: a green tunic with a silver-and-gold leaf motif embroidered around the hem and warm wool trousers underneath. She traced the embroidery with her finger and thought of what had happened the last time she touched a real plant.
As she reached for the stone, the moth crawled out of its bead and fluttered around the room, as if inspecting these new surroundings. Lina had forgotten it was even there. The way it dived and danced in the air, it looked like a piece of ash, riding the hot currents from the fire they’d sat around with Old Gleb and the others. She watched, hypnotized by its twirling and twisting, and by the strength of her own memory.
To her surprise, the moth soon returned to her. It settled itself down inside the same bead. Lina frowned, then shrugged. “Fine, little moth friend. Make yourself at home.”
S
he found a small, beaten-up old mirror on the wall by the bed, lit a candle to see herself better in the dimness, and ran her fingers through her tufty sand-colored hair. It had been a long time since she’d seen herself in a mirror. Her hair had really grown. But it still stuck up in patches when she pulled and twisted it, even while damp. Her bottom lip looked fuller somehow — her face longer, her jawline more angular. As for the tunic, she’d never worn anything so soft, so fitted, and so . . . girly.
Something moved at the edge of her vision. Like rags floating underwater. Lina knew instantly what it was. “You!” she said, and then lowered her voice. “So you came with us? Good for you. I’m glad you’re here, friend. And don’t worry, because I won’t say anything to Babushka, I promise. I don’t trust her — whoever she is.”
The candle, burning in its brass dish, flickered as if caught in a breeze.
“Nevertell . . .”
A little cough came from behind the curtain. Lina guessed that meant Bogdan was ready. When she pulled it back, he was dressed too — in an embroidered knee-length jacket in deep red, with long sleeves and trousers underneath. He looked amazing.
“You look . . .”
“Amazing!” said Bogdan. “You look amazing.”
“You too, Bogey.”
“Better than standard-issue overalls, isn’t it?” said Bogdan, stretching out his arms. He giggled, and Lina remembered how their laughter had always been dark and tinged with bitterness. She struggled to think of a time when Bogdan had actually sounded so happy.
“Hey, Bogey,” said Lina, “she’s still with us, you know. The shadow girl. She —”
“Nevertell.” The candle, over by the mirror, flickered again. This time the flame dipped — once, twice, three times. It looked deliberate.
Lina and Bogdan stared at each other. “Are you doing that?” whispered Bogdan to the room.
“Nevertell,” came the voice, and the candle flame dipped three more times. They realized with excitement what this meant: that they could find out more about their shadow friend, using the candle. Lina had suspected before that Svetlana was wrong when she said the shadows were mindless or beyond suffering — and now it was confirmed. Even if their memories were locked away at first, they clearly returned to them over time, as their shadow friend’s had.
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