Nevertell

by Katharine Orton

  Lina’s anger frothed into silent, spitting rage. How could Svetlana think it was OK? Whatever they’d done, no one deserved this torture. If her mother had been here, she would’ve argued her piece relentlessly, but . . .

  The faces swirled away, replaced by a shifting darkness. The water in the frame bulged and writhed like an animal. No shape formed, but a sound, muffled at first, came out of it: a desperate sound.

  “Is that someone crying?” Bogdan gasped, wide-eyed. “Who is it?”

  “Lina,” sobbed the voice. “Please be safe, Lina.” A blast of wind roared down the chimney again and engulfed them in black soot. It blew the fire out altogether.

  Lina knew exactly who the voice belonged to. It was her mother. She lurched back from the mirror, her heart pounding.

  Bogdan looked between Lina and the water mirror and back again. “What just happened?”

  “She let other thoughts interrupt her concentration,” said Svetlana. “It happens, when you lack experience. Nevertheless, Lina, your self-control was impressive. I’ve never seen such talent from an untrained human child. Even my own.”

  Lina’s heart fluttered like a panicked bird’s. “That was my mamochka. She’s suffering in that nothing world, and she’s . . .” Hot tears welled in her eyes. After everything they’d been through, it was too late. Her mother was dead.

  “Not necessarily in the nothing world yet,” said Svetlana. She drew her white wiry eyebrows together, as if working out a puzzle. “Though that is the most likely answer.”

  “So there’s a chance Lina’s mama isn’t . . . That she’s still alive?” asked Bogdan.

  “Perhaps. But death will be close — and all but certain.”

  Lina couldn’t focus on what they were saying. She could barely even breathe. Her mother was gone.

  “Lina,” said Bogdan, gripping her shoulders tight. “Did you hear that? Your mama might still be OK.”

  “For now,” said Svetlana.

  “Can you save her?” demanded Bogdan. “Lina’s mama? With your powers, I mean.” He kept one hand gently resting against Lina’s shoulder as he spoke, and the warmth of him was as healing as any magic stone.

  “That depends,” said the old woman, waving dismissively.

  “On what?”

  “On whether or not I care to.”

  Lina’s anger exploded. She jumped up. So did Bogdan. He stood next to her in silent but clear support.

  “Who do you think you are, treating people like that?” Lina’s voice wobbled. She was on the verge of shouting.

  “Lina,” said Bogdan, a warning in his tone. This was dangerous.

  “No, Bogey. She can help my mama and she won’t.” Lina looked up. Her face felt hot and puffy. Her eyes burned. “Fine. Take us to Moscow, then, like you said you would, so we can find my grandmother, who will help! Or does that depend on ‘whether or not you care to’ as well? I bet it was just a trick to make us trust you.”

  The old woman stood in one swift motion, straightening out her back to stand tall. She unbundled her hair and shook it over her shoulders. As she did so, it grew and darkened until it was long and black. The face they now looked into was no longer Babushka’s, but Svetlana’s.

  “Why should I help you humans, when humans have never done anything for me?” she raged. “You will stay here and serve me. You won’t escape this place.”

  In two strides, Svetlana stood in front of them, a hand on each of their shoulders. Coldness trickled through Lina’s blood, and she shivered.

  “Calm yourself,” Svetlana said, close to Lina’s face. “We can’t have someone with your powers getting overexcited. Go to your room and sleep. I’ll decide what to do with you back at my tower.”

  “I’m sick of these people who think they can rule over us like czars. Commandant Zima. Svetlana. Even Stalin!” Lina wiped her tears on her sleeve. Her rage felt impenetrable.

  She and Bogdan were alone now in the bedroom.

  “Not even Vadim and Alexei deserved what she did to them,” she said.

  Her fury wasn’t dulling at the moment. It hadn’t even dimmed. If anything, it had been growing since Svetlana had locked them in here.

  “They say they have our interests at heart,” Lina went on, “and yet, what have any of them ever done in our interests? Taking away your parents, Bogey. Sentencing you to hard labor. Sending my family to a camp because my grandfather criticized the wrong person and had some unusual beliefs about real-life fairy-tale magic. I’ve spent my life in a prison — and for what?”

  Bogdan said nothing while Lina blinked back more tears. He must have been waiting until the silence settled. When he spoke, his voice was soft.

  “What you did back there with the mirror . . . it was amazing. Did you know you could do that? Magic?”

  “Not that, exactly.” Her voice was quiet and wavered a little, but she carried on. “But I think I can make plants grow, sometimes, when I touch them.”

  Bogdan hugged her. “That’s incredible” was all he said. The hug said more.

  “And I did see a memory of our shadow friend — she’s called Natalya. I saw her at school. She witnessed something . . . something that she shouldn’t, and Svetlana had her wolf-bound. And . . .”

  Now that the truth could flow freely between them, Lina was relieved — but her heart still ached over what the mirror had revealed. “Do you really think she could be dead? Mamochka?”

  Bogdan wrapped his long arms more tightly around her shoulders. “Svetlana said there’s a chance she’s still alive, didn’t she?”

  Lina rested her head against his, the way she had at the camp when she’d turned to leave through his window. It felt like another lifetime now.

  “Nevertell,” came a whisper by Lina’s ear. She noticed a pressure against her arm — neither warm nor cold — and knew their shadow friend, Natalya, was comforting her too.

  They stayed that way for a while until Lina had composed herself. She needed to believe she could still save her mother. But time was running out. That meant she had to reach Moscow and find her grandmother. Right away.

  Finally, she turned to face Bogdan. He nodded at her. “Right, my friend. What are we going to do about this situation we’re in?”

  “We’ll escape,” she said. “As soon as possible.”

  “Nevertell,” said the shadow girl, as if in agreement.

  “Let’s wear our coats and boots to bed and keep our hoods with us,” Lina said. “We’ll pretend to sleep but instead be listening,” she went on. “If we can sneak out tonight and find Tuyaara again, we will.”

  Whatever might happen, they’d be ready.

  Two candles burned by the beds where they huddled — one small, the other bright and new. Lina had left them both going so they could see. The old one was down to its dregs now. Just a pool of wax in a patterned brass dish that also cupped a violet flame — growing dim.

  Bogdan breathed deeply.

  “Bogey?” Lina whispered. He didn’t answer. He must’ve actually dozed off, instead of pretending like they were supposed to be doing. They’d decided to wait until they were sure Svetlana was asleep and then try to pick the lock so they could sneak out of the house. Lina turned her head toward the candles.

  “Natalya?” She kept her voice low, so Svetlana wouldn’t hear through the wall.

  One candle flame dipped in answer.

  “That was you I saw earlier in the soot, wasn’t it? Memories, from your past.” The candle flame dipped once more — a definite yes.

  “How many others has Svetlana done this to? No! I mean . . .” Questions with yes or no answers, Lina told herself, screwing up her eyes at her own mistake. “Has it been over fifty?” Yes.

  “Over one hundred?” Yes.

  Svetlana had made more than one hundred men, women, and children into shadow-like servants. Lina was quiet for a while before she asked, “Is Svetlana human, Natalya?” No, came the answer.

  Bogdan snored a little. Lina nudged him in the
ribs through all their layers of coats and blankets. His legs twitched as if jolted with electricity. He said nothing, though the snoring stopped. He was awake.

  The door to their room opened. Through a half-open eye, Lina saw Svetlana come in and pause for a moment. Lina closed her eyes, slackening her jaw to mimic a sleeping person. She didn’t dare peek as Svetlana’s footsteps came closer. It struck Lina that Svetlana must really fear her if she wanted them to be asleep before she took them back to the tower.

  Lina tried to keep her breathing calm. Not easy, with Bogdan squeezing her hand as hard as he was. Her fingers started to go numb. Lina risked opening one eye. Svetlana stood tall, a few paces away. She wore her waist-length cape.

  The cape.

  She’s going to use it to transport us, thought Lina. We can’t let her. It’s now or never.

  Svetlana turned toward them. Lina quickly shut her eyes again. She heard Svetlana’s footsteps get louder as she approached the beds. The inside of Lina’s eyelids grew darker as her shadow fell over them. She could even smell Svetlana’s skin and hair: a cold, metallic scent, mixed with the faint sweetness of blossoms.

  A rustle of material. And silence.

  “Now!” shouted Lina. They kicked up a flurry of blankets. With horror, Lina saw that Svetlana’s dark cloak had already grown. It draped all around them. Inside it she could see stars — even the glint of moonlight on some large, near-invisible shape that shimmered and then broke away from the night sky, moving closer. A looming pinnacle of ice.

  The tower.

  Lina grabbed at what was closest: a candle. She hurled it. The weak flame turned to a slender stream of smoke as it sailed toward Svetlana. The wax, however, stayed molten. Svetlana shrieked. The stars sparkled inside the cape by Lina’s face, as did the tower, just as the material whipped back. Svetlana pulled sharply away, clawing at the hot wax hardening on her skin.

  Bogdan tried to cover Svetlana with a blanket, but she fought back. In the struggle, the blanket glided over Lina’s head. With it came darkness. Lina kicked and clawed it off — just in time to see Svetlana recover from her shock and surge forward.

  Bogdan leaped off the bed. Lina followed, but her leg got caught in the blankets. She half leaped, half fell. Her palms smacked hard against the floor. The stone around her neck swung out from inside her tunic and dangled, spinning on its beaded string. No time to worry about that now, though. She scrambled to get to her feet.

  Before she could make it, Svetlana’s long, pale hand darted under her chin and grasped the stone, yanking Lina toward her. Svetlana was pallid and trembling. Lina stared into her dark eyes, which were hot with rage.

  Svetlana tugged again on the stone necklace. “How did you get this?” she hissed.

  “It’s mine,” said Lina, clawing at the necklace drawn tight around her neck. “Get off — you’re choking me!”

  “You’re a liar,” said Svetlana. “A liar and a thief. Where did you get this? Who did you take it from?”

  Lina gritted her teeth. It was getting harder and harder for her to breathe, let alone speak. “My mother gave it to me,” she managed to get out.

  Svetlana let go suddenly. Lina fell back onto the bed. Svetlana had gone pink. In fact, she seemed to be having trouble breathing.

  “You’ll come back to the tower and explain,” she said at last. “Now.” With a flick of her wrists, the cloak encircled Lina and Bogdan again — the coolness of the night sky inside it pressing in around them, settling over Lina like a veil.

  Something clicked. Then and there, Lina knew exactly what to do.

  As a corner of the cloak fluttered past her face, she grabbed it. Tugged.

  The material made an electrical buzz as it tore — like a lightning strike. Lina wrenched it as hard as she could. The corner ripped away in her hands. Grow, she urged the scrap of cloak. Grow now and take us away from here.

  The black material rippled and slipped around her fingers. It felt like trying to hold running water. Lina twirled around and her eyes met Bogdan’s. They grasped each other’s arms — tight.

  Just in time. Lina’s piece of Svetlana’s cloak — seconds ago, nothing but a tiny scrap — gathered them up entirely inside itself.

  Lina remembered the first time they’d traveled under Svetlana’s cape. The dark. The calmness. The stars. That slow, gentle realization that they’d arrived somewhere new.

  This was nothing like that.

  It felt a lot like falling into darkness. Fast. Except Lina didn’t know from where or toward what. If it had been one of those falling dreams, she’d have already woken up, her heart pounding as she reached out for the nearest thing to cling to. Now, her stomach lurched — and lurched again. Pressure built in the back of her head. Between her shoulder blades. All she could hear was a rushing noise, like gushing water.

  She screamed.

  “Not falling,” she managed to say to herself. “I want flying, not falling . . .”

  The pressure on her body shifted. The rushing noise became the whistling of wind, blowing back her hair. To her left, Bogdan still held on tight to her hand, and she to his. He looked at her with a frightened grimace. But there was something else with them.

  Someone else.

  A young girl with mousy hair tied back in pigtails and cream-colored skin clung on to Lina’s other arm. Now that their momentum had shifted, Lina could feel the pressure of her grasp. She didn’t look at Lina — not once — but gazed down with lagoon-colored eyes. Lina recognized her immediately: Natalya, their shadow friend.

  Lina looked down now too. Below them, a snowy waste opened up, only just visible in the dark — full of mountains, chasms, and crags. In among it sat Svetlana’s tower on the lake, clear enough for Lina to see the giant fish moving and circling in the depths beneath it.

  Soon the tower was far behind them, swallowed up in gloom.

  There were forests ahead. Forests stretching for miles, with a pale mist rising between the dark trees. On the horizon, three bands of color — burnt orange, fading to white, and then a deep royal blue. The moon rested, heavy and bloated, in between where the blue turned to black. Little veins like silver filigree sprawled across its surface. A night or two ago it would have been full. Now it had a slice off one edge. It had started to wane.

  Lina noticed something else: a little cluster of lights, with something long and mechanical moving along a straight black line through the snow away from them. Some kind of giant, snaking, motorized monster.

  “A train,” called Bogdan. The wind stole most of his voice away — but Lina lip-read the rest. “Head to that town, Lina, if you can.”

  She’d been aware from the start that this bizarre journey through the sky hinged on her, and Bogdan clearly knew it too. Where they ended up would depend on her focus. On how well she could concentrate.

  The thing was, now that they were out here, she just wanted to keep traveling farther.

  They soared toward the cluster of lights on the horizon. They overtook the train, riding its dark rails. Wisps of clouds zipped past them, sometimes obscuring the ground below. Lina gripped Bogdan’s hand tighter. They were speeding up.

  “Slow down!” shouted Bogdan. “We’re going to . . .” It was too late. They had already passed the town. Now they were rushing faster and faster.

  Lina didn’t want to make it to the nearest town. She wanted to go on — and on. If only she could get them all the way to Moscow. Her mother’s life depended on it.

  “Keep to the train lines, at least,” came Bogdan’s voice, so distant and quiet against the rush of wind.

  Lina closed her eyes and pictured the apartment she’d always dreamed of. The kitchen. Her neighbors. Food. Laughter. But something wasn’t the same. She snatched at the images but couldn’t keep them. They turned transparent — and cracked like ice. Blew away from her like snow dust.

  Other thoughts replaced them. Men in uniforms, searching buildings: officials from the Party, perhaps. Secret police. Frightened people
watching from windows and through cracks in their doors. Their fear infected Lina too. She glimpsed a woman clutching a doorframe, heard her wail as the uniformed men marched someone away. Behind the woman, gripping tight to her clothes, was Natalya.

  Of course. These were Natalya’s memories again. Her memories of Moscow, this time. The truth hit Lina like a physical blow. Natalya’s memories were real. Hers? Only dreams. How could she take them all somewhere she’d never even seen?

  Somewhere she didn’t truly know.

  She fought against her own thoughts. 16 Gorky Street, Apartment 4, she said to herself. 16 Gorky Street, Apartment 4 . . .

  The words were paper-thin and blew away from her lips.

  They flew even faster. As soon as she glimpsed something, they’d passed it in an instant. Lina’s mind reeled. She could hardly breathe, let alone think. Her head started to throb with pain. What little control she’d had crumbled to nothing. Just like her visions of Moscow.

  Thick clouds covered their view of the ground completely. Lina lost all sense of direction again. Were they flying forward? Falling again? Were they even moving at all? Panic writhed inside Lina’s chest. They were dipping into the other worlds. She could hear strange creatures — cawing, calling, barking — but couldn’t see them.

  She could feel the hunger of the nothing world now, too, distinct from the others: like something alive. They weren’t just passing into it. It was rising up — to claim them.

  She looked in despair at Natalya, who was still hanging on to her arm.

  Lina found herself staring directly into the girl’s broad face, her glittering marine-colored eyes. Natalya placed a hand against Lina’s cheek. It was as cold as death. The shock of it jolted Lina out of her panic.

  “Novosibirsk,” said Natalya.

  Novosibirsk.

  Lina had heard of it. It was a city in West Siberia. One of the prisoners had been from there. She closed her eyes. Novosibirsk. That’s where we’re going. Novosibirsk. Novosibirsk. Images of a vast city flashed in front of her. What looked like a blue palace. People everywhere. Natalya’s memories again — except this time they were helping. This time, Lina had no impressions of her own to battle against Natalya’s.