Nevertell

by Katharine Orton

  Lina lost her grip on Natalya’s hand. The carriage lights flickered — and came back on. The carriage window showed nothing but darkness — as it should. Lina’s breath shuddered out of her. Making plants grow was one thing. But this? The third time watching Natalya’s memories felt just as shocking as the first.

  It took Lina and Bogdan a while to digest what they’d witnessed.

  “Is that what you saw from your classroom window that day?” asked Lina eventually, once she could form words again.

  The carriage lights flickered. Yes.

  “Is that why she had you wolf-bound?” said Bogdan. “Because you saw her do magic?” His own voice trembled at the edges, and no wonder after what they’d just seen.

  “Nevertell.”

  “How many people did she have wolf-bound before you?” asked Lina in a small voice. The lights stayed on. At first, Lina thought it was because of the way she’d asked her question, but then they dipped slowly — and stayed dipped for a long time.

  Did that mean . . . ? “Were you the first?” The lights dipped again. Yes.

  She and Bogdan exchanged a look.

  “Svetlana must truly hate people,” said Bogdan, “to hurt a kid like you. Does she, Natalya?” Yes. But then the light flickered a few more times. It seemed like there was more to it than a simple yes or no.

  Lina shuddered. She had powers like Svetlana — and who knew how many others out there? Did some of this hatred live inside her too?

  “I’m sorry this happened to you, Natalya,” Lina said softly. “You didn’t deserve this. No one did. We’ll either find a way to stop Svetlana for good, or . . .” But she couldn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t know what the “or” might be. She didn’t want to think about it, either.

  While they were starting to get ready for bed, Bogdan discovered a stash of individually wrapped cookies in his bunk — perhaps left behind by a previous occupant. They were dry and tough, though Bogdan and Lina ate them gladly. It wasn’t much of a meal, but it would at least stave off the hunger — for now.

  After they’d eaten, Bogdan fell asleep immediately. Lina was lying in one of the bunks and rolled the smooth wooden beads of her necklace between her fingers, her head clouded with dark thoughts. The beads felt warm to the touch — if only in the way that wood normally does.

  The little moth came out to crawl over her hand. It tickled and made her laugh, stopping to twirl its fern-like antennae at her when she did — as if distracting her from her troubles had always been its intention. She smiled and helped it back into its bead. Perhaps it liked the warmth in there? Or maybe it was busy chewing its way through that note — the one written to her grandfather. Either way, it was a companion now. She’d be sad to lose it.

  Lina finally shut her eyes and, when she dreamed, she dreamed of Moscow. She was happy in her little apartment block, sharing a meal in the communal kitchen and laughing with her neighbors. Bogdan was there — Tuyaara too. And now, so was Natalya. Except she looked just as she had when they’d traveled under the cloak: a normal little girl with deep, thoughtful eyes and a warm smile. Her laughter filled the room.

  Lina dreamed of her grandfather’s gardens next. Persimmons and palms grew there — and peach trees. Their leaves were deep green and firm to the touch, their trunks flaky and gnarled. Lina breathed in their perfume and brushed all the plants with her hands. They pushed back against her fingertips, growing, budding, flowering. Snow dripped off the unfurling leaves, and suede-skinned berries bulged out from white petals, peeling back and fading. Tendrils reached up high above her to make grand arches overhead, which blossomed and sagged, heavy with fruit.

  The power surging through her arms and out from her fingers became stronger and stronger — until she felt like she couldn’t stop it even if she tried. The green growth around her thickened. Tightened. Her heart beat faster. Plants crowded her. Closed in. She couldn’t make it stop. The garden loomed over her, monstrously tall, on all sides.

  Someone was with her in the gardens, keeping out of sight. A woman. Lina knew, in the way that you know such things in dreams, that this person was her grandmother. She tried to chase her but turned every corner too late. Thorns snagged Lina’s clothes. Gaps between trees squeezed shut right in front of her. She caught just a wisp of hair or the flash of a hand.

  Lina never once saw her face.

  When they woke up, Natalya had gathered them food. The porridge was still warm. Most exciting of all, however, was that they had an egg each. She must have sneaked the food from other passengers or (Lina hoped) the catering carriage. Neither Lina nor Bogdan were about to complain, either way — they were so hungry after eating only cookies the night before.

  “Thank you, Natalya,” said Lina.

  Just as they finished up, Natalya called them anxiously. “Nevertell!”

  Voices traveled down the carriage. Bogdan darted to the walkway and peered out. “They’re checking tickets,” he said. They dusted down their seats and scooped up their eggshells. Lina hoped it would look like no one had been there.

  They spent the rest of the day dodging train officials. They passed several in the walkways but did a good job of smiling and looking calm as they went by. Inside, Lina’s guts knotted. Sweat prickled at the back of her neck. Bogdan, however, couldn’t have looked calmer or more at home. He really was good at this.

  Lots of people got on at the next station. The train filled up. Their old compartment became occupied by four people. As the second evening drew on, they’d been walking, hiding in the toilets, or lingering between carriages all day.

  “We’ve got to find somewhere safe to rest,” said Lina. “The longer we have to keep moving about like this, the more likely it is that someone will catch us.”

  They made their way to the back of the train. Bogdan was convinced that they’d been coupled up to some freight carriages at an earlier stop. “Wouldn’t be prisoners. Not going in this direction,” he said.

  When they reached the back of the train, it was just as Bogdan had suspected. Wooden carriages clattered along behind them, snaking around the track as it curved, then whipping out straight again like a tail.

  “Should they be doing that?” asked Lina. “Do we really want to go out there?” Then she got angry with herself. Stupid. She’d been through too many things, seen too many horrors in her life, to let a train frighten her.

  Even if it was the first train she’d ever ridden.

  There was a door separating the rest of the train from the freight compartments, and Lina pressed her face against the glass of its tiny window. The freight carriages were little more than trucks, but if they could climb up the little metal ladder on the side and get in under the tarpaulin, they ought to be safe — and hopefully able to stay hidden, all the way to Moscow.

  “Natalya, are you with us?” asked Lina. Natalya dimmed the lights in the carriage. “Good.” Lina slapped her hand on Bogdan’s shoulder. “We can do this, Bogey.”

  “Who you trying to convince, Lina?” He winked and grinned, but Lina could tell he was fighting his own nerves too.

  They put on everything warm they had, including their gloves. Together they undid the stiff latch. The door flung itself open. An icy gale blasted them, stealing Lina’s breath.

  Lina went first.

  She tried to ignore the clanking of the couplings, the sickly jolting of the freight carriage, as she climbed up the ladder and then under the tarpaulin. She made way for Bogdan.

  The stacks of slate chippings underneath weren’t exactly comfortable. But at least they could duck completely under the tarpaulin and stay warm. For now, they decided to keep their heads poking out to watch the mountains retreat and the rivers snake away like their breath. Perhaps this was the last time they’d see anything like it before they reached the city.

  “We’ll be in Moscow by morning, I reckon,” said Bogdan. “What will you do first?”

  “Find my grandmother,” said Lina without hesitation. “Tell her everyth
ing about the camp so we can save Mamochka together. I know her old address.” 16 Gorky Street, Apartment 4. “But if she’s not there, I . . . I don’t honestly know. I’m not sure where I’d start.”

  Bogdan nodded silently. “I’ll stay for as long as it takes you to find her. Got to make sure you’re OK, don’t I?” he said. Then he looked away quickly. “That’s if you want me to, obviously.”

  “Of course I do!” Lina glanced down, blushing — she’d shouted. The next time she spoke, it came out softer — and sadder. “What will you do after? You know, you could always . . .”

  She stopped.

  “Lina? What is it?”

  Lina stared at Bogdan, shocked. “The stone,” she said. “Peach pit, I mean. It’s getting hotter.”

  Howls echoed all around — wolf howls — from the hills and the valleys. Yet there were no wolves to be seen anywhere. Lina sat bolt upright and scanned their surroundings. It couldn’t be. Not now that they were so close to Moscow. Svetlana couldn’t have found them. Her breath came quicker so that mist obscured her vision. She waved her arms to try to clear it. Yet she already knew: The howls came from nothing.

  “Nevertell.” Natalya’s frightened voice gasped beside them.

  Before they could say another word to each other, even to whisper “ghost wolves,” a high-pitched animal shriek from above cut through the roaring of the wind past their ears.

  Lina glanced up. Just as the giant bird descended on them. And as the body crumpled in on itself like burning paper, it became a dark-haired woman with wings, gliding on the air. Svetlana. But not as they’d seen her before. This time, she looked unhinged by anger.

  Svetlana gripped the edge of the tarpaulin and clung hard, pressing her face toward theirs. “Liars, thieves, and vandals!” she screeched, and her voice had the same tone as the falcon she’d been moments before. “Is there any creature that’s worse than you? Is there a human alive who doesn’t spoil everything?”

  The peach stone burned over Lina’s heart. It sent stabs of pain through her chest. Svetlana clawed for her and missed. “Neither of you deserve the second life I can give you,” she hissed. “You deserve to die instead.”

  She tore back the tarpaulin, sending the sturdy metal hooks that once held it in place flying over the sides as if they were nothing. The tarpaulin flapped and twisted like something alive. Svetlana made another swipe for them. Lina scrambled backward and hit the far end of the carriage. They were trapped.

  Bogdan kicked out to try to drive Svetlana back while Lina grabbed Svetlana’s fingers to twist them — anything to push her off-balance. But Svetlana was strong. One of her flailing hands clamped down on Lina’s arm and yanked it. Lina felt herself dragged by a force she couldn’t fight. Svetlana would throw her from the carriage. To the ground. To die.

  Lina yelled for help. Bogdan tugged at Svetlana’s arm, but it was useless. She had to throw something.

  Anything.

  She grabbed a handful of the slate with her free hand and threw it at Svetlana’s face. It bounced off and tumbled away, not even leaving a scratch. In desperation, Lina fumbled in her pocket. She scooped up the whisper of the stars — those hard grains of ice, like frozen millet.

  “You can’t stop us!” yelled Lina. She threw the whisper of the stars right into Svetlana’s eyes.

  This time, Svetlana reacted instantly. She closed her eyes and cried out. Her voice sounded pained. Urgent. She let go of Lina’s arm to claw her own face.

  “Quick!” Lina shouted, tugging Bogdan’s sleeve. Her whole arm was throbbing with cold. They clambered to the edge of the carriage, but looking down turned her stomach. So did the wind whipping past and the clattering of the wheels against the tracks. Jumping would mean broken bones. At best. And that’s if they didn’t get dragged under the wheels.

  She had to act fast. Svetlana would recover in seconds.

  Lina reached for the scrap of cape in her pocket. She couldn’t take them to Moscow — but surely she could land them safely on the bank of a river that she could see with her own eyes.

  Grow, she willed it. Grow now. She kept her eyes fixed on where she wanted them to land and barely waited for the cape to become half her size before diving headfirst into it with Bogdan.

  Pitch darkness. Tumbling. Any sense of up and down gone. Just Bogdan, his hand in hers, and Natalya clinging to her waist. All around came terrible echoes — impossible to tell human from animal. Lina knew it was the nothing world, snapping at their heels. Trying to claim them. Picture the riverbank, she told herself.

  Then she felt searing cold.

  Snow went into her mouth, her ears — even up her nose. She thrashed, clawed it off her face, and gasped for air. Beside her, Bogdan did the same. They were waist-deep in the snow of the riverbank — but at least it wasn’t the nothing world. They’d made it.

  Lina wiped her eyes in time to see the train carry Svetlana away — just a flurry of hair and feathers on top of the slate carriage, growing ever more distant beneath a darkness broken only by stars.

  Lina watched their hopes of reaching Moscow disappear with the train.

  Bogdan struggled to his feet and bashed his clothes all over to get rid of the clinging snow. “It’s gone down my neck!” he said through gasps and yelps.

  Lina couldn’t yet speak. Her jaw felt locked shut and all her joints were rigid. Partly from the bitter cold. Partly the aftereffects of such a narrow escape. She still watched the train, so tiny now she could cover it with her thumb, and felt something tug painfully at her heart.

  Bogdan finished patting himself down and grabbed her by the arms. “Come on, my friend.” He heaved her to her feet. Moving made the melted snow that had found its way down her neck feel sharp as knives against her skin. “You here, Natalya?” asked Bogdan.

  “Nevertell.”

  “Good.”

  With ice daggers sliding down her back, Lina shook involuntarily while Bogdan helped her pat off the rest of the snow. The peach pit warmed her, but so far the cold was winning.

  “I’m sorry, Bogey,” said Lina through chattering teeth. “We were so close, and now . . .” Now the train had gone without them. And despite their best efforts to get all the snow out of their clothes, plenty of it had melted against their skin. Soon they’d be frozen. The peach pit could only do so much. Any chance of finding her grandmother had dissolved, just like the whisper of the stars in Svetlana’s eyes.

  “Aargh!” Bogdan backed into her. Then she heard what he must have: the growl right next to him. Another down by her elbow. A snarl just behind them. Ghost wolves.

  They were surrounded.

  Ahead of them on the empty train tracks, something moved. A dark mass rose. Lina already knew what it was, even before it stretched to the height of a very tall person. Even before the black material unfurled like a flower, revealing a pale woman.

  Svetlana.

  Their leap from the train — Lina’s risk with the cape — had been for nothing. She’d found them again in moments.

  Svetlana paced toward them, stumbling occasionally and shedding feathers as she came. She kept wiping her hand across her eyes where Lina had cast the whisper of the stars into them, as if they stung, or she couldn’t see properly. Lina trembled. Svetlana was going to kill them.

  When Svetlana reached them, Lina could see that her irises were black and round, the whites of her eyes bloodshot. She stared straight at Lina. Her chest heaved. “It looked like truth, but is it somehow a trick?” she said after long seconds.

  “Trick? What trick?” Lina’s mouth had gone dry.

  “The ice words you threw at me. It was cold magic — and powerful. It looked like truth, but I need to hear this from your own mouth. Tell me. What is your mother’s name?”

  “Don’t tell her anything, Lina,” said Bogdan, pressing his shoulder into hers and glaring at Svetlana. “We’ll die before we give up the names of our families, you monster. Even if . . .”

  Even if they’re already dead.
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  Lina’s throat tightened. Svetlana pointed toward Lina’s chest, where the peach pit sat beneath her furs. A gash ran along the center of Svetlana’s palm, and dark blood trickled down her wrist — perhaps a cut from the slate. “Then I will tell you this,” she said. “Inside that necklace of yours is a note. It reads: MY DARLING ANRI, I GIVE YOU THE GIFT OF MY HEART.”

  Lina and Bogdan gaped at each other. “How do you know that?” asked Lina. “Unless —”

  “That necklace was a gift — from me to my beloved. Now,” said Svetlana through gritted teeth, “stop wasting time. Tell me your mother’s name.”

  “Katya,” said Lina, gasping. Her mind reeled — her thoughts couldn’t settle on anything concrete.

  Svetlana’s eyes shimmered with brightness, and she took a step back. “Then your magic found its true target, and your ice spell has opened my eyes. You didn’t steal that necklace, as I thought. Now it’s clear why my wolves won’t bind you and why a human like you has such powers. You, Lina,” she said, “are my granddaughter.”

  Lina shook her head. She couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be true. “No. My grandmother is in Moscow. She’s . . .” Lina remembered the startling clarity with which she’d pictured her mother’s face at the very same time she’d spoken those words into the ice: I will find my grandmother and get help to rescue Mamochka. “But it wasn’t cold magic,” said Lina, looking at Bogdan. “The whisper of the stars was just a silly game we played.” Uncertainty was already surging through her, however.

  Svetlana raised her chin. “You instilled it with magic,” she said. “You fused an image of your mother into the words, and although she may be older, I know my daughter’s face. You may not have realized, though, because you have so little mastery over your abilities. I’ve been trying to fathom the extent of your power. It shouldn’t be possible. Not for a human. Now I understand why.”