Rosa and the Veil of Gold

by Kim Wilkins

  The bear was carted about from household to household, a treasured chattel of the princely family. She was wise and formed no further attachments, recognising that she was fated to outlive all whom she met. The Rus flourished for hundreds of years, and then the Mongols came, and with them blood and ash and the crushing of bones. Whole cities were put to the sword, and the bear saw it all and her heart grew colder. We cannot remain forever in the dreamy innocence of childhood. Knowledge comes to us. Indeed, we seek it out.

  And knowledge changes us.

  The Golden Bear saw many things, and books could be filled with her experiences. But a good storyteller always knows to select only the tales which are important to his ending. Let it be known simply that the Golden Bear survived the Mongol onslaught by the devices of a wily slave who hid her in his shack in the cold northern woods, and whose family treasured her until she was taken as tribute by Vsevolod of the Large Nest, ruler of Moscow. And there she remained for many centuries, and witnessed many things, including the rise of a prince named Ivan, surnamed the Terrible.

  But that is a story for another time.

  So you see how one world became two, and I will tell you now the traditional names for these two worlds.

  Mir. The world where Uncle Vasily lives, where cars and trams stalk roads of tar, where giant machines can fly and rulers govern from staterooms rather than armed on horseback.

  And Skazki. The world of stories. It is believed that all our magical demons—the leshii, the russalki, Morozko the frost demon, and the child-eating witch Baba Yaga—only exist in stories. Skazki is a cruel and bitter place. It is also a place where your own death cannot find you; only a death not-your-own. Have I confused you? I’m sorry, I do not mean to.

  But surely, by now, you know where Rosa’s lover is.

  2

  “You withdraw into crimson twilight,

  In endless circles.

  I hear a tiny echo: distant footsteps.

  Are you near or far, or vanished into the sky?…

  Do you draw close, burning,

  In endless circles?”

  ALEKSANDR BLOK

  EIGHT

  Rosa’s body was stiff with indecision; she didn’t know which way to turn her head, which path to set her feet upon.

  “Rosa Petrovna?” The Ukrainian leaned against his car, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses.

  Rosa turned. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

  “Have you lost someone?”

  She considered Daniel and Em’s car, so empty and so indifferent. “I have lost him more than once,” she said under her breath, then turned to the driver. “Wait for me a few minutes.”

  “As you wish.”

  Rosa opened her small leather backpack and rummaged in it for her keys. Daniel had accidentally given her the spare key for the hire car. A cursory check of the car’s tyres told her they were all intact. She let herself in and searched the back seat, unzipping the suitcases and ploughing through the borrowed clothes. She popped the boot and searched that too. The bear wasn’t here. Daniel and Em had taken the bear with them.

  Or the bear had taken Daniel and Em with her.

  Rosa slotted the key into the ignition. It started on her first try. She put the car into gear and drove it a little way up the dirt road. The brakes were fine; the gears were fine; the steering was fine. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this car. So why had they abandoned it? They had packed up the bear and locked the car before they left, so Rosa presumed they weren’t forced out by thieves or murderers.

  She backed up again, and got out, leaned on a crooked pole.

  “You can go,” she said to the Ukrainian driver. “I’ll be fine from here.”

  “Vasily said you’d need a lift back to St Petersburg.”

  “Tell Vasily I’ll call him soon.”

  The Ukrainian driver shrugged and pulled her suitcase from the car. He slid back into the driver’s seat and, within moments, he had disappeared down the narrow rutted road.

  She packed the car and started it again, driving for a few minutes over muddy potholes until she reached the end of the road, marked by a rusted dead-end sign. Beyond were untidy spruce and birch, their long branches crowding out the daylight. Rosa parked the car and got out. Again she was unable to decide what to do next. Search the woods for hours? She already knew Daniel wasn’t here. The fog in the mirror had told her that. She felt helpless and tiny, an insubstantial speck in the enormous reach of Russia. And beyond.

  Her second sight twitched, and she locked the car and tried to discern from which direction it came. The day was very still. Clouds had moved over the sun, and Rosa could hear birdsong, faint and far away. Somewhere to the west and north, a tickle in the atmosphere. She ducked around the sign and started walking.

  Bracken crunched beneath her feet. She followed her second sight into the woods, then down a rocky gully. The sky dimmed. A plane went by, high overhead, the drone of its engines making tuneless but strangely hypnotic music as it disappeared into the east. She walked the gully a little way, then came back up a rise and into slightly sparser trees. Beyond them, the woods opened out into a rolling field.

  Rosa caught her breath, squinting towards the sky. She felt strange and frightened, standing on the edge of this field. The beckoning sensation, an itch behind her forehead, originated here. Her raw ability was not enough to pin it down, nor to cast her mind beyond it to find Daniel. She leaned against a tree and tried to focus, letting her second sight open. Out there…colours and sounds, indistinct from one another. Smoky blue and violet, the faintest whisper of voices. A veil, lighter than a summer breeze.

  Rosa left the cover of the trees. A cold sensation slivered over her. The veil was just a few feet ahead. She held her breath and strode towards it, through it, but nothing happened. She was still in the same field on the same summer morning.

  Puzzled, she reached out her fingers to touch the veil. Her second sight opened, but the shimmers were pale. The morning sun fractured the magic. Daniel and Em must have crossed at night, when unseen forces were stronger.

  Midnight would be her friend. At midnight, the veil was thinnest. She could wait in the car until then.

  Rosa sighed, turning on her heel.

  The hulking figure of a man stood directly behind her.

  She screamed, he seized her arm, wrenched at her wrist, then dashed for the trees.

  Rosa looked down to see that he had torn her mother’s charm bracelet from her wrist.

  “Hey, give that back!” she shouted, and took off after him.

  The man had the advantage. While Rosa had to keep an eye on sudden drops and rocky ground, he flew over it with an ease that demonstrated he knew the area well. But she was light and young, reckless and determined. The clouds blackened and threatened rain, but still she ran, thrilling to the thundering of her heart. The dark figure was always just ahead of her. Then, abruptly, the ground sloped away ahead and he disappeared over the edge. Rosa skidded to a halt at the top of the ridge.

  The man stood at the verge of a still lake, which was about a hundred feet across. Tangled weeds and skinny flowers grabbed at his boots. He held the bracelet in his right hand, over the water.

  “That was my mother’s,” she said. “It’s worth nothing to you. Give it back.”

  He smiled and shook his head. She made her way down the slope. Gravel slid beneath her feet and she wondered how he had managed to get over the ridge so quickly and easily. She picked her way down, and he stood motionless, waiting for her. Her heart was frightened, but she was not.

  Finally she stood on flat ground, ten feet away from him.

  “Don’t come any closer,” he said in a quiet, yet resonant voice. He was easily sixty, with dirty grey-streaked hair, a shaggy beard and stained clothes. His eyes were hooded and dark.

  “I just want my bracelet back.”

  “I’ll be keeping it.”

  She took a step and he dangled it over the water again. “Stay
where you are or I’ll throw it in the lake. You’ll never find it.”

  “Give it back.”

  “I will. Eventually. Not now.”

  “It’s worthless to you.”

  “You don’t know that.” He shook it gently, and the charms chimed against each other. “I’ll keep it safe for as long as you stay with me, but when you leave I’ll give it back.”

  Rosa was puzzled. “Stay with you?”

  “At my home.”

  “I’m not coming to your home. I’m not staying with you.”

  “You are, because I have what you want.”

  “Only because you stole it.”

  “Not the bracelet,” he said, smiling. “I have knowledge.”

  Rosa felt her skin shrink from him. Her body wanted to run, but she wouldn’t let it. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Come home with me.”

  “No thanks, granddad. You’re not my type.”

  He raised his eyes to the sky and, as if he had directed it, the sun broke from the clouds, bathing him in light. Rosa was momentarily startled by the sunlight, almost didn’t notice the strange sight before her.

  Then her eyes, perceiving something unnatural, were drawn to the ground at his feet.

  He cast two shadows.

  “You’re a volkhv?” she gasped.

  “I can’t let you wear this bracelet at my home,” he said.

  Rosa was wary and puzzled, but recognised that her resistance was already faltering. She had read about powerful magicians like this man and, although she had always believed in them, had never thought she would be lucky enough to meet one.

  “What makes you think I’m coming to your home?” she said.

  “My daughter Elizavetta is sick. We need an employee to help with the family business.”

  Rosa shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

  He ambled towards her. She stood her ground, despite her trepidation and amazement.

  “Come,” he said, “you will have your own lodgings. You will be warm and comfortable.”

  She shrugged off his insistent fingers. “No. Explain what you mean. Explain who you are.”

  “I am Anatoly Dimitrov Chenchikov and, yes, I am a volkhv. You are a silly girl with a foreign accent and a pitifully weak magic bracelet. You hope to cross the veil. You cannot.”

  “How do you know I can’t? My friend did.”

  He smiled. “Ah, so now the mystery deepens. Someone you love has crossed the veil. How?”

  Rosa didn’t tell him about the bear. “I don’t know.”

  “We shall find out together. You have a piddling trickle of second sight. I will show you how to use it.” He nodded. “There are twenty-seven crossings in all of Russia, and twenty-seven guardians nearby. You were lucky to find me. Don’t let this opportunity slip through your fingers.”

  Rosa’s heart leapt with excitement, but still she hesitated. “Why can’t I have my bracelet back?”

  Anatoly chuckled. “For the same reason you aren’t allowed to use your mobile phone on an aeroplane. You’ll get it back eventually. After the journey.” He extended his hand, a fatherly gesture. “Come, girl. It will be an adventure.”

  An adventure. Rosa knew she had to stay nearby until midnight anyway. In the meantime she may as well see where the volkhv lived. She took a deep breath and reached out. His palm was rough and dirty, and now she was close to him she could smell stale sweat. “I’m Rosa Petrovna Kovalenka,” she said.

  “I know. It was written on the suitcase you left in the blue car. My son-in-law, Ilya, has already taken your things to our home.” He led her firmly around the lake and back up a gentle slope into the dark woods. “Come, Rosa. You have much to learn.”

  Anatoly kept hold of her hand as they moved through the woods. Rosa remained silent, memorising the route through the trees so she could make the return journey later. Maybe Anatoly could teach her something, maybe he couldn’t. He was certainly a powerful magician and she might need his assistance. Finding Daniel was uppermost in her mind; to see the place he wandered and to bring him home safely.

  “There is our farm,” he said in a quiet voice as a brick fence, painted white, came into view. There was a gate in the fence, also white, high and arched with iron doors. The paint was peeling and discoloured, the grass grew long, giving the impression that nobody had lived here for a long time. Anatoly finally dropped her hand, and felt in his pocket for keys. “We are careful always to lock the gate, so remember that if you leave. There are precious things within.”

  “What kind of things?” Rosa asked.

  “Bees,” he said with a smile, jingling the keys merrily. “We’re honey farmers.”

  Rosa was struck by the practicality of this. She had had a romanticised notion that a volkhv and his family might live isolated from the world, conjuring bread and wine from rocks and water but, of course, they had to survive the same as anyone else. They had to have money for the markets and for schoolbooks.

  When they arrived at the gate, Anatoly turned her to face him. “Rosa, I could feel you nearby since you arrived this morning, and I came for you quickly. My family think you are a new employee, here to help with the business until Elizavetta recovers. There is no reason for them to believe otherwise. Do you understand?”

  “Okay,” she said indifferently, shrugging. She had no intention of staying beyond midnight. “Let me ask you some important questions first.”

  “You may ask only three questions.”

  “Is my friend…is Daniel in danger?”

  His hooded eyes lifted to the sky. “It’s hard to say. He may be. Is he clever?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he will probably be safe for a while.”

  “How long before I learn how to cross the veil?”

  “As long as it takes, Rosa. It would be dangerous to go unprepared.”

  “A day?”

  He laughed. “No. Longer.”

  Rosa grew frustrated. “A week?”

  “No more questions.”

  “What’s beyond the veil?”

  His voice became hard. “No more questions. You are here to give my son Makhar his daily lessons, and in spare moments you will help my wife with the bottles and labels. You understand?”

  Rosa bit back a retort. She was nobody’s nanny or housekeeper. But she sensed that Anatoly would only give her what she needed if she went along with him. “I understand,” she said. “When can I be alone with you again?”

  He took her hand and caressed her fingers gently. Rosa felt a cold shiver of mixed revulsion and anticipation. “No…more…questions.”

  Anatoly released her, ran his hand once over his beard, and opened the gate. Rosa followed him into a neatly maintained, shady garden. The family home was an old timber cottage painted pale blue, with tidy beds of herbs and flowers lined up along the path. Anatoly indicated off to the right. “Behind the house are the hives, down towards the stream is the old outbuilding. We’ve made it into a guesthouse. That is where you will stay.”

  They walked up the front path. Rosa noted the sun symbol above the door, the bunches of stinging nettle hanging over the windows, the cross painted on the jamb: wards against magic. She felt a prickle of excitement. To be immersed in this world, where enchantments were real and not dismissed as superstitions…

  Anatoly pushed the door open, calling out that he was home. Rosa stood in a large room. A kitchen and a dining table took up one half; the other half was decorated as a living room with bright curtains, a faded sofa, and an ageing television set stacked with magazines. The welcoming smells of honey and baking bread overlaid a less pleasant smell—damp, or rottenness. The floor felt slightly tacky under her shoes. A narrow hallway led off towards other rooms. All the timber was unpainted, making it feel as if she stood inside a treehouse. A woman at least twenty years younger than Anatoly came gliding down the hall towards them. Rosa assumed it was his daughter, until Anatoly introduced her as his wife.

>   “Who’s this?” she said suspiciously, her nose wrinkling as though she had smelled something bad.

  “This is the young woman I mentioned before I went out. She has come to help until Elizavetta is recovered.”

  “And I told you that I didn’t want any help.” The woman had a wide face, with prominent cheekbones and flared nostrils. Her hair was very fair, but her eyes were dark and sharp.

  “Ah, pish! You can’t manage everything on your own, and you don’t speak English and this young woman does. Makhar must keep up with his lessons.”

  The woman moved forward and extended her hand for a limp shake. “I’m Ludmilla,” she said.

  “Rosa,” Rosa replied.

  “I don’t want you here, but my husband does.”

  “I won’t give you any trouble.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  Rosa opened her mouth to promise, then remembered she was in a volkhv’s house, and that promises were more than just empty things people said to fill silences. Instead she changed the subject. “What illness does Elizavetta suffer from?”

  Ludmilla and Anatoly exchanged a look, but Rosa couldn’t read what it meant.

  “She’ll be well soon enough,” said Anatoly. “I’ll go and find Makhar.” The door banged shut behind him.

  Ludmilla moved to the stove—a huge cast-iron mechanism which looked as ancient as the trees shadowing the kitchen window—and pulled the bread out. “Well, you’re in time for lunch, Rosa.”

  “Thank you, I haven’t eaten yet today.”

  “You can help me set the table.” She nodded towards a crooked sideboard, and in it Rosa found table linen and cutlery. She had to force her arms and hands to work at such mundane tasks: laying the cloth, arranging the knives and forks. Her stomach itched, but midnight was hours away. She blocked Daniel from her mind, and Uncle Vasily too. He would be worried about her, but she didn’t want to call him in case his worry convinced her to come back to St Petersburg empty-handed.