by Kim Wilkins
Em turned to him. She was drenched, muddy and pale. “You look in the ones on this side of the path, I’ll check out the others.”
So they split up across the village and began poking in the houses. The first three Daniel looked in were awash and muddy. The fourth one, however, was dark and enclosed. A quiet drip drip indicated that rain still made its way in, but the floor was intact and the stove was dry.
“Em!” he called. “I found one.”
He stepped into the dark to wait for Em. There was a dank, rotted smell. At least the huts exposed to the sky had light and air in them. This one felt like years of shadows had gathered in its corners and been trapped. Two old chairs and a table sat in the middle of the room. He tested one for strength. It shattered beneath his hands.
Good. Firewood.
He gathered some dried leaves which had blown in the door, opened the stove, chased out two spiders, and began packing wood into it. He was so relieved it made him want to laugh hysterically. Camped out in an abandoned, cobweb-infested hut in a Russian otherworld, and he was as excited as a child on Christmas Day. Em joined him, her face hopeful.
“Oh, Daniel. This is great.”
“There’s a leak by the window.”
“We’ll just stay on this side of the room.” She indicated the lighter he was using to start the fire. “Still plenty of gas left?”
“I think so. I bought it new outside Vologda. How long ago was that?”
“It feels like a long time, but I think it was less than two weeks ago.”
“A time when we were dry. I can’t even remember it,” Daniel said, and began stripping off his coat and shoes. “I’m going to hold my feet to the flames until I can feel them again.”
“Me too.” She peeled off her sodden layers, down to the brown suit she had been wearing when they left Vologda. “God, I would love a strong macchiato right now.”
“Tea,” Daniel said. “Hot and sweet.”
They lay on the floor in front of the open stove, their feet resting on the ceramic tiles surrounding its mouth. Smoke crept out, settling in their hair and prickling their eyes before escaping through cracks in the boards.
“There’s another hut,” Em said, when their contented silence had run its course. “The roof has fallen in, but the stove is under cover. I think we should light it, too, and hang our clothes in front of it. With a bit of luck, they’ll dry overnight.”
“Will we leave tomorrow?”
“Not if it’s still raining. We’re in danger of dying out there, Daniel, and not from murderous candle makers.”
“I know.” Fear crashed back over him. He reminded himself of Em’s advice…keep breathing. As long as you’re breathing you’re alive. “For now, we’ve got shelter and fire, and loads of food still.”
“If you’re not sick of pancakes and bread.” She propped herself up on her elbows and lowered her feet. “What would you like to eat right now?”
Daniel closed his eyes. “Some kind of pasta, with cream and basil.”
“Oh, yeah. Or Mexican food, a mountain of it, beans and salsa and melted cheese and beer. The kind of meal that you eat so much you have to loosen your clothes afterwards.”
“Stop. You’re making me hungry. For more than toast and jam.”
She sat up. “I wrapped two eggs in the side of my pack,” she said. “Just in case. I could boil them up as a treat.”
Daniel’s mouth watered. “Yes. Yes, yes.”
“That’s if they didn’t break during my fall,” she said, ploughing through her pack. “Ah, here they are.” She pulled out a metal mug and leapt to her feet. “I’ll gather some water and get on with cooking dinner. Could you go to the hut just across the path from this one and hang our clothes in front of the stove?”
“Sure.”
He was halfway out the door when Em said, “Daniel, wait. I should warn you, there’s something you won’t like in there.”
Still in a light-hearted mood, he thought she was teasing. “What’s that? Spiders? Rats?”
“Bones,” she said, humourlessly. “Human bones.”
Human bones, stacked up and surrounded by a ring of skulls, dry and dusty as they waited by the stove. Daniel tried not to look at them, and wondered at Em’s ability to see them and then act perfectly normally.
He lit the fire and hung their clothes from the roof beams. All the while, the blind skulls watched him and he wondered who they had belonged to and why they were all piled up in here.
Em had cooked a feast of boiled egg, toast and pancakes with jam, and Daniel took his sleep first. Em woke him after six or seven hours and they swapped places on top of the stove, in the dank and mildewed bed linen.
Daniel sat for a long time, watching the fire while Em slept. He was warm and rested and his belly was full. Outside, the rain had finally eased. Em would want to be on her way in the morning. He remembered their furs, hung in front of the fire in the other hut. They needed turning, and the fire needed stoking. He gathered some wood and left the warm room behind.
The wind had picked up, blowing the clouds apart. Narrow strips of night sky appeared. The other hut was not quite as warm, and the presence of the bones made him nervous. Better to get this done quickly and head back to Em. He fed the fire and turned the skins.
His back was to the stove when he heard the knocking. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see a rat. But nothing moved.
The knocking continued, however, and it was coming from the cinder tray.
Daniel turned, waited.
“Who’s there? Who’s there?” A little voice from the cinder tray. “Grandfather is trapped in here, let me out?”
Daniel felt his skin creep. He couldn’t move.
“I know you’re there,” the voice said. “You lit the fire, you woke me up. I’m trapped in here.”
Daniel knew that “grandfather” was the name applied to a household spirit, a domovoi. They were usually friendly if a little mischievous. But, importantly, not real.
His hands shook. He couldn’t bring himself to open the cinder tray.
“Come on, come on,” the voice said. “Don’t delay. Grandfather wants to thank you for bringing fire back to the hearth.”
Daniel took a deep breath. He had seen a leshii, he knew he was in the land of enchantments, and there was no need to be afraid of a tiny domovoi. He knelt in front of the stove and pulled the cinder tray. It stuck, grated, then came free.
The domovoi popped out. Twelve inches high, a beard down to his knees, in ragged clothes. Not nearly so sweet-faced as a garden gnome—far too grizzled and snaggle-toothed for that—but sharing a similar stature.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
Daniel had to force himself to speak. “Daniel.”
“Daniel, you may call me Grandfather.” He looked up at the furs. “Are they yours?”
“I’m drying them off. We’ve been wandering three days in the rain.” Daniel noticed his ears were ringing faintly.
“We?”
“My friend and I. She’s in the hut over the path. I should get back to her—”
“Don’t be in such a hurry. She’ll sleep well. No domovoi in that house any more. I’m the last one left in the village. Surviving on my wits.”
“You were stuck in a cinder tray.”
“At least I was alive. A trick I learned from a bear in the woods. Slow down your breathing and heart, and you can sleep for centuries.”
Daniel indicated the bones next to the stove. “What happened to them?”
“Those folk used to live here,” Grandfather said. “A nasty end, they came to.”
“I think I’d better get back to my friend.”
“Nonsense, sit down. Eat something with me.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“There must be something you’d really like…think hard.”
Daniel considered the domovoi by the firelight. “Unless you have a cup of hot tea in that cinder tray—”
“Cup of
hot tea. Here you are.” He swept his little arms in front of him, and a tin mug appeared.
Daniel gaped. He had seen such things in movies, but to see something appear out of nowhere in real life almost hurt his eyes. The ringing in his ears was worse, and he shook his head to see if it would clear it.
“Go on, have it,” said Grandfather. “You’ll find it just as tasty as the real thing.”
Daniel sat on the floor and lifted the cup to his lips. It smelled wonderful. The first sip was divine, the second not quite so much. There was an aftertaste of sawdust. He put it aside.
“Anything else you want?” Grandfather asked.
“No. I really should be going.” He made to get to his feet.
“Going where?”
“Back to—”
“You’re from Mir, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
The domovoi adopted a sober expression and indicated all the bones. “So were they.”
Daniel paused.
“You want to know what happened to them?”
He sat down again, swallowed hard. His ears were quieting now, as though finding their balance in all this madness. “All right. You’d better tell me.”
The rain had ceased, but the wind grew stronger. Daniel could hear it gusting through the woods and rattling over the rotted eaves. The mouldy smell of damp and memories was heavy in the room.
The domovoi crossed his legs and sat, his back leaning against the warm mug of magic tea.
“We get a lot of Mir folk here in Skazki,” he said. “Some, the leshii bring across to eat. Some, they wander in here and get lost and die. But the folk who lived in this village, they came across deliberately.”
“Why?”
“It was about eighty years ago. Russia was under the rule of the Red Tsar, a tyrant to surpass all the tyrants they had known.”
“You mean Stalin?”
“I don’t remember his name. But the family, they knew a volkhv and he helped them all escape into Skazki. They thought to set up a village here, keep each other safe.” The little man shook his head, his pale eyes growing sad. “Oh, what a terrible mistake, for they lasted only a few short months before Vedmak came out of the woods.”
“Who’s Vedmak?”
“A cruel wizard. His arms are skinny and folded like a mantis, his head too big for his neck to hold upright. He lives up there, in the woods.”
“And he killed these people?”
“I was here. I saw it with my own eyes peeping out of the cinder tray. The wind came roaring down on the village, clattering over the roofs and slamming all the doors open. The folk of the village ran in here, because it’s the biggest of the houses. They huddled together and said their spells and hoped for the best, but Vedmak was at the threshold a few minutes later, all dressed in white and waving his bony arms to make magic. He froze them all inside their bodies, so they were still alive when he began to skin them.”
Daniel felt his flesh prickle with fear.
The domovoi continued. “When Vedmak had stripped their bones, he piled them up neatly, as you see now. They’ve been all my company this long, long time.”
“And this wizard, Vedmak? He lives nearby?”
“Right up on that ridge.” The domovoi waved his arms to indicate the direction Daniel and Em had travelled from that day.
“Then we’re not safe here.”
The domovoi smiled, and Daniel saw a glint of malice in his eyes which made him shiver. “Safe from Vedmak? Probably. He doesn’t trouble himself too much with this place any more. But—”
“But what?”
“There are other things.” Grandfather cast his eyes around the room. “They might not trouble you, but there are no guarantees.”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
“All those folk, they died a death not-their-own. You know what that means?”
Daniel nodded. “So their souls are doomed to wander revenant until the day of their own death comes. But surely if they died nearly eighty years ago, they must all be at rest by now.”
“You don’t understand Skazki, my boy. Here, your own death can never find you. All their spirits still haunt this place, and would certainly love to meet some warm human bodies to possess and destroy.”
Daniel began to panic. “What can we do?”
“Give me gold.”
The sudden change of mood made Daniel hesitate too long.
“I said give me gold. Now. For I would only have to shout ‘blood’ and they would all wake and come for you.”
“The gold is in the other house,” Daniel said. “My friend has it. I’ll go and get it straightaway.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then come with me.”
“I can’t leave this hearth, it’s my own.”
“Honestly, just give me a few seconds—”
“Blood!” he yelled, and his voice echoed around the empty room. He smiled a crooked smile.
Daniel froze with shock.
“They didn’t hear me, I think,” said Grandfather.
“I’ll get the gold. I’ll come right back. Don’t call again.” Daniel raced out the door and across to the other hut. He began ploughing through Em’s pack for her stash of gold.
“What’s going on?” she asked sleepily from the bed.
“Gold. I need gold. The domovoi next door is threatening to wake the revenants if—”
“Slow down, Daniel. I can’t understand you.”
“BLOOD!” came the cry across the night sky.
Daniel was already on his feet, the pack still clenched in his fist. “Stop it,” he shouted. “I’m coming.”
He dashed back and threw a gold earring at the domovoi. “Here,” he said. “Now call them off.”
A creak from the wall behind him. He tensed.
“Too late,” said Grandfather, admiring the gold by the firelight. “They’re already coming.”
“But—”
A thud and a shout from next door. Em didn’t know what was going on. He had to get back and warn her. But he’d just wasted a piece of gold and couldn’t leave without asking.
“The Snow Witch,” he said, as he pulled the cloaks from the roof beam. “Do you know where she lives?”
“Oh, east and east and north a-ways,” the domovoi said. “Look out behind you.”
Daniel spun. A dark shape was heaving out of the wall, long fingers stretching towards him. He yelped and ran. Em was at the door of the other hut already.
“What the hell is—?”
“Just run,” Daniel shouted, pulling her onto the path. And when she turned in the direction they had come from that morning, he said, “No, too dangerous. Go south, just for now.”
They ran across the sodden field, an army of shadows pouring from the village to chase them. Daniel’s heart pounded like a jackhammer in his chest. His feet skidded on the muddy ground, but he clung tight with his toes and kept running, Em two feet behind him shouting for explanations.
The woods beckoned, towering trees which bent in the wind and showered hours-ago raindrops on them. He glanced over his shoulder. The horde of revenants slowed when they saw the woods, frightened by dull remembrances of life and the enemy who had stolen from the woods to end it.
“Straight into the trees, Em,” he called. “They’re too scared to follow us in there.”
“Should we be scared too?”
“Probably.” His feet pounded across the field, until finally he reached the sanctuary of the woods. Em was a half-second behind him. They kept running, disappearing into the trees, until finally Daniel felt they had lost their pursuers. He bent over, holding his knees, panting.
“What…the hell…just happened?” asked Em between gasps of breath.
Daniel waited until his breath returned to him. “Revenants,” he said.
“Explain revenants.”
“Like a cross between a ghost and a vampire,” Daniel said. “They don’t steal blood, they steal life. They po
ssess you and drain you.”
“And how did we come to have an army of revenants on our tails?”
“The domovoi. The house spirit where I was hanging out the cloaks. He demanded gold and thought I wasn’t going to pay. He called them.”
“So you’ve used one of our pieces of gold. Did you get anything useful out of him? About the Snow Witch.”
Daniel smiled weakly. “East and east and north a-ways.”
Em groaned. “Shit!” She kicked a log, then sat on it. “At least it’s stopped raining.”
Daniel leaned his back against a tree. “The domovoi said something else, Em. It’s really troubling me.”
“Go on.”
“In Russian folklore, everyone has their own death. They are fated to die a certain way: illness or old age usually, or unavoidable accidents. When someone dies very unexpectedly, through a series of awful coincidences, say, or because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, they are said to have died a death not-their-own. You follow?”
“Yes. Why is this bothering you now?”
“If you die a death not-your-own, you’re doomed to wander revenant until the date of your own death. But here in Skazki, your own death can never find you. So you won’t die of old age. I guess you could even live forever if you could avoid the hostile creatures. But if you do die, there’s no rest-in-peace…” Daniel trailed off, so horrified by the idea that he couldn’t give words to it.
“I see,” Em said. “What you’re saying is that this is a place where ‘a fate worse than death’ is more than a B-movie cliché.”
“That’s right.”
She was quiet for a long time, and Daniel turned his face up to the sky to watch clouds blow away and the distant stars shine through.
“Daniel?” she said, and he didn’t like the note of panic in her voice.
He turned to see that she was searching around them with frantic eyes.
“What is it?”
“Did you bring the food?”
“The food was with you.”
“I thought you had it. You had the packs.”
“I had one, yours.” He braced himself. “You didn’t bring the other? It was at the end of the bed.”
“I didn’t see it,” she said, softly. “I left it behind.”
