Rosa and the Veil of Gold (16 page)

“And you really do remember it?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I think that’s really unusual. Remembering something from that far back.”

“Perhaps it stood out because I got in so much trouble from my father.” She brushed a raindrop off her nose and huddled closer under the moleskin. “Your turn.”

“I remember the night when I was moved from a cot to a bed,” he said. “The bed was directly under a window and the tip of a tree branch brushed the pane. It scraped on the glass all night, and I was terrified, but my nanny would come in and say I was just to go to sleep and to stop crying. I couldn’t express what was wrong, I was only two.”

“Why do you think you were afraid?” she asked.

“Because it sounded like the branch was knocking, trying to get in.”

“But trees are inanimate objects.”

“I know that. Now. Kids have all kinds of crazy ideas.”

Em was about to say, “I didn’t,” but stopped herself.

Daniel filled the silence. “You’d know that. You have a little boy. Wasn’t he ever afraid of anything irrational?”

Em kept her tone carefully guarded. “I didn’t stay long enough to know that,” she said, and was aware that it sounded cold. “He was only a few months old when I left.”

“Oh.”

“I know that makes me sound like a bad mother.”

“I’m sure you had your reasons.”

So many reasons. Impossible for anyone else to understand. “Yes, I did.”

“What were they?” he asked bravely.

She considered him. The firelight reflected amber on his skin. He hadn’t met her eye and she was struck by the softness of his face, the boyishness. Should she answer his question? And if yes, how? Could one actually start an explanation with “I’m not like everybody else”?

“I’m sorry,” Daniel said. “Where are my manners?”

“I don’t think we need to worry about manners under the circumstances,” she said. “There are plenty of other things to worry about.”

“Still, it was rude—”

“I’d like to try to explain,” she said. “Do you have any nieces or nephews?”

“I have one nephew. My oldest brother’s son.”

“Do you see him often?”

Daniel shrugged. “Christmas. Maybe once or twice during the year.”

“How old is he?”

“I think he’s eight now. Maybe seven.”

“You love him?”

“I…well, I suppose so. He’s a nice little kid.”

“Of course. You’d be really upset if something bad happened to him. Like if he got sick, or if he died, or even if his parents split up. You wouldn’t like that.”

“No.”

“But you don’t feel any burning desire to see him. You never sit there and feel an ache in your heart that makes you want to put your arms around him and hold him tight.”

“No. I can’t say I do.”

“That’s how I feel about my son.” And that was the best she could do, because to explain why she had even had the boy in the first place was too complicated.

Daniel was nodding in sympathy, but she could tell he didn’t really understand.

“So, when this little baby came along, and I liked him well enough but that was all, and he was so dependent on me, and took up every second of my day and most of my nights…I got quite resentful. I thought it was best for both of us if I got out.”

“I suppose that was very brave of you.”

Em stared at the fire for a few moments, thinking about this. “Not brave. Just practical.” She shifted uncomfortably on the damp fur, determined to change the subject. “I really hope this rain eases overnight.”

“At least we’ll sleep well,” Daniel said. “The walking tires me out. I feel jetlagged.”

“How would you know? You don’t fly,” she teased.

He slumped forward gently. “If I did, we wouldn’t be here.”

“If I wasn’t so bossy we wouldn’t be here either,” she said, “but it’s too late for all that now.”

Daniel slept, and then Em, despite the rain which continued all through the night. In the grey morning, their spirits low, they decided to move on.

“The rain could last a week,” said Daniel. “We could have found the Snow Witch and been home by then.”

So they packed up and moved again, limbs leaden with weariness and misery. The clouds hung low and darkened to a cruel blue-black, a wind whipped up and the path became obscured. Following their instincts, they kept heading north-east, into another thick wood which was dank and muddy and as dark as night-time. It wasn’t possible to tell when the sun had set, as they hadn’t even seen it rise. They battled with rough ground, ridges and falls. When exhaustion overcame them, they stopped and camped again, took turns catching a few hours’ sleep and prepared to do it all again on the equally dismal next day.

As she trudged up a rocky slope in the woods, the rain
thundering on the canopy of leaves above her, Em realised that the weather was a far greater threat to them than any supernatural monsters. The moleskin barely kept the moisture off their clothes, and they had used the last of their dry firewood the previous night. Tonight, unless the rain stopped or they found good shelter, they would start to freeze. Already her feet were numb with cold, which was useful as they didn’t register the pain of continued walking.

She wasn’t afraid of dying, but she was afraid of dying horribly. Wandering, cold and starving in sodden woods far from home, was about as horrible as she could imagine.

“We have to find shelter today,” Em said.

“I know,” Daniel replied. He had already grown used to the proximity that sharing the moleskin forced upon them. Their elbows and forearms bumped and he no longer shrank back into himself and muttered apologies. “If we don’t—”

“Let’s not think about it.”

On they went, finding another path and following it despite the fact that it was loose and muddy. They didn’t stop for a break; they were already moving so slowly it didn’t seem prudent. The path wound upwards, and Em’s thighs ached from pushing herself up the incline. Then downwards, and her calves ached from the effort of clenching her feet to the ground so she didn’t slip. Up and down the path went, steep and sudden, and Em felt like a zombie, shuffling desperately along in the deluge, dead-eyed and lost.

Until her right foot missed its place on a steep decline, and she felt herself falling.

Down, slamming into the ground and mud.

“Em!” Daniel called behind her.

The slippery ground carried her, turning her and rolling her down the slope. Her hands went out to find purchase anywhere, but everything was sodden. She kept sliding, rain drenched her, rocks thumped her arms and back.

And finally she landed, feet in some stinking mess off the side of the path.

Daniel’s footsteps behind her, cautious but quick. She took a breath, wondered if she’d broken a rib.

“Are you all right?” he called.

The stupid questions people asked! “Of course not,” she snapped. “At the very least I’ll be covered in bruises.” She sat up, peered at the blackened mess her feet had found, and recoiled with a horrified gasp.

“What is it?”

“Body.”

Daniel was with her then, helping her to her feet. He glanced at the body and then quickly turned his head. “What is it? Human or animal?”

Em leaned over it, holding her breath against the smell, which even two days of rain hadn’t erased. “Human. As to male, female, black or white, impossible to tell. It’s been skinned.”

Daniel held his stomach and bent over.

“Don’t throw up,” she said. “We don’t have much food.”

But he threw up anyway, and Em waited patiently, poking at sore spots on her arms and ribs to see if they were bruises or fractures. She was pleased to note that she was still intact.

Daniel turned to her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Rain poured down.

“Where’s the moleskin?” she asked.

“I dropped it back on the slope in my hurry to get down here.”

“You go back and get it.”

“We’re going to keep walking?”

“What’s the option?”

“Sitting here and waiting to die.”

“I sincerely hope you’re joking,” she said. “Go and get the moleskin.”

He left her in the shadowy dip in the path, and she picked up a stick and bent close to examine the body. The flesh was black, and bones poked through here and there. Wolves had been at its feet and ribs. Em reassessed her earlier opinion about horrible deaths. Being skinned alive was certainly worse than dying of exposure.

“I really don’t want this to happen to us,” she said to Daniel when he returned with the moleskin. “We must get out of these woods by nightfall.”

Daniel wiped rain out of his eyes. “I keep hoping I’ll wake up and find this is a dream.”

She pinched his arm. “Let’s move.”

The path dipped down a little further, then rose again.

“Why would somebody want human skin?” she asked. “Why leave the body?”

“Dead candles,” Daniel said. “Very powerful magic. Tallow candles made with human fat.”

“Well, then, a couple more days on rationed food and hard labour, and we won’t be worth hunting,” Em said darkly.

The path narrowed onto the top of a ridge and they were silent as they walked up the slope. Then Em looked to her right and, through the trees, could see a grassy valley below.

“Daniel,” she said urgently.

“I see it.”

A dozen little wooden houses, huddled together. Not pretty painted cottages, but raw wood huts with long sloping roofs.

“Shelter,” Daniel said, cautiously.

“Yes,” said Em. “We’re saved.”

They cut from the path and headed directly for the valley. The trees had been cleared, and long grass had grown up. It was apparent immediately that the tiny village had long been abandoned. Most of the roofs had fallen in, the walls were sagging and eaten by the elements. The furthest hut was little more than a log skeleton, with grass growing where its floor should have been.

“We just need to find one that’s dry inside,” Em said, cracking open a door and peering in.

Daniel joined her. He could see daylight through the roof. “Not this one.”

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?”