The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy 1)

Vasya laid a hand on his head and crept to the door. In winter, nothing smells of rot outdoors, but on the threshold, she caught a whiff of decay that turned her empty stomach. There came a flare of burning cold where the jewel lay over her breastbone. She made a low sound of pain. Wake Alyosha? Wake the house? But what was it? The domovoi says he will not let it in.

I will go and see, Vasya thought. I am not afraid. She slipped out the kitchen door.

“No,” breathed Dunya from the oven. “Vasya, no.” She turned her head a little. “Save her,” she whispered to the empty air. “Save her, and I care not if your brother comes for me.”

WHATEVER IT WAS, IT stank like nothing else: death and pestilence and hot metal. Vasya followed the track of the dragging footsteps. There—a quick movement, in the shadow of the house. She saw a thing like a woman, hunched down small, wearing a white wrapper that trailed in the snow. It moved crabwise, as though it had too many joints.

Vasya gathered her courage and crept nearer. The thing darted from window to window, pausing at each, sometimes reaching out a flinching hand, never touching the sill. But at the last window—that of the priest—it went taut. Its eyes gleamed red.

Vasya ran forward. The domovoi said it could not get in. But a swipe of a bloodless fist ripped the ice from its mooring in the window-frame. Vasya saw a flash of gray skin in the moonlight. The trailing white garment was a winding-sheet, and the creature was naked beneath.

Dead, Vasya thought. That thing is dead.

The grayish, weeping hands seized the high sill of Konstantin’s window, and it—she, for Vasya caught a glimpse of long, matted hair—flung itself into the room. Vasya paused beneath the window, then followed the thing up and over. She pulled herself through with brute strength. It was pitch-black inside. The thing crouched, snarling, over a thrashing figure on the bed.

The shadows on the wall seemed to swell, as though they would burst out of the wood. Vasya thought she heard a voice. The girl! Leave him—he’s mine already. Take the girl, take her…

A pain in her breastbone goaded her; the jewel was burning with a fiery cold. Without thinking, Vasya raised a hand and shouted. The creature on the bed whirled, face black with blood.

Take her! snarled the shadow-voice again. The dead thing’s white teeth caught the moonlight as it gathered itself to spring.

Suddenly Vasya realized that there was someone else beside her—not a dead woman nor a voice made of shadows, but a man in a dark cloak. She could not see his face in the darkness. Whoever this other was, he seized her hand and dug his fingers into her palm. Vasya swallowed a cry.

You are dead, said the newcomer to the creature. And I am still master. Go. His voice was like snow at midnight.

The dead thing on the bed cowered back, wailing. The shadows on the wall seemed to rise up in clamorous fury, growling, No, ignore him; he is nothing. I am master. Take her, take—

Vasya felt the skin of her hand split and blood drip to the floor. She knew a fierce exultation. “Go,” she said to the dead thing, as though she had always known the words. “By my blood you are barred from this place.” She curled her hand round the hand that held hers, felt it slick with her blood. For an instant the other hand felt real, cold and hard. She shuddered and turned to look, but there was no one there.

The shadows on the wall seemed suddenly to shrink, quivering, crying out, and the dead creature’s lips writhed back over long, thin teeth. It shrieked at Vasya, turned, and made for the window. It gained the sill, dropped into the snow, and bounded for the woods, faster than a running horse, the tangled, filthy hair streaming out behind.

Vasya did not see it go. She was already at the bed, pulling away the filthy blankets, looking for the wound on the priest’s naked throat.

THE VOICE OF GOD had not spoken to Konstantin Nikonovich that evening. The priest had prayed alone, hour after hour. But his thoughts would not settle on the well-worn words. Vasilisa is wrong, Konstantin had thought. What is a little fear if it saves their souls?

He’d almost gone back to the kitchen to tell her so. But he was weary and stayed in his room, kneeling, even after it grew too dark to see the peeling gold on the icon.

Just before moonrise, he went to bed and dreamed.

In his dream, the gentle-eyed virgin stepped down from her wooden panel. An unearthly light was in her face. She smiled. More than anything, he wanted to feel her hand on his face, to have her blessing. She bent over him, but it was not her hand he felt. Her mouth grazed his forehead, touched his eyes. Then she put a finger under his chin, and her mouth found his. She kissed him again and again. Even dreaming, shame warred with desire; feebly, he tried to push her away. But the blue robes were heavy; her body was like a coal against his. At last he yielded, turning his face to hers with a groan of despair. She smiled against his mouth, as though his anguish pleased her. Her mouth darted down to his throat with the speed of a stooping hawk.

Then she shrieked and Konstantin jerked awake, pinned beneath a quivering weight.

The priest took a full breath and gagged. The woman hissed and rolled off him. He caught a glimpse of matted hair that half-hid eyes like rubies. The creature made for the window. He saw two other figures in his room, one limned in blue, the other dark. The blue shape reached for him. Weakly, Konstantin groped for the cross about his neck. But the blue-lit face was Vasilisa Petrovna’s: an icon in itself, all hard angles and huge eyes. Their eyes met for a moment, his wide with shock, and then her hands went to his throat and he fainted.

HE WAS NOT HURT; his throat and arm and breast were unmarked. So much Vasya felt, groping in the dark, and then a hammering came on the door. Vasya sprang for the window and half-fell into the dvor. The moon shone over the snowy yard. She dropped to earth and crouched in the shadow of the house, shaking with cold and the aftermath of terror.

She heard men burst into the room and pull up short. Clinging with both hands, Vasya was just tall enough to peer over Konstantin’s sill. The room stank of decay. The priest sat bolt upright, clutching his neck. Vasya’s father stood over him holding a lantern.

“Are you all right, Batyushka?” Pyotr said. “We heard a cry.”

“Yes,” replied Konstantin, faltering, wild-eyed. “Yes, forgive me. I must have cried out in my sleep.” The men in the doorway looked at each other. “The ice broke,” said Konstantin. He climbed out of bed and staggered as he found his feet. “The cold gave me bad dreams.”

Vasya ducked hastily as their pale faces turned toward her hiding-place. She crouched in the shadow of the house beneath the window, trying not to breathe.

She heard her father grunt and stride across to the broken casement, where the whole block of ice had fallen away. The shadow of his head and shoulders fell over her as he leaned warily into the dvor. Blessedly, he did not look down. Nothing moved in the dooryard. Then Pyotr drew the shutters closed and placed a wedge between.

But Vasya did not hear it. The instant the shutters closed, she was sprinting silently for the winter kitchen.

THE KITCHEN WAS WARM and dark, womblike. Vasya slipped softly through the door. She ached in every limb.

“Vasya?” Alyosha said.

Vasya clambered atop the oven. Alyosha knelt up beside her. “It’s all right, Dunya,” said Vasya, taking her nurse’s hands. “You will be all right now. We are safe.”