Enchantment (28 page)

“Turn it on, foolish boy,” said Sophia.

Ivan obeyed.

Katerina turned to him, her eyes full of wonder and consternation. “Why did you not do this in Taina, if you had this power?”

“I told you,” said Ivan, “it’s not
my
power. It’s a tool.” He showed her the switch, made her touch it, then turn the light off and on again.

“So the magic is here on the wall, for anyone to use,” she said. “Who ever heard of witches sharing their power so readily?”

Ivan might have tried to explain more, though he was acutely aware of Sophia watching them, her eyes sharp with curiosity; but the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Cousin Marek, freshly bathed after the day’s work. “Vanya, you young fool, do you know how worried Sophia and I have been these three days since you went off in the woods and didn’t come home?”

So it was only three days that he was gone?

He might have pondered more about the differing flow of time between Taina and the modern world, but he was distracted by Katerina. For upon seeing Cousin Marek’s face, she sank to her knees and hid her face in her hands. “What’s wrong?” Ivan asked her.

“You have brought me to the land of the gods,” she said. “Are you a god yourself?”

“Gods?” asked Ivan. “What do you mean?”

“Does Jesus live here, too,” she asked, “or is there another land where Christ and Mary live?”

“This is my cousin Marek,” Ivan said. “He has a big voice and a big heart, and he’s strong as an ox, but that doesn’t make a god of him.”

She looked at him as if he were an idiot. “You are his cousin? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Ivan looked from Marek to Sophia. “She’s saying that she thinks Cousin Marek is a god. I have no idea why she—”

But neither Marek nor Sophia was looking at Ivan or listening to his explanation. Instead they were looking at each other, with a very serious look on their faces. Without letting her gaze leave her husband’s face, Sophia said, “Where did you find this girl, Vanya?”

“Lying asleep on a stone in the woods,” Ivan said, not sure whether this was a good moment to tell the whole story.

“What’s your name, child?” Cousin Marek asked Katerina. It took a moment for Ivan to realize that he was speaking to her in fluent, unaccented proto-Slavonic.

“Katerina,” she said. “Daughter of King Matfei of Taina.”

“Taina,” said Marek. His face grew wistful. “I loved that place. But I stayed away too long.” He took a step toward Katerina, reached out a hand to her. She took it, let him raise her up. “Matfei had a daughter. I saw her last when she was two years old, clinging to her father’s leg when she met me. But she let go of him, and did me a courtesy such as the one you offer now, and I raised her up like this.”

“I was the little girl,” said Katerina. “I remember. My earliest memory, the sight of you. When you reached out to me, I stopped being afraid.”

“Of course,” said Marek. “I didn’t want you to be afraid of me. I’m no enemy to such a one as you, Princess.”

Ivan could hardly grasp what they were saying. “You’ve met each other? You knew her as a child?” Ivan laughed. “She was a child a thousand years ago, Cousin Marek.”

At his words, Marek again looked at Sophia; one of them was asking something with a look, and the other answering, but Ivan had no idea what the question was, or who was questioning.

It was Katerina who answered him, after his words hung unanswered through a long silence. “Ivan, is it possible that you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“You call him Cousin Marek,” she said, “but in Taina every child knows his name.” She turned to face Marek. “Mikola Mozhaiski,” she said. “You said you were my father’s friend. Where were you when he needed you? And now you live where his house used to be, and he is gone, and the whole village, and only I am here.” She burst into tears.

Ivan moved to comfort her, but Sophia was nearer and quicker. So Ivan watched as Cousin Marek strode to Sophia and also put his arms around the weeping girl. Ivan saw that, and yet he also saw quite another thing: He saw Mikola Mozhaiski, protector of sailors, ancient but unforgotten god, enfold the enchanted princess of Taina in his arms. It was the stuff of great legends; it was a charming farmhouse scene.

One thing was obvious: When Ivan told Katerina that there was no magic in his world, he had no idea what he was talking about.

Esther had never been much for reading, especially in English, a language which could not be spelled correctly even if you managed to remember that when you see
R
it means
P
and not ,
P
means P(pi),
B
means 6,
C
sometimes means
K
, and never mind about
Y
and
H
and
N
. Hopeless. But she had to do something to pass the time. Piotr didn’t want her to interrupt him; he didn’t take it seriously, her worry about Vanya. “If something was wrong, you think Cousin Marek wouldn’t call us?”

She had no answer for that. Cousin Marek should have called. The fact that he hadn’t meant that he thought everything was all right. Certainly Esther knew that Vanya was alive, wherever he was. She would bide her time.

But how was time supposed to be bided, when every moment was filled with urgency for which there was no action? So she opened books and magazines. She looked at the faces in
People
and didn’t recognize anybody, even though she had known all the faces only last week. It was as if all the time she had been in America was a mistake. If she had stayed in Kiev, then Vanya would not have been without her, she might have been able to follow him into this place, whatever it was.

Can’t think about that. Close
American Heritage
and open
National Geographic
. More pictures of people who mean nothing to her. Find a book on the shelf. One in Cyrillic this time. The letters string across the page like kites, bobbing here and there in random patterns. Very pretty. Close the book, find another. Hebrew. Dots like measles surrounding the letters. Nothing held her.

She got up and went outside, touched the basin where it sat on its pedestal, already covered with the dander of the sky—dust, a feather, tiny twigs, several leaves, and dead insects, enough to portend a massacre if she were doing omens, which she was definitely not, there was nothing to read in this thing. She tipped the bowl to spill a little, then picked it up and dashed the fouled water onto the lawn. Then she put the basin back onto its pedestal and looked down into the blackness. A few insect bodies clung to the inner surface; one was alive, beginning to dry out, moving a frail wing. She thought of crushing it to vent her fury. Instead she blew lightly, drying it faster. In moments, it began to crawl along the basin. Then it flew, or rather staggered, into the air. Some bird would eat the sluggish thing before too long. It had survived the basin only to die in the air. There was no tragedy in that, only cliché. Each day every man and woman and child on earth either died or didn’t, and if they didn’t, then they’d die another day.

Yet it made all the difference to her, if it was her husband or her child. For that moment’s flight out of the basin, she would give her life.

Or take someone else’s. That, too, in case anyone cared. If once she got Vanya safely home again, then whatever enchanter wanted him would have to reckon with her. After leaving Kiev, she had thought never to use the wardings and curses that she learned from Baba Tila, for now there was no danger, no more KGB, no more gulag, no more fear of someone getting rousted in the night.

The trouble was, what Baba Tila taught her was for use against those with no such powers of their own. The old lady had said that Esther had a talent for it, that there must be some Hebrew magic of her own that she was adding to the spells. But would that be enough, if she had to have it out with an enemy who knew as much as Baba Tila, or more?

If only she knew who her enemy was.

O God of Israel, wilt thou not suffer a witch’s son to live? I’ve never called on Satan, or spoken to the dead like the cursed witch of Endor. I’ve sought to use this power for the good of good people, and if it’s a sin, then let the sin be upon my head, but not my child, not my son.

Can’t think like this. There’s no point in praying. I long since chose another road, consigned myself to Sheol, there’s no looking back from that, Baba Tila was plain about it, you can have what your grandmother had, but only if you choose what your grandmother chose.

Esther picked up the basin and started back to the house.

Then gasped and dropped the basin, caring not a bit if it chipped or broke, for she had felt him step back into the world, just as she had felt him go; as, before, she had lost the sense of him and felt desolation in its place, so now she felt the desolation leave her like a toothache suddenly cured. The world was right again. Vanya was in it.

Didst thou, O God, save him?

She hesitated before bending over to pick up the basin. If God did it, would he then see it as a repudiation of his gift, if she tried to save a tool of her witchery?

It might as easily be that God cares not at all whether I do spells or not, that the rabbis are all wrong about it, and . . .

And it might also be that God had nothing to do with it, that it was just the moment that it would have happened anyway, whether she prayed or not.

Indeed, over the past three days, when might it have happened that would not have been within an hour of a prayer?

She reached down; the sore place in her back pained her, but she felt no fresh pull of muscle, there was no new stab of pain. Her fingers went under the basin rim, for it had fallen facedown; when she pulled it up, torn grass came with it. Small deaths, for one life saved.

If I offend thee, O God, forgive me, but I know not whether it was thy hand that brought him back, or not, and if not, I can’t take the chance of giving up what small powers I have to protect my family. If thou wouldst have me cease this work, then speak, or show me by some simple sign, and I’ll obey, and trust in thee, O God of Israel.

She waited. She looked around her, searching for something that might have been sent from God to speak to her. She listened in her own mind, for the still small voice that Elijah heard. But all was silent, except for that sweet presence of Vanya in her heart.

Cousin Marek tried to be gentle in answering Katerina’s ques-tions, and when he grew impatient, Sophia shushed him, calmed him down. Finally the princess seemed to see that Mikola Mozhaiski was not omnipotent, like the Christians claimed their God to be, nor omniscient either, and he was away on business. In one of his testier moments, he snapped, “It wasn’t my job to look out for Taina, you know, it was your father’s. And yours!” But that set Katerina to crying again, and Sophia gave Cousin Marek such a look as would freeze the heart of a mortal man.

Ivan watched and listened, waiting with his own set of questions, but also ready for sleep. It had been a long day, full of surprise but also of disappointment. He had thought Katerina would need him in the modern world, but no, she comes straight to a place where everyone speaks proto-Slavonic better than Ivan. Well, maybe this would let Ivan off the hook. Now that Mikola Mozhaiski was in the picture, Ivan was free to move on. Deus ex machina. The god had just popped out of the sky—the second-story bedroom, actually—and he’d take care of the damsel in distress. Ivan’s whole purpose had been nothing more than to bring Katerina here. That was done. He was ready to sleep.

No sooner thought of than done. He woke to Sophia shaking his shoulder. “Wake up so you can sleep in your bed,” she said to him. “Poor boy, so many centuries, all in a few days.”

Sleepily he asked her, as he might have in a dream, “Are you a goddess?”

“Oh my no,” she said. “Immortal by association.”

It sounded like a dream answer, too. But then she tousled his hair and he decided he was awake after all. Katerina and Cousin Marek were gone. Well, of course. Maybe they already went back to Taina. Ivan was too tired to care. He walked up the stairs to his room and barely remembered to take his shoes and pants off before sliding under the covers.

My wedding night, he thought. You lucky bridegroom, you. Got away from the people who wanted you dead, didn’t you? Greedy to wish for more.

In the morning, though, waking at first light of dawn, he had a different attitude. He’d been jerked around by fate, and every decent impulse had led him into ever deeper trouble. Now the game had finally moved to the part of the field where the referees were standing around having coffee. Time to get them back on the job. Put Baba Yaga in her place, get this marriage annulled, send Katerina back home, and let me get on the plane to America. I’ve got a dissertation to write, parents who miss me, and a wedding—a real one this time, with a bride who doesn’t think I’m a geek.

When he came downstairs, Katerina was learning the workings of a modern stove—well, what passed for one in rural Ukraine. She was wearing an old dress of Sophia’s—a very old one, apparently, because, though it fit her loosely, it wasn’t as voluminous as it ought to be. Sophia greeted Ivan with a cheery smile, but Katerina didn’t look up. True, she was involved with the complicated business of cooking, which was pretty unfamiliar to her even without the modern conveniences. But to Ivan, it was just one more reminder that she was no wife of his, and never would be.

“Where’s Cousin Marek?” asked Ivan.

Thoughtlessly, he had spoken in modern Ukrainian, but the question wasn’t hard to grasp for Katerina, and before Sophia could answer, she laughed rather nastily and said, “You still call him that?”

Ivan didn’t want a fight with her, though he thought it might have been more appropriate if she had remembered just a little of how she clung to him yesterday as the truck passed by.

“Don’t be annoyed, Vanya,” said Sophia—could she read his mind? “The princess is angry with my husband, not with you.”

“What good does it do to be angry with an immortal?” asked Katerina.

“None at all,” said Sophia cheerfully. “But there’s no accounting for tempers. I’m surprised you slept through all the shouting last night, Vanya.”