She stood perfectly still. If she moved, if she made a sound, she would flee, scream, go mad with memory, or the impossibility of this darkness, with Moscow nowhere in sight. What was real? This? Her horse dead, her life saved by magic? She shuddered, fell to her knees, pressing her hands into the icy, wet earth. Trying to understand was like grasping at rain. For a long time, all she could do was breathe, and feel her hands on the ground.
Then, with a terrible effort, she raised her head. The words came slowly. “Where am I?”
The demon let out a little sigh. “And in your right mind, too.” She sounded faintly surprised. “This is my realm. The country called Midnight.” The curve of her mouth was cold. “I bid you welcome.”
Vasya tried to slow her breathing. “Where is Moscow?”
“Who knows?” said Polunochnitsa. She slid from the limb of her tree, fell lightly to earth. “Not nearby. My realm is not made up of days or seasons, but of midnights. You can cross the world in an instant, so long as it is midnight where you are going. Or, more likely, you can die trying, or go mad.”
“I was told,” Vasya said thickly, remembering, “that I must find a lake. With an oak-tree growing on the shore.”
Polunochnitsa lifted a pale brow. “Which lake? My realm contains enough lakes to keep you searching for a thousand lives of men.”
Search? Vasya could barely stand. “Will you help me?”
The black horse flicked his ears.
“Help you?” answered Midnight. “I did help you. I have made you free of my realm. I even kept you here just now while you lay insensible. Must I do more?” Polunochnitsa’s hair fell like cold rain
over the darkness of her skin. “You were discourteous at our last meeting.”
“Please,” said Vasya.
Midnight half-smiled and came closer still, whispered her answer as though it were a secret. “No,” she said. “Find it yourself. Or die here, die now. I will tell the old woman. She might even mourn, though I doubt it.”
“Old woman?” said Vasya. The darkness seemed to press around her, horribly. “Please,” she said again.
“I do not forget insults, Vasilisa Petrovna,” said Lady Midnight, and turned away, laid a hand on the withers of the black horse. Then she was astride, wheeling, gone into the trees without a backward glance.
Vasya was alone in the darkness.
SHE COULD LIE DOWN in the leaf-litter and wait for dawn. But how could there be dawn in a country made of midnights? She could walk, though her legs shook when she stood. But where was she to go? She wore only Varvara’s cloak and the bloody, reeking remains of her shift. Her feet were bare and torn. It hurt to draw breath, and she was shivering. This night was a little warmer than the night near Moscow, but not much.
Had she come through fire, defied the Bear, escaped Moscow by magic only to die in the darkness? Go to the lake, Varvara had said.
You will be safe there. The lake with an oak-tree growing at itsshore.
Well, if Varvara had thought she could find it, then perhaps she had a chance. Probably Varvara had thought Midnight would help her, as Vasya had no idea of direction. But at least she would die on her feet, in search of sanctuary. Gathering the last of her strength, Vasya walked into the darkness.
SHE DID NOT KNOW how long she walked. Beyond the uttermost end of her strength, yet still she stumbled on. The light never changed; the sun never rose. Vasya began to be desperate for light. Her feet left bloody footprints.
Polunochnitsa had spoken true. This was a country made of midnights. Vasya could not discern a pattern among them. One moment, she was walking on cold dead grass, with a half-moon overhead. Then she passed into tree-shadow and found with a cold shock that the moon had disappeared and muddy earth squelched under her feet. It was always early spring, more or less, but the place changed every few steps: a mad, patchwork country.
I am still here, Vasya told herself, over and over. I am still myself.
I am still alive. Gripping hard to that thought, she walked on. Wolves cried in the distance, and she lifted her head to hear them; then the wind struck like icy water on her face. She saw new lights—firelights
—on a hill in the distance, hurried toward them, only to have them vanish. Then she was walking under pale birch trees, white as dead fingers, beneath a scarlet moon.
It was like walking through a nightmare; she could not orient herself, did not know north from south. On she stumbled, gritting her teeth, but now the earth was sucking at her feet and she found that she had fallen into a bog. Mud everywhere; she could not muster the strength to break its grip. Tears of purest exhaustion leaked from her eyes.
Let go, she thought. Enough; let go. At least here there will be no mob laughing when I go to God.
The black, sucking mud of the bog seemed to agree, gurgling.
There were wicked eyes, like green lamps, watching her from beneath the water. They belonged to a bolotnik, swamp-dweller, breathing out stinking plumes of marsh-gas. He could kill her
quickly, if she let him. He could pull her down into the frigid dark and she wouldn’t have to walk again on her torn feet, or breathe against her broken ribs, or remember the last two days.
But Marya, Vasya thought dimly. Marya is in Moscow, and my brother and sister, defenseless against the Bear.
And so? What could she do? Sasha and the Grand Prince could…
Could they? They could not see. They did not understand.
My brother has traded his freedom for your life, the Bear had said . The carved nightingale was in the sleeve of her shift. Her filthy, groping hand closed tight around the wooden creature and it seemed a little warmth crept into her chilled limbs.
Winter-king, why would you do such a terrible thing?
He had a reason. Morozko was no fool . Shouldn’t she find out why, rather than allow his bargain to go for nothing? But she was so tired.
Solovey would have said she was being foolish; he would have made her get on his back and carried her along steadily to wherever they were going, ears flicking cheerfully back and forth.
Hot tears spilled from her eyes. On a surge of rage she yanked herself from the mud, scrambled up the bank. In desperation she put a hand into the water, and spoke in her choked, smoke-damaged voice. “Grandfather,” she said to the lurking swamp-demon, “I am looking for a lake, with an oak-tree growing on the shore. Can you tell me where it is?”
