Page 10 of The Bone Doll
He saw it happen.
The path beneath Syra’s feet collapsed in a rush of slush and water. Syra buckled and tumbled into the quicksand below. His heart in his throat, he clambered in and reached for her. The quicksand snatched his legs; and Viktor floundered. Fetid gas bubbled up around them, busting with sickening fumes. Gagging, Viktor grabbed Syra’s arms and pulled. But it only made him sink deeper in.
She shoved him away. Wrenching her belt knife from the mud, she hacked at her pack’s straps until the pack snapped free and sunk beneath the quicksand. Then, half-crawling, half-swimming, she dragged herself back to the narrow strip of road.
“Get on your belly.” Her voice was hoarse, her face flushed. “Make yourself flat, wide. You have to float.”
Lowering himself into the mud and spreading his limbs, Viktor did as she instructed. Then, carefully, he wriggled forward on the fetid surface. When he was close enough, Syra grabbed his pack and hauled him onto higher ground.
On his hands and knees, covered in mud, Viktor gasped for air. Syra stared down at him as though he were nothing more than a snake she had encountered on the road. He lowered his head. He wanted to hide. One wrong turn and he had nearly gotten them killed. And jumping in after her had done absolutelynothing.Shehad savedhim. So much for being a capable traveling companion.
He dropped his gaze. “Thank you.”
Though he knew that Syra dealt in silence, he still expected her to yell, to scold, to mock. His father, his mother, his tutors, and even the few people he considered friends used their words to cut him when he made a fool of himself like this.
But Syra said nothing, simply turning back to the path and walking on. Trying futilely to shake the mud off his clothes, Viktor stood and then followed her. And if he couldn’t be more miserable, a breeze descended from the north, making his damp clothes heavy and cold. He let her lead for now so she couldn’t see him. This was always what happened when he tried to be heroic.
His boots sloshing along the waterlogged path, Viktor remembered being the age of six or seven and watching the older boys training with an obstacle course, under the armsmaster’s dictatorial eye. Viktor had wanted to be a great warrior like the knights in his fairytales; and so he brashly entered the obstacle course one night after training. He ended up falling from a rolling log and broke both legs. He was only discovered by the armsmaster the next morning. The arms master had ridiculed him for thinking he – a “little boy” – could finish an obstacle course that challenged battle-hardened soldiers. And Viktor’s father had beaten him raw, broken bones and all, for being such an embarrassment.
He never had walked quite right since, though he did his best to hide it.
Viktor scrubbed at his face, the dried mud turning to grit beneath his palm. He wished Syra would saysomething. The worst insult couldn’t be as bad as this disappointed silence. But she wasn’t like anyone else he had ever known. Faced with his utter insufficiency, she simply ignored him. Which onlyreminded Viktor more clearly how he had tried to impress her, but insteadshehad to drag him out of a mess of his own making.
Turning towards Syra, Viktor opened his mouth to speak and then stopped. What use were words when he could have gotten her killed?
Chapter 7
Cherry Trees
Bereza had seemed very much like a Ruthenian version of a Sarnok campsite – a cluster of families living in small homes, made from rushes and sticks rather than reindeer skin. But Syra couldn’t quite wrap her mind around this Ruthenian town. Yes, the homes were small, but they were made from stone – not portable in the slightest. And the roads were tiled, making Syra feel as though she was walking on a floating platform.
“This is Vishnaya. It’s named after the cherry trees.” Viktor pointed at one of the many trees lining the roads. It bloomedpink, not green. “I stayed at the Bloom and Bramble Inn when I was here last. It has decent accommodations.”
Following him down a different road, Syra scowled at the strange trees and then at the market stalls lining the road. Was this what Ruthenia looked like – pink trees, stone buildings, and streets crammed with merchants? It felt like a totally different world from the one she lived it.
“This is it,” he announced.
Syra said nothing as she stepped inside the establishment. Viktor did seem to enjoy the sound of his own voice. His voice wasn’t unpleasant. But it was odd that he would talk, even if she didn’t respond.
Inside were several long wooden tables and accompanying benches, where Ruthenians sat drinking, eating,and gambling. Syra felt their gazes turn to her and a flicker of frustration lit in her chest. She probably looked like some frightening mud creature after thrashing around in that quicksand. Viktor certainly did.
As Viktor spoke with the innkeeper, Syra reached inside her coat and wrapped her fingers around the Bone Doll. It was warm to the touch, like a living thing. After the death of her grandfather last summer, it had become a curse, luring children and reindeer away. A painful, prickling chill crawled up her spine. Had it led Viktor down the wrong path? They could have died.
When he was finished talking to the proprietor, Viktor turned to her with that stiff smile that Syra found unsettling. “We have two rooms across the hall from each other on the second floor.”
She didn’t know what rooms at an inn looked like – she had spent her entire life in her family’smya– but she said, “A covered place to sleep will be nice.”
His smile grew more brittle. “Vishnaya also has abanya, just behind the inn. We’ll both feel better once we get this mud off us.”
And so, Syra left the Bloom and Bramble to find thebanyajust west of the inn. Unlike Bereza’s, this one was indoors and resembled all the other buildings in town – a stone structure with a tiled roof. And on one end was a door with a painting of a woman, the other end had a matching painting of a man. Taking the door with the woman, Syra entered, stripped in the front room, and then moved deeper into the dimly-litbanya. The second room was dark and full of steam, with brightly-burning coals sitting in the center of a room. Dark shadows – other women – moved from time to time, splashing water onto the coals and creating a thicker mist. Finding a bench along the wall, Syra listened to the women talk and laugh amongst themselves.She poured warm water along her limbs and scrubbed them with the birch branches left in every corner. And slowly, the tension in her muscles eased and she relaxed against the stone wall, her eyes slipping closed. For a moment, she pretended she was in the dark warmth of hermya, her siblings whispering around her.
Then, somewhere to her right, a woman with a deep voice said something about “the newcomer with the red hair.”
“I wonder if he’s redall the way down,” said another.
“Mm, it would be delicious to find out,” the deep-voiced woman replied.
Syra pressed her back against the stone wall, an unfamiliar feeling snaking through her chest. Viktor was… Well, she had never seen a man with orange hair before. And his amber eyes were always bright, like a bird of prey’s. Neither orange hair or amber eyes seemed particularly rare in Ruthenia, but she guessed that these women weren’t the first who had been interested in Viktor.
