Page 47 of Tiger's Trek
The rocking chair began moving again. “Not just yet, Yuri. The kroshka needs me.”
“She’s fine. Put her down and obey me now.”
“But she just started to nurse.”
“Do I need to tell you again?”
“No, Yuri. It’s just that?—”
Heavy steps hit the floor right next to the spot where Nik was lying. His entire frame vibrated with each stride. He winced hearing the strike and knew it was a backhand to the cheek and that it had also disrupted the baby’s feeding. The newborn began screaming plaintively, and if there were more children in the home, they’d be cowering in corners or beneath their beds.
Though the entire scene was played out by invisible apparitions, Nik could almost see it clearly in his mind’s eye—that was how familiar he was with the characters. The mother immediately began shushing the babe, comforting her as best she could, and rose instantly, tucking her newborn in the bassinet before following her stomping husband out of the room. Nik could barely detect her footfalls on the floor.
He lay there listening to the pitiful cries of the ghostly babe as it soothed itself and eventually fell asleep. Then the entire house went silent. Nik, too, though terrified by what he’d heard, was also somehow soothed, just as the baby had been, by the mother’s obedience and the calm that came upon the home afterward, and he fell into a fitful sort of sleep.
Never in the many years since he’d lived on his own had he ever sank into the blissful, dream-filled sleep of the innocent. It wasn’t just that he knew he deserved the nightmare-plagued torpor he called slumber that filled his evening hours. It was that he’d long since trained his body to doze in small bursts, with eyes slit just a little open, like a cat. That way he could always remain alert, always be wary of predators. Though fatigue was a demon that constantly chased him, he’d rather be chased by exhaustion than some of his other monsters, and the habit had saved his life on more than one occasion. It was a problem both he and his tsarevna shared, and he relished the long talks they’d had when neither of them could find respite on the trail.
It did mean, however, that he took rest when he could. It wasn’t quite dawn when he was startled awake again by a scream, but this voice was different, younger. This time it came from outside. Nik heard the stomping of many feet headed down the hall, small as well as large. There was the telltale sound of a bed creaking in the far room and boots sliding onto stockinged feet.
“What’s going on out there?” the man he’d come to know as Yuri shouted as he stomped out the hall and toward the front door.
Nik peeked out into the front parlor. There was just enough morning light to see no one was in the room, but the front door of the home creaked open and remained that way as if waiting for Nik to come and see what had transpired.
Though he knew better, he was pulled toward the yawning opening. His stockinged feet left prints on the dusty floorboards. The early-morning air was frigid. He could see his own rapid breaths coming fast as he approached the door. Quickly, he scanned the courtyard, looking for anyone trying to play a trick, but his stomach and nerves told him this was no trick.
The fine hairs on his arms stood on end, and he felt a surge pass through him. It made him want to throw up. That’s when he saw the unmistakable imprint of boots appear on the dew-covered steps. The prints were large. Even larger than his father’s had been.
Swallowing, trying to muster his courage, Nik followed the invisible specter’s boot prints outside. In the predawn light, he spotted many other footprints, some made with shoes, some with bare feet. Most of them were obviously young children. They stopped at the trunk of a large tree, gathering in a cluster. He heard a soft sound that grew in volume and realized it was the keening of crying children.
A little voice said, “Why, Papa? Why did Mama do it?”
“Because she’s a coward. That’s why,” the ghost named Yuri answered brusquely.
He began mumbling to himself, and Nik saw the boot prints move as the ghost paced by the tree. Suddenly, they stopped. “We’ll burn her,” the man said. “Say she was sick, and we didn’t want to risk it spreading. Then we’ll bury her ashes in the church cemetery. The townsfolk’ll accept it. I’ll get a nursemaid up here to help for a while. Have to find another wife real quick. Give it a few months for mourning. That should do the trick.”
The boots stomped over to the group. “Not a word of her slit wrists to anyone. You older boys understand me? If I hear even a whisper about it, mark my words, ther’ll be hell ta pay.”
“Yes, Papa.”
Nik heard the cowed acceptance from at least a half dozen children, one of them holding a crying baby, perhaps the same one who’d cried itself to sleep the night before. The ghost father, Yuri, stomped toward him, and Nik froze, unable to move. He could almost feel the malice and hatred emanating from the specter. It passed through Nik again and disappeared into the house. The door slammed shut, and the little footprints by the tree, along with the children’s sobs, disappeared just as the sun broke through the forest.
This time Nik couldn’t stop it. His stomach heaved. Bending over, Nik vomited all over the steps and then began to cry.
Collapsing onto the steps next to his sticky puddle of rvoty, ribbons of phlegm streaming from the bottom of his lip and his nose, and tears raining down his cheeks, he felt and smelled like a wet bag of puke. He couldn’t even look at the tree, fearing he might see the mother there, her wrists red with her blood, the knife still in her hands, with her children looking on. He thought at least he’d spared his siblings the sight of their mother and the bloody knife that killed her.
He was sick with the thought that it could have been him standing there, holding the newborn babe, looking at his mother, knowing she was released from the grip of their father, but his life would go on, the terror would continue, and he would now bear the brunt of it alone. Yet was what he had done any better? He’d always told himself it was. That he’d released all of them. Only he was alive to suffer. To remember.
When his face was dry, with no more tears to shed, he pushed himself up and went behind the house, searching for the well. He found the old bucket easily enough, but the rope had long since rotted away. Picking up a rock, he tossed it into the well, and true to their word, it took a long time until Nik heard the plink of the stone into water.
Dropping the bucket, he went in search of the shed and had another ghostly encounter with the father who was punishing several children in a brutal manner. It was nothing Nik hadn’t experienced himself. This time he chose to ignore the ghosts, closing his ears to the screams of the children and the lash of the belt or horsewhip.
Finding a long cord and knowing it was probably used to tie up more than livestock, Nik headed back to the bucket and attached it to the handle, then dropped it in, hoping the cord was long enough to reach the water. It wasn’t. He had to go back to the shed three times to find more lengths of rope or cord to finally reach the bottom.
When he drew up the first bucket, the water was clean, which he supposed was good news. Nik couldn’t say the same thing about the bucket. It took three bucketfuls of water to clean both himself and the bucket before he was willing to drink from it. Finding a yoke in the shed as well as another bucket and a scrub brush, he went to work on the nursery first, cleaning the windows and floors until they sparkled.
Taking the rug out, he beat it for more than an hour until he couldn’t see any dust at all. He was surprised to see it wasn’t gray at all but a beautiful soft blue with small pink flowers. There were some small sections he had to spot clean and one corner that had been nibbled on by rodents, but there was nothing he could do about that.
The rocking chair and bassinet he took outside. After several buckets of water, he uncovered two hand-carved pieces that must have been loved at one time. The quilt inside the bassinet had to be thrown out, and he had to do some repair work on the chair so it rocked without tilting, but he felt rather proud of his work when he was finished. As he had no paint, and the wallpaper would have to be stripped, he ignored the walls and repaired any holes he could find leading to the outside.
