The tsarina had run around the fighting to Miryem. “The silver chain!” she said. “We need a silver chain to bind him!”
So then Panov Mandelstam turned and got the silver chain from the floor. It was broken into two pieces and those pieces looked too short to go all around the Staryk. But the tsarina put her hands up around her neck and took off her necklace. It was made of silver and it was shining and beautiful like snowflakes going past a window. She put one end of it through the first half of the chain and then she put the other end of it through the second half of the chain, and then she clasped the necklace, and it was one long chain again, from start to finish. Then Panov Mandelstam took that chain from her.
The tsar went at the Staryk hissing again, even though his face was all red now with blood, and not just his face. Some of his fingers were the wrong way around, and his legs were sagging like a twig that was broken part of the way, but he still flung his arms forward. The Staryk darted out of his way like if you try and catch a fly and you think you have it, but you open your hand and it’s not there, and then it buzzes next to your ear again. But he was not a fly. He was standing by the fireplace. When they had started fighting they were all the way in the middle of that big room, but now they had moved all the way across it. The whole time they were fighting the Staryk had been making the tsar chase him closer and closer to the fireplace. He did all that on purpose and now they were there, and when the tsar missed him this time, the Staryk grabbed him.
A big hissing cloud of steam came off the Staryk’s hands, and he looked like it hurt him, but he still grabbed the tsar, and then he threw him down into the fireplace, and said, “Stay where you belong, Chernobog! By your name I command you!”
A horrible roaring crackling sound came out of the tsar’s mouth and where his mouth was open and his eyes were open there was fire inside them, but he went all limp everywhere else. The crackling sound made a voice and said, “Get up! Get up!” like he was talking to himself, but he didn’t listen to himself. He didn’t get up. He just lay there in the fireplace and didn’t move.
The Staryk was standing over him holding his hands together and watching to see if he would get out of the fireplace. And then Panov Mandelstam ran at him and tried to throw the chain around him.
I didn’t see it because I stopped looking right when he started running. I thought the Staryk was going to kill him and I didn’t want to see after all. So I put my head down and wrapped my arms around it and then Panova Mandelstam cried out, “Josef!” and Miryem said, “No!” and I couldn’t keep from looking. Panov Mandelstam was lying on the floor and he was not moving. I thought he was dead, but then he moved, so he wasn’t dead, but the chain was not around the Staryk, either. It was on the floor far away from him. Panova Mandelstam had run to Panov Mandelstam and was kneeling next to him. Miryem had run to stand in front of the Staryk, and suddenly she took the crown off her head and threw it onto the ground with a big crash of metal, and she said very loud, “I’ll never go back with you if you hurt them! I’ll die first! I swear it!”
The Staryk had his hand up as if he was going to do something to Panov Mandelstam, but he stopped when she said that. He did not want to stop; he was angry. “You trouble me like summer rain!” he shouted at Miryem. “He came at me with a chain to bind me! Am I to make no answer?”
“You came first!” she shouted back. “You came first and took me!”
The Staryk was still angry, but after a moment he made a grumbling noise and he dropped his hand. “Oh, very well!” He said it as if he still did not like it very much, but maybe he would not bother to kill Panov Mandelstam, and then he put out his hand to Miryem. “Now come! The hour is late, and the time is done, and never again will I bring you hence, to be insulted by weak hands who dare think they can keep you from me!”
He waved his other hand at the doors. They opened again, and outside it was not the courtyard. It was that forest where we were dancing, but now there were no stars. There was only that grey sky and the sleigh with the monsters pulling it, waiting for them.
Miryem did not want to go with him. I would not want to go with him either, so I was sorry for her, but I still wanted her to go. I wanted her to take his hand because then he would take only her and go and not come back. Then Chernobog would be stuck in the fireplace and the Staryk would be gone and we would all be safe. Panov Mandelstam and Panova Mandelstam would not die. I wished and wished she would go.
She looked around at her parents so that I saw her face, and I felt a big swelling relief in me because I could see she was going to go. I felt sorry because she was crying, and it made my stomach go sick and knotted inside to think about what if it was me and Panova Mandelstam was my mother and I had to go away from her with the Staryk, but I was still glad. I was also afraid because what if she changed her mind, but she didn’t. She was only looking around for one last time to see them, and then she turned back to the Staryk, even though she was crying, and she took a step towards him.
“No!” Panova Mandelstam cried, but she was not holding Miryem’s hand anymore, she was kneeling on the floor with Panov Mandelstam’s head in her lap too far away. She reached out her hand anyway and called, “Miryem, Miryem!”
The Staryk made an angry noise. “And still you dare!” he hissed at Panova Mandelstam. “Think you to bind her? Victory has come to my hands this night, and the devourer is cast down! Now for a lifetime of men I will close the white road and keep my kingdom fast, until all who know my lady’s name have died, and I will leave you not even scraps of memory to try and catch her with!”
Then he reached out to grab Miryem’s hand, and pulled her away towards the door, and I was so glad that he was going that I didn’t even notice what Wanda was doing in time to be afraid or to look away, and so I was looking when she threw the chain around him.
I saw what he had done to get away from it last time because he almost did it again. He twisted to get out from under the chain, but this time when he did it, Miryem threw herself to the floor, and because he had her hand, she pulled him off his feet a little, and Wanda brought her arms down fast and kept the chain around him. So when he stood up again, he was still inside the chain. His face was so angry a white light came into it. He did not let go of Miryem’s hand, but he reached out with his other hand and grabbed the ends of the chain and pulled them.
He almost dragged Wanda off her feet, but Sergey ran to her across the room and grabbed the chain too. He grabbed one end of the chain and Wanda grabbed one end of the chain and then they were both holding tight with their feet hard like trying to pull a stump out of the ground, except the stump was pulling back at them, and it was about to pull them down instead of them pulling it up. And I was scared, I was so scared, but I thought, it was the same as the dancing, and I climbed out from under the table and I ran across the room and I grabbed hold of the knot of Wanda’s apron and the back of Sergey’s old rope belt and I made the circle with them.
When I did that, the Staryk made a shriek that was like the sound when the ice on the river broke at the end of winter. It was a terrible noise and it made my ears hurt, but I kept holding on and he stopped making it. He stood there and stamped his foot and said to Wanda angrily, “Very well, you have bound me! What will you have to let me go?”
We stood there and then Wanda said, “Leave Miryem and go!” Miryem was still on the floor trying to pull free from him, but he was still holding her hand.