Feodor’s footsteps paused. “Stop this now, Matrona.”
The order ran down the back of her neck like sharpened fingernails. She gritted her teeth. “I am trying. I am merely not well.”
Feodor’s toe tapped against the floorboards, and the echo carried in the silence of the room. “I’ll send for the doctor.”
And then Feodor left, too.
Matrona dragged herself back to her bed and lay there, trying to sleep. But while the desperation stretching inside her made her weary, it also kept her alert. She tried to let it roll over her, water off a lark’s feathers, but the effort made her body ache all the more.
Her father came in at some point to lecture her, but his voice dropped as pebbles in a bottomless well. He gave up, for Matrona did fall asleep, and by the time she awoke to twilight, her father was gone.
Feodor did summon the doctor to the Vitsins’, which Matrona might have found endearing were she in a sound state of mind. And she tried to appear sound, for fear that the doctor would declare her mad. Maybe she was mad.
The doctor checked her for ailments, trying to diagnose hurts that had no physical cause. He claimed her in good health, so with heavy hands Matrona tied an apron about her neck and waist and forced herself outside. If the sunshine would not help, then perhaps work would. She could not let this darkness paralyze her.
Matrona breathed deeply as she walked to the barn, shivering despite the cloudless day, trying to imagine her skin opening up and drinking in the late-morning light. Her thoughts had calmed, at the very least, leaving her head foggy and lined with cobwebs. The headache pounding behind her eyes persisted. Sitting at the butter churn, Matrona plunged the handle up and down in time to the beat within her throbbing skull, hoping the exercise would unravel the tautness across her shoulders and back.
It didn’t.
She churned for a long time, trying to breathe through Slava’s spell, though this morning the smell of the cream turned her stomach. If the hateful voice in her head had ceased its prattling, then soon the rest would wear off as well, yes? Matrona tried to grasp that glimmer of hope. She could pretend to be well until true relief came, and if it did not, she would drag her leaden body to Slava’s and demand an antidote . . . Yet she feared what future torments he had in store for her. Removing the second doll had produced a worse effect than removing the first. This doll attacked her from within, and she still didn’t understand why.
A knock sounded between beats of the plunger hitting the base of the churn, and Matrona looked up, blinking back shadows and webs to see the person in the doorway. It took her too long to recognize him, and when she did, a sliver from the plunger handle bit into her index finger.
Jaska.
She blinked again and rubbed her wrist over her eyes.
“I’m sorry to intrude.” Jaska’s voice seemed to skim along the sides of her neck. It was pitched lower than Feodor’s, yet not as deep as her father’s. “I tried to come sooner—”
Matrona dropped her wrist and looked at him as he approached. She shook her head, trying to loosen some sense in it. “For . . . for milk? I’m sorry, our production has been . . . low—”
He offered her an expression that was half-frown, half-smile. “I meant to see you, Matrona. You were so ill, and I hadn’t heard any news of your recovery.” He shrugged. “I’m afraid your mother was not happy to see me either time.”
Her mind strained like a thorn-caught cricket wing, and she gritted her teeth, forcing it to work faster. Either time? When he dropped her off, and . . . he’d come again? Yesterday?
She felt a flush creep up her neck, but the voice in her head, the one that had been hounding her since she’d opened that second doll, remained blissfully silent.
Matrona released the plunger and sat back, moving both hands to the sore muscles of her shoulders. “I’m . . . fine. I will be.”
“You don’t look well.” Jaska lingered by the worktable. He had a few clay stains on his rolled-up sleeves, but his hands were clean. “Have you seen the doctor?”
Matrona scoffed. “Yes, I have, and I fear he thinks me dramatic.” She touched a new, pulsing pain in the center of her forehead.
“You should rest.”
Matrona shook her head. Maybe she would have laughed, were her lungs not so heavy. “I’ve rested too much.” She tried to remember the time, an impossible task when she could not even recall the day of the week. Wasn’t Slava’s third day tomorrow?
She couldn’t see Slava. She wouldn’t see him. This humiliation, this torment, these threats—it would be her undoing. Slava couldn’t possibly reprimand her without telling others of the dolls, and they would laugh at him. He would twist her father’s doll, maybe her mother’s . . . but if Matrona acted like she didn’t care, if she played aloof, he would have to set them back to rights. He couldn’t skew every person in the village. Or perhaps she could steal them . . .
If I go back, he’ll make me open the next doll, she thought, pressing her palms into her eyes. Slava had not used force, yet, but who was to say he would not? It wouldn’t be the first time another had raised a hand against her—
“Matrona? Are you all right? Do you need something to drink?”
Matrona dropped her hands, blinking spots of color from her vision, and saw that Jaska was much closer now, crouched on the other side of the butter churn. She wanted to slump over that half-formed butter and weep.
“I can’t go back,” she whispered, a sob slicing through the sentence. She pressed a knuckle against her lips and shook her head. What would Slava do if she told?
Jaska’s brows lowered, narrowing his dark eyes. “Go back where?”
Matrona shook her head again. “Maybe I should rest.” She stood from her three-legged stool. It toppled over behind her, and she wavered, blood rushing from her head.
“Slava’s house?” Jaska stood up beside her.
Matrona froze. Eyed him. Did he know? Heart racing, she searched his face, hoping for an answer.
He licked his lips. “That’s where I found you, Matrona,” he said, as though she had forgotten. He spoke with deliberate enunciation. Much the way he spoke to his mad mother. “Did he feed you something strange? What were you doing there?”
He didn’t know. No one knew. Matrona closed her eyes for a moment, letting the dizziness subside before she opened them again. She pressed a hand to the wall and leaned into it. “Just a visit,” she managed.
Jaska’s eyebrows eased a fraction. “Let me help you to the house,” he offered, turning slightly so Matrona could take his elbow.
Matrona stared at that elbow, the gray sleeve of his shirt pushed up around the crook of it. No one else had offered her support, had they? Her father hadn’t offered to lift her from bed; her mother hadn’t helped her climb into the cold bath. Feodor rarely touched her, and even Roksana . . .
“I don’t think anyone is home,” he added, “if you’re worried about—”
“Have you ever wanted to . . . escape?”
Jaska’s proffered elbow drooped. “What?”
“Escape. Leave.” She peered out the back doors of the barn, beyond the pasture, to the tree tips of the wood to the south. She could open no more dolls if she merely disappeared, the way Esfir had. The humiliation would become moot if she surrounded herself with new people in a new village. Perhaps she’d even find a man better suited to her than Feodor, if God had such a plan for her. Running would cast her as a terrible daughter, especially after Esfir, but if this was the only way to protect her family from Slava’s game . . .
“The village?” Jaska’s voice sounded softer.
She nodded.
“Are you unhappy here?” he asked, but closed his mouth awkwardly around the last word. Rubbed his jaw. He was a witness to Matrona’s struggles, just as every other person within the walls of the wood was.