“Double?” Matrona set the porridge on the table. “You don’t just double an allotment; everyone receives the same.”
“Tell that to Afon Maysak,” her mother spat. “Half his brewing goes down his own throat.” She turned to Matrona’s father. “Yes, see Oleg. Take Matrona.”
“I don’t believe that will help,” her father said.
Her mother turned to her. “You should bake. Something delicious, to ease the tensions. Feodor won’t have forgotten your own indiscretions.”
“A folly I never acted on,” Matrona countered, but her heart split into fluttering pieces within its cage of ribs. But could I act on it? How it would humiliate her parents if she abandoned a strong marriage prospect for a too-young potter boy who didn’t even believe in God.
Yet she could not forget how alive Jaska made her feel. The sight of his shadow by the tradesman’s home, the warmth of his skin in the cellar of the pottery, the strength of his arms as they lifted her into his cart—each moment she’d spent with him had made more of an impact on her than the weeks of her engagement to Feodor.
Days. It seemed like years.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Matrona thought, Stop it, stop it. You’re making it harder for yourself, and for him. Pretend like you don’t know. You’ll ruin everything, knowing.
Feodor and Jaska were so different, Matrona thought as she sat down to break her fast with her family. Feodor was an outstanding man, well disciplined and well liked among the village. Skilled with a knife and competent. Intelligent beyond his occupation. He was lean and attractive. Should Matrona open his doll, she didn’t think a single foul thing would escape from it.
Yet Jaska . . . Jaska was so much more feeling. He was adventurous. He was bold, and he was compassionate. Matrona had always admired the way he helped his aging mother around the village, using soft words whenever she got anxious. Even the thought of him touching her made her skin tingle. Already he had touched her more than her own betrothed, and guilt ate away at Matrona’s gut from the way she craved it.
It still shocked her, his disbelief in God. She believed in Him; she always had. To think He didn’t exist . . . she’d be a shell empty of its nut. God was limb to her body, one she was sure she couldn’t function without.
But Jaska. Jaska wasn’t a heathen or a devil worshipper or whatever other names her mother had to sling at him. He was a good person, one of the best in her acquaintance, and she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Thinking about him thinking about her.
After Matrona’s spoon scraped the last bits of kasha from her bowl, she stood to take her dishes to the sink. Before she left the table, however, her father said, “You fool, you don’t know what you’re playing with.”
Matrona froze, glancing at her father, whose eyes watched her with still glassiness. She settled back onto the bench. “Pardon?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
Matrona blanched, shivers running up and down her arms. Her mother continued to eat her breakfast, as though completely unaware of the bizarre exchange.
“Papa.” Matrona’s words were slow and deliberate. “I don’t know what you’re speaking of.”
“Use your brains, foolish child,” her father said. “I’ve seen the work of your clumsy hands on Jaska Maysak’s doll. How dare you defy me.”
Matrona felt snow jump from her memory and pack around her. “S-Slava?”
Her father’s lips moved stiffly with each word. “You will come to me. Now.”
Matrona’s gaze darted to her mother, still eating, still unaware. “Mama?”
No response.
Her father blinked twice, then resumed his breakfast as well.
Matrona collected her dishes. Neither parent so much as glanced at her. She didn’t know what bothered her more—the fact that Slava had, somehow, spoken through her father as if he were a puppet or the fact that she’d already been caught.
She set her unwashed dishes aside and left the house immediately, nearly jogging up the path that led to the tradesman’s abode. None of the other villagers tried to talk to her—something that she wouldn’t have noticed on an ordinary day, but now the hairs on the back of her neck bristled. She offered a quick prayer for her safety and glanced heavenward. Blinked and shielded her eyes from the sun.
The sky . . . there was a pattern to it, faint as a sleeper’s breath. Curving lines like the whorl of a thumbprint. Blue against blue, but she saw it, though staring into the brightness overhead made her eyes water.
She spun slowly, taking in the sky cupped by the crowns of trees. The faint lines were almost like wood grain.
Another blink, and the pattern vanished, leaving her with watery eyes and an aching head.
Sucking in a deep breath and trying to still the trembling in her fingers, Matrona hurried along the path. Slava’s home looked twice its usual size as she approached, and the door swung open before she could knock.
Slava’s face was dark above his beard, his eyes bright and narrow. Yet as Matrona met the hardness of his gaze, her fear extinguished, replaced by heat that bubbled in her core.
“How dare you,” Slava growled.
“How dare you!” Matrona snarled back. “What sorcery have you cast over my father to speak to me in such a way?”
Her mother had likened Jaska to the devil, completely unaware that the devil dwelled beside the north wood.
Slava snatched her wrist and yanked her into the house, slamming the door the moment she cleared it. She nearly tripped over her own toes.
Slava seethed. “Did you think I wouldn’t know?”
“Of course you would know.” Matrona matched his tone. She spun around to face him, determined to be bold, to be brash, to protect Jaska. “You never forbade it.”
“I never—” Slava shook his head and balled his hands into fists as he pushed past her into the front room. “I never forbade it? Must I spell out every consequence to every possible indiscretion?” He whirled around and shot a glare at Matrona that would have made even her mother cower. “Don’t banter with me. You waited until I was out of the house—”
“Pamyat didn’t seem to mind.”
Slava snorted. “That damnable bird was a monster when I caught him. So many years indoors has clipped his wings.” He collapsed into his upholstered chair. “Why Jaska Maysak, hm? Wanted to see if he returned your sentiments?”
Despite the embarrassing accusation, Matrona choked on a sigh of relief. If Slava didn’t know why she’d opened Jaska’s doll, then he didn’t know that Jaska had asked her to do it. That Matrona had indeed defied him and told another about the dolls.
It would seem that the secret was solely hers—and that the spell didn’t give away secrets made after the opening of the first doll.
Matrona merely nodded. It was an answer she didn’t need to defend, for Slava knew her feelings. She couldn’t quell the flush that tickled her cheeks, but found herself grateful for it, for it made the lie that much more believable.
Slava dug his nails into the armrests of his chair. “How many did you open?”
“Only the first layer.”
Slava watched her, his gaze lidded, his beard twitching with the movement of his lips. His fingertips relaxed before they dug again. Matrona met his stare, trying not to blink.
Slava released the armrests. “If you continue to think of this as a game, your ‘suffering’ will only grow worse. You try to make an enemy of me.”
“All I did was return a paintbrush.”
A flash of a smirk appeared on the tradesman’s mouth, and then it dissipated as a puff of smoke. He straightened, breathed deeply. Matrona remained silent through it all. Finally he said, “It is good that you only opened one.”
“I do listen to your warnings.” Matrona let her muscles unwind. “Why do you time my visits three days apart? And why is it good that I opened only one of his dolls? Surely I’ve cooperated enough for you to tell me that much.”