Pamyat clicked deep in his throat.
“Never mind that.” Slava waved his hand. A simple dismissal—Matrona was so very used to that. “I will not be here forever, no matter what I do. You will care for the dolls in my absence, Matrona. You will watch over them, guard them, and create them.”
The feathers on Pamyat’s neck rose. The kite lowered his head, his marble-round eyes focused on Matrona.
Create? Her thoughts repeated, and she took another step back, eyeing the kite. Her shoulder hit one of the shelves stacked with dolls. “I know nothing of woodworking—”
“It doesn’t matter. I will teach you.”
“Slava, Tradesman,” she tried, sounding out each word carefully, working to not let her voice quake, “I am a simple dairymaid, soon to be married. I cannot take on a new trade—”
“You can, and you will,” he interrupted, blue eyes sharpening. He held up her father’s doll so that the painted eyes looked directly into hers. “You’ve stumbled on something greater than yourself, Matrona. My life’s work. I need you, and you will comply, for I cannot trust you if you don’t.”
Matrona eyed the open door. He was mad. She couldn’t—
Pamyat shrieked, the noise amplified by the close walls. Matrona nearly choked on her own tongue.
“I’ll not set him right,” Slava added, and the words pulled her attention back to his face. Back to the doll he held. Slava grasped the upper and lower halves in his large, calloused hands, but did not twist them one way or another. Instead, he said, “I’ll not set him right, and I’ll see that you don’t, either. He’ll not be well unless he’s straightened out, don’t you see?”
Matrona’s tongue traced the backs of her teeth, seeking moisture, finding none. She nodded. She understood.
Slava smiled. “Good.” Then, with a sharp, squeaking twist, he shifted the halves of the doll. Matrona yelped, but Slava had only righted the halves so that her father’s shirt buttons fell in a single, even row and his sleeves connected flawlessly with his pale-painted hands.
Slava set the doll on the table, then shifted backward to select Matrona’s doll.
“Please don’t,” she whispered.
“Oh, I won’t do anything.” Slava’s tone was so casual, she could hardly believe he’d just threatened her with her father’s well-being, however mystical in nature. “This, you must do. You cannot understand me and my creations without finding your center, Matrona.”
The chill in her chest abated somewhat. “My center?”
He held the doll out to her, and Matrona stared into the glazed face of her miniature.
“You must open your doll.”
Chapter 4
The tips of Matrona’s fingers tingled on the verge of numbness as she took her doll from Slava’s hands. In the moment it seemed heavier than her father’s, yet also too small, too fragile. A caricature of her face looked up at her, unblinking. Two salmon-colored circles highlighted her cheeks. The red kokoshnik, she realized, was one she had worn to fairs and church services as an adolescent and had since disposed of. The painted eyelashes were so fine, Matrona could not comprehend how any hand, especially old Slava’s, could have painted them.
Instantly Matrona thought of her father’s crazed behavior, all due to his doll’s misalignment. If such a small thing could cause a grown man to stutter and speak nonsense and bang his head against walls, what could opening this doll do to her?
Again she glanced toward the door, keeping her eyes down in hopes that Slava would not notice. She could outrun him, couldn’t she? Take the doll and flee into the wood? She did not know the way to any other villages or towns, but surely she’d find one eventually . . .
She eyed the kite, wondering how well trained he was. Did Slava use him to hunt?
But the bird was hardly her biggest worry. She remembered how her father’s doll had looked cradled in Slava’s hands, its body little more than an eggshell. She couldn’t run off with both, not now. And what of her mother’s doll? Roksana’s? Feodor’s?
“Please,” she begged, daring to look up at Slava’s face. While not unkind, it was tired, calculating. A face she didn’t feel confident trusting. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand why . . .”
Slava nodded, the faintest smile touching his lips. He selected a doll seemingly at random—Jaska Maysak’s doll. Matrona stared at it, drawn to its dark eyes. It was well dressed, not in a potter’s apron, but in simple slacks and a gray shirt. The paint used for his face and hands was a smidge darker than that of the surrounding dolls, and several shades darker than Matrona’s own. Somehow Slava had even mastered the unkemptness of the potter’s hair. Oddly, the image of Jaska looked older than he was at present. When had Slava painted this likeness?
“Do you know how these work?” he asked, giving Jaska’s doll a small shake. Something rattled within.
Matrona shook her head.
“They come from a distant island. To get there, you have to travel far over land and across a sliver of sea,” Slava explained. “A narrow isle steeped in tradition and war, full of a studious and honor-bound people. I went there long ago, on one of my journeys, and found something similar to this in a small hut.” He turned Jaska over, his fingers crossing the potter’s clothes like spider legs. Matrona quelled the sudden desire to snatch the doll away. “I could sense the dolls’ magical properties immediately. It requires expert craftsmanship to create them, and I learned all I could.
“You see, inside every doll is another doll,” he said, and Matrona felt the skin between her eyebrows crinkle. “And inside that doll is another doll, and another. However many the maker wishes to create. Your doll, Matrona, is actually five dolls, each hollowed out to fit the next. They all are,” he added, gesturing to the others.
Matrona glanced down at her miniature and rubbed the pad of her thumb along the seam. She gave it a gentle shake. Whatever lay nestled inside was large and had little room for movement. Another doll? Did it also bear her likeness? How strange.
“To understand what I need you to learn, you need to separate yourself from the rest of the village,” Slava explained. Matrona’s head snapped up, her stomach sinking, and the old man had the audacity to chuckle at her. “You will still be here, if that is your worry. It is . . .” He waved his hand in a circular motion before her, and Matrona could see him picking through his thoughts the way her father so often did, searching for perhaps the sweetest or tamest words to explain something she couldn’t possibly fathom.
Heat prickled beneath her skin, and before she could cage the words, she said, “I’m sure I’ll understand you if you speak bluntly, Tradesman.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I’m sure you will, Dairymaid,” and he smiled at the foolish nickname. “But there are some things I cannot merely explain, which is why you must open the dolls. But—” He added the last word hastily and set down Jaska’s doll without taking his eyes from her. “You must not open all of your dolls at once. Are you listening carefully, Matrona Vitsin? You must open them one at a time, slowly, and under my supervision, or else there will be grave consequences.”
The kite watched her with both eyes.
Matrona stiffened, her fingers clutching her doll as though they were talons. “What sort of consequences?”
“You will see, if you are foolish.” Bitterness leaked into his voice. He looked over the large table, but Matrona could not determine which doll had caught his attention. Seconds later, his gaze returned to her. “You must also promise not to tell another soul about the dolls. Give me your word, on your honor, not to speak of it.”
Matrona bit her lip.
Slava’s gaze darkened. “You know what I can do. I did not intend to threaten, Matrona, but it is easier than the alternative. This is for the good of the village, as you will learn.”
She found enough moisture in her mouth to say, “You would have me swear it? But the Good Book—”