“Quit pushing me, mama! I can’t think when you push me!”
“I’ll forgive you, dear, —but time won’t. It goes on just the same. Make up your mind. Do you want me to guide your wish? I will.”
Her mother hardly blinked. There was certainty in her. I will, her mother said, strong as a wish. Her mother wanted to guide her, her mother wanted her not to make the mistakes Sasha was making.
“Eveshka, do you hear me? Kavi’s using that boy. He’s sending him here, to open the door. He’ll follow. And you know how your husband will fare then. What are you going to do, ’Veshka?”
“I can’t think, mama, just shut up!”
“You can’t stop doubting, can you? Doubt’s the enemy of magic… and its friend. Doubt keeps our magic from running wild, keeps idle wishes from leaping the barriers of our thought, gives us that little space, that very little breathing space… for thinking things through. But you can’t let doubt rule your life. Follow me now. Follow, me. It’s not so far a step.”
She wished not. Her head was spinning. Sight and sound came and went, near and far by turns.
“It’s not so far,” Draga said. “All you have to do is want the strength, really want to have it.”
“I can’t!”
“’Veshka. Just follow me. One perfect wish. One wish for everything you want. Is that so hard? Your husband—your home—your young friend—isn’t that really what you’d choose, over everything in the world?”
“No!” she cried, and pressed her hands to her mouth, appalled at what leapt out of her—but when she tried to want only Pyetr, doubt came flooding over her, doubt made her wonder if she loved him or if she loved herself more—until her heart ached and she felt herself about to faint.
Her mother said, looking her in the eyes, “You love your husband, don’t you?”
“Yes!”
“More than anything else? What’s important, ’Veshka? Do you know at all? What are you going to do with it if you get it?”
Everything in the world was in doubt. Eveshka clenched her hands between her knees, and tried to know that answer. Save Pyetr, she thought. But her father would say, Fool!
“When you wish for magic,” her mother said, scarcely louder than the crackle of the fire, “be very sure you demand enough— because this is a bargaining. Forever and ever, you’ll exist in the magical realm to whatever degree you decide now. And you’ll decide now how much of nature you’ll keep—you’ll have no more than that.”
“You’re frightening me.”
“I mean to, dear. This is deadly serious. Know what you want. Decide how much you need. And for what. Do you want love? Or do you want magic?”
“I want to be strong enough!”
“Are you?”
“I don’t know!”
“God, girl! Perish your ambivalence! What do you want? What, exactly, do you want?”
“I don’t know, mama, I don’t know!”
“Do you want your husband? Or do you want your freedom?”
Free? she thought. There’s this damn baby—
God, what does it mean to it? Or to Pyetr?
“It means whatever you want for the baby,” her mother said. “Kavi certainly doesn’t want it born—unless he can get his hands on it. Do you want a baby? That’s the question. Do you really want a husband? Was it a husband you wanted in the first place, or was it freedom from your father? You have that now. What will you settle for?”
“Let me think!” she cried, raking a hand through her hair that trailed loose about her face. She could not dismiss her unease, nor her misgivings, and the doubt was the same doubt, always the same doubt, that she simply could not make up her mind, ever.
God, I don’t know if I want a baby.
“Defend it,” Draga said. “Or be rid of it—if it’s not more important already than you’ve wished yourself to be.”
“It’s my husband’s, too—”
“Then defend him,” Draga said, “—if you want either. I’ve kept us hidden. That’s ending. All this time, all these years, I’ve been waiting for you. The two of us can beat him, dear. Two of us with the same mind can raise help enough to beat him.”
“What, mama?” she cried. “Shapeshifters and the like?”
“They’re quite harmless—if you command them.”
“They’re vile!”
“Nothing is vile, dear, except helplessness. You’ve kept your heart—you did decide that, I hope. I hope it wasn’t simply lack of decision. Do you want me to carry it for you? I can.”
“No!”
“Or Brodyachi could carry two—if that would clear your thinking. Dear, we can’t wait here for the world to be better. Take it as it is.”
“No!” she said.
“Then what will you have it be?”
“Mother, just let me think, let me think!” She rested her head on her hands, she tried to shape her wish, but even thinking of Pyetr she could conjure no certainty, and her eyes burned and her nose ran disgustingly. She wiped at it, and wiped at her eyes, and wanted—
Something shapeless and far-reaching and angry—in a moment at the edge of thought, the edge of exhaustion and smoke-bred dreams.
Wanted—
God!
Her heart jumped, her head came up, she found herself looking into yellow eyes, brown face.
Terror struck her like winter wind. She was eye to eye with Brodyachi, thinking, Where was he? Where did he come from?
“He’s been here,” her mother said, touching her arm, compelling her attention. “He’s been here all along. Don’t be afraid. Kavi wants that. But you don’t have to be.”
There was something outside the door. She knew that there was something outside the door—and there could not be. Brodyachi was here, quite calm. Brodyachi certainly would permit nothing foreign near her mother.
“You’re safe,” her mother said. “You’re all right, dear.”
She looked askance at the door, she listened to her mother speaking to her, telling her not to be afraid—and something was there. She knew that it was, a sense of presence absolute and dreadful.
Out there was what she had called, and it was all Draga had said and all the belief she could muster—
“Daughter?” Draga said.
She had to get up, she had to go to that door, no matter how dreadful the answer, it was an answer, it was her answer, once for all. She put her hand on the latch, she pulled it up and pulled the door back-Wolves met her. The pack surged at her.
Not attacking, no, not snapping at her… accepting her, swirling about her, tugging at her skirts, her hands, with gentle jaws. Their thoughts were like their movements: everywhere, constantly changing, as Draga stepped back against the fireside, as Brodyachi drew back and bristled up, threatening with a massive paw—
She was not afraid any longer. The wolves were everywhere about her, they occupied the door, they pressed against her legs, they saw everything, wolves, and not wolves—chaotic as leaven in a gale. Nothing could catch them. No single wish could hold them—no single wish could find them all at once, or compass all their darting thoughts.
She looked at Draga—knew, suddenly, there was no question of her mother’s ultimate, ineluctable treachery. But her mother said, “Malenkova,” and her thoughts whirled and spun, recognizing that name from the inside.
Draga wanted—things that did not interest her. Her own way interested her. What fled her interested her. Mostly she wanted what belonged to her. She recollected—indeed, she had never forgotten—she wanted Sasha. Sasha had to do what he was told, join her, stop thinking he knew everything.