I briefly considered tracking Boris, but then I remembered that I had my own adventure—yet another boy to find. I brushed the dirt off my pants and sweatshirt and hurried down the path. I was rewarded when I caught sight of the gigantic rock, gleaming in the moonlight.
The boulder stood in front of me, but no boy. Look again, I reassured myself. Perhaps his dark clothes had camouflaged him. With a sausage sticking out of one pocket and cheese bulging from the other, I felt foolish, as if I had just dreamed of meeting him. Yet somehow, I mustered the faith to whisper, “Vasyl?”
I heard a rustling sound as though an invisible curtain were being pulled back—more likely an animal crunching the leaves. At the very edge of the forest, I could see shadows dancing, re-forming and shifting.
“Granny Vera,” I reminded her. “You promised. Watch over me.” As a backup, I gripped the sausage and cheese, ready to hurl them if an animal should charge.
Then, out of the darkness, a small figure emerged.
As I looked at the boy gliding towards me, I wasn’t afraid. I felt sorry for him. Just a boy, he was alone in the woods. But also, once again, I was overwhelmed by the sensation that he was a magical being.
I noticed that he was wearing my old green blanket loosely around his shoulders. My mother had let me take it when she finished knitting another one exactly like it for my bed. It was my second surprise of the night, but not a good one. Forest creatures were supposed to join me when I invited them to my picnics, not barge into my hiding place and steal my things.
He pulled my blanket around his thin shoulders. “Hello, Katya.” He didn’t seem the least flustered to see me.
“You found my hiding place,” I accused him.
“I was cold,” he said simply. In the darkness, he looked and sounded older than he had during the day.
It was my blanket, after all, and he had taken it without asking—but I reminded myself that I had wanted to tell him about it anyway. And I didn’t want to scare him away. I wanted to know more. “Here,” I said, offering the food.
Vasyl was so thin. I expected him to eat the food ravenously like an animal. Instead, he shook his head.
“What’s wrong? Aren’t you hungry?” I asked.
“Not for that,” Vasyl said.
I walked over and placed my offering on the top of the boulder. “You can eat it for breakfast.”
Vasyl nodded and squatted next to the boulder. I sat cross-legged in front of him, shoving my hands into my pockets for warmth. I felt the baby matryoshka and pulled her out to show Vasyl. “Look,” I said, “for my birthday.”
Vasyl reached out for her and held her gently in his pale hand. “But where are her mothers?” he asked. “She is so tiny without them.” He turned her in the moonlight.
“I forgot she was in my pocket,” I admitted. “I’ll take her home.”
Watching him admire her, I wondered where Vasyl’s home was. He seemed comfortable in the woods.
When Vasyl set the matryoshka baby on the ground next to us, I felt like we had a threesome. My doll could join in the conversation. Amused, I left her in the dirt facing me. “So you live here?” I asked.
Vasyl rolled his eyes. “Now I do. I’m not welcome where I used to live.”
This boy did live in the woods. Like Boris and Marta venturing too deeply into the trees, this too seemed wrong. “Where are your parents?” I asked him.
“Dead. For many years,” he said.
Although his answer didn’t seem to make him sad, I felt so badly for him that for a few minutes I didn’t say anything at all. When I had recovered, I asked my most important question. “Why did you want me to come back?”
Vasyl turned his eyes to the night sky. “I have some bad news for you,” he said. His voice held an edge that made me shiver in a way that was different from the chill of night air. I felt a jolt, also a deep longing to know.
“Bad news?” I asked quietly, dreading, yet wanting to hear what he would say.
Vasyl faced me, and the moonlight fell on only one-half of his face, leaving the other side cloaked in deep shadow. This peculiar sight fueled my growing nervousness, and I scooted away. “Tell me!”
“Our world,” he paused, “what’s left of it, is going to be destroyed.”
I gazed beyond Vasyl into the forest. As a cloud passed over the moon, the shadows assumed new shapes. One grew the jagged edges of a fire. The black flames swelled to my height, then surged until they seemed as tall as a haystack. My nose felt hot from the flames as I heard his last word through a cloud of smoke. “Tonight,” he promised.
Before the acrid smoke cleared, I pictured the fierce blaze traveling down my lane and engulfing its ancient cottages. I imagined my own dear cottage exploding in a fire that soared to the heavens. I had the vague impression of frightened people and lines of metal buses shooting off into the darkness. I was certain that I couldn’t return to my home. That world would no longer exist. I looked at Vasyl again.
“You know I’ve told you the truth,” he said with calm certainty.
“No, I don’t,” I cried as I stood up. “You stole my blanket. I think you’re a thief and a liar.”
“Wait.” Vasyl reached for me as if to stop me from leaving. “I’m trying to help you,” he pleaded. “You need to know.”
“Help me?” I asked wildly. I took a few steps backwards. “How will your lies help me?”
He gestured towards the boulder, and I was newly aware of his pale, translucent skin. His hands were smooth and fine. His dark shirt was clean and well-pressed. The boy didn’t look like he lived in the woods—he looked like what my teachers would call a bourgeoisie, someone soft who liked his comforts in life, his home.
I should have told him that he was crazy but, instead, I began running wildly down the path, oblivious to the branches and brambles that slapped at my legs and stung my bare hands.
“You’ll come back,” he called after me. “You need to.”
Chapter Five
I GRIPPED MY GREEN BLANKET TIGHTLY OVER MY HEAD, but it didn’t shield me from Mama’s voice.
“Katya.” Her strong hands shook me.
My eyes flickered open. I rubbed the sleep out of their corners.
“Wake up,” Mama said. She was standing next to my bed with her arms crossed over her chest. She was wearing her durable farm clothes, dark pants and a sweatshirt. Soon, she and Petro Shamenko would be at the barn milking our cow.
Petro Shamenko was the paid herdsman who helped my mother tend the animals. I had known this simple-minded man all my life. He swept the barn and milked the cows, slowly and carefully, as if the fate of the world rested on the successful completion of these chores. Yet he had a sweet playful side. When I was little, he had helped me collect chicken feathers for the small pillows that I was fond of sewing for the fairies.
I struggled to sit up.
“That’s my girl,” Mama said.
As Mama returned to the kitchen, I managed to get out of bed and begin dressing. The delicious aroma of fried dough filled my room—she was making pancakes. I slipped my brown dress-uniform over my head.
“Katya,” Mama called from the kitchen, her voice full of suspicion. “Did you raid the refrigerator last night?”
With this reminder, the night rushed back to me: the theft of the food, the moonbeam on the path, Boris’ proposal to Marta, and, most terrible of alclass="underline" Vasyl.
My mother stuck her head in the door. “Katya, why aren’t you answering me?”
“I did get hungry last night and ate a few pieces of cheese. That’s all,” I finished lamely. I wasn’t used to lying.