“Ivan Nikolayevich,” a little voice called, full of joy and recognition.
“Don’t turn your head,” Marya hissed. “Keep walking. Keep with me.”
“Ivan Nikolayevich, it’s me!” the voice rang out again.
“If you look, it will be your death and you will never kiss me or smoke a cigarette or taste butter again,” Marya warned through clenched teeth. Her jaw ached from clenching—every part of her closed up, bound tight.
“Ivanushka, it’s Dorshmaii. Come and hug me at last!”
And Marya felt him turn, pulling her with him.
The voice belonged to a young girl with pale braids done up in the old style, like two teardrops hanging from her head. She had on a lace dress and her smile looked like a photograph: pristine, practiced, frozen. She held out her arms.
“Oh, Ivanushka, I have waited so long! How loyal you were at my grave. How sweet were the grapes you left me! Ivan, come and kiss me! I dreamed of you kissing me while all the worms were knocking at my coffin.”
Ivan’s broad face lit like a lantern. “Dorshmaii! Oh! You are blond, after all! And kind.”
“So kind!” the silvery girl agreed, her braids bobbing as she nodded. “Everyone here says so. I always share my ashes!”
Ivan Nikolayevich drew back a little. Marya tried to pull him away, but he was big and stubborn and he would see this through. More fool you. Marya gave up. I warned you. “What do you mean?” he said uncertainly.
Dorshmaii Velichko took a cigarette out of the sash of her dress and put it into her mouth. It had all been smoked. The cigarette was a long column of ash. But she breathed in happily, and the ash slowly turned white again, until it was whole. She held it out to Ivan.
“You can have it, now. I know you like them. I saved it for you.”
“Don’t you dare,” snapped Marya.
Ivan did not reach for it. Dorshmaii shrugged and dropped it, grinding it into the ground with her dainty foot. “It’s no good to me now. All used up. Oh, but you are not used up, Ivan! You are so warm and bright I can hardly look at you! Thick and full of juice, that’s you! Like a green grape! Come and share my bed, like you always wanted. And I know you wanted to, even then, you wicked little thing.”
Ivan stared at her. His hand in Marya’s went slack, and she could feel him flow towards the girl like water pouring from one glass to another.
“Dorshmaii,” Marya said, without raising her voice. She had hoped he would be strong enough on his own, that she would not have to use her authority. She was ready to lay it down, so ready. “He is under my shield.”
The girl in the lace dress looked from Ivan to her and back again. “I don’t think your shield extends to playthings, little Tsaritsa. Let me have him. I’ll ride him to Georgia and back before morning. He’ll bleed from my spurs. Then you can have him back.”
Marya reached for the pale, intricately carved rifle slung over her back. She loved her rifle. There was no other like it. She had found it in Naganya’s house, so long ago. The vintovnik had whittled it out of the bones of the firebird they had killed on their hunt, the last time they were all together, meaning it to be a wedding present. Marya Morevna brought it to bear on the ghost and adjusted the sighting.
“Don’t!” cried Ivan.
“Oh!” Dorshmaii breathed. “It’s so beautiful! I can see the flames still! Oh, Marya Morevna, you have no right to a weapon like that! Give it to me! See, the bird opens its mouth to me; it wants to be mine!”
Marya fired. One of the girl’s teardrop-shaped braids dropped off.
“Oh, I hate you,” Dorshmaii spat. “I had him first. It’s not fair!”
Blood seeped from the stem of her braid, yellowish and thick. A clump of black, dripping earth struck the ghost between the eyes, and she screeched in indignation. Ivan whirled to see who had thrown it.
“Stop looking, Ivan! I told you to listen to me! You can’t look at them!” But Marya, unable to let him go or lose him to the dark, was looking, too, as a little man with a beard of pale, frosty moss and hands like broken stones gathered up another handful of earth and tested it in his hand. A silver splash stained his chest. He looked only once at Marya, and big tears welled up in his eyes, falling like rain.
“Run, Ivan,” Marya whispered.
He did. And behind them, the dark spasmed,
as if in grief.
* * *
When they reached the light, Marya seized him close to her, spun around three times, laid her finger on the side of her nose, and disappeared.