The Child Thief

32

It took only a few minutes for Petro’s life to be gone, but I sat for a long time holding his head before Aleksandra spoke my name.

‘Luka.’

It seemed as if she were standing a long way from where I sat.

‘Luka.’

Her voice coming to me as if from another place.

‘Luka.’

I opened my eyes and looked up at her.

‘What are we going to do now?’ she asked. ‘We can’t fight the army.’

She was standing closer now, her feet just an arm’s length from Petro’s still body.

‘That wasn’t the army,’ I said. ‘There was only one.’

Dariya was beside her, the two of them still holding hands. ‘Is she coming for us now?’ she asked. It was the first time she had spoken since I had seen her in Sushne but there seemed to be nothing remarkable about it. Too much had happened for it to have any significance. But I thought about what she said and saw the strangeness in it.

‘She?’

‘Baba Yaga,’ she said. ‘Don’t let her take me again.’

I stared at her, not sure what to say. I was still trying to process Petro’s death. My son was lying dead in my arms and now Dariya was saying something I didn’t understand.

‘What are you talking about?’ I could feel anger rising, and it confused me, fuelling itself further.

Dariya swallowed. ‘please.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I pushed to my feet, Petro’s head slumping back into the snow. ‘What do you mean, the Baba Yaga?’ I drew up to my full height and Dariya pulled closer to Aleksandra, moving so that she was almost behind her.

‘Luka,’ Aleksandra said quietly, ‘you’re scaring her.’

‘What’s she talking about – the Baba Yaga? It wasn’t the Baba Yaga who took her. It was a man. A man took her.’

Dariya shook her head and drew even closer to Aleksandra. ‘He looked like a man,’ she said, ‘but it was the Baba Yaga.’

I stared at her.

‘He said he was going to eat me.’

Her words made my breath catch in my throat.

‘He said he was going to kill you and that he was going to eat me.’

I put my hands to my face and pressed my fingers hard against my eyes. The imprint of my fingertips on my eyelids darkened and then brightened into a burst of white spots, and when I took them away the brightness smeared my tears and almost blinded me.

I crouched and held out my hands to Dariya, but she shook her head and clung to Aleksandra, drawing away from me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘Please.’

Aleksandra encouraged Dariya away from her, and she reluctantly held out her hands for me to take. I pulled her to me and held her, so that her face was buried against my neck and my face was pressed to the side of her head. For a moment I imagined I was hugging my own daughter.

When I released the embrace I told Dariya not to be scared.

She bit her lip and nodded.

‘I need to ask you something and I need you to remember everything you can. Is that all right?’

She nodded again.

‘How many men were there?’

She furrowed her brow as if she didn’t understand the question.

‘How many men took you?’

‘There was only the Baba Yaga,’ she said.

‘Just one person?’

She nodded.

‘But you hurt him?’

Again she looked confused.

‘With a knife,’ I said. ‘In the hut where he took you.’

And, slowly, it seemed to sink in. I saw her eyebrows rise as if she was beginning to understand what I was asking. ‘In the hut?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘In the hut.’

‘The dead man?’

‘Yes. That was him. The man who took you.’

‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘That wasn’t him.’

Leaving Dariya with Aleksandra and Viktor, I went to sit with Petro. I took his head and laid it on my lap and sat looking out through the gaps in the trees, glimpsing shards of the lake. I took a cigarette and bent the tube without thinking about it. For a long time I held the match in my fingers before popping it alight with my thumbnail and touching it to the tobacco.

So many things had led to this exact spot, this unknown place that was marked by nothing until my son’s death. We believed we had come close to making our way home without knowing how far we really were. I had made many mistakes, from the moment I had agreed to bring my sons, and now I intended to make no more. I had believed the child thief to be dead, but I had been wrong. Now it was my duty to make sure he would never fire another shot. That he would never terrify another child.

‘I made a mistake,’ I said when Viktor came to sit with me. ‘A stupid mistake. I’m old and foolish and careless.’

‘How could you have known?’

‘How could I have known? I should have known. I thought Dariya killed him; freed herself and killed him in his sleep.’

‘It’s what we all thought.’

‘But I should have known she couldn’t do that.’

‘Why not? Anyone can use a knife.’

‘Because the body was frozen,’ I said, finally grasping the dark thought that Kostya’s death had brought to my mind. ‘Dariya had only just left the hut, but the body was frozen. It must have been there for hours. If she had killed him, she would have escaped right away. Her tracks were fresh – the body would have been too.’

I pictured it now, just as Dariya had told it. I saw the child thief dragging her into the hut, tying her and waiting for me to follow, watching through the window, disturbed by the footsteps outside. I saw the child thief open the door, a friendly face, then take his knife and drive it through the man’s throat. The owner of the hut perhaps, or maybe just a farmer from Sushne trying to escape the occupiers of his village, it didn’t matter. The child thief had killed him as surely as he had killed Dimitri and as surely as he had killed Petro. And then he had stripped off the man’s boots, better than his own, and gone out, leaving Dariya alone with the corpse of a stranger.

‘She must have been alone with the body for a while,’ I said. ‘That’s why hers were the only tracks. There was a fresh fall that day. His tracks must’ve been covered.’

‘Or maybe he covered them.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘So we wouldn’t know where he’d gone. If we found the hut before he came back.’

I looked at Viktor and thought about what he’d said. For a moment events had been clear in my head, but now they were muddied again. ‘Maybe. However it was, she was lucky to get away,’ I said. ‘Lucky she wasn’t there when he came back.’ I shook my head and dragged on the papirosa. ‘I was so sure he was dead. I’m an old fool.’

‘No.’

‘I wonder why he left his rifle, though.’ ‘What?’

‘His rifle. He left it in the hut.’ I tapped the rifle beside me. ‘That means he thought he was coming back soon. So why didn’t he?’

Viktor looked down at the weapon, his face blank. Neither of us had an answer.

I passed him the cigarette and breathed out a lungful of smoke. ‘You have to go on,’ I said. ‘Wait for me on the ridge behind Vyriv, just as I agreed with the others.’

‘I’m not leaving you alone.’

‘It’s the only way to finish this.’

‘You’re going after him?’

‘I have to.’

‘Let me help.’

‘No. Your job is to take Dariya and Aleksandra. Keep them safe.’

‘But—’

Turning to look at him, I let Viktor see the intent in my eyes, and Viktor nodded, knowing he wouldn’t change my mind. I would be alone for this. Alone and focused on only one thing.

‘We’ll take Petro home.’

‘We have no home any more,’ I said. ‘You can’t take him.’

‘But we can’t just leave him here. We can’t leave him out here for—’

‘Petro’s gone,’ I said. ‘This isn’t him any more. There’s nothing left that was your brother. I’ll bury him here.’

We both knew I couldn’t bury him deep. The ground would be hard and almost impossible to break.

‘We have to think about Dariya now,’ I said. ‘We have to think about your mother and Lara. Petro’s gone; there’s nothing more we can do about that.’

I looked down at Petro’s face. His eyes were closed now, almost as if he were asleep if not for the paleness of his skin and the smear of dried blood across one cheek.

‘It’s time for you to go,’ I said to Viktor.

They gathered their things, and Viktor mounted the horse, reaching down to help lift Dariya. Aleksandra put her hands on Dariya’s waist as if to lift her, but Dariya moved away and came to where I was sitting.

Aleksandra and Viktor watched as the child came and stood by me. She looked smaller than her years now. I had seen this girl grow just as I had watched my own daughter grow and I knew her almost as well. She had spent much of her life in and out of my home, and Natalia had always remarked on how she’d seemed older than Lara. But now she looked smaller. More vulnerable.

She looked at me, long and hard. Unblinking.

‘Are you going to kill the Baba Yaga?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I am.’