Chapter 15 #2
“I’ve got it. Now, teach me how to drive this thing.”
Stacia hooked arms with Daz, and they followed the other sisters and Zakhar into the very strange transport.
* * *
Zima and Zakhar were much more enthusiastic about the new means of travel than Stacia, who much preferred having her claws dug into the dirt or in the bark of the nearest tree trunk.
It was strange to her that she missed her tiger.
She felt . . . off-balance without it. Like she was always teetering on the edge of a cliff, almost on the verge of falling over.
When the birds rose in the sky, taking them along for the ride, Stacia’s stomach lurched. She even feared she’d lose the contents of her belly over the side of the ship and sank down to the bottom of the vessel, putting her head between her knees and taking several deep breaths to steady herself.
Meanwhile, Zima and Zakhar were studying all the instruments, pressing every knob, and flipping every switch, then taking careful notes as to what resulted from each button push.
Zima seemed to make a very good scribe-in-training.
The only problem was that the inkpot kept freezing.
They solved the problem by switching over to chalks and charcoal pencils.
Zima told them the ermine’s name was Belizna. The furry white creature stuck its nose out of Zakhar’s pocket and slid out onto the floor, then hopped on its short legs over to Stacia. With twitching whiskers, it sniffed around her and quickly found the bag containing the biscuits Daz had given her.
“Oh, no you don’t, little lady,” Stacia said, taking the bag away and stowing it in her own coat. “Here, you can have some rye or barley instead. This stuff won’t run out. If you want it cooked, you’re going to have to wait.”
The animal sniffed the grain and hissed at her, baring its teeth.
“Don’t like that, eh?” she said.
“She doesn’t eat things like that,” Zima said as she scratched on her paper.
“Well, what does she eat?” asked Stacia.
“She mostly hunts for herself. She eats birds, mice, lizards, that sort of thing.”
“Ah, you’re more like me, then, aren’t you, little girl?”
Zima looked up from her drawing. “Did you say she’s like you?”
“Yes. Like me and Iriko.”
The little girl frowned. “You’re not like Iriko.”
“I used to be,” Stacia said softly as she began petting Belizna. “How are we going to feed you, I wonder?” she said as she scratched the white ermine’s soft ears. “I’m fresh out of mice, and I don’t think Sima would take too kindly to you eating one of her birds.”
“Perhaps she can hunt when we put down for the night,” Zakhar said.
“Do we need to? Set down, I mean. Wouldn’t it be better to keep going? Get there as fast as possible?” Stacia asked.
“I think our bird friends need a break, and we could use a fire to keep warm, I should think.”
“Not to mention cook our dinner,” Zima said.
“Yes. That makes sense,” Stacia agreed. “Let’s find a good place, then.”
She stood up and discovered Zakhar had been making aerial maps as they journeyed. They were crude, he insisted, but to her, they were astonishingly detailed considering how quickly they’d been moving.
“I’d suggest we set down in a clearing,” he said. “It would give us more room for maneuvering.”
She nodded and said, “See to it, Navigator.”
They touched down with only a slight bump or two, and Zakhar told her to hop out and take the lead rope and tie it off on a sturdy tree. Once that was done, they tied off two more ropes, and the birds disconnected themselves and headed off in search of food and water.
As for them, they made camp and used the gift of the burning cresset to start a fire, remembering to pass their hand over it to turn it off before stowing it in their bag.
Finished, they filled water bags at a little stream and boiled up a potful of barley for their supper.
They agreed that they would share one biscuit together every night after Zakhar told them he estimated their journey would take three days, based on the distance he’d discussed with one of the sisters.
They’d just pulled one biscuit from the bag and were preparing to divide it when an old man hobbled into their camp and asked if he could warm his hands by their fire.
Zakhar rose immediately. “Please, sir, sit in my spot.”
Just as Zakhar sat again, farther from the flames, Belizna returned to his feet with a dead mouse in her jaws.
She stretched out by the fire and began eating.
Soft snowflakes fell around them. Stacia shivered and drew her coat around her shoulders, with her fur-lined hood drawn down.
Zakhar, too, drew in his knees and stuffed his hands back into his gloves, then pulled his hat down, only then noticing the man at their fire wore just a long-sleeved shirt and well-worn boots.
His balding head was bare, as were his hands, which he continually rubbed and held to the fire. He was thin, his face drawn.
“Are you hungry, sir?” Zakhar asked. “We’ve finished our dinner, but we’re happy to boil up some more to eat.”
“I don’t want to be a bother,” the man said. “You should save your grain for your girl. She looks cold.”
“I’m not,” said Zima. “I’m quite warm enough. You aren’t though.”
“You’re right, Zima,” Stacia said. “He isn’t. I insist,” she said. “Take this biscuit, at least, and some water. We’ve a few blankets too—if you’ll stay the night by the fire, we’ll keep it hot.”
She held out the biscuit and a cup of water, and the old man reluctantly took them. As he ate, the crumbs fell on his thin chest. “Spasibo,” he mumbled, his watery blue eyes twinkling in the firelight. “You’ve been very kind. I’ll remember this kindness.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zakhar said. “Rest now, Dyedushka. Sleep well.”
Zakhar gave him his own blankets, then made sure Zima was comfortable before laying down with his own back to the fire. Stacia could see him shivering every so often. With Zima near them, the cold was back with a vengeance. It seemed like every minute the temperature grew icier.
The next morning, Stacia had to work to get her eyes open. Her lashes were frozen together. How she missed her thick coat of fur. Even if Iriko were with them, she knew she could have curled up next to him and been very warm. The fire had gone out. In fact, the flames had frozen in place!
Stacia worried that the man might not have lived through the night.
She hurried to beat some life into her frozen limbs so she could check on him, but she was surprised to find that the old man who had visited them the night before was gone.
The blankets he’d borrowed were carefully folded up and placed next to the fire, and a note had been pinned on top of them with a rock.
With a gloved hand, she picked it up and read it: “Your hospitality saved an old man’s life. I don’t have much to leave you in exchange, but please accept this nose bag as a token of my appreciation.”
Stacia mumbled to herself, “Nose bag?” She looked around, picking up the blankets and glancing around the dead fire and saw nothing. Then she shook a shivering Zakhar awake.
“Zakhar. Zakhar! Wake up!”
“What? What is it?” he mumbled, frozen air lifting from his lips. “It’s so c-c-cold!”
“I know. Here. Here’s your blanket.”
She tucked it around him, and he buried his head inside and sighed in relief.
“Did you see the old man leave?” she asked.
“No.” Stacia heard his faint reply from inside his blanket.
“I did.” The answer came from Zima, who she hadn’t noticed was awake. Zima sat up and let her little blanket fall away, and in her hands, she clutched an old knapsack.
“Zima?” Stacia said. “Is that the bag the man left on his blanket?”
“Yes,” answered the little girl. “And I think it’s got magic,” she added.
“Why do you say that?” asked Stacia.
“Because I wished for something, and it hopped right into the bag.”
“What did you wish for?” Stacia said, crouching down next to the little girl. “Will you let me see?”
Zakhar lowered his blanket to see as well but still wasn’t warm enough to do much more than that.
“I . . . I thought Belizna might be lonely out here with us.”
At that moment, something hissed and bucked inside the bag. Stacia thought it was probably the white ermine, but just then a sleepy Belizna crept out from Zakhar’s blanket and stared at the bag, whiskers twitching. Stacia got a bad feeling.
“Honey? Why don’t you hand that over to me?” The little girl was barely able to hold on to it. Whatever was inside it wanted out. “So you were saying you thought she was lonely . . .”
“Yes. So I wished for a boyfriend for her.”
“A boyfriend,” Stacia said. She glanced at Zakhar, who immediately sat up. “And you say he jumped right into the bag?”
“Yes. The minute I wished it, he came and scooted right inside. He was very angry about it too.”
“I imagine he was.”
Zakhar was standing next to her now, and he took hold of the other side of the bag.
They walked several steps away from the camp, and then she mouthed, “Odin, dva, tri!” They pulled open the bag at the same time, leaving the top wide, but the creature inside remained as though there were an invisible window keeping him tucked down into it.
Like Belizna, he was a snow-white ermine but with a black-tipped tail.
He was beautiful and huge and very, very mad.
He hissed, kicking and bucking against the bag, but made no attempt to escape the top even though they’d opened it for him.
Stacia dared not insert her hand or fingers lest he bite them.
“You can leave,” she said to him, but he remained inside. “Zima? I think you’re going to have to be the one to tell him he can go,” she said. “It’s a nice thought, but he’s a wild ermine. I don’t think a wild and a tame ermine would get along too well.”
“Yes. I think you’re right,” the little girl said. “Okay, boy, you can go.”
It was like the animal had been released from a trap.
He screamed and leaped a foot in the air, twisting his body as he did so; then he plopped down in a snowdrift, did a little ermine dance, and was off as fast as he could go.
Soon the only thing left to show he’d been there at all were his tiny footprints in the snow.
Zakhar took hold of the pannier. “Now that’s interesting. Do you think it will work with other animals?” he asked.
Before she could stop him, Zakhar said, “How about a nice big rabbit?”
Not a moment later, a fat, fluffy rabbit barreled out of a nearby hole they hadn’t even seen. It screeched madly as it did and leaped high just as he opened the bag, then fell right inside it. Once it was in, it seemed to rethink its decision and began bucking just as the other animal did.
“Well now, that’s a fine thing, isn’t it?” Zakhar said. “I fancy some rabbit for breakfast.”
With a quick twist of the neck, the rabbit was dead, and he was quickly able to get the fire going, skin the creature, and skewer it. It wasn’t long before she could smell the roasting meat.
Reaching down, Stacia picked up the pannier, folded it, and placed it in her bag. “We’re going to have to be very careful with this,” she said.
“Indeed,” replied Zakhar as he pulled off a piece of crisping leg meat and blew on his fingers before nibbling. “We will indeed,” he said.
When they’d eaten their fill, they broke camp, climbed back into their large balloon, and stowed all their gear.
Zakhar and Zima plotted their course and summoned all the birds who’d just linked up when a winter storm hit.
The sisters had warned them about storms and had even taught them how to use storms to travel, but never in her life had Stacia seen a squall move so quickly.
The sky, already dim for morning, turned black as night.
They lost all sense of direction. That’s when the birds abandoned them, and the funnel descended. They began to spin.