Chapter 20 #2
She couldn’t do that to him. She wouldn’t do that to him.
Setting her chin, she looked at the crone and said, “I did the work; let’s talk.”
The old woman was unimpressed. “I don’t see any bread on my plate.”
“It’s—ugh, it’ll be hours before it’s done. What’re we supposed to do in the meantime? Sit around and have a dramatic stare-down contest?”
“I’ve more for you to do while it rises.” The crone nodded to the empty metal rack beside the hearth. “Refill my firewood.”
“Nuh-uh. That wasn’t part of the deal. Deal was—I bake you bread, I get my answers.”
The old woman stared, and though she remained still, where the fire cast her shadow against the wall, the darkness deepened and its points sharpened.
“You think we are making ‘deals’ here?” said the crone. “Deals can only be struck when both parties at the table are equal. I think you know something about that.”
Hayleigh’s eyes dropped to the ground. She had no room to negotiate. The crone had all the power here.
The snowfall had already swallowed her footprints, and it was impossible to tell where she’d entered the clearing from. There was a woo-woo overhead where the raven was still perched on the antlers.
When her fingers touched the first piece of firewood, it screamed, leaping up to evade capture. She gritted her teeth and shook her head. “Sentient firewood, of course. Can’t go any less than maximum weird.”
She reached for a different piece of firewood, but again, it screamed and danced away to join its fellow on the other end of the rack. Every time she tried, it was the same, until the firewood was all huddled together, trembling, on the far end of the lean-to.
The crone was still in her rocking chair by the fire when Hayleigh poked her head back in. “Um, the wood is screaming and running away?”
“Yes, it doesn’t want to burn. Would you want to burn?”
“No…But trees don’t talk, or walk, much less dead trees that have been split into a thousand pieces.”
The old woman clucked her tongue. “Maybe you’ve just never been in a place to hear it before. Now, bring me my wood.”
With a grunt of frustration, Hayleigh ventured back out into the snow. What was she supposed to do here?
Just then, a sooty little man poked his head out of a gap in the chimney. He was bundled in a tatty fur coat and wore a black kosovorotka shirt lined with red ribbon. His dark mustache drooped all the way to the ground, sweeping it as he moved.
Domovoy. The house spirits her grandfather had told her about, little men who lived in the walls. They could be of great help if they were treated with respect, and giant pains if they weren’t.
“Excuse me,” she said.
The domovoy eyed her. “Eh?”
“Do you have any idea how to get this firewood to stop running away?” She gestured toward the wood rack, where all the logs still stood in one giant huddle, trembling together.
And then, remembering what Stephan had said about offerings, she pulled the brass ten-kopiyok piece from her pocket and laid it on the ground between them.
“For me?” asked the little creature, blinking impossibly large eyes.
“For you,” she said with a nod, feeling a little tug of sadness to see it gone. She couldn’t say whether it had brought her luck, but things had been better for her since that night.
The domovoy hissed with glee and clutched the coin close. “It doesn’t wanna burn.”
“Excuse me?”
“The wood—it doesn’t wanna burn.”
She let out an exasperated. “That’s all I get? Of course it doesn’t want to burn, but how am I supposed to reassure it when that’s obviously what’s going to happen?”
Something occurred to her then. The old woman had asked for wood, not a fire.
Understanding must have been written on her face; the domovoy cackled and nodded. “The baba should have used the right words if the baba wanted fire.”
It was a strange sort of logic, but she supposed it could work. It was usually that way in the stories—specificity of intention and deed was critical, and mortals were constantly slipping free through magical loopholes.
Reading folklore, it turned out, was perfect training for writing and reviewing contracts.
Hayleigh took a few slow steps toward the wood pile with her hands raised. “Look, I’m not going to burn you. I’m just going to take you inside, where it’s warm and dry. I promise. If I lie, may my…hand get filled with splinters. Or something.”
This time, when she reached the end of the rack, the firewood had settled, and she met no resistance as she scooped it up.
The old woman’s eyes gleamed as Hayleigh dumped her armload into the basket beside the fire. “How did you get it to cooperate?”
“I promised we wouldn’t burn it.”
The old woman’s brow furrowed. “What nonsense is this? I asked you to bring me firewood, what purpose would it have other than to burn?”
Hayleigh smiled. “You said you wanted wood, not a fire.”
“Clever,” said the old woman with a tut. “Too clever, maybe.” With that settled, she shifted a bony finger and pointed at where Hayleigh had left the dough to rise. “The kolach is ready for braiding.”
The dough released a sigh as she plopped it on the table.
Anxiety left behind by the screaming wood gradually retreated as her palm moved across the smooth, pliant surface, shaping it into three ropes.
When she was satisfied with their length and depth, she plaited them deftly before leaving the bread to rise one final time.
“Well,” Hayleigh said, putting hands on her hips, “I’m guessing you have something else for me to do, don’t you?”
With a cluck of the tongue, the crone said, “Yes, one more task, and then I believe we’ll be ready for our chat.
” She hobbled over to the wall and retrieved a broom.
“I’m off to catch us butter for our bread.
I want this place swept clean by the time I get back.
Ceiling to floor—spotless and new-looking. ”
“Completely?”
Her gaze tracked thick lines of dust on and around furniture, up walls and over animal skulls mounted to plaques. A sooty film coated the space by the oven and furnace, staining the splintered wooden planks.
“Completely,” repeated the old woman with a steel-toothed grin, and then she hobbled out the front door, disappearing into snow flurries. Off to “catch butter”—whatever that meant.
How could Hayleigh possibly clean this entire room before the crone came back?
It would take hours, maybe an entire day.
She leveled her nerves by reminding herself there was always a way in the stories.
All you needed to do was look at the complete picture, turn it around a few times to examine it from different angles, and figure out what you were missing.
It took her a second to see it. There were two brooms against the wall. The second was small, more like a hand broom. Was there someone here who could help her? The domovoy? It was small even for him.
“Hello?” she called. “I…I don’t know if I’m just talking to myself right now, but if there is someone here, I could really use your help.”
There was a soft padding noise overhead, and then a plop. The motanka that looked so much like her grandmother’s walked across the floor on tiny woven legs until she came to stand below Hayleigh and peered up.
“You’re willing to help me?” asked Hayleigh, heart in her throat. The little doll nodded and walked to the tiny broom. “Thank you.”
Together, they swept with surprising speed and efficiency. Every time she had a pile ready to go, the motanka was there with the dustpan. When it came time for the bread to go in, the doll held the oven door while Hayleigh slid it inside.
Even here, on the opposite side of everything she understood, she wasn’t alone.
When the crone finally walked in clutching a piece of clay crockery, the bread waited, a rosy golden brown, in the center of the table, and the room all but shone. The motanka was back on the shelf, and Hayleigh wiped her hands clean with a towel.
She settled at the head of the table, finally feeling as if they were meeting on equal ground. “The house is clean and the bread is ready. Which means you owe me an explanation.”
The crone, looking thoroughly beaten but not at all put out by it, eased into the chair at the opposite end of the table and opened her mouth.
Finally ready to give Hayleigh what she had come for.