Chapter Twenty-One
Regret is a knife, serrated and deep. He feels it with every step, every shift. The betrayal shining in her eyes—the hurt—is more painful than any blow.
THE MEADOW
The trail is winding, each curve making her feel more turned around than the last. Anna doesn’t remember it feeling that way before—doesn’t remember it feeling so long.
Then she notices the subtle change of trees and flora, birds flitting between the branches that belong on another continent all together, and knows she has traveled a much farther distance than she feels.
Then the trees thin away until the footpath opens up to a field in bloom.
Anna staggers—leaning against a tall alder.
It is the same cottage, the same meadow, where she lived so many centuries ago.
Where Eira took her in and taught her the difference between living and surviving.
The landscape is different, but she recognizes the echo of what it once was.
The river runs wider, but the shape is the same.
She’s almost certain the gnarled plum tree is the same she once plucked fruit from.
The cottage looks entirely unchanged.
It is an exact echo of her memory, down to the color of the thatched roof and the aged wood shutters. As she walks closer, she notices that even the stone lining the chimney seems untouched by the ravages of time.
At the door, Anna hesitates, hand hovering.
It has been so long—she’s afraid of the person she’ll find on the other side.
Afraid of how Eira may have changed; how she may have stayed the same.
They hadn’t left each other on the best of terms. Anna had been too hurt and too heartbroken to give her the goodbye she deserved. She regrets that, now.
Anna pulls a bracing breath into her lungs, lifts her chin with a confidence she doesn’t really feel, and raps her knuckles on the painted wood.
It opens too quickly—as if Eira had been on the other side, just waiting for Anna to find the courage to call.
She is a vision straight out of Anna’s memory.
The same long gray hair braided over her shoulder, the same age lining her face.
Eira smiles, soft and warm and familiar. “Hello again, Child.”
Tears burn Anna’s eyes, unexpected but welcome. Her lips curve, an answering smile brimming with fondness. “Am I still a child, Eira? Have I not grown?” A question, a hope for validation, wrapped in a joke.
Eira’s eyes drink her in, her time-worn hands reaching up and cupping Anna’s cheeks.
Her palms are still lined with calluses, still warm and still merciful.
“I see the way time has changed you,” she says, “And I see the way your heart has remained the same.” She leans closer, a breath apart.
“You have grown into someone to be proud of.”
Anna’s throat goes tight, the heart in her chest aching with remembrance and fulfillment.
She wasn’t sure, until that moment, that Eira’s approval was still something she craved.
Some deep corner of her heart, still injured by being left behind, never stopped whispering that she wasn’t worth taking. “Thank you,” she breathes.
She pats her cheek, her smile dimming. “I need your help.”
Eira pours her a cup of tea—chamomile with a touch of honey. “You have heard the stories? The one with the witch who eats lost children in the woods?”
Anna frowns, uncertain where this conversation is heading. “Babayaga?”
Eira waves a flippant hand. “To some, it is Babayaga. To others it is only the witch. Sometimes the house sits on chicken legs, other times it’s made of gingerbread.
The name and the story are not important.
” She leans back into her chair and takes a long sip from her tea before sighing.
“As you can see, this house is neither of those. Yet here we are.”
Setting her cup on the table, Eira folds her hands in her lap. “This is the home the hungry, abandoned children find. I promise they meet a much kinder fate than the stories give me credit for.”
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, really. For all the myths surrounding Khiran, it stands to reason that Eira would have earned some of her own. Still, Anna can’t fathom the connection. “You’re Babayaga?”
“I am Eira,” she corrects pointedly, huffing indignantly. “Honestly, I’d blame Khiran and that infuriatingly loose tongue of his, but I don’t think even he would spin stories that cast me so unfavorably.”
No, Anna suspects not. Khiran has too much respect for her to start rumors as horrid as eating children. He finds more enjoyment out of telling the truth and seeing how the world changes it—the longest running game of telephone.
Eira’s lips thin, fingers drumming over her lap. “They used to stumble upon my paths and stay until they were strong enough to stand a chance. Some still do, but not enough. Not anymore.” She makes a loose gesture to the walls. “Too many stories, too many warnings, I suppose.”
Her gaze is piercing. “My magic is tied to this place. I can open the way for travelers from any corner of the world, but only if I’m here to greet them.”
Anna’s eyes travel the room, her mind turning over the memories of being alone within these very walls. “I don’t understand. You left.”
She shrugs her aged shoulders. “I cannot stay here forever anymore than you can.” She takes a sip of her tea, sighing. “There is too much for the world to teach us, and I didn’t learn all I know by waiting within the safety of these walls.”
Thinking back, Anna had always found it a bit odd that Eira was so willing to leave so much behind. It must have been much easier, knowing that the home she built would be waiting for her, no matter where she went or how long she stayed away.
Anna lets the heat from her mug seep into her palms and takes comfort from the warmth. “What do you need of me?”
“I need you to lay the bread crumbs,” she says, leaning forward and taking Anna’s hand in her own. “I need you to lead them to my door.”
Khiran finds her hours later.
It’s enough time for her irritation to kindle into something hot, something burning.
Eira must feel it. She places her teacup on the table and stands, the wooden feet of the chair scraping dully against the stone.
“I’ll give you both a moment.” Anna hears her murmur something to Khiran on the way out, but the words are so soft she can’t decipher them.
When the garden door closes behind her, he’s still standing—a grimace painted over his face. “Anna—”
“You knew,” she says, cutting off any excuse—any apology—he may have for her. Her anger is raw. Fresh. “You knew where that trail led. You knew what it was.”
He deflates, his sigh heavy. “Yes.”
She’s not sure if his honesty soothes or aggravates her. The hand on her cup tightens, her knuckles going pale. “You lied to me.”
A spark of indignation lights his eyes. “I didn’t. I—”
“You knew what it was and you still told me it was a game trail!”
“I said that’s what it looked like.” Her answering stare must tell him enough, because he winces. Tries again. “Which … isn’t a direct lie, but misguiding all the same. You’re right, it was wrong of me. I apologize.”
The anger leaves her, a dying breeze leaving her sails limp. She’s too hurt to carry it any longer, too eager to understand to let it get in her way. “Why?”
He pulls out the chair beside her, his elegant fingers easing her own away from the strangled grasp she has on Eira’s china. His thumbs brush over her knuckles, soft and soothing. “Because I knew what she would ask of you,” he murmurs, his eyes pained. “Because I knew you would agree.”
He’s right, but it does little to soothe the sting. Still, it’s a start. Her hands flex, fingers lacing into his own. “It’s my decision to agree to.”
Flinching, he doesn’t try to convince her otherwise. He lifts their joined hands, kissing her knuckle. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have interfered.”
It feels too easy. She had been prepared for him to offer more of a defense. “I’m staying with Eira. To help.”
“I suspected as much,” he murmurs, turning her hand and placing another kiss to the inside of her wrist. Anna’s pulse flutters beneath the gentle touch of his lips. “Your things were packed. Did you even know what she was asking, before you decided to stay?”
“No,” she answers, despite knowing it confirms everything he accused her of. She heard the call for help. She heeded it.
The details don’t matter.
He leans his forehead against their clasped hands, his sigh a quiet whisper between them. It sounds like worry.
He stays for dinner.
Eira doesn’t inquire about their conversation, only about where they’ve been and what they’ve seen.
It doesn’t take Anna long to notice that for every story she tells, every moment of history she’s lived through, Khiran offers one from the other side of the world.
She finds it odd at first, but brushes it off.
Then, when the hour grows late, she stands and announces she’s going to bed and his only response is to wish her goodnight.
No mention of joining her later. No kiss or a bid for sweet dreams. His gaze is pointed away from her curious eyes, his finger tapping anxiously around his cup in a small tell that she’s not sure he has even noticed. It dawns on her, the subtle shift in him since Eira rejoined them.
He doesn’t want her to know.
Anna isn’t sure how she feels about the secrecy, but as she pulls the quilt to her chin, she finds that she understands it.
She hasn’t seen Eira in centuries, but the memory of her face the morning after she received Khiran’s ring is as clear as the etching on the band—subtle, but visible in the right light. If she knew, she wouldn’t approve.
Anna just doesn’t understand why.
She lays, staring up at the ceiling. She can find no answers there, only hairline cracks spreading like spiderwebs over the plaster. Anna falls asleep knowing that one good push would be enough to send it crashing down on her.