Katerina sighed. “I’m sorry, that was unkind,” she said. “I only…” She paused, and there was a rustling of fabric as she smoothed her skirts. “I used to wander into the forest too. You probably don’t remember—you were still a baby, but when I was younger than you are now, a family wanted me.”
It surprised Nadya to see a tear slide down Katerina’s cheek. Had she ever cried before? “I gave them a gift,” she continued, “a flower I’d found in the forest. I didn’t know it was poisonous. It should have killed me to touch it.” She glared out the window, an angry crease between her brows. “I lost my best chance at a home, but from then on I knew to stay out of the forest. And you should too, Nadya. It curses everything it touches.”
Nadya squeezed her fists, her fingers pressing into the bandages. She didn’t have a chance for a loving family like Katerina did. Families found Nadya reckless, disobedient, useless, just like Mrs. Orlova did. If perfect Katerina couldn’t find a family to love her, what hope did Nadya have?
No, her only hope was to escape into the forest, and every minute that Katerina sat talking to her was a minute that Nadya wasn’t preparing herself for the journey. She pinched her eyes closed.
But Katerina hadn’t finished. “Mrs. Orlova wants to send you away. So I’ve asked”—she paused, and Nadya felt a hand take hold of her shoulder—“I’ve asked Tsar Aleksander if you can come to the castle with us.”
Something warm filled Nadya’s insides, like soup trickling down her throat to fill her stomach. She? Join Katerina and Tsar Aleksander at the castle?
Katerina’s next words shattered her thoughts. “But he doesn’t like that you go into the forest alone. So he has agreed that you can come to us on the wedding day if Mrs. Orlova says you have behaved as you should from now until then.”
The warmth that had briefly filled Nadya turned ice cold. Not go into the forest? Behave as she should? Convincing Mrs. Orlova that she deserved to go and live in the castle would be impossible.
Even if she did manage to convince the tsar, could she continue to behave that way in a new life at the castle? She would be expected more than ever to always know what to do, how to act, what to say. She would feel the eyes of many more people on her whenever she had dirt smudges on her nose or wrinkles in her dress.
She started to shake her head, but Katerina squeezed her shoulder. “Just think on it, please?” said Katerina softly. “It would be a comfort to have you with me.”
It was a feeling Nadya couldn’t remember ever having before: feeling wanted. Katerina’s fondness, with all its scoldings and criticisms, flowed deeply enough to invite Nadya to join her at the castle. And if she didn’t go, what then? Would that fondness snap like a dry twig? Would she lose the closest thing she’d ever had to family?
Those feelings, that wanting, was a string knotted around Nadya’s waist. And as Katerina went to bed and the slow music of her soft breaths finally filled the room, that string tied Nadya to the orphanage for one more night.
A pointed roof peeked through the trees as Baba Yaga neared her hut. Her memory had not faltered—she could still remember the way, even if her senses had worn a little with age.
She lifted her hands into the air, palms facing the hut. Like the eyes of a creature asleep, the hut’s windows were dim, and smoke drifted from the chimney in faint snoring breaths.
“Little hut,” she said, calling to it as a friend, “turn your back to the forest, and your front to me!”
The hut stirred. It shifted, jostling dry leaves from the branches brushing against its walls. Sleepily it turned, steps lowering from between its dim windows. The door creaked open to welcome her home.
Her hut would help her in her plan. In her centuries of life, everything always seemed clearer from the inside, next to the fire.
She was tired. So tired.
It was tempting to stay inside forever. To forget the dangers that awaited her, to hide from the world and its evils. All she needed was someone to do the work that was expected of her. Who would take up the task so that she could rest?
The other girls in the orphanage buzzed with excitement as they went about their chores. They seemed to swirl and swarm around Katerina, leaving Nadya in what should have been peaceful solitude. For the first time, no one was paying any attention to her. On any other day she would have been delighted at the change, enjoying the silence and the lack of anyone telling her what to do, but today it left her alone with too many thoughts.
If she stayed at the orphanage, behaved as perfectly as Katerina always had, then there was a chance that on the morning of the wedding in a week’s time she would have a new home at the castle. If she didn’t manage to impress Mrs. Orlova, then she’d go back to her old plan to escape into the forest. She could live in the woods, or travel beyond to the city. Either way, she’d be free to do things as she pleased and not as others demanded.
Grain danced in the pails that she carried to the chicken coop behind the orphanage. The handles pressed against her bandaged palms, but she managed to deliver the grain without dropping a single kernel. That was a first step toward proving that she deserved to join Katerina at the castle.
The cheers and bustle of villagers could already be heard along the road that wound behind her. From what she’d been told, the road skirted the edge of the forest, all the way north to the castle a few hours’ walk away.
Sunlight gilding the birch leaves made the forest appear inviting, despite the poisonous plants and fearsome animals within. But going to the castle would certainly be safer than the forest. She would never want for clothes or warmth or a bellyful of honeyed pancakes and gingerbread from the castle kitchens….
Maybe she could be as graceful, as polite, as faultless as Katerina. And the castle could feel like a home, with Katerina and Tsar Aleksander like her family.
Movement caught her eye, and she turned to find a lump of brown fur leaping toward her. She laughed as her wolf pranced in friendly greeting, his one eye bright and his tail wagging like a puppy’s. His other eye was sealed shut by a jagged pink scar that ran from his ear to his snout. This was her wolf, the wolf who had long visited her to play and beg for treats. He was the first to show her that she need not fear the forest.
“You’ve come just in time!” she said to him. She ducked into the chicken coop and reemerged with a couple of eggs, which she tossed to him. He caught them in his mouth and crunched heartily.
“Nadya! What are you doing?” The voice broke through her cheered daze like a rooster’s crow. Her insides tensed, and without thinking, she shooed her wolf away. He watched her in confusion for a moment, lifting and setting down his paws as though uncertain of what to do, but when Nadya glanced behind her at Katerina’s fast approach, he seemed to understand. In a flash he disappeared into the safety of the trees.