Page 73 of One For my Enemy

“You were right when you said we’d always be hungry,” Irina added. “It’s why the dead come to us. Because they know we won’t turn them away.”

“But we don’t want what belongs to Masha,” Katya finished solemnly, shaking her head.

“We have callings of our own,” Irina agreed, and Yaga nodded gratefully, tucking her hands around both her daughters’ cheeks.

“Take caution, then, daughters,” she told them. “It won’t be an easy road ahead.”

They were Antonova witches. “We are not afraid,” they replied reflexively, and settled themselves beside their mother.

(Lena.)

Yelena Antonova was not surprised by much. Such were the pitfalls of hearing things, reading things. The universe spoke a language, if you were listening closely enough. Many languages, even. Stars, leaves, flowers, cards, dirt—the universe was constantly spelling things out, though people rarely listened.

Lena did. Lena listened to everything, and watched, too. She and her sisters, for all their same blood, saw very different things when they looked at the world. Marya saw opportunity. Katya and Irina saw… some other world besides this one. Liliya, when she could be bothered to open her eyes for much at all, usually preferred to close them, returning to her dreams. Galina mostly saw herself. It was only Lena who truly saw the world as it was, though of all her many views, she generally preferred the stars.

Lena still lived at home with her mother, unlike her elder sisters. Irina and Katya had moved away, and Marya, too. Lena, on the other hand, didn’t particularly enjoy being alone. There was too much to get lost in when she was by herself.

“Masha is dead,” Yaga said, her footsteps preceding the dread Lena had been unable to place all day. “I presume you already know as much?”

No, actually. Lena had read the futures for all her sisters, but of all of them, Marya’s and Sasha’s were the most unclear. They had fits and starts, like stars themselves. They never died out, no matter how many ways Lena read it, or they always died. They flickered and faded and shone, but did not follow a path she could understand.

“Not this time, Mama,” Lena said simply.

Yaga paused, considering this, and held out the cup in her hand.

“I brought us some tea,” Yaga said, and Lena sighed, knowing very well what that meant. Marya’s version of this particular request had been slightly different; it had been luring Lena up to the roof of their building to look at the stars. Marya knew Lena’s fondness for open spaces, understood her longing to see what was written in the sky, and encouraged it.

Still. Tea would work, in a pinch.

“I foresee a difficult choice for you, Mama,” Lena confessed, accepting the cup but not drinking it, toying instead with the ceramic of the handle. “I know what you wish to do, Mama, and I know you’ll go through hell to do it. I know you know what it requires: sacrifice.” She looked up, eyeing her mother. “I also know you may not like what you dig up.”

The words seemed to register in her mother’s spine, flickering on her face with familiarity.

“Is that magic, Lena,” Yaga prompted, “or intuition?”

“It’s nothing that will satisfy you,” Lena permitted wryly, “but it’s something, nonetheless.”

Yaga nodded. She missed nothing. Lena suspected she spoke the universe’s language herself, or else the reverse; the universe bent to her wishes, informing her of everything.

“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” Lena asked, and answered herself, “Of course you are.”

Yaga quieted, something dawning in her gaze.

“You’re a good girl, Lenochka,” she murmured, and then she and Lena sipped at their tea, holding their futures between the palms of their hands.

(Galya.)

To non-magical people, Galina Antonova was like a lovely, charismatic mirror. For each man she met, he became a funnier, smarter, better version of himself in her presence; inevitably he (any nameless he) would love her for it, at least for as much time as she would give him. She would give him very little, though, because she wasn’t a fool, and it was always very clear to her what he truly loved. He loved himself most of all—specifically, the version of him she made him—and so, eventually, pretty Galya would be gone almost as quickly as she came, disappearing into the night.

It doesn’t occur to non-magical people that Galina herself is magic.

Her sisters know better, of course, and her mother, too. They know their Galina is, for them, something like a battery; an amplifier. When Galina is present, their magic is more refined, more focused. When her sister Marya was especially weary, she would call for Galina—Galya, pretty Galya, come hold my hand—and Galina, second-youngest, would always relent, twining her fingers with her sister’s and waiting patiently for sparks.

Sometimes it was a very late night, and Galina would be awake long past her bedtime; sometimes until the early mornings. Still, she wouldn’t move, knowing this was her gift. This was her importance. She didn’t know how Marya had ever figured it out; a guess, perhaps? Perhaps something more purposeful. Marya always did see the important things, after all, and perhaps it was because Galina was so grateful for the observation that she, forgettable second-youngest, would never complain. She merely sat with her shoulders stiff, a perfect copy of Marya, right down to the shape of their midnight smiles.

In the morning, a still-tired Marya (who was never too tired for breakfast) would take Galina’s face in her hands and smile a different smile at her; a tender one, full of gratitude. She would say something like,What are you hungry for, Galya?and they would make pancakes in their mother’s kitchen, dusting themselves in powdered sugar and licking syrup from their fingers until the whole house was awake, plates piled high with more food than they could ever eat.

“Masha is dead,” Galina’s mother told her that morning, and at the words, strangely or not-so-strangely, Galina tasted pancakes, struggling to swallow it down. “But I’ll tell you a secret,” Yaga added quickly, and Galina looked up, surprised. She was no Sasha, the baby, nor Marya, the favorite; she was only one in a string of pretty sisters with prettier talents and therefore she was easily forgotten, and rarely permitted secrets. The twins, Katya and Irina, had plenty of them. So did Liliya, who dreamed of them, and Yelena, who seemed to know all of them. But Galina had never had secrets herself, at least until today.

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