Page 35 of When Among Crows
Ala’s eyes widen.
“He may have that intention,” Baba Jaga says. “But what makes you think it would be that easy?”
“I…” Ala closes her mouth, frowning. “I suppose I don’t.”
“Good answer,” Baba Jaga says. She tilts her head, and her eyes lose their focus for a moment. “Ah. Here he is now. Let’s ask him about his intentions, shall we?”
10A TRADE
After the first time, he came home trembling.
It was raining so hard that just the short walk from the driveway to the house washed away most of the blood. But it was still staining his nail beds. He stood in the foyer for a long time alone, staring at them. They didn’t seem to belong to him.
Elza found him there. He didn’t know how long it had been. There was a puddle of rainwater on the floor at his feet, and he could hear his parents’ voices in the kitchen. Elza frowned up at him and wrapped her warm fingers around his wrist.
She led him up the stairs to the second-floor bathroom they all shared as children, before their older siblings moved out and before Babcia moved in. The names “Elza” and “Dymek” were scrawled in crayon under the sink, right above the bottles of cleaning fluid.
She stood at his shoulder and guided his hands into the water. It was warm, which meant it had been running for a while, not that he had noticed. She squeezed soap into her palms and worked it into a lather before rubbing it into his cuticles.
“What happened?” she asked him softly.
He didn’t answer.
Elza took out a little brush and used it to scrape the red out from under his fingernails. Then she set it down, turned off the water, and leaned her head into his shoulder.
“It’s all right,” she said. “You’re all right.”
“I killed her,” he said in a whisper.
“You killedit,” Elza corrected him. She carded her fingers through his hair, ruffling it. “You did well, Dymek. You did exactly what you’re supposed to.”
He spared a glance at his own reflection. His cheeks were wet with tears.
You killedit,he tried to tell himself. He tried.
Dymitr can’t feel his hands. Or really, hecanfeel them, but they don’t seem to be attached to his body correctly; they feel too heavy and too big for him. He squeezes them into fists, briefly, to ground himself, but it doesn’t quite work.
Baba Jaga stands across the room, looking no older than he does, but there’s something about her that reminds him of his grandmother. Maybe it’s the way she reduces him with a single look. Or the way she seems tired of the world and everything in it.
“No Knight has ever come to me before,” she says, “and survived.”
She moves closer to the table covered with bones, and runs her fingers over them.
Niko and Ala stand to the side, near a waist-high stack of copper pots. Dymitr can’t bring himself to look at them. This will be easier if he doesn’t.
“Your name?” Baba Jaga says to him.
“Dymitr,” he answers brokenly.
“Why?” she asks. “Why that name?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a name.”
Baba Jaga picks up one of the bones—a femur—and holds it like a magic wand, delicate in her fingers. She points it at him.
“It’s never just a name, boy,” she says. “Dymitr comes from Demeter, Greek goddess of the harvest. A Greek name for a Polish boy. A name of abundant life for a child raised to murder. That… is a very special kind of joke. One that only the Holy Order can tell. One that only the Holy Order can laugh at.” She wags her finger at him. “My wraith told me to expect you. She told me that you had a strange heart, and that I was in it. Imagine my surprise.”
“I can’t imagine that very much surprises you,” he says unsteadily.
