Page 26 of When Among Crows
Ala focuses on Dymitr so she doesn’t have to look at that sword.
“There was a girl,” he says. “Young. Barely more than a child. She…” He smiles a little. “She liked those—turtles. You know the ones? They wear masks in different colors, and fight with weapons—”
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?” Ala says, with a laugh.
The woman in white is walking toward the fountain. Through the falling water, Ala sees a strzyga woman, with stringy black hair that hangs almost to her waist. The Knight’s opponent. Target.
Victim.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” the strzyga woman says to the sword-wielding Knight. So they must be in America, then. The accent is right.
Dymitr nods, his eyes on the illusory scene in front of him.
“Yes. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The girl liked to dress as the purple one when she was younger,” Dymitr says. “She stole one of her father’s neckties and cut eye holes in it. I’m sure he was angry, but he let her keep it. And she used the kitchen broom as a bo staff.” His mouth twists a little, like he’s trying not to smile anymore, but can’t quite help it. “She liked to build things, too. She collected bugs, and leaves, and rocks. And she was a zmora, not yet come into her power, but almost.”
Ala feels cold creeping into her. She tries not to watch thestrzyga and the Knight circling the fountain, the strzyga in full shift, with the face of a barn owl, the Knight with her sword poised over her palm, ready to summon cursed attackers with her blood.
“And the Knight you want destroyed,” Ala says. “He killed the girl?”
“Yes and no.” Dymitr looks down. “The girl’s mother was afflicted. Schizophrenic, doctors said, though she wasn’t convinced—she was zmora, too, and zmora don’t typically have conditions like that, as I’m sure you know. But she saw things—heard things. Medication calmed her, but it didn’t cure her. She was prone to erratic behavior. One day she wandered off, into town… and she attacked a human, an old man. So the Holy Order was called to bring her down. They—the Holy Order usually travel in pairs—went to the girl’s house to execute her mother. They generally ignore zmory in favor of more dangerous targets, but once they’re informed of one’s location, she can’t be permitted to live.”
He tilts his head.
Ala is frozen. Abruptly, the strzyga and the Knight in white fall away. The village square disintegrates. It’s sundown, and the curse has ended its torments for the day, but she can’t find it in herself to move.
She knows Dymitr’s story—she knows this story already.
Dymitr goes on: “The girl—a teenager by then—begged for her mother to be spared, and when the Knights were unyielding, she tried to fight them off with the kitchenbroom. They hurt her enough to subdue her, and killed her mother right in front of her.”
Ala listens to the ticking of the clock for a moment as he gathers himself and continues.
“As it turned out, the woman wasn’t schizophrenic, but cursed,” he says. “When she died, the curse leapt from her body and into the girl’s. And the girl grew older afflicted by the same thing as her mother.”
Ala’s throat tightens. She knows—she knows what he’s building toward, but she still can’t quite make herself respond.
“When she was maybe eighteen, her father reached out to the Holy Order again. He was human, and he claimed he was unable to contain his zmora daughter any longer. He wanted their help. And they came, a pair of them, and executed the girl, just as they had her mother.” Dymitr looks up at her. “The curse leapt down the bloodline to her cousin, who was then living overseas. In Chicago.”
Ala.
She looks away, her eyes wet.
“The Knight,” Dymitr says, “is one of the Holy Order who was present at both executions. They are taught that humanity is worth. That all the resemblance that a being such as yourself bears to a human is an elaborate trick, a falsehood. It’s nothing to them, to kill one of you. Easier than putting down a rabid dog.” He spits the words, fierce. She wishes she was like Niko, and could feel his anger, the force of it. She’s startled to find a human who feels this on her behalf.
“How did you know Lena?” Ala says softly. Lena, her cousin. Younger than her, but nearer to the curse, which ricochets like a pinball down the bloodline.
“She was a few years behind me in school,” Dymitr says stiffly. “After her mother died, I visited her often. Her father was cruel to her. He was afraid of them both, which of course supplied them with ample food, though he hardly ever let them leave the house. After the Knight killed her, I mourned her.”
He sits back in his chair. She thinks of the banshees gaping at him at the boxing ring. The receptionist marveling at him when they first walked into this place. It’s his grief that draws their attention, Ala thinks. He’s full of sorrow, and empty of fear.
“If it were just this Knight’s death I wanted, I would have sought out someone like—like Niko, maybe,” Dymitr says. “But I want to ask Baba Jaga for something specific. Something more like—unmaking. Something only she can accomplish.”
His lower lip trembles, just a little. He’s containing it, his grief, but now she sees the little ways it escapes—into the glassiness of his eyes, and the tremble of his fingers, and the flatness of his voice.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” he says. “How I know you. I’m sorry for all the things I still haven’t told you.”
“I don’t care about that,” Ala says, and she touches his arm, right below the elbow. Squeezes gently. He looks at her, and he looks unbearably vulnerable right now, hisgray-brown eyes wide and his hair falling over his forehead.
“Thank you for helping me,” she says.
