Chapter 3

Anya made for her small house at the bottom of the field, her grip on the stone tightening. She tried to ignore the lingering pain from the static of Tuoni"s touch.

Breathe and think about the three things that Tuoni said. First, Eikki was a shaman and a gatekeeper. As Anya looked back, there were signs he was into the old ways. He would whisper rhymes to the trees, plant during particular phases of the moon, write and draw strange things in journals, and whistle songs to birds. When she was little, he would sing to her all the old tales of heroes and magic. When Anya was older, she had tried to tell him they hadn"t been tales for children.

Eikki had only said, "They are tales for you, though. They will teach you about life." Anya"s lips lifted in the smallest of smiles. She had forgotten about that.

Second, if Tuoni was right, and she only had months left before the gates in the forest opened and people tried to murder her, she would have to find someone to buy the farm or rent it if she was going to have time to learn anything. In the past months, running the farm by herself had taken its toll; she was exhausted, frustrated, and had no time to grieve for Eikki, let alone learn magic. A bitter laugh escaped her lips.

Learn magic. Sure. Do you actually think Tuoni told you the truth? The bloody ash taste grew stronger in her mouth as a lingering reminder that she had seen real magic that morning. There was no way she could dismiss or deny it. Not like she had in Moscow. Anya fought the urge to dry heave again.

In the short months she had lived there, Anya had been forced to see doctors about her nightmares. Even her boyfriend had suggested she get medicated the night they broke up. They had been out drinking, and she thought she had seen a leshy in the Park Zaryad"ye, and she couldn"t stop screaming. Her boyfriend, sick of the nightmares and the stories, had left her soon after.

Fuck him and those doctors, she thought bitterly.

The third thing was Tuoni"s comment about being made to forget. That one worried her more than the others because if it was true, how would she get the memories back? Anya rolled the stone in her pocket, drawing comfort from its warmth, and crossed the sludgy road back home.

It was a simple house with a porch and small square glass windows. Her grandfather"s grandfather, Ilya, had built it, and it had been added to by every generation. The barn was a hundred meters from the house and was made of the same weathered wood.

Anya kicked off her wet boots, took out a large iron key, and opened the front door. She locked it behind her, and her nausea eased as she breathed in the comforting warm smell of split pine blocks, beeswax candle smoke, and coffee.

There were bright rag rugs on the floors, ornaments sat on the shelves, and battered books were stacked in uneven piles. Dried herbs had always hung in the little kitchen, and the jetsam from the people who had lived there filled every nook and cranny. Despite the clutter, she'd never had the heart to throw any of it out.

Anya took the stone out of her pocket and studied it. There was nothing peculiar about it except for the lines of red amongst the black. How could a rock be her destiny?

Shrugging, she placed it on the small shelf above the fireplace where she wouldn"t lose it and went to find something to drink. Tuoni"s warning about staying sober itched at her. Still, if she was going to believe in gates to Skazki and shamanism, she would need vodka to help her.

Down in the cellar, Anya found a bottle of vodka she had made in an ancient still and went back upstairs.

I wonder if Eikki wrote about the gates? Maybe he had left her a helpful how-to guide. Be realistic, your luck has never been that good.

Anya had never gone through the shelf of journals in Eikki"s bedroom. They had always been respectful of each other"s privacy, and since his death, she hadn"t even gone into the room. She opened the door and tried to ignore the squeezing grief in her chest as she looked at his things. He had an overflowing bookshelf in one corner, and Anya scanned the spines, noting how many books of mythology and folktales he had. Anya had never asked Eikki what he had written in the journals. He would sit up in the kitchen, scribbling away until midnight every night. Feeling like she was about to betray his privacy forever, she selected a few of the notebooks and headed back to the warmth of the fire.

Anya ignored the tremble in her fingers as she opened the first one and flicked through it. Drawings and symbols filled the pages, and words were written in English, Finnish, and Russian interchangeably.

Anya sipped her vodka straight from the bottle as she spent hours trying to make heads or tails of the journal. There was a lot of useless information, like a poem about Baba Yaga playing a magical game with another witch and the best time to hunt for mushrooms in the forest. There was nothing about gates or strange black stones.

Anya read until the writing and drawings on the pages swam, and she fell asleep, holding her sore hand to her chest and thinking of fire.

Anya woke with a start,sending the journal on her lap flying. She had dreamed of a man with odd eyes who smelled of autumn and was having an argument with Eikki that she couldn"t hear. She dreamed hazy images of a lake and red-stained boulders, and everywhere there was fire, the world burning in an inferno around her.

That will teach you to read a shaman"s journals before bed.

The sun was already up, so Anya dragged herself to her feet. Grabbing a piece of bread from the kitchen on the way past, she munched it as she put on gumboots and headed to the barn to feed the animals.

Anya was collecting more wood from the shed and looking out for spiders when she noticed the smoke coming out from under the house"s back door.

"Shit. Not again." Anya dropped the wood and ran. She pulled open the door, and smoke rolled out. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." Anya checked each room, but there was no fire.

Where had all the smoke come from?She went into the sitting room, thinking the flue on the fireplace had closed by accident. Something crunched under her boots, and she looked underneath them at the broken black stone fragments. Her stone—her destiny—had rolled off the mantle and smashed on the floor. Anya bent down to gather the pieces of glassy rock with a sigh.

"That"s fucking great, Anya. You have the family heirloom for a day, and it"s already broken. Destiny, my ass."

Anya froze as something rustled in her bedroom. She grabbed the iron poker beside her and held it above her head. No one in the village would be stupid enough to break into her house.

Anya kicked the bedroom door open, ready for a fight. Instead of a thief or delinquent, a small bird with bright gold feathers fluttered in the middle of her bed.

"Stupid bird. How did you get in here?" Anya had left no windows open, so she could only guess it had somehow gotten in through the chimney. Taking an old shirt, she wrapped it around her hand and reached for it. The chick didn"t cry or struggle as she picked up its shivering body. Taking it back to the sitting room, Anya placed it on the floor next to the fireplace before adding some more wood and coaxed the coals to life.

"There you go, little one," she said and contemplated what to do with it. Anya didn"t like people, but she was hopelessly soft with animals. The wind outside had blown up into an icy gale, so she couldn"t put it in a tree. If she weren"t so soft, she would have taken it outside and hit it over the head with a brick. It cooed at her pathetically, and she knew she couldn"t do it.

Great! Another animal to take care of. She didn"t need a chick that would require constant feeding and attention.

What would a bird that size eat? She was frying herself fish for dinner, so she figured it could eat that or die. It didn"t take long for her to fillet the trout and fry it in butter and salt. She couldn"t remember how many days it had been since she had eaten a proper meal; her breakfast at the cafe the previous day had been left untouched.

"I need a drink," she muttered. Anya placed a hand on the cellar door and hesitated.

‘Stay sober,'Tuoni had said.

Reluctantly, Anya made herself a cup of coffee instead. When a god told you to do something, it was probably wise to listen to him just a little.

Back in the sitting room, Anya got comfortable on the mat in front of the fire and put her plate of food in her lap as the chick made chirpy sounds at her. With a sigh, Anya took a tiny piece of fish from her plate and offered it to the little bird. It pecked at it straight away and looked to her for more.

"First, you"re sleeping in my bed; now you"re trying to steal my dinner. You aren"t a very polite bird, are you?" The bird chirped more forcefully, and she relented, feeding it as much as it would eat.

After it was satisfied, the chick climbed out of the shirt and hopped on unsteady feet. It looked so ridiculous that Anya laughed at its feeble attempts.

"Careful, don"t get too close to the fire," she warned. "You"ll get burned, and I won"t rescue you." It gave her an incredulous look before jumping into the flames.

"Shit!" Anya cursed and scrambled to get it out. The bird"s little head turned and crowed with delight. The fire exploded, and Anya jerked backward, shielding her face. The bird shrieked again and flapped its wings before launching itself up the chimney.

"What the actual fuck?" Anya gasped and scrambled to her feet. She ran outside as the bird streaked out of the top of the chimney stack in a flash of orange light. It flew higher and higher before exploding like a firework, then swooping back down to earth, full-grown and made of living flame.

"Holy…shit," Anya muttered. It looked like a peacock with a curling tail and had shimmering, burning feathers. It cooed softly and walked towards the house.

"You"d better be able to turn your flames off if you think you"re coming back inside," Anya said, feeling more hysterical by the second.

The bird tilted its head as if it was listening to her. Then it stamped one foot, the flames disappearing and leaving only silky gold and red feathers.

"Oh, I suppose you can," Anya said, following it inside and wondering how her week could get any weirder.

Seethe man in the forest and the bowl of blood he holds. Vasilli is breathing in the steam rising from it. He opens his eyes as the bowl explodes in flames, searing his face and hands. The bowl shatters, and he is thrown back into the leaf litter. Vasilli opens his eyes and starts laughing loudly.

"Finally, I will get to kill you!" Vasilli knew the shaman had the stone, and now he would get the firebird, kill his brother, and be done with that cursed gatekeeper family once and for all.

"Vischto! Vischtan!" he shouts, and his minions come bounding out of the trees, their fur filthy with dried blood. "We are going hunting."