Echo North Page 3

  “There is no question of that!” cried Donia. “You heard how she tripped and stuttered through the notes! She isn’t bright enough to pursue music.”

  I stood from the stool and brushed by both of them, pausing in the doorway to look back. “I’ll take an axe to it then, shall I? It would be more pleasant than listening to you play.”

  And then I went up to my room and read about dressing wounds until my candle burned down to a stub, refusing to unlock my door no matter how many times my father knocked, telling me to come out and apologize.

  Guilt gnawed at me for a few weeks after until, at long last, I relented and asked Donia’s forgiveness. She just sniffed and said I wasn’t to touch her things without her permission ever again.

  The piano mostly gathered dust after that.

  A FEW WEEKS LATER, LETTERS from my father’s creditors began to arrive, most to the bookshop, some to the cottage. At first, I didn’t realize they weren’t the usual bills or notices. They all demanded immediate repayment of a staggering amount of money. One threatened fines. Another, prison. I tried to talk to my father about them but he continually put me off, saying that these city creditors were just making thunderstorms out of raindrops.

  One morning, I went into the back room of the shop to shelve some books, and caught my father unearthing my mother’s jewel case from its hiding spot beneath the floorboards. It was empty except for her treasured emerald ring and a gold necklace.

  He bowed his head, and the next moment he was crying silently on the floor, his shoulders shaking. I knelt beside him, wanting to comfort him as he had so often comforted me.

  “We’re ruined, Echo,” he said when he’d grown calm enough to speak. “Utterly and completely.”

  “Because of the furniture? Because of the piano?”

  “It’s the house. I thought I could manage the payments, and perhaps I could have if business were better, but—” He sighed. “I just wanted your stepmother to be happy. I’ve borrowed much more than I can ever possibly pay back.”

  “What can we do?”

  He took the necklace and the ring out of the jewel box. “We’ll sell the necklace. But this—” He offered me the ring. “I always meant for you to have it.”

  I bit my lip and stared down at the ring, sliding it quietly onto my finger.

  He clasped my hands in his larger ones. “Rodya told me about the university. I think it’s wonderful, Echo. I’m so proud of you.”

  “I haven’t heard back from them yet.”

  “But you will. I know you will.”

  I hugged him, kissing his cheek as I drew back. “Tell me exactly how much you owe.”

  MY FATHER BROKE THE NEWS to Donia over supper.

  “We’ll have to sell the piano, my love.”

  Her chin quivered. “Must we?”

  I clamped my teeth down on my lip to keep from reminding her that she hadn’t even touched the thing in weeks.

  My father took her hand across the table. “We must,” he said firmly. “And we will have to live just a little smaller for a while. Forgive me, my darling. I ought not to have bought more than I could pay for.”

  Donia sniffed noisily. “You certainly shouldn’t have.”

  “He wasn’t the one who—” I began, but my father raised his hand to stop me, which was probably wise.

  “The fault is entirely mine,” he went on. “But you must try and bear it. It will only be for a year or two.”

  “A year or two!” Donia shrieked.

  “That is nothing for so strong a love as ours,” said my father.

  I hated that he loved her so much and she thought only of her own comfort.

  We sold the piano and one of the couches, too. My father appeased his creditors with the money he received by mortgaging the bookshop, piece by piece. Late in the summer, the shop belonged entirely to the bank and he had to pay rent out of our earnings. At the best of times the shop had never turned an enormous profit, and with a poor harvest the previous year, the villagers hadn’t many leftover pennies to spend on books.

  We couldn’t pay the rent.

  On the first day of autumn, my father closed the shop for good. He explained his next plan to me and Rodya and our stepmother that night over supper.

  We sat in front of the fire, sipping tea and eating lentil soup flavored with a bit of ham, and Rodya looked more worried than I’d ever seen him. His apprenticeship would be over by the end of the year; he’d be free to open his own shop in another village, unless the clockmaker decided to hire him on. But most likely he’d be leaving us.

  “I’ve decided to take my collection of rare manuscripts and illuminated maps into the city,” my father said. “If I can find the right buyer, our worries will be forestalled a long while.”

  Donia pursed her lips. “Why didn’t you think of this before, Peter dear?”

  My father studied her. “Because it is our very last hope. If it fails, my darling, there is nothing left.”

  Rodya and I spent a few minutes trying to persuade him to let one of us take his place, but he would not be shaken. He promised to post a letter to Donia if he thought his inquiries would take more than three weeks.

  We stayed up late into the night, talking together and sipping tea in front of the fire, and for the first time, it felt like the four of us were a true family. I didn’t want it to ever end.

  But at last Rodya rose and took his leave, and my father and Donia went to bed. I dozed on the floor by the fire, hanging on to the feeling of peace and togetherness.

  In the morning, my father came downstairs, laid a blanket over top of me, and kissed my forehead. “I’ll see you in three weeks, little lamb.”

  I fell back asleep and dreamed of the wolf.

  BUT MY FATHER DID NOT return in three weeks.

  He sent no letter—we had no word from him at all, and by the time a month had expired, Donia was falling to pieces and fear stabbed sharp in my mind.

  Another fortnight passed. I went to see Rodya at the clockmaker’s, perched on a stool across from his worktable. I watched him repair the workings of a table clock in the rosy glow of his lamp, soldering a new piece of brass onto a broken gear, then filing it down into teeth to replace the missing ones. He blew the shavings from the gear and fitted it into the movement. “The roads have been bad because of the rain, Echo. His letter could have gone astray.”

  Rodya flicked his gaze to mine, then back down to the clock movement.

  Suddenly I heard the worry in his voice.

  He lay down the clock and took the loupe from his eye. “If there’s still no word from him by the end of the week, I’ll send inquiries into the city. But I’m sure he’s fine.”

  There was no word by the end of the week, and Rodya’s inquiries came up empty—none of the city booksellers had spoken with or seen my father.

  Autumn faded and the first winter snows came, thick and heavy, making the roads impassable. There was nothing for it but to keep our heads down and wait for spring.

  Donia took to her bed, complaining constantly of a fluttering heart and immobilizing headaches. I brought her tea and assumed the responsibility of cooking, which meant more and more water in our already-thin soup, and less and less sugar for our tea.

  I cleaned the house from bottom to top and then back down again. I organized the shelves in my father’s study. One evening, fresh snow swirling white at the windows, I had a bout of generosity and decided to organize Donia’s writing desk—it was drowning in paper, envelopes and dried-up bottles of ink. I methodically emptied the drawers and began sorting through everything, deciding what to keep and what ought to be discarded.

  I didn’t mean to snoop into Donia’s personal correspondence. But one of the letters in her drawer fell out onto the carpet, and when I snatched it up I saw the first line by accident.

  I read the rest in a blaze of shock and anger.

  Dear Mrs. Donia Alkaev,

  Suzdal Bank has made the requested deposit on your behalf in
the amount of 30,000 roubles, with interest to be paid quarterly into your account. For withdrawal requests or any further assistance regarding the sale of your late husband’s property, please write to the address below.

  Thank you for choosing Suzdal Bank for your financial requirements.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Fedor Novak

  Enclosed were several lists of figures with cramped notes written next to them. It was dated a month past the wedding.

  As far as I could tell, the sale of the bakery had more than canceled Donia’s late husband’s debts—if he’d had any at all—and she was sitting on a sum of money that staggered me. Why had she not told my father? Why had she let him go off to the city with his precious manuscripts, allowing him to think it was our only hope?

  “What exactly do you think you’re doing?” came a sudden voice behind me.

  I wheeled to see Donia, in all her menacing arctic-bear size, glowering down at me. She was wrapped in a brocade dressing gown, her hair hanging in limp curls on her shoulders. Her eyes were red like she’d been crying, and that made me more angry than anything.

  “You viper,” I spat, jabbing the letter into her face. “You plunged us into debt when you could have paid for everything! Why did you keep it from us? Why did you keep it from Papa?”

  She glanced at the paper impassively. “What I do with my money is not your concern.”

  “If you’ve killed him—” My voice pitched unstable and high. “Donia, if you’ve killed him I will never forgive you.”

  “Fortunately for me I give little thought to your forgiveness. His death is not on my hands, nor my conscience.”

  I crumpled the letter and let it fall to the floor. “Why did you even marry him?”

  “I wanted a comfortable life—I knew your father would provide that for me. And there are rewards in heaven, I think, for becoming stepmother to the Devil’s child.” Danger lurked behind her gaze. “Which reminds me. This came for you today.” She pulled an envelope from the pocket of her dressing gown and held it up: it was postmarked from the city, addressed to me, with the seal already broken.

  Hope and horror rushed into me. I grabbed for the envelope but Donia snatched it back, crossing the room and holding it over the roaring fire.

  “Give me the letter, Donia.”

  She smirked. “It’s only fair that I read your mail since you took it upon yourself to read mine. Would you like to know what it says? Of course you would.” She unfolded the letter. “‘Dear Miss Alkaev, We would be happy to receive you at the university in the spring, provided you have with you upon your arrival three references from persons of note in your chosen field and the fee—in part or total—for your initial term …’”

  I shrieked and lunged for the letter, which Donia thrust suddenly into the fire.

  She caught my arms to keep me from scrambling after it, and I was forced to watch as the paper crackled and curled and fell away to ash.

  “You didn’t think I would let you attend the university, did you?” said Donia calmly. “Even if you managed to come up with the fee, they would take one look at your monstrous face and shove you back into the gutter where you belong.”

  I stared at her, breathless and numb and hot. “The only monster in this place is you.”

  I turned from my stepmother without another word, stopping only to grab the lamp from the desk, my shoulder bag and furs from their hooks on the wall before stepping out into the frigid night.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I TRUDGED INTO THE FOREST, the lamp banging against my knee, snow blowing thick and wet into my face. It was bitterly cold, but across the boundary of the wood the wind blew less sharp. I wandered on, fighting back anger and tears and a blinding sense of helplessness. I couldn’t stop seeing the letter from the university devoured by the fire, ashes falling white in the hearth. Donia’s words repeated endlessly through my mind: They would take one look at your monstrous face and shove you back into the gutter where you belong.

  One look at your monstrous face.

  One look.

  But wasn’t she right? Why did I expect the university to be any different from my little village? There was no place for me there, and if my father was truly gone, there was no place for me anywhere. I refused to stay another minute with Donia, and I couldn’t burden Rodya. He needed a life of his own, unhindered by me.

  I walked without purpose or destination and my thoughts ran in circles, vipers swallowing their tails—there was no end to my despair and self-loathing. The lamp burned steadily through its oil and the snow fell on and on, heavy even through the trees. All was awful and empty and brittle, biting cold.

  And then my lamp winked out.

  I stopped short, realizing the folly of my actions with sudden clarity. I fought off the burgeoning panic and scrabbled in my shoulder bag, where a packet of matches and a half-burnt candle were wedged beneath a couple of books. I jammed the candle down into the chimney of the lamp and lit it, the glass shielding the flame from both wind and snow. Light flared once more in the wood and I turned back the way I came, but my footprints had already vanished.

  I tried to retrace my steps anyway, bending my head down against the wind, but it was snowing so heavily I could barely see past the candle flame. I didn’t really know what direction I was headed—I could be wandering in circles, or deeper into the wood.

  I kept going, my whole body numb with cold, watching the candle shrink too quick before my eyes. The drifts came up to my knees. I shoved my way through them—as long as I didn’t stop moving, there was still hope.

  What do you even have to live for? whispered a needling little voice in my mind.

  One look at your monstrous face.

  I scrubbed angry tears from my eyes and thought about my father and Rodya, about a white wolf watching me through summer trees. I wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet.

  I pressed on, snow seeping under my collar, ice stinging my eyes. The candle burned down to a stub and guttered out, so I abandoned the lamp in a snowdrift, grabbing the packet of matches and lighting them one by one. I walked on in those brief flares of light, the tiny orange flames burning down to my fingers or hissing out in the wind.

  The matches dwindled. I forced myself to wait between striking them, until the clamor of the dark made my head wheel and I knew I couldn’t go a step further without another precious spark of light.

  And then there was only one match left. I cradled it to my chest, forcing each foot in front of the other. My right hand grazed against a tree trunk, and I sensed space opening out around me—the wind swirled angrily, unhindered by the wood, and the snow fell even thicker. I hesitated a few moments, wondering if by some miracle I had found my way back through the forest, and the cottage stood just out of sight.

  My fingers trembled as I lit the last match. Light flared.

  I stood in a clearing in the midst of the wood, and a man lay in a crumpled heap in the snow not three paces ahead of me. I recognized his jacket, his pack.

  It was my father.

  I cried out and moved toward him, as quickly as I could through the drifts. The match burned out but I didn’t care, sinking to my knees beside my father, feeling his neck for a pulse and finding it, faint but steady beneath his skin.

  “Papa,” I breathed, “Oh, Papa I found you.” I threw my arms around him, hugging him close.

  “You need light,” came a sudden voice, gruff and strange. “There is a lantern in his pack.”

  I jerked my head up. “Who’s there?”

  “Light the lamp, and you will see.”

  Bewilderment sparked through me, but I wasn’t afraid—my father was alive, and my elation at finding him overshadowed everything else. So I obeyed the voice, digging through my father’s pack until I found a handful of matches and a lantern heavy with oil. I crouched on my heels, lit the lamp, raised it up.

  The white wolf stood among the trees, his fur blending into the snow, his amber eyes huge and bright. He padded t
oward me and I gripped the lantern tighter, its metal digging cold into my palm.

  “We do not have much time,” said the wolf, stopping just a pace away.

  I screamed and dropped the lamp. Every impulse raged at me to run. How could the wolf be speaking to me?

  But I couldn’t leave my father.

  “You will be sorry if you lose the light,” the wolf said gruffly.

  I snatched the lantern before all the oil could spill out; it shook in my trembling hand, metal rattling, light jouncing. I set it gingerly on level ground. I must have been dreaming—I must have fallen asleep in the wood and was freezing to death, my father and the wolf phantoms invented by my dying mind.

  The wolf’s breath rose like smoke from his nostrils. “I am not a dream, and neither is your father. But we’re running out of time.” He came another step nearer.

  I grabbed my father’s hand, trying not to panic at the bluish tint of his skin. Desperately, I massaged his fingers. “What are you?” I whispered to the wolf. “Why are you here?”

  “I have come to ask you something. Something I have not had the memory or the courage to ask you until now.”

  Too cold, too cold. I put my ear against my father’s chest, listening for his heartbeat. I fought back my burgeoning panic.

  “You must answer quickly,” said the wolf. “I do not think I could get through again, not this way. It is her wood. She does not like me to leave it.”

  I flicked my eyes up to him. I didn’t understand what he was saying, and I didn’t care—I had to get my father warm. “What do you want from me?”

  “A promise.”

  “To do what?”

  “To come back through the wood to my house. To live with me there for a year.”

  My voice shook: “Why would I do that?”

  “Because if you do, I will save your father’s life and send him safely home. He’s been trapped in the wood for weeks, maybe months. I found him, led him out. If not for me he would already be dead, or worse—he would be at her mercy.”

  My head was wheeling. I had to get him warm. “I don’t understand.”