14

Fireworks

Katerina could hardly bring herself to eat supper that night. Not that she wasn't hungry—she was. But they had come so close to dying. The food here was already strange. None of it looked like anything. Everything was flavored with something else, so nothing tasted like itself. She hadn't really had much appetite since she left Sophia's house. And now Baba Yaga had found a way to get curses past the perfect protection of Ivan's mother's house.

Using Ruthie wouldn't be tried again. But Baba Yaga would find someone else. That boy, for instance. He was seething with resentments. Right now he seemed to like Ivan and his parents, but that could change, if Baba Yaga enticed him the right way, or fooled him about what he was doing, the way Ruthie was deceived. Or it might be Piotr himself, or Mother; every day they left the house to work, to shop, to run errands. Who knew what they might bring back with them? What familiar? What curse concealed in papers in Piotr's briefcase? Or in the grocery bags that Ivan helped Mother bring in from the car?

It was just a matter of time.

What was this food? Mother said it was potatoes, sliced thin, with a cheese sauce. But nothing looked or tasted like cheese, and she had no idea what potatoes were. Everything felt strange in her mouth.

She ate it anyway, chewing methodically. When one is at war with Baba Yaga, it's good to do it on a full stomach. You never know when the crisis might come, and you have to be at full strength.

But what strength did they have? All these tasks that Ivan had been working on, the gunpowder, the alcohol, the bombs, the Molotov cocktails—what good would such mechanical things do against magic? Yet Mother had such faith in them that Katerina went along.

And... there was the killing of the wasp today. That stream of liquid, and the wasp went down and died. A creature sustained as a familiar was very hard to kill. So maybe there was something to it after all...

He could have died. A bite of that piece of chicken, and he would have twitched himself to death within a few minutes. Not really my husband yet, but the only one I'll ever have. No child in me yet to inherit.

The time for waiting is over. Leaving the marriage half-done was supposed to keep Baba Yaga from attacking Taina. But it only provoked her all the more to attack Katerina and Ivan. And without Katerina, Taina was lost.

"You don't like it?" asked Mother.

It took Katerina a moment to realize what she was asking. Oh, yes. The potatoes. Or no—Mother had just offered her another platter. Of something. Stuff. It looked like strange turds on the platter, from some large, possibly sick animal.

"Salmon cakes," said Mother. "I make them myself, but not too spicy this time, I notice you don't like them spicy."

Katerina had learned the Ukrainian word spicy very quickly, after her first taste of jalape~nos. Piotr and Ivan only laughed at her as she panicked, looking for water, something to stop the burning in her mouth. They made her eat bread, which worked much better than the water. "I forgot," said Ivan. "I forgot how hard it is to get used to the American way of cooking."

"Not as hard as the Jewish way of cooking," said Piotr.

Ivan rolled his eyes. "Kosher is good, too. Just different."

"Everything carried to extremes. The rabbi who made Jews keep two kitchens—I hope God has a special place in hell for him. What an absurdly elaborate effort, just to make sure you never accidentally boil a baby goat in its mother's milk!"

"I never made you eat kosher," Mother reminded him mildly.

"So we slip now and then," said Piotr. "For company."

Ivan laughed. "I think Katerina would have preferred kosher."

That was back when she first came here. Now she was more used to the flavors, and some were good—cinnamon, nutmeg—though Ivan loathed nutmeg and wouldn't eat anything in which it was detectable. Still, each new food was an unpleasant adventure. Couldn't they just leave meat in its natural form now and then? Couldn't bread look like bread, a fish like a fish?

"What's troubling you?" asked Piotr. "It's not the spiciness of the food."

"No, it's just... it's time to go back."

Piotr nodded, but his eyes teared up. It seemed to surprise him, how the emotion came so quickly to the surface. "Sorry," he said, dabbing at his eyes. "What a baby! But everything is so strange where you come from, this business of witches. Today I faced the worst thing in the world—to see your child die. I keep seeing him out there, like Edwin, limp, cold, empty. I held the dog and I thought, it was supposed to be Vanya. I gave the body to Mrs. Sprewel, and she burst into tears, sobbing, and I thought, that would have been me, grieving. How do I know I'll ever see you again, Vanya, once you leave?"

"You don't," said Ivan. "But here we're easy targets. The Maginot Line."

Katerina had no idea what he was talking about. But Piotr understood. "I know," he said, "it's right to go. And with Katerina's father in trouble—no, you have to go."

"What I don't understand," said Mother, "is why we can't go, too."

Everyone looked at her in surprise. Piotr immediately thought it was a good idea. Ivan seemed to have doubts, but was slow to answer. It fell to Katerina.

"You're not trained for war," said Katerina. "You're very good—but when the Widow is at her full strength, you're no match for her."

"And you are?"

"I'm the princess," said Katerina. "The hearts of the people are gathered in me. When a king has the love of the people, then whatever he does has the power of the people in it. My spells will have that. I've learned from you, Mother, and that's good. But in Taina, when I cast the same spell, it will have many times the strength than if you were to cast it. Do you understand me?"

Mother nodded, closing her eyes. "I understand, but I can't believe I wouldn't be useful."

"You would be useful to her," said Katerina. "She would use her power to overwhelm you, and then rule you."

"She could never turn me."

"She turned Dimitri," said Katerina.

"Dimitri wanted to be turned," said Ivan.

Katerina shook her head. "No. She lied to him."

"Dimitri wanted to be king," said Ivan. "She can only use the desires already in a man's heart."

"When did you become a scholar of magic?" asked Katerina hotly.

Ivan raised his eyebrows. "I've read every damn thing ever written about the folklore of magic."

"But you didn't believe in it," said Katerina.

"I do now."

"And you've never done it."

"No," said Ivan. "And you've never led an army into battle. And I had never fought a bear before. But go ahead, you're probably right, except if the Widow can force people to want what they never wanted, then who is safe? Whom can you trust?"

His argument was compelling. Baba Yaga hadn't turned many people, and Katerina was sure it wasn't from lack of trying. She could fool poor simple folk, like Sergei's mother, but only in fairly innocuous ways—she could get the old woman to spread false gossip by lying to her. But she couldn't have made her kill. She could get information out of people, but she couldn't make them betray their neighbors. Dimitri did what he did because it was already in his heart to do it.

And nothing was certain in life.

"I have to trust everyone," said Katerina, "and yet there's no one I can really be sure of."

"You can be sure of me," said Ivan.

She looked at him, searching his face. I've known you so little time. The others I knew all my life. The others are my own people. You are a stranger, from a strange time and place. I know what they can do, what they will do. I have no idea of what you are or what is in your hands and heart and mind.

And yet when you tell me I can be sure of you, I am sure.

It is myself I can't trust. Because I know that my trust in you, Ivan, my husband, my stranger, is not the result of reason and experience. I trust you because I've come to know you, and coming to know you, I've learned to love you. I've fallen in love with your boldness, your humility, your innocence, your kindness, your willingness. I know that you will stand by me as best you can. But you don't know what my husband needs to know. You can't do what my husband needs to do. I can trust your heart, your king's heart, but your mind doesn't know what it needs to know, your hands don't have in them the skill they need to have.

I had no choice but to marry you. But little by little I have come to long for you to include me within the circle of your arms, of your mind, of your pure love. To embrace me, to give me the babies I was born to have, to help me raise them. And I don't care which world we raise them in, yours or mine or some other that we haven't seen yet. I'm sure of you, Ivan. I want you as my husband.

But as my king? How could I trust you to be king?

Ivan looked at her face and saw... compassion.

It couldn't be clearer. "You can be sure of me," he had said. He hadn't meant it as some kind of declaration. He was only saying what should be obvious to everyone—what his parents already knew about him. She was supposed to laugh and say, Yes, of course, I know that.

Instead, her only answer was this silence, this pity.

They say that love conquers all. They say that because they're idiots. Love can't conquer anything. Love can't make a scholar into a warrior. Loving her can't make her love me.

Now his parents could see how it was between them. They could see that their son offered his life to this woman, and, poor thing, she had no idea what to do with it. The gift was worthless to her.

So he laughed. "Well, there you go." He held up his hands. "Soft. Dimitri told me I had a woman's hands. But the women of Taina, their hands are callused. From sewing, weaving, from endless spinning. What I have are the hands of a princess." He reached out to her, took her hands between his. "And you," he said, "you have the heart of a warrior." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. Like a brother. Like a friend.

Katerina looked down at the table. She certainly wasn't helping to smooth over this embarrassing moment.

"Father," said Ivan, "I hope you have enough room on some credit card to charge two tickets to Kiev." He turned to his mother. "Only two, Mom. Sorry." And then to Katerina. "I'll see if we can fly day after tomorrow. After we've tested the fireworks. Or the first flight we can get after that."

"Thank you," said Katerina.

"Yes, well, it's about time you got home. Though I must say you've done a better job of fitting in here than I did there."

She looked upset. But her words were mild. "I had someone helping me. You didn't."

"Yes, well, you happened to come to the one family in the world where everybody speaks at least a little ancient Slavonic. You'd think someone had planned all this." He got up from the table. "I'll see you all in the morning."

Ivan went to his room. To his empty room. It was good to have a place where nobody else had a right to go. What had he been thinking of, wanting to marry Ruthie—wanting to marry at all? He wasn't afraid of solitude. No scholar could afford to be.

He lay down fully dressed on his bed, not meaning to fall asleep yet. He just needed to think. About what, he wasn't sure.

So instead he thought about nothing. About things in the room. About the athletic trophies in a box in the closet. How much of his life was that? The shelves of books—so much time reading. Neither of them amounted to anything. He ran. He lost or he won. No one remembered a week later. And the books he read—what did that amount to? University people were always so proud of being readers instead of television watchers, but what was the difference, really? It was a one-way transmission. I read, but it made no difference to the writer. He never knew. And when I'm dead, what will it matter the books I read? My memory is where the book ends up, just like the TV show, and when I'm dead, that memory is gone from the world.

Like running the hurdles. Work so hard, jump over every one, fast, high enough but no higher, because you can't afford to hang in the air. And then, when the race is over, you're dripping with sweat, either they beat you or you beat them... and then a couple of guys come out and move the hurdles out of the way. Turns out they were nothing. All that work to jump over them, but now they're gone.

What will it matter, then, if I was happy or... whatever? After I'm dead, my parents will miss me, sure, but then someday they'll die, and then who'll remember me? Nobody. And that's fine. Because it doesn't matter. Baba Yaga will win or she'll lose. A thousand years later, nobody will believe she ever existed. And Taina will be completely forgotten. So what does it matter that some stranger loved the princess of Taina but never had her love in return?

He reached over and switched on the CD player. He had a Bruce Cockburn album in it. So Cockburn talks about how he's thinking about Turkish drummers, only it doesn't take long because he doesn't know much about Turkish drummers. A pounding in his head. Unshed tears. Bloated like the dead. This was not the best song to be listening to.

He let it keep playing.

When he woke up it was dark and silent. Night outside. He needed to pee, hadn't gone before he went to bed. He hated sleeping in his clothes. His pants always got twisted around and his clothes didn't fit right after sleeping in them. He pulled down his pants and Jockeys in one movement, then pried each shoe off with the other foot while he was unbuttoning his shirt. By the time he pulled his stocking feet out of his pant legs, his shirt was off. He peeled off his socks, then felt around in the dark for his bathrobe and drew it closed around his body as he opened the door.

The hall was dark, too. He stood in the hall, listening. How late was it? He didn't look at the clock. He heard his father snoring softly in his room. But just the one snore, not the duet, his mother and father snoring together.

He padded toward the bathroom. Then walked past it and stood outside the door to Katerina's room. Listening for her breath. Some sound.

But there was nothing there for him. And he really had to pee.

In the bathroom he had to turn the light on so he wouldn't miss. It blinded him. And then, when he was done, he turned it off and he was blind again. Can't win. He thought of getting Raid in his eyes. He thought of the wasp. What if the wasp had stung him? Got the potion into him, the curse. He would have had a bad five minutes there, but by now it would be over. He wouldn't have this dull ache in his heart, the sharp yearning in his throat, the words trying to escape.

"You can be sure of me." What an ass.

He opened the door and then remembered to close his bathrobe. He stepped out into the hall. Still just Father's snoring.

Maybe Mother was up. Downstairs somewhere.

He walked softly down the stairs not wanting to waken anybody. The lower floor was dark, too. So Mom wasn't up.

Or maybe she was in the back yard.

He walked to the kitchen door, opened it, stepped barefoot out onto the patio. The concrete felt cold on his feet. There was a breeze. It was the third of July, or maybe early on the Fourth. Shouldn't be this cool. Breeze off the lake.

He walked out onto the grass. It was damp on his feet. Away from the house, the breeze was stronger. It moved his hair. He opened his robe, to let the breeze move across his whole body. After a moment, he shrugged off the robe. Eyes closed, he stood there wondering why it felt so good to have the wind touch your whole body at once. And if it felt so good, why did people wear clothes all the time so they could never feel it?

He remembered standing there naked at the edge of the chasm, desperate to cover himself. What a fool. Naked is how you first feel the air, coming out of the womb. That's what it feels like—being born.

A rowboat was moving on the lake. Some predawn fisherman getting a head start on the Fourth of July crowds. In the moonlight it felt like he could see forever. But not a car moving. No fireworks, either—no late-night revelers getting a head start on the Fourth. Just silence. He imagined he could hear the dipping of the oars into the water, the tinkling of the drops falling from the oars when they rose again.

Then a bird began squawking in a nearby tree. Another picked up the tune. Not squawking, really. Just the normal twitter to announce the coming of day. But it was so loud, after the silence.

Time to go in. Go back to bed. Not that he was likely to get any sleep. He'd probably already had eight hours.

He turned around and picked up his robe, but as he was bending over to get it, he thought he saw a motion from the storage shed. Scooping up the robe, he looked sharply. Someone was standing by the door. His first thought was: The witch has found her way past Mother's protections. His second thought was: It's Mother, and she's seen me standing out here naked as a baby. Then she stepped from the shadow. It was Katerina.

She just stood there. Not a word. Not a smile. Just looking at him.

She'd seen him naked often enough. He stopped holding the robe in front of him and, facing her, pulled it on, then drew it closed, tied it. She watched, but showed no expression.

Whatever conversation might happen at this time of night, out here in the back yard, Ivan didn't want to work that hard. If she wasn't going to insist on some kind of empty chat, he certainly wouldn't. He walked across the grass and the patio, then went back into the house without looking at her again.

He went back into his room and this time looked at the clock. Three-thirty. Too early to be up. He turned the CD player on softly. Skipped ahead a few tracks. "Birmingham Shadows." Maybe the loneliest song anybody ever wrote. "Wearing the role of the young upstart." He smiled at that—he heard it as wearing the robe. "You show a little—I let something show, too." Cockburn always sounded so jaded. And hurt. On a night like this Ivan should be listening to something else. The Pointer Sisters' greatest hits or something. "Fire," yeah, that was the song. That old Springsteen chestnut. Or better yet: "He's So Shy."

Still, he didn't change the music. He took off the robe and pulled down the sheets, but he didn't slide his feet under the covers, he lay there on top, spread like a deerskin, feeling about as dry and empty as that. He thought of Katerina's face. Thought of her sweet, beautiful body. Thought of her voice, the way she gestured when she talked. Thought of her in Taina, surrounded by the love of the people, knowing everyone, having a hand in every task, every frolic. Thought of her here, so afraid at first, so uncertain, but taking it all in stride, mastering it. The way she took to Mother, the way she enjoyed Father, answered his questions patiently. He thought of reaching out and touching her cheek and having her smile and lean into his hand, and then turn her face and kiss the palm, kiss his fingers.

"If I fall down and die without saying good-bye, I give you this, you'll have lost a friend." Cockburn was cutting too close to the heart. "It's now or not at all." Could that be true?

He tried not to move. Kept his hands still, though they wanted to move, they knew the way. Then finally he did move, his whole body. He got up from the bed and walked to the door and opened it.

And there she stood, leaning against the opposite wall, watching the door of his room as he had stood watching hers. He was startled for a moment, but then he realized that he had been expecting her. That this was the reason he had to get up. Not because of some lonely depressed song. But because the princess was standing at the door, waiting for it to open.

"Ivan," she whispered. "All I could think of was... how close I came to losing you."

Not close enough, he thought bitterly.

And then: How could you lose me, when you've never had me, never wanted me?

But he said nothing. She wanted to talk, but he didn't. He didn't want her in his room tonight, not to have her sit there talking through plans and worries the way she had so many nights since they got here. So he didn't invite her in. And she didn't ask.

After the silence stretched on interminably, he stepped back. She didn't move. He turned his back on her and walked to the bed. He left the door open behind him. He lay down on it, facing away from the door.

He heard the door close.

"Some men rob whole countries dry," sang Cockburn. Yeah, some women, too.

A sound. The bed moved. He felt a thrill run through him. He was not alone in the room. She had closed the door, but from the inside.

He rolled onto his back, and there she was, as naked as he was, lying on her side, leaning on her elbow. He reached out a hand, touched her cheek. She leaned into his hand. Then turned her face, kissed his palm.

He wanted to ask her: Was this a political decision? Did you decide it was time to consummate the marriage as a declaration of war on Baba Yaga? Or was it pity? That compassionate look on your face at dinner, when you couldn't accept the pathetic token this shabby knight offered you?

But he kept his suspicions to himself. As long as no one said anything, he could pretend that it was love. That she felt about him as he felt about her. That the best thing that happened in his life was the day he came to the clearing in the woods and saw the shape of a woman under the leaves, a princess lying there asleep, enchanted, waiting for him to grow up so he could waken her with a kiss.

With this kiss. This gentle, leisurely kiss. No bear leaning over us. No curse to be removed. Just this man and the woman he loved, who also loved him. Or so he could believe, tonight on the cool sheets, in the dark, her lips brushing his, the scent of her in his head like music, drowning out all other songs.

Katerina woke just before dawn, as she always did. She saw Ivan sprawled in the bed beside her—a huge bed, large enough for a family. The faint light from the window made a meandering ribbon of reflection along the crest of his body. She wanted to touch him, touch the light on him. But she didn't want to waken him, for she was certain that when he woke, the magic of the night would end. He would speak; being Ivan, he would apologize. For something—she had no idea now what it would be.

The women had warned her, in the days before her wedding. Most of them spoke of the casual brutality of men, like dogs that mount bitches, boars on sows. It will hurt, they warned her, when he forces his way in the first time. But it's over soon—he'll finish quickly.

Many of them also had private advice, which they dared not let others hear because it confessed too much about their own lives. One who took her aside warned her not to cry out in pain—some men will think it should always be like that, they'll come back for more of your pain instead of for your love. Several told her to pretend that she enjoyed it, because a good man has to believe he's pleasing his wife. If you don't make him welcome, he'll find someone else who will. Others told her to be grateful when he found someone else, because then he'd only bother her when it was time to make babies.

Another told her that Ivan looked like the type who would be weak in bed, who wouldn't have the strength in him to finish. You have to coax him, she said. You have to entice him. Though how that was done, the woman wouldn't say.

And then there were the few who laughed at all warnings. One of them said, "You'll love it. He'll never be enough for you, though, this weakling who can't lift a sword. Better take a lover or two on the side. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, and there's no reason for a woman to be without the only pleasure God gives us."

All this advice—and it had told her nothing. She put it all out of her mind. Whatever it was, women managed to endure it or there'd be no children in the world. So, after listening to all the women, after watching the animals from childhood on, she could only experience for herself, when Ivan showed her, what this man did with this woman in his bed.

None of their advice applied to Ivan.

He was so gentle, whispering to her, asking her sometimes, "Is that good? Does that please you?" and other times, "You are so beautiful." Here, he would whisper, this curve, this hollow, this crest, I can't believe that I am the man who can touch this loveliness, that you're giving this to me. Unfamiliar feelings swept over her, strange changes in her body, trembling in places where she had never trembled, new tensions, new longings. He was so slow, she grew impatient. "Now," she whispered, pressing herself to him, but he answered, "Soon, not yet, soon."

"How do you know?" she asked. "You've never done this either."

"I've read books," he said, laughing softly. "I studied hard for this."

She didn't believe him at first—no one could write about this, it was far too private—and so she began to think maybe this was a kind of magic, too, that he was casting spells on her body, that he was in control of what she felt, making her body do things it had never done, could never have done before she came to his bed.

And then he told her that she was ready, and he was right. As the women had warned her, there was pain, but it was not as awful as they said, and even though it took the edge off the pleasure, it did not dull the love that swept through her. She clung to him, would not let him go when he finished, and he laughed again and held her, stroked her, as she also caressed him. Until he fell asleep. Until she also slept.

Now, remembering it in the morning, she wondered: Why did I wait? He had this gift for me all along.

But she knew the answer. She could not have received the gift until she loved him, and she could not have come to love him without seeing him first in his own world, his own family—in a place where he was a man held in respect, and not a despised stranger. His was a gift with no one fit to receive it, until now.

He stirred. Maybe he felt her gaze on him; maybe it was the change in her breathing; maybe it was a dream of her that woke him. He turned his head and saw her and searched her face. For what? It reminded her of yesterday, that awful time at the dinner table, when she waited too long to answer, when her silence shamed him in front of his parents. She would not wait today, with his gaze upon her. Instead she slid toward him, kissed him.

"I was afraid," he whispered to her.

"Of what?"

"That in the morning you'd regret what you gave to me last night."

"What did I give you, that you didn't give me ten times over?"

He held her close. "What was it that we did last night?"

"Don't you remember?"

"I didn't know even at the time. Was it a man and a woman, drawn together, body to body? Was it a princess wanting to make the baby that will carry on the dynasty? Was it a strategy, to strike the next blow against the Widow? Was it the fear of death, which came so close yesterday?"

It devastated her to know what he thought of her. That he did not understand at all.

"I've hurt you," he whispered. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. All of those are good reasons, don't you see? Because no matter what you meant by it, what you have is a husband, a father for your children, as long as I'm alive. I love you, Katerina, whether you love me or not, whether you even want me or not."

She pulled him close, partly because she could see how it hurt him not to be sure of her, partly so he couldn't see her tears.

But he felt them. "No, I've made you cry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have spoken, I'm spoiling it and all I wanted was to—"

"Hush," she said. As mothers said it to their babies, who still whimpered even after they had been given the breast to suckle on. Hush, you already have what you yearn for, so be quiet and take it and be glad. "Would it disappoint you so much, Ivan, if you were wrong, and last night meant only that a wife came to her husband, and gave herself to him for love alone?"

"I hate to be wrong," he murmured. "But I can live with it."

Esther felt the change in the house from the break of day. Even if she hadn't caught a glimpse of Katerina in Vanya's bathrobe, going from his room to the bathroom, she would have known. For the emotional wall that had so thickened the hall between their rooms was gone. The air was clear; the light danced brightly on the walls.

At breakfast Vanya and Katerina were giddy and pensive by turns. Inexplicable silences, and then laughter at anything that could remotely pass for wit. Halfway through the meal, Piotr, always dense about such things, actually sensed the change. "Is something going on that I don't know about?" Which caused another burst of laughter from the young lovers. Esther caught his eye and shook her head a little. Don't ask. I'll tell you later. And because they had been married so long, he understood. Later, when the children were out in the back yard readying the Molotov cocktails, Esther was able to satisfy Piotr's curiosity. "It's love, you old fool," she said. "Don't you remember?"

"I was never so silly about it. And besides, they've been married since before they got here."

Esther kissed him. "They've been sleeping in separate rooms, Piotr."

"Well, some people do."

"But last night they slept in the same room."

It finally dawned on him. "You mean—they haven't been sleeping together?"

"The marriage wasn't consummated until last night. And, judging from the spring in Katerina's step, this morning as well."

"Esther," Piotr said sternly. "You shouldn't be thinking that way about your own son."

"What, I'm supposed to think he found a better way to make babies?"

Piotr sighed. "So they're going to be honeymooning all day?"

"That and blowing things up. Which isn't a bad combination. You're supposed to have fireworks."

"I thought it was violins. I thought the fireworks were last night at dinner."

"Last night was two people who were fed up with not being fully committed to each other. Vanya declared his commitment to her, and she didn't answer. But I imagine she gave her answer a few hours later. Perhaps it was after Katerina and I went out in the back yard to make a few spells that she didn't know, that she might need. We were in the shed when Vanya came out in his bathrobe. I decided I wasn't needed there anymore, so I went back in the house and left them alone. Apparently she had brains enough to stay out there with him."

Piotr looked at her suspiciously. "So now I'm not supposed to think you cast some spell on them? To help them get past their... shyness, or whatever it was?"

"I don't do love potions," said Esther. "Those are never about love, they're about coercion. And besides, they already loved each other, they were just too stupid to know it."

"But you didn't do nothing" said Piotr.

"I cast a spell of Truth on the house," said Esther. "It's very simple, really. It makes people willing to act according to what they believe. To say what's in their hearts, regardless of shame. It doesn't change what they feel, what they want. It just helps... loosen them up."

"You needed magic for that? Wine has been around for centuries. In vino veritas."

Esther laughed. "The amount of wine that it would have taken to get Vanya to forget his pride and speak his heart—well, let's just say that it might not have helped him later, when they finally understood each other."

"I married a Pandarus," said Piotr.

"I don't manipulate people, Piotr. I just help them achieve their good desires."

"Not Pandarus, then. The tooth fairy?"

She kissed him, then slapped him playfully. "Let's go out and blow things up, shall we?"

After the coolness of the night, the day was already turning muggy. They got out the Molotov cocktails and the gunpowder crackers. Ivan let his father throw the first cocktail, lighting the fuse and heaving it at the piled-up logs. It worked much better than they expected—or wanted. Burning alcohol splattered all over the logs, yes, but also onto the weeds five yards beyond. They had to turn the hose on all the little fires to put them out, and for a few moments they were afraid the whole thing would get out of hand. They didn't relish explaining to the police why they had a dozen Molotov cocktails—not the traditional fireworks for the Fourth. And when they tried the first of the crackers, it was even more disastrous. For one thing, the fuse, made out of homespun string, burned about ten times faster than they expected—Ivan barely got it out of his hand before it blew up. And then it exploded with more force than they imagined possible for such a small amount of gunpowder. Logs that were still burning from the Molotov cocktail were thrown thirty feet across the yard; one of them hit Piotr in the chest, knocking him down, though fortunately it didn't catch him on fire. And the window over the sink in the kitchen broke—when the bomblet boomed, the glass collapsed in shards all over the sink inside and the patio outside.

It was an insane five minutes, running around after burning logs, picking them up with garden tools and carrying them back to the bonfire. Checking Piotr for serious injuries—nothing broken, though, just a bruise. Cleaning up glass inside and out and then discovering that all the glaziers in town had taken the Fourth as a holiday. They spent hours then, reducing the charges in the firecrackers and pouring out alcohol from the cocktails.

And all the while, they had to keep answering the phone, telling neighbors that they had bought inferior fireworks and nobody was injured and no, they wouldn't be setting off any more like that. Then Terrel came over with his kite and sadly reported that there wasn't a breath of wind today. "The only way to fly a kite is to take it out in a convertible," he said.

But Ivan wanted to show Katerina what a kite was anyway, so he and Terrel took turns a couple of times, running up and down the yard, trailing the kite behind them. Ivan tried to explain to her that when there was a wind, it rose even higher, and you didn't have to keep running. Finally, after Terrel went home, Ivan explained to his parents and Katerina what he had in mind. "A book on hang gliding. If we can make a hang glider out of materials there in Taina, it gives us a way to fly over the walls." Katerina kept her doubts to herself—if big metal buildings could fly without even flapping their wings, then maybe a man could fly by wearing a kite. Though it was hard to believe even the kite could fly, considering that it kept crashing to the ground whenever they stopped running. Add the weight of a man with a sword and buckler, and... well, what did she know? As for the Molotov cocktails and the firecrackers—those were impressive. She had heard of Greek fire, but had never seen it. And as for the firecracker, it made her ears ring for hours afterward, and she knew that these things had the power to terrify an enemy—especially one that was only motivated by fear. Like Baba Yaga's army.

Only after dark, when the fireworks began over the lake, did they dare to try again. The little bombs made a lot less noise, with their reduced charges—but they were able to time the fuses better. Ivan and Katerina also became rather adept at throwing the cocktails. "You're learning this much faster than I learned the sword," said Ivan.

"You couldn't even lift the sword at first," said Katerina. "It takes practice. This is easy."

Piotr laughed at that. "That's how we got so many people involved in waging war—it used to be a skilled profession, but now it's within the grasp of unskilled labor."

The bonfire was too hot to enjoy on a muggy summer night like this. But they burned some marshmallows and made Polish-sausage hot dogs and ate them as far from the fire as they could get, right under the cardboard covering the kitchen window. "I think," said Ivan, "that the experiment is definitely a success. Everything works. And we know that if we had really wanted to, we could have blown up the house."

"Almost did anyway," said Esther.

"And the best news of all," said Ivan. "Tomorrow we fly."

"No," said Esther. "That isn't good news." Then she burst into tears and fled into the house, Piotr following close behind her.

"My mother worries about us," said Ivan.

"So do I," said Katerina.

They walked out beyond the fire and watched the fireworks bursting in the air over the lake. The boom of each explosion was carried over the water—it was deafening. Katerina covered her ears for a little while, but it didn't help, and she finally gave up and enjoyed the show. "Can you do that in Taina?" she asked.

"Theoretically, yes," said Ivan. "But people get killed sometimes setting off those rockets—I don't want to run the risk of having our weapons do more damage to us than to them."

"I can imagine the Hag working herself to death trying to duplicate those lights in the sky."

"But not running from them."

"She isn't much for running away," said Katerina. "She doesn't give up."

"Yes, well, you aren't a quitter either," said Ivan. "Nor am I."

"Maybe these firecrackers can make her army run away. Maybe the Molotov cocktails will burn out her fortress. Maybe the spells I've learned will get me face-to-face with her—"

"Get us face-to-face."

"I'm the one who has to match her, spell for spell. I'm the one who has the power of my people inside me. Their love for me. It gives me great strength."

"So you'll win. No one could possibly love her."

"Cousin Marek tried to explain it to us, Ivan. She isn't relying on the power that comes from her own people. It's the power of a god she's got under her control—the love of the people for him."

"The bear."

"Bear. The savage cold of winter. All the people have respect for him. Not just the people of one kingdom. Many kingdoms, Ivan. And he's a god by nature. Even if she can only use a fraction of his power, it's more than my people can give to me."

"Why does he let her?"

"Why do you think he has a choice? Spells of binding, that's what she does best. That's how she got her first husband to marry her. How she got the people of her kingdom to accept the idea of widow-right instead of electing a new king when her first husband died without an heir."

"But she can't coerce people against their will," said Ivan.

"It's not that simple," said Katerina. "She can find desires inside you that you didn't even know you had."

"Well, thanks," said Ivan. "For a little while there, I had some hope."

"There is hope, Ivan."

"Oh? You didn't mention any just now."

"You didn't find me just by chance, Ivan. Some force, some fate, wanted you to find me, brought us together, brought you to Taina, brought me here. Whatever that power is, if it wants us to win, then we'll have the victory."

"So why are we working so hard?"

"Why did you have to hit the Bear with a stone? Why didn't you just fly over the moat?"

Ivan shook his head. "I can't put my trust in some unidentified fate that's pushing us around. It wasn't fate that brought me back to you. It was my own desire."

"Yes," said Katerina. "And your goodness, and your purity. The very reasons you were chosen."

"And now?" said Ivan. "Are we weaker because we're not so pure?"

She shook her head. "It doesn't work that way. We're married, so our coupling isn't impure. In fact, it strengthens us. Makes each of us as strong as if we contained both souls within us. And... if we've made a baby, if I have a child inside me when I face her, then I have a power she's never had. Well, she's conceived babies, the people say, but the children were always born monsters who died at once, and now her husband isn't the kind who's likely to give her a baby."

"You never know, with gods," said Ivan. "There are tales of swans and bulls."

"If we've made a child," said Katerina, "there will be magic in it. Power."

He was silent for a while.

She understood the silence. "No, Ivan. That's not why I came to you last night."

He pretended that wasn't what he was thinking. "It would be all right if you did."

"No," said Katerina. "It would not be all right. A child shouldn't be conceived as a strategy in war. What do you think of me?"

He took her in his arms and kissed her, long and hard. "That's what I think of you."

"Is that what you call thinking?" Then she kissed him back, even harder.

"So," he said, when he could breathe again. "Even though we'd never do it as a strategic move in war, would you like to try again? Just in case we don't already have a baby started?"

"And miss the rest of the fireworks?" she said.

He grinned and dutifully turned back to look at the fireworks. A big one went off, red, white, and blue.

"All right," she said. "I'm done now."

"See one rocket go off, you've seen them all," said Ivan.

She almost dragged him back to the house. Piotr and Esther had to come out later to put the bonfire out. They didn't mind. They knew their son had finally moved on beyond them. Even if he made it back from Taina somehow, he would never again live as a child in this house. It was just the two of them now. But they were comfortable with each other. The prospect of sharing the rest of their lives held no dread for them. And the things they did dread—losing their only child, for instance—they did not need to talk about, at least not now, for every word and movement between them carried their history and their future, like background movement, shaping each moment even when they weren't aware of it.

Baba Yaga

She might not be able to get past their defenses, but she could still listen to their conversations, and so she knew they had a ticket scheduled for the next day's flight. Within a couple of hours she was at the airport, and a helpful clerk stayed late to arrange her own reservation on the same flight, though afterward he had a terrible time trying to explain to his wife why he was so late getting home from work, having no memory of the time he spent with Baba Yaga.

She spent the rest of the night at the airport, preparing the spells and charms for the next day's work. Ivan and Katerina were going back to Taina, yes, but on her terms, not theirs. Baba Yaga would not come home empty-handed. She'd get the princess because she had the scholar—for now that Ruthie had uttered his true name in front of her familiar, he would not be able to resist her when she put a binding on that name.

Not only that, but she was determined to bring back one of the huge flying houses that moved on chicken legs. All the kings of the earth would bow down to her when she had a castle that carried her wherever she wanted to go, even into the heart of their kingdoms.