The Pond - Part 3

It might have been natural for Izolda to resent her baby brother, but much to Andrei’s chagrin the two became very close. Izolda did her fair share of the fetching and carrying, cooking and sewing, but was never too busy to answer Matyei’s endless questions or play with him. The two could often be found curled up together in a corner by the fireplace while Izolda told him stories.

Andrei would often watch them, something dark in his eyes. The unwanted girl-child was strong and robust, but the favored son was frail and somewhat lacking. There was a part of him that resented this. The son should be the stronger one. Still, he allowed it to continue because the girl made the boy happy, and no one else had the time to spare to give him the extra attention he deserved.

Even as these thoughts went through his mind, the girl looked up from where she was showing her brother how to make a wicker doll. A shiver went up Andrei’s spine. It was as if she could read his mind. There was something uncanny about her and he often wished he’d had the portents read after her birth, as he’d done with his sons. She was a model child – thoughtful, unobtrusive, always ready to help. But he just couldn’t warm to her.

Izolda continued to grow, staying unobtrusive, and out of her father’s way. And she continued to give Matyei what time she could, becoming not just his playmate but his confident.

“ ‘Zolda, you’ll never guess!” he exclaimed, bursting into the kitchen where she was kneading the bread dough. He’d just turned seven the day before.

“I’m sure I won’t,” she said with a smile. She, herself, was now ten, tall and slender and able to wear her long dark hair up in a woman’s bun.

“Papa said I’m to start magic lessons!”

Izolda’s hands stilled in the bread dough briefly before she continued. Only two days before she had asked her mother if she’d be taking lessons in magic, as her brothers did. Olga’s smile was sad and she stroked a hand down her daughter’s hair.

“No, my daughter. You will not.”

“But—”

“It is not fair,” Olga said with a sigh. “I know. But that is the way of things. We do the small magics of the kitchen and home and keep the rest to ourselves. You have a rare gift, my daughter. I am sorry it cannot be nurtured as it should be.”

“I don’t understand,” Izolda said. “Why can’t it?”

“Your father is narrow in his thinking. He does not accept change as he should. And the idea of a woman being able to wield the same magic as a man is too big a change for him to accept.”

“But you learned magic.”

“Yes, bit by bit, spell by spell, and mostly on my own, as you will.” That was all her mother would say on the matter.

“How nice for you,” Izolda managed to say to Matyei now.

“Maybe we can take lessons together,” Matyei said, a little more subdued.

“Such is not for me.”

“Why not? You have magic, I’ve seen it. I can ask Papa and—”

“No!” Izolda said fiercely, spinning around to face him. “You must not tell Papa of my magic.”

“But I can ask about us taking lessons together,” he said stubbornly.

“It is no use, little brother. Papa will never agree, and asking will only anger him.”

Matyei opened his mouth to argue, but one look at his sister’s face and he closed it again. His exuberance gone, he left her to her breadmaking.

Later, Izolda brought him some witch hazel to put on the bruise rising on his cheek.

“You never listen, do you?” she said, gently dabbing his bruised skin. “Did you tell him of my magic?”

“No,” Matyei said dolefully. “I did not wish to anger him further.”

“Then perhaps you learned something after all.”