Izolda’s thoughts were jumbled as she walked slowly back to her home. Had she tried to bring Dmitri back from the dead? She remembered considering it, but no matter how much she loved her son she would never inflict such a thing on him.
At best he would be cursed to a half-living state, his damaged body needing constant maintenance to keep decomposition at bay. At worst he would come back as a soulless creature whose body was broken beyond repair.
But if she had not used up her power for that, then whatever she had attempted must have been a spell of equal power. And she must have completed it, whatever it was, otherwise she would still have her power. The rusalka should not have been able to compel her as she did, to leave her home and go to her.
Now she returned home, none the wiser. What kind of spell would take the memory from her to succeed? Still mulling it over, she finished the chores that had been interrupted and went into her workroom. The dress she had been wearing just yesterday was balled up in a basket. It reeked herbs, giving her an idea.
As she identified the smell of each herb, she wrote it down on a fresh page of her work book, then did the same for the decoctions and tisanes that had been left on her worktable. Beside them she listed what they could be used for. She studied the page, brow furrowed.
While there were a couple of possibilities, the spell that seemed to make the most sense was a spell of forgetting. A very powerful spell that encompassed not just herself and Nikolai, but the entire community and well beyond.
Izolda sighed heavily. As much as she felt her curiosity eating away at her, she put everything away again. To force a memory to return would be another major undertaking, and she no longer had the power for it. And if it was so important that the memory be forgotten that she would sacrifice her power, then whatever the memory was, it was best left in the past.
She went upstairs to give Dmitri’s bedroom one final cleaning before sealing it up, as she had Pavlina’s. Frowning at the door beside it, she opened it and peered inside. There was a neatly made bed, a washstand, and a trunk, just like the others. Why had she ever thought they needed a guest room?
With a shake of her head, she closed the door again and went back downstairs to wait for Nikolai to return, and couldn’t help the shiver of apprehension she felt.
He seemed to have aged in the short time he was gone. His shoulders were drawn inwards and his step was heavy. Going to the cupboard, he took down the bottle of vodka that was kept for rare occasions. Ignoring the cup Izolda offered him, he went over to his chair by the fireplace, slouched down in it, and took a long pull straight from the bottle.
Izolda opened her mouth to chastise him, but shut it again, the words dying stillborn on her tongue. The rusalka had taken her children from her, and now it appeared she had taken her husband as well. The Nikolai sitting by the fire was a broken man.
What more did the creature want of her?
No comments:
Post a Comment