Anya and the Dragon Read online

  “Oh,” said Ivan. “Are you a heathen, then?” Before she could respond, he grinned wide and exclaimed, “Good Perun to you!”

  She blinked once, slowly. “What?”

  “Good Perun,” he repeated. “Isn’t that . . . Do you worship a different god?”

  “No,” she said, then stammered, “I mean, yes. I mean, I’m not Slavist,” Anya said. “And ‘Good Perun’ isn’t a greeting, anyway.”

  He scratched his head. “How do you know that if you’re not Slavist?”

  “My dyedushka is. And he doesn’t like being called a heathen,” Anya said, then pressed her lips together. Dyedka wouldn’t have liked her talking to a strange boy. Babulya and Mama wouldn’t have liked her talking to a strange anyone.

  “Well,” Ivan said, reaching his hand out to shake hers again, “thanks for teaching me something new!”

  She didn’t move to take his hand. “How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.” He wiggled his fingers, as if trying to get her attention. “How old are you?”

  “Eleven.”

  “Oh. You’re just really skinny, huh?”

  She let go of the cart so she could cross her arms. “Are you lost?”

  Zvezda ambled up behind Anya, chewing on onion stalks.

  Ivan forgot about his attempted handshake. He reached over and scratched the goat on top of his head.

  “No,” Ivan said. “My family moved here from Ingria. Is this your goat?”

  “That’s Zvezda.”

  Ivan laughed and traced the star on the goat’s face. “Zvezda. I get it!”

  Anya shifted on her feet. “You’ve moved to Zmeyreka?” She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, there weren’t many children her age to play with. On the other, even if there were, Babulya wouldn’t want her to play with them.

  Ivan nodded. “Yes. Is it nice here?”

  “Yes,” Anya said. “What does your father do?” Most of the men in Zmeyreka were fishermen, but Ivan was too well dressed to be the son of a fisherman. Even though his clothing was fastened all wrong, it was still made of fine cloth, with delicate embroidery in places.

  “He’s a fool,” Ivan said, still petting the goat. “We’re all fools. Well, Mama isn’t. She’s a princess.”

  Anya furrowed her brow. A fool? A princess? “What?”

  “A princess.” Ivan lifted his eyebrows. “You’ve never heard of a princess before?”

  She stared at him sideways. Of course she’d heard of a princess. She’d heard of a fool, too, but she thought it was probably in a different context from the one he was talking about. “I meant a fool. I’ve never heard of that as a job.”

  “Oh,” Ivan said. “Well, fool magic runs in my family, and my father used it to defeat a bunch of monsters and marry a princess.”

  Anya’s eyes widened. He mentioned magic like it was no big deal and everyone was allowed to use it. In a hushed voice, she said, “You can’t use magic here.”

  “We can,” Ivan said. He pulled at his necklace, extracting a coin with a seal stamped on it. “We have the tsar’s permission.”

  Anya squinted at the coin, strung on the end of a cord. A curious pronged symbol had been stamped onto the front. “What’s that?”

  “It’s the Kievan bident,” Ivan said, returning the coin beneath his shirt. “The tsar gave coins to my whole family, so we’re allowed to use magic.”

  Anya had only ever heard of legal magic use by one group of people. “Are you a bogatyr, then?” She studied him, not ready to believe that this boy was a bona fide hero. At festivals, storytellers would recite the epic adventures of the most popular bogatyri, the tsar’s most trusted and magical knights. Anya’s favorite was Ilya Muromets, because he wasn’t noble like the others. He was a farmer’s son, and Anya liked to imagine that if Ilya could go from being a peasant to a knight, maybe she could too.

  Ivan snorted laughter. “A bogatyr? I wish! No. We’re fools. My father heard there are still magical creatures here, so we came to help you out.”

  “There aren’t magical creatures in other places?”

  “Not anymore.” Ivan shrugged.

  Anya frowned. Without magical creatures, what were there? Birds? Squirrels? The thought chilled her. “We don’t need any help. You can go back to wherever you came from.”

  “I’d like to,” Ivan said. “But my father is stubborn. It will be fine, though. Our house in Ingria was two stories, and he said our new house is a little small, but we can build.” He looked around. “I was trying to get a look at it before my brothers do. Is there a house around here? The magistrate told us it was north over the bridge.”

  Anya blinked a few times, certain he wasn’t talking about her house. But as she thought about it, what other house was there north of the village, over the bridge? Ivan’s words opened up a gaping hole inside Anya that nearly sucked the sound out of her ears. She swallowed the hole away as her eyebrows met and she picked up her cart again.

  “There’s no house around here,” Anya said. “Just fields. The magistrate was lying.”

  Ivan’s eyes widened. “Wha—​ But why would he lie?”

  “I don’t know,” Anya said. “There’s not a house. Go away.”

  She pointed toward the village, and Ivan followed her finger.

  “Um . . . all right.” His shoulders slumped as he turned, dragging his feet all the way across the field and heading south on the road.

  Anya watched him go, heart rattling. She took a deep breath and tugged her cart across the field, glad there were trees to hide her little house from the road. After making sure Ivan was gone, she pulled the cart at a trot across the road and down the slope onto her property.

  Anya halted the onion cart in front of the house, and once the crunching of the wheels on dirt faded, she heard her mother’s voice from inside the house. Mama sounded loud and frazzled, and Anya looked down at Zvezda.

  “I don’t feel good about this,” she said to the goat.

  Zvezda turned his head a little, studying her with a single eye. “Myah.”

  “I know.”

  Anya hurried up to the door and leaned close to listen.

  “I need more time,” Mama said. “We were told—”

  A man’s voice, greasy and exasperated, interrupted her. “Whatever you were told was incorrect. Rybakov was trying to help you, that’s all. His offer wasn’t valid.”

  Anya recognized the voice. It was Magistrate Yuriy Bobrov. He rarely came to the house. Usually Mama had to go to his office with her grievances. What was he doing there, and so early? And why was he talking about Demyan Rybakov? Demyan was Papa’s best friend and had been the magistrate until this new one had appeared one day, declaring that he was the tsar’s new tax authority in the little village, and sent Demyan to the front with Papa.

  Mama spoke again: “Other families in the village had the same offer. If we sent a man to the front, we wouldn’t have to pay taxes. And we sent . . .” Her voice cracked. Papa hadn’t so much been sent as taken. But he was gone all the same.

  The magistrate sighed loudly. “Yes. But this offer isn’t valid for everyone. It doesn’t extend to . . . you.”

  “What do you—” Mama’s voice quaked.

  “Jews,” the magistrate said, and the hairs on Anya’s arms stood on end. “It’s very complex. You wouldn’t understand. And in the meantime, your taxes have been unpaid. There are fines for not paying. You owe five hundred rubles now.”

  Anya clamped her lips together. Five hundred rubles? That was a fortune! The entire village together didn’t have five hundred rubles. Where were they supposed to get that much money?

  Mama sputtered. “But that—”

  “That’s the law, Miriam,” the magistrate said, and Anya bristled. What right did he have calling Mama by her given name? He should have called her Gospozha Kozlova, or at least Gospozha by itself, but instead he was calling her Miriam like she was a child. At least he didn’t call her Masha. That was only for
the family.

  Mama wouldn’t correct the magistrate, so Anya was determined to do it for her. As she reached for the handle, the door swung in, and the magistrate jerked to a stop when he saw her.

  “A little eavesdropper!” the magistrate sneered. “Such bad manners.”

  Anya searched her brain for something to snap back, but she was too afraid, and nothing came up. The magistrate was skinny under his coat, balding but bearded, and the skin on his face was yellowy and pockmarked. His narrowed eyes were the unremarkable color of wet hay, and even though he was a scrawny, hunched little man, he was still terrifying somehow.

  “Get out of my way, little girl,” the magistrate snapped. He didn’t wait for her to move before shoving past her, almost knocking her into the rosebushes. He paused at the garden gate and turned back to Mama, who joined Anya at the house’s door. Mama set her hand on Anya’s shoulder, fingers trembling.

  “Thirty days, Miriam,” the magistrate said. “Thirty days to bring me at least half of your back taxes, or go to prison. Or”—​he splayed one hand out—​“you can forfeit your property, and I’ll clear your debt.”

  Mama’s fingers tightened on Anya’s shoulder.

  The magistrate shot Anya a dark look before turning away and heading up the hill to the road. Anya waited for him to disappear around the trees before she spun to Mama and said, “What did he mean? Prison? Forfeit our property?”

  Mama shook her head. The puffiness under her eyes was deeper and darker. She didn’t say anything.

  “Mama, does he want us to leave?” Anya asked. “We can’t leave! Papa’s side of the family has lived in Zmeyreka for a hundred years! Where would we go?”

  “Anya, hush.” Mama’s voice was so quiet and thin that to Anya it seemed as brittle as the magic from earlier. “I have to go to the market.”

  “But Mama!” Anya grabbed Mama’s hand as she tried to pass by, and Mama came to a slow stop. She gripped Anya’s hand.

  “We’ll be fine,” Mama said. “We just need to work hard. I need you to work hard. Can you do that?”

  Anya nodded. Her tongue felt too heavy for her mouth.

  “Be a good girl, Annushka,” Mama said. “Help Babulya with the challah.”

  “I will, Mama.” Challah wouldn’t be enough. The magistrate wanted two hundred and fifty rubles in thirty days. How were they supposed to get that much?

  Mama smiled, kissed Anya limply on the forehead, and then turned away. She picked up the cart’s handles and pulled it up the hill, toward the village. Anya watched her mother disappear around the trees, a hard lump forming in her belly. Then she went into the barn.

  Chapter Three

  Dyedka had built both the house and the barn in his youth, and though the house was comfortable, it was obvious where his priorities had been. The barn was twice the size of the house, built on top of a natural cave that served as a root cellar and cold storage. Anya was of the opinion they should let the goats sleep in the house, and her family could move into the barn. She was always scolded and sent away when she suggested it.

  Anya marched through the goat-free barn—​Dyedka had taken them out grazing—​past the chickens, and into the old tack room. They didn’t have a horse, so they didn’t use tack anymore, and she wondered how much money their old junk would get them. She pushed aside an old fishing net to get to a saddle. The saddle’s leather was cracked and dry, so probably not a lot there. A bridle fell apart in Anya’s hands, so she expected no one would pay for it. A pair of old, rusty horseshoes gave her pause. The blacksmith in town might be interested in them. She dusted them off and dropped one each into the front pockets of her apron.

  When another inspection of the tack room didn’t reveal a secret box of gold, she left, horseshoes bouncing against her legs. She could stop by the smithy on her way to the mill to get flour for next week’s challah—​it took that long for their yeast starter to make the dough rise—​and maybe somewhere in all that walking, she’d come up with a real solution.

  Before she left, she went into the house to check on her grandmother. This particular Kozlov house had stood for fifty years, having replaced the old home when it was damaged in a flood. It was a little different from the other houses in Zmeyreka: instead of building a single room with the stove against the wall, Dyedka had commissioned a special oven that was installed in the center of the house, with a room built on either side. The way the bricks of the oven were laid made a twisty labyrinth inside it, which helped heat the oven better and hold that heat longer. In the winter, the long brick wall on the bedroom side warmed the whole room nicely. The kitchen and sitting area were at the front of the house, separated by cupboards and a tall, precarious bookshelf that was Papa’s most prized possession.

  The house smelled like loamy earth and sharp, pungent herbs. Long shelves lined the walls, crowded with clay pots in varying sizes. Every pot grew some sort of herb, flower, or other plant Babulya carefully cultivated and tended to. She had been collecting these plants her entire life, and some of them were deliciously exotic: saffron from the high plateaus of Persia, rhubarb-currant from the Caucasus Mountains, and ginger from the Far East. Once, when Anya had asked Babulya how she had gotten them, she had just smiled and said nothing.

  Now Babulya was in the kitchen in front of a boiling pot, her ghostly eyes staring at nothing as she stirred the concoction with short, angry strokes. Perched beside the stove, their family’s house spirit examined the mess of chopped herbs and leftover stems that littered the countertop. The domovoi’s little kippah sat askew on his curly brown hair. He plucked herbal detritus out of the thick hair on his arms. His long, bushy beard collected more stems as it brushed the countertop, and his shirt and pants were spattered with whatever Babulya was furiously stirring in the pot.

  The door thumped shut behind Anya, and Babulya cocked her head.

  “That had better be my Annushka and not some horrible bureaucrat!” Babulya yelled in the language she had brought with her from her homeland, those seaside southern mountains that Anya swore she would see someday. Juhuri—​a mix of Hebrew and Persian—​could be so soft and musical, but not when Babulya spat it out like she was doing at that moment. “I’m not in the mood for bureaucrats!”

  “It’s me, Babulya.” Anya spoke Juhuri as well, although it wasn’t as flowery as when Mama or Babulya spoke it. “Were you here when Mama was talking to Magistrate Bobrov?”

  “Your mother made me leave,” Babulya grumbled, “so I wouldn’t offend him. I got some herbs in the meantime. Come here and taste this.”

  Anya crossed to her grandmother’s side. Babulya lifted the steaming spoon to Anya’s face. It was stained purplish red. “It’s for the little Mihaylov baby. Zinoviya. I heard her coughing last week.”

  Zinoviya was cute. She was the littlest baby in the village and still couldn’t quite figure out how to crawl. Now that Anya thought about it, Zinoviya did have a cough. How had Babulya known?

  “How do you know it’s Zinoviya with the cough?” Anya asked.

  “Magic,” Babulya said, wiggling the spoon. “Taste this.”

  The domovoi stood up to his full height, which was just barely taller than one of the chickens. He shook his head and chopped his hand across his throat.

  Anya ignored him and slowly took the spoon from Babulya’s wrinkled hands. She blew on the potion. It was thicker than any other potion Anya had seen, and instead of being a soft green, it was a dark, dark red. Anya sniffed it. The domovoi stuck his tongue out and rolled his eyes back in his head. He was just being obnoxious—​if the potion were actually dangerous, he would slap the spoon out of her hand—​but his actions didn’t make her feel good about what she was about to put into her mouth.

  “Quit stalling and just taste it!” Babulya barked, and even though she couldn’t see Anya, her pale eyes glared.

  Anya sipped the potion off the spoon and immediately regretted it. It tasted like dirt and grass and a spice that made her eyes water, plus an unwelc
ome sweetness. One of her eyes popped wide and the other scrunched shut. Her right cheek pulled back into a grimace, and she made a sound like “Krrrkkk.”

  Babulya snatched the spoon back. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Did you put beets in it?”

  “Sugar beets!” Babulya said. “To make it sweet for the baby!”

  The domovoi pantomimed vomiting.

  “I don’t think a baby is going to drink this,” Anya said.

  Babulya grumbled and dropped the spoon into the potion, then hooked her fingers in the air over the simmering pot. She pulled at threads invisible to Anya, and the smell coming out of the pot changed. Babulya thrust another spoonful of potion at Anya.

  The liquid was still thick, and still the color of old blood, but the dirt taste was gone, as was the spicy bitterness. Instead, it was vaguely grassy, but mostly tasted like sugar beet juice.

  Anya nodded. “I think a baby would take that.”

  “Good.” Babulya handed a small stoneware vial to the domovoi, and he ladled some of the potion into it. “Now maybe she can get rid of that cough. Those can be nasty in the wintertime.”

  “It’s spring.”

  The domovoi handed the vial to Babulya, and she stoppered the top before shoving it at Anya. “And if we’re lucky, the cough won’t last into the winter!” She handed a long section of twine to Anya with the other hand.

  Anya took the vial and the twine. Whenever Babulya was making potions, it always fell to Anya to deliver them. At the last moment, she remembered she needed to go by the miller. She grabbed the empty flour sack from the counter and stuffed it in her pocket behind a horseshoe.

  As Anya headed to the door, Babulya said, “Don’t let them see you, Annushka.”

  “I know,” Anya mumbled.

  The domovoi waved at Anya as she left, following the same road Ivan, the magistrate, and her mother had all taken that same morning. Ash and birch trees clustered on either side of the road, and birds flitted on the branches and twittered at Anya as she passed. She crossed the bridge over the Sogozha River, which separated the Kozlov property from the village of Zmeyreka. She peered into the water as she crossed the bridge, eyeing the dark line on the pylons where the water had once risen. It was a hand’s width below now, even when the river was at its fullest. Zmeyreka had been so named because the villagers once believed it was blessed by a river dragon. The stories still persisted—​every now and then, someone would swear on whatever god they put faith in that they had seen a dragon in the river—​but dragons were extinct. Everyone knew that. The falling water level was proof enough. Dragons didn’t let their rivers dry up.