Page 5 of Cry of the Firebird

Fuck him and those doctors, she thought bitterly.

The third thing was Tuoni's comment about being made to forget. That one worried her more than the others because if it was true, how would she get the memories back? Anya rolled the stone in her pocket, drawing comfort from its warmth, and crossed the sludgy road back home.

It was a simple house with a porch and small square glass windows. Her grandfather's grandfather, Ilya, had built it, and it had been added to by every generation. The barn was a hundred meters from the house and was made of the same weathered wood.

Anya kicked off her wet boots, took out a large iron key, and opened the front door. She locked it behind her, and her nausea eased as she breathed in the comforting warm smell of split pine blocks, beeswax candle smoke, and coffee.

There were bright rag rugs on the floors, ornaments sat on the shelves, and battered books were stacked in uneven piles. Dried herbs had always hung in the little kitchen, and the jetsam from the people who had lived there filled every nook and cranny. Despite the clutter, she’d never had the heart to throw any of it out.

Anya took the stone out of her pocket and studied it. There was nothing peculiar about it except for the lines of red amongst the black. How could a rock be her destiny?

Shrugging, she placed it on the small shelf above the fireplace where she wouldn't lose it and went to find something to drink. Tuoni's warning about staying sober itched at her. Still, if she was going to believe in gates to Skazki and shamanism, she would need vodka to help her.

Down in the cellar, Anya found a bottle of vodka she had made in an ancient still and went back upstairs.

I wonder if Eikki wrote about the gates?Maybe he had left her a helpful how-to guide.Be realistic, your luck has never been that good.

Anya had never gone through the shelf of journals in Eikki's bedroom. They had always been respectful of each other's privacy, and since his death, she hadn't even gone into the room. She opened the door and tried to ignore the squeezing grief in her chest as she looked at his things. He had an overflowing bookshelf in one corner, and Anya scanned the spines, noting how many books of mythology and folktales he had. Anya had never asked Eikki what he had written in the journals. He would sit up in the kitchen, scribbling away until midnight every night. Feeling like she was about to betray his privacy forever, she selected a few of the notebooks and headed back to the warmth of the fire.

Anya ignored the tremble in her fingers as she opened the first one and flicked through it. Drawings and symbols filled the pages, and words were written in English, Finnish, and Russian interchangeably.

Anya sipped her vodka straight from the bottle as she spent hours trying to make heads or tails of the journal. There was a lot of useless information, like a poem about Baba Yaga playing a magical game with another witch and the best time to huntfor mushrooms in the forest. There was nothing about gates or strange black stones.

Anya read until the writing and drawings on the pages swam, and she fell asleep, holding her sore hand to her chest and thinking of fire.

Anya woke with a start,sending the journal on her lap flying. She had dreamed of a man with odd eyes who smelled of autumn and was having an argument with Eikki that she couldn't hear. She dreamed hazy images of a lake and red-stained boulders, and everywhere there was fire, the world burning in an inferno around her.

That will teach you to read a shaman's journals before bed.

The sun was already up, so Anya dragged herself to her feet. Grabbing a piece of bread from the kitchen on the way past, she munched it as she put on gumboots and headed to the barn to feed the animals.

Anya was collecting more wood from the shed and looking out for spiders when she noticed the smoke coming out from under the house's back door.

"Shit. Not again." Anya dropped the wood and ran. She pulled open the door, and smoke rolled out. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." Anya checked each room, but there was no fire.

Where had all the smoke come from?She went into the sitting room, thinking the flue on the fireplace had closed by accident. Something crunched under her boots, and she looked underneath them at the broken black stone fragments. Her stone—herdestiny—had rolled off the mantle and smashed on the floor. Anya bent down to gather the pieces of glassy rock with a sigh.

"That's fucking great, Anya. You have the family heirloom for a day, and it's already broken. Destiny, my ass."

Anya froze as something rustled in her bedroom. She grabbed the iron poker beside her and held it above her head. No one in the village would be stupid enough to break into her house.

Anya kicked the bedroom door open, ready for a fight. Instead of a thief or delinquent, a small bird with bright gold feathers fluttered in the middle of her bed.

"Stupid bird. How did you get in here?" Anya had left no windows open, so she could only guess it had somehow gotten in through the chimney. Taking an old shirt, she wrapped it around her hand and reached for it. The chick didn't cry or struggle as she picked up its shivering body. Taking it back to the sitting room, Anya placed it on the floor next to the fireplace before adding some more wood and coaxed the coals to life.

"There you go, little one," she said and contemplated what to do with it. Anya didn't like people, but she was hopelessly soft with animals. The wind outside had blown up into an icy gale, so she couldn't put it in a tree. If she weren't so soft, she would have taken it outside and hit it over the head with a brick. It cooed at her pathetically, and she knew she couldn't do it.

Great! Another animal to take care of.She didn't need a chick that would require constant feeding and attention.

What would a bird that size eat? She was frying herself fish for dinner, so she figured it could eat that or die. It didn't take long for her to fillet the trout and fry it in butter and salt. She couldn't remember how many days it had been since she had eaten a proper meal; her breakfast at the cafe the previous day had been left untouched.

"I need a drink," she muttered. Anya placed a hand on the cellar door and hesitated.

‘Stay sober,’Tuoni had said.

Reluctantly, Anya made herself a cup of coffee instead. When a god told you to do something, it was probably wise to listen to him just a little.

Back in the sitting room, Anya got comfortable on the mat in front of the fire and put her plate of food in her lap as the chick made chirpy sounds at her. With a sigh, Anya took a tiny piece of fish from her plate and offered it to the little bird. It pecked at it straight away and looked to her for more.