CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Austėja

‘What have you got there?’ I call out to Jonas, who is traipsing across the bridge with a rope looped over his shoulder. I meet him halfway, pleased to see him and relieved to avoid his father and the long trip to his house.

His face softens. ‘Austėja, I was on my way to see you.’ He clears his throat. ‘Well, to your house anyway. I’m bringing you this.’

Tied to his rope, he holds up a pine tree cleared of its canopy. ‘It was felled in the storm. Lightning strike.’

My thoughts drift back to the conversation I had with Motina and Danutè about not messing with nature. But this tree was felled by Perkūnas himself, and who am I to argue with him?

‘That’s very thoughtful.’ I pause. ‘And so was the log chair you left for me at the oak hollow.’

‘You like it?’

‘I do. It’s the perfect spot.’ My smile falters as I realise the perfect spot is the place where someone was brutally killed. My cheeks flush with shame. ‘I only mean—’

‘I know you are fond of that oak. I thought it could help to make new, happier memories.’

‘I am, thank you.’

‘God knows why. There are so many of them here in the forest!’ He laughs and I do too, but it feels as if I’m betraying the forest.

‘Shall we take this to store in your threshing barn for next winter?’

I shake my head, remembering the purpose of my errand. ‘Aldona came by earlier with a message from the priest. There’s a meeting at the church tomorrow morning. He expects everyone to be there. Perhaps the Duke will be there too? You must go back and tell your parents, now.’

He scowls at the mention of the Duke. ‘What is this about?’

I shrug. ‘I don’t know. She just said it’s important we are all there.’

He drops the log, the rope slipping from his grip. ‘Then it’s really happening.’

‘What is happening?’ The hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

He shakes his head. ‘You will find out soon enough.’

‘Jonas,’ I say, gripping his wrist. ‘Tell me, now.’

He faces me, his gaze on my fingertips. ‘I shouldn’t say. I’m not meant to know.’

‘Is this about the Hollow Watcher?’

‘What?’ He frowns. ‘No, it’s nothing like that.’

‘Then what is it?’ I release his hand. What does he keep from me?

He sighs. ‘They want to raise the taxes.’

My stomach drops. ‘How can they do that? They already take so much. Twenty per cent plus the ten we donate to the church. We’ve lost five hollows over winter; we cannot afford it.’

He looks shaken. ‘You lost five?’

I shove my hands into my pockets. I want to retract the words. They’re a betrayal of Motina. No one else knows about the other hollows – Motina hasn’t even told Aldona, her closest friend. And now Jonas knows. ‘Yes, we inspected the hollows near the oak and there were another four lost. No sign of animal damage or smoke either. The bees had perished without explanation.’ Well, there is one explanation but I can’t share it. Motina will be humiliated if people think the bees left with Tévas.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I bet it was Stanislaw.’ His voice is thick with resentment.

‘Why?’

‘Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?’ Jonas casts an eye over the forest as if concerned someone may be listening. ‘He must’ve attacked all the hives before he died.’

‘And who do you think killed Stanislaw for what he did?’

Jonas’s shoulders slump. ‘I wish I knew.’

‘Me too.’

‘I should get back to my family.’ He looks at the log by his feet.

‘Leave it there,’ I say. ‘We’ll collect it tomorrow.’

‘Okay,’ he says. His large frame sags as if he were a wildflower whose petals had been blown away in the wind.

‘Jonas,’ I say, seizing his wrist once more. His thumb caresses the top of my hand and I sway on my feet.

‘Yes.’ He looks at me intently with a question in his eyes, but I have a question of my own.

‘What were you looking for at Stanislaw’s cabin?’

He sucks in air and it feels as if I am being sucked into his airways too. As if I am the wind, as if Vejas, the wind goddess, speaks to me. The drawn-in air, the pause, she tells me what I already know. Jonas planned to go to Stanislaw’s before he even saw me.

‘I had to be sure,’ he says, his voice breaking, ‘that my father was not involved in his death.’

He breathes me out and my own chest draws in the forest air, expanding and holding on to this new knowledge. I want to hold on to it forever, but it is not meant to be in captivity. It escapes, shakily.

Jonas looks at me from underneath damp lashes. He lifts my hand to his mouth. His lips press against my skin and a shiver travels up my arm, my neck and into my crown. The little sparrow flutters in my chest again and then his words sink in. He has doubts about his own father. Has he suspected Krystupas all along? Is he protecting his father even though he may be responsible for Stanislaw’s death?

Is there anyone left whom I can trust in this forest? Not Tévas, not the Duke and now Jonas.

My fingers slip from his grasp. I feel cool at the loss of his touch. I turn away and dash across the bridge and into the forest.

I am at one with the wind.

⚜

I wake as the morning star rises. Each morning, Ausrine, the goddess of dawn, prepares the way for the sun. It fills me with hope that I can at least rely upon this when I’m filled with so much doubt. She is faithful in her work and the transition from night to day is necessary in the forest. Nocturnal animals settle down for a nap and for the rest of us our day is only just beginning. I prayed for her to wake me before the sun rises over the forest.

I pull myself up to sit, wrap the woollen blanket around my shoulders. Then I wait.

It is not long before the flames wither and Senelè is getting to her feet. She shuffles to the log pile, scoops up a large piece and feeds it to the hearth. Her pupils glisten in the light. She looks at me, unsurprised to see me awake.

She shuffles back to her cot and sits upon it, securing her blanket as I tiptoe across the room to join her.

‘Have you been waiting long?’

‘No. Why is the fire so important to you? Why don’t you ever let it go out?’ I ask, though it was not what I’d planned to discuss in the darkness.

Senelè’s eyes crease with pleasure. She loves to speak of our deities. ‘Gabija is our fire goddess: she is the guardian of the family hearth. She must be carefully tended. Fine ashes must be spread on top of the sleeping embers at night to prevent her wandering about – you do not want a fire goddess roaming your house while you sleep. But you already know this. Why don’t I let it go out? Because if I look after her, then she will look after us.’

I groan. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to follow the book of Jesus and not have to worry about pleasing so many others?’ I ask, as I am exhausted by it all.

‘No,’ Senelè scoffs. ‘Our gods relate to nature, Austėja, not humans. We can rely on the unpredictability of nature. But humans, well, they are predictably unreliable.’

I nod, finally seeing some sense in Senelè’s ways. This is something I am beginning to understand. Not everyone is as they seem. I can depend upon the morning star to rise, the wind to blow through the forest and the fire to blaze under Senelè’s watch. But I am losing faith in the people I have known all my life. Still. ‘But no one else keeps their fire going and they seem to be okay.’

She clucks her tongue. ‘What if the fire went out and then something terrible happened? I could not live with that, Austėja. Could you? We have had such bad luck already. We live by these beliefs because we cannot risk doing otherwise, my dear.’

My face warms as we watch the flames consume the log; dark smoke rises to the stained roof. ‘Senelè, do you really think I am special?’

She squeezes my hand. ‘Oh, I know it.’

I frown. ‘Doesn’t that make me a witch? Am I like Ragana?’ I shudder. As children, we were told stories by the older ones about the evil witch who lives in the forest.

Senelè bristles. ‘Ragana is the goddess of the forest, not an evil witch. She can see visions of the future and can divert it in one or another direction. That is not a power to be afraid of. She could right wrongs.’

I think about that for a moment. ‘Is that how you see me? Someone who can change the future?’

‘You will become only who you want to be.’

The shadows from the flames dance across the walls.

‘I know what you want to ask me,’ Senelè says, her voice distant.

‘What?’

She raises an eyebrow and my cheeks flush. ‘You want to know what your father’s last request of you was?’

‘Yes,’ I whisper.

‘Are you sure you want to hear it?’

My throat is dry, and it pains me to swallow. ‘Yes.’

‘It wasn’t a request, but he did have a message for you. He whispered it to me. You may have heard it in the forest.’

‘I didn’t. What did he say?’

Senelè breathes out heavily and her nose whistles. ‘He said, tell her I’m sorry.’