Deathless

by Catherynne M. Valente

Rules or no rules, it was certainly better to see these things than not to see them. Marya felt that she had a secret, a very good secret, and that if she took care of it, the secret would take care of her. She had seen the world naked, caught out.

I will never be without information, she determined. I will do better than my sisters. If a bird or any other beast comes out of that uncanny republic where husbands are grown, I will see him with his skin off before I agree to fall in love.

When Marya saw something extraordinary again, she would be ready. She would be clever. She would not let it rule her or trick her. She would do the tricking, if tricking was called for.

If the world is divided into seeing and not seeing, Marya thought, I shall always choose to see.

It was at thirteen years old that Marya Morevna learned how to keep a secret, and that secrets are jealous things, permitting no fraternization.

Having once seen the world naked, the engine which drove Marya Morevna through the long, thin streets of Petrograd was a terrible hunger for knowing things, for knowing everything.

Magic does that. It wastes you away. Once it grips you by the ear, the real world gets quieter and quieter, until you can hardly hear it at all.

After that, Marya Morevna understood that she belonged to her secret and it belonged to her. They had struck a bloody bargain between them. Keep me and obey me, the secret said to her, for I am your husband and I can destroy you.

“Your bones are so stubborn!” snorted Chainik. “It’s almost as though you don’t want to shrink at all! Brazen thing, why do you want to be so tall?”

“Child,” said Comrade Zvonok in a patient tone, “we are not architects. We are imps. We are goblins. If we could not make a little room on the inside without budging the outside, we would not be worth our tails. After all, we have been making our little homes in the walls for centuries.”

Chairman Venik grinned, and all his yellow, jagged teeth showed, like the teeth of a wolf-trap. “Don’t misunderstand us. We are very sweet when you have cream for us, and biscuits, and boots, but you have brought us nothing, and so we owe you nothing. The Party is a wonderful, marvelous invention, and it has taught us wonderful, marvelous things—chiefly, that we can cause more trouble with less effort by filing complaints than by breaking teacups.”

Marya wanted very much to send a message to the House Below. At night, she whispered into the pipes: I hate it here. Please take me away, let me be something other than Marya, something magical, with a round belly. Frighten me, make me cry, only come back.

There is no better teacher of rough necessity than bad luck, and you will have great use of me, I promise.

Did everything that had magic have teeth?

His lips shone bright and dark, soft and heart-shaped. She felt, looking at him, that she could not see him at all, but could see only the things that made him unlike a man, the lushness of his face and the slowness of his manner.

If she had spent her hours knitting a lover instead of coats for Anna’s son, the man who knelt before her would have sprung from her needles, even down to the ghostly flecks of silver in his hair. She had not known before that she wanted all these things, that she preferred dark hair and a slightly cruel expression, that she wished for tallness, or that a man kneeling might thrill her. A whole young life’s worth of slowly collected predilections coalesced in a few moments within her, and Koschei Bessmertny, his lashes full of snow, became perfect.

Mother, I have been waiting for something to happen to me my whole life, and now that it has I am going, even though it is a tilted kind of thing, and I meant to be so much better at it than my sisters.

Men, they feel nothing like what we must endure. You have to make room in yourself for him, and that is the same in a house as in a body. See that you keep some rooms for yourself, locked up tight.

Just remember that the only question in a house is who is to rule. The rest is only dancing around that, trying not to look it in the eye.”

I would choose another husband for you, I would, if the choosing of it were mine. I could have hoped for a different life for my Masha than his mouth on her breast like a babe, sucking her pretty voice down, her little ways, ’til she’s dry and rattling.

But you like him already, I can tell. Even though we showed our teeth and were very clear about his being wicked. That’s not your fault. He makes himself pretty, so that girls will like him. But if you must insist on being clever, then be clever. Be brave. Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight.”

She ruled nothing, Marya knew. Nothing and no one.

Marya dropped gratefully into the car, relieved to have done it, to finally be inside the magic instead of looking at it through a window. To never have to hear again that something black was coming for her—it was here, and it was handsome, and it wanted her.

Koschei turned, gripped Marya’s chin, and kissed her—not on the cheek, not chastely or unchastely, but greedily, with his whole, hard mouth, cold, biting, knowing. He ate up her breath in the kiss. Marya felt he would swallow her whole.

“I will keep you,” he said softly, as sweet as black tea, “and I will keep you warm.” But his own skin had frosted over; his fingernails shone pearly blue.

Koschei studied her as if she were a terribly curious creature, to crave warmth so. His dark eyes moved over her face possessively, but he did not release her. If anything, the cold of his body deepened, until Marya felt as though a pillar of ice clung to her, sending out silver tendrils to cover her, too, in the stuff of itself.

The house had made itself ready for dinner.

“There is no need for you to speak tonight, Marya Morevna. That time will come, and I will hang on your words like a condemned man. But for now, please, listen to me, and do as I say. I know that is difficult for you—I would not have chosen you if you found it easy to be silent and pliable! But we are going to do an extraordinary thing together.

But if I may teach you anything, it will be to relish everything, to devour it all—the richest things first, for they are your due.

He slipped the silver spoon into her mouth, his thumb grazing her chin. Marya felt as though she had never eaten before, never considered her food at all. She liked this better than Likho’s angular, hard magic. This magic filled her up, made her belly ache with fullness.

The drowsy, easy pleasure of allowing herself to be fed, to be spoken to without speaking, overwhelmed her. She felt like a fierce woodland creature, a volchitsa in truth, a little wolfling, brought inside and brushed and petted and fed until it seemed the most natural thing in the world to fall asleep by the fire.

Finally, Koschei placed a teaspoon full of sour cherry jam on Marya’s tongue and instructed her to sip her tea through the lump of fruit. When she had swallowed, he kissed her, their mouths warm and sweet with tea and cherries, and Marya Morevna fell asleep in his arms, with his lips still pressed to hers.

Each evening Koschei would ask her not to speak and then feed her with his long, graceful hands. Each evening she would sneak into the woods to throw it all up again, the muscles of her stomach sore with eating and retching, eating and retching.

The trouble with prophecy is that it is alive. Like a small bear. It can get angry, frustrated, hungry. It can lick and bite and claw; it can be dear; it can be vicious. No one prophesies. You can only pursue prophecy.

Do you know, Masha, how revelation comes? Like death. So sudden, though you knew all along it must occur. A revelation is always the end of something. It might even be cause for grief.”

I wonder how Comrade Chainik has fared? Old Chairman Venik? I would like to think they are fat, still. I remember what it was like to be fat. Wonderful, it was. You could roll them down the hall like marbles. Those were days I wish I could eat now, but remembering is like eating, don’t you think? Gobble up the past to keep warm. I hope it was warm, where you were.”

I cannot make you understand that I forgive you, that I know you loved both he and I, the way a mother can love two sons. And no one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough, which was my crime. After all, I took you from him to begin with, so I cannot begrudge him taking you from me—”

I know I did not take you and he did not take you. I thought that for a long while, but you chose me, and then you chose him, and choosing is hard—one choice is never the end of the story. Gamayun told me this was all a story, and I had to be sure to love you, or else it would not work out as it should. He needn’t have worried: In the space of one heartbeat to another I loved you and I was lost to you, like one of those dead soldiers made of cloth.

And I have had such a long time to think about it, Marya! Such a long time to lie in the basement in the ropes that held him and wish that they had held me, because that would have meant you wanted me enough to keep me secret, the way I wanted you, and kept you secret.”

“But do you know, after you disappeared—I had forgotten you could do that—and after they cut the rations again, and then again, I thought, Why did she stay so long? And that was comforting, because you must have stayed for me. Don’t answer. I don’t want to be corrected. But do you know, I looked for you? All over the city, over thrice nine districts, thrice nine prospekts. I asked everyone for news of you. I went to Maklin Prospekt, to Decembrists Street, where that house you liked used to stand, the one with all the paintings on it? It burned down, did you know?”

And I laughed because of course I am Ivan the Fool, of course I am. Only a fool is so innocent as to think he can measure up to a woman’s first love, can measure up to deathless. You know, it’s like when the Tsar was killed. I think maybe Russia had two husbands, too, and one was rich and one was poor, one old and one young, and the poor husband shot the rich husband in the chest, and all his daughters, too. He was braver than I am.”

I asked even the corpses for news of you. I went to the Haymarket, where we heard of that awful woman selling pies, do you remember? She is gone now. Other people sell the same horrible pink pies, and their faces are so heavy and full—heavier and fuller than mine, anyway—and I don’t want to tell you if I bought their meat. Don’t ask me. But I went to the Haymarket and I saw the pie-sellers, and the boot-sellers, and the bread-sellers.

Ivan moved his eyes over Marya’s face, memorizing it. She memorized his in turn, both as it had been and as it was now, for in her memory she would be honest.

I am human; my memory got old and needs a cane. But them? They should know me. Why do they not know me?