Jaga tilts her head this way and that and finally claps, banking the fires until the room is bathed in soft gloom. A fiery doorway appears behind her back, making her loose hair gleam like polished copper, and she sighs, slowly shaking her head.
“I thought I’d know what I was doing by this point,” she mutters. “I’m not ready.”
“Will you tell me what it means?” I ask softly, as if she’s a wild animal I must soothe with my voice.
She turns to me, wringing her hands uncertainly, and I’m struck by how uncommon this is. Jaga always stands tall and haughty even when she’s anxious or afraid, yet now, she can’t hide her emotions.
When the silence stretches, and she breathes shakily, moving her lips as if trying out some words, I go to her and cup her face in my palms.
“Let me tell you what I figured out on my own and then you can fill in the gaps,” I whisper, stroking her cheeks with my thumbs.
She swallows, her expression both guarded and vulnerable. “I’ve kept this secret for so long, Woland. And now—should I just say it? It’s all so pointless.”
“You were meant to die at twelve,” I begin softly, holding her face like it’s precious, because it is. “My guess is you were persecuted for witchcraft. That’s how much I’ve gathered from what you said in your sleep last year.Jaromir. Daga. Miroslaw. Witch. The devil. Her blood will poison the roots.”
She flinches, her eyes wide and disbelieving, and I nod. “Next: I know you’ve asked me many times for a way to visit the past. I always thought you wanted to fix something awful that happened to you. Maybe that moment when you were twelve.”
“I already did,” she says hoarsely.
“What do you mean?”
She clears her throat, then laughs a helpless little laugh, pushing my hands off her face.
“I already did, Woland. I went to the past and fixed it. I was the one who changed my fate. I saved myself. But do you know, I never once wondered about that knife. They stuck me through. Itwould have killed me, yet after she healed me, there was no sign of it. Now I know. She took it. And so it’s time. If you want that knife, you’ll have to tell me how to travel to the past.”
I nod slowly. “Yes. I will. But this technique has never worked for me. I went back a few times, trying to fix horrible things, and it never worked. Nothing changed.”
Jaga shakes her head. “Don’t you understand me? I already did it. I won’t be fixing anything, just… repeating what already happened.”
“So what happened?” I ask, pulling her to my chair. I sit, and she perches in my lap, pliant and easy to command in her uncertainty.
She wrings her hands, and I enclose them in mine, waiting.
“When I was twelve, my eye changed color,” Jaga speaks at last, looking into the nearest fire. “It became purple. According to Wiosna, it might have been caused by my first fertile time as a woman. I had my first bleeding two weeks later.”
I nod to encourage her, but she lapses into silence, frowning heavily. The low fires around us crackle, and it’s quiet, the room an exquisite patchwork of shadows and reddish glow, flames glittering in the mirror she conjured.
“They blamed me for six dead pigs and a stillborn baby,” she whispers, smiling wryly. “And who knows, maybe itwasmy fault. Babies keep dying around me. I never intended to kill Ida’s niece, either, or… Or… The baby…”
She frowns, shaking her head. I see it clearly in my mind’s eye, Jaga holding the dead half-wila child with its shoulder bitten off by Wera, but when I stole her memories of that day, I must have taken this one before she shielded her mind. I don’t remind her. It’s a kindness to let her forget it.
“They blamed you for the pigs, and so they attacked you,” I murmur, calling her back to the tale.
She shivers. “Yes. They chased me through the woods. There was Daga, she was the youngest, and then Jaromir. He stabbed me, even though Miroslaw was supposed to do it. He wanted to be a zerca.” She chuckles bitterly. “None of them knew how to make a proper sacrifice. Oh, Weles!”
She sits up, cackling and clapping, and I shake my head, not knowing what she finds so funny.
“Do you know what defeated me? An oak! I ran into an oak and fell.Her blood will poison the roots.I thought I would die under that tree, but they dragged me away so as not to hurt it. Oh, so stupid. I called you, by the way. Named as many of the devil’s names I remembered, hoping you’d save me.”
I expect her to be resentful and hurt like that time when I did miracles, and she said I never answered any of her prayers, but Jaga laughs with glee, sitting more comfortably in my lap.
“They were so afraid! It was night already, and I didn’t fear the dark, of course, but they did. It was funny. When it was still light, they had no trouble calling me the devil’s spawn, but as soon as the sun set, the devil’s name terrified them.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come.”
She waves her hand dismissively. “Oh, I thought it was you at first. A doorway of fire appeared in the forest. When a woman came out, I thoughtshemust be the devil. Ha! And now look whose lap I sit in.”
She grins at me, and I grin back, calling on my shadows. I shift, stretching bigger, my head heavy with the antlers, and now she sits in the devil’s lap, indeed. Her smile doesn’t waver, and her eyes still glitter. I won’t say it, but it warms my heart in such a pathetic, sickly way—to know she accepts both of me the same. Whatever skin I wear, she knows it’s me. It’s surprising how important this little detail has turned out to be.
