Scent of Darkness (2 page)

With a resounding
thwack,
Jasha punched Rurik in the shoulder.

"
—he is single. He breaks my heart. Maybe one of you young ladies "would consent to marry him. Next week, talk to me. We will make arrangements."

The men of BIythe were laughing, but the women, they were appraising his sons. True, BIythe was a small town, only 250 people including the outlying farms, so some women were very young and some past the age of childbearing, and quite a few had legs like tree trunks and skin like old tree bark. But the boys had been out in the wide world for more than ten years and neither had yet brought home a bride, and desperate situations called for desperate measures.

Konstantine wanted to cradle a grandchild before he died.

If all had turned out as he and Zorana had planned thirty-five years ago, when they came to this country, he would now talk about Adrik. . . .

His guests grew quiet as they waited, seeing his grief, respecting his anguish.

Adrik was lost to them. Lost to the wickedness of his own soul. Lost to the lure of the pact.

Konstantine took a long, quivering breath. He squared his shoulders, and steadfastly pushed away the pain in his chest. With a broad smile, he gestured at Firebird. "And finally, we have my own baby daughter. Today we celebrate, not only Independence Day for the great
United States
, but also Firebird's twenty-first birthday." Even after all these years, he couldn't believe it. For a thousand years, no one in his family had fathered a daughter. Yet he had. His own girl child, his baby, his miracle.

Love and gratitude welled up in him so strongly, he could scarcely speak as he stood looking at her, so beautiful, with blond hair that she insisted on cutting into an unfeminine short length, and blue eyes so bright and determined. Always determined, his daughter. Determined as she toddled after her brothers, determined as she trained in her gymnastics, determined to walk again after the uneven bars broke, shattering her leg and ending her dreams.

Tonight her eyes were not so bright, though.

She had grown up during her senior year at college. She was a woman now, with a woman's silences and a woman's mysteries.

How had that happened?

"My Firebird, she is beautiful, and she is smarter than her brothers."

Both boys socked Firebird's shoulders, but gently. Her brothers were always gentle with Firebird.

"She won scholarships to four colleges." Konstan-tine held up four fingers for emphasis. "She went to Brown, a very prestigious school, and finished in only three years with a degree in software programming and one in Japanese." He thumped his chest in pride. "Now, you wonder—-what good is so much education to a woman?"

His audience laughed again.

"I don't know. What man wants a wife who is smarter than he is?" he wondered.

"Yet that's what every man's got," Zorana said.

The crowd's roar of laughter caught Konstantine by surprise, and he pondered his reply until the tumult had died down. Then, shaking his head sadly, he said, "You see what I suffer. Two unmarried sons, a clever daughter, and an impertinent wife. I am truly the most put-upon of men."

"Poor guy." Sharon Szarvas, wife of River Szarvas, an immigrant from
Eastern Europe
, showed no sympathy for the dent in Konstantine's manly pride.

Ah, but she knew him too well. His manly pride didn't depend on praise or support. He knew who he was.
“I
think my daughter should stay home now, but my wife, my Zorana, says no, that we must wish her well and release our little Firebird to flutter away. Someday she will return, her restlessness assuaged." He tried to smile at Firebird, to show her he meant every word, although his heart was breaking.

She smiled back and mouthed, "Thank you, Papa."

Her ambitions were his fault. His and his sons'. Always she had envied them, wishing for a wildness no one could tame. But they had gifts Firebird did not share, and although Konstantine had, from the day she was born, held her on his knee and called her his little miracle, she was discontented.

"So"—he pointed his finger around at his guests— "although Firebird is twenty-one and well past marriageable age, I do not offer her as a wife. So, you men, do not look on her."

They did, though. They looked on her, and lusted. The loggers, the farmers, the ranchers, the artists— they all wanted his Firebird.

She looked on none of them with favor, but stood with one hand pressed against her back and one resting on her belly, and watched her father with patient, sad eyes.

What was wrong with his girl?

But now was not the time to ask.

"For all my blessings, I have my Zorana to thank." He held out his hand, and with a smile, Zorana joined him.

She was tiny, his wife, only five feet one, with delicate bones, hair dark as a blackbird's wing, sparkling brown eyes, and a fiery spirit. She was younger than he was, but the first time he had seen her, she had entranced him. He had never recovered, and he loved her as no man in the history of the world had ever loved a woman.

Now she was fifty-one, and he worshipped her still. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, looked down at her, and he saw himself reflected in her eyes. In her eyes, he was a good man. A great man. Her man.

He spoke more to her than to his audience. "This woman, she is worth dying for, but better than that— she is a woman worth living for." He kissed Zorana's smiling lips, then looked up at the people gathered around his tables, friends and strangers, his guests. His voice swelled. "Zorana and I and my children— all of my children—we thank the United States of America, who allowed us to immigrate from Russia to this place where we may be a normal American family and own this land and grow strong, and have wealth and health and safety, and have many good friends who come to celebrate the Independence Day with us."

The crowd was silent; then one person began to applaud. Then they all applauded, and stood and cheered.

From far away, Konstantine could almost hear the old enemies howling in fury and frustration, and he smiled: This life, the life he had built, was perfect.

He gestured, and everyone hurried to fill their glasses with vodka, wine, even water. Lifting his tumbler, he toasted his guests and his family.
"Za vast"

"Here's to you!" they answered, and everyone drank their shot, even Miss Mabel Joyce, the old maid schoolteacher, even Lisa, the crazy New Age herbalist with only one name, and especially the old doctor who had missed Firebird's birth because he'd been too drunk to walk.

Then Jasha and Rurik ignited fireworks that lit up the skies—and his foolish sons set the meadow on fire. So they led the neighbor boys as they ran through the grass, carrying washtubs of water and bellowing with laughter.

By the time the excitement was over and the fire was out, the neighbors were packing up to go home and reminiscing about the trouble the Wilder boys had created when they were younger.

The neighbors had no idea.

Miss Joyce hobbled over to Zorana, kissed her cheek, and said, "Well, folks, it's always an adventure when I visit, but it's time for this old woman to leave."

"Visit us again soon." Zorana had been only sixteen when she'd moved with Konstantine to the
United States
, and her accent was almost imperceptible. "We miss your visits."

Miss Joyce cackled. "I was up here every week while your kids were in school. Tonight really brought back the memories." She looked at the boys, still covered with soot and grinning, then at Firebird. 'They almost made me quit teaching."

"Luckily for us, no one else would take the job." Jasha hugged his old teacher around the shoulders.

"Because of you kids. The Wilder Demons. The worst kids in the state." Miss Joyce's voice rang with pride. For thirty years in their tiny town of
Blythe
, she'd been the schoolteacher for grades seven through twelve. So when Konstantine's oldest had entered seventh grade, the elementary school teacher had breathed a sigh of relief, and Miss Joyce had girded her loins for battle.

Luckily, she'd had a lot of experience teaching— by then she'd taught for eleven years in a high school on the Houston ship channel, and after the incident with a student involving a knife that resulted in her six months' stay in the hospital, she'd come to Blythe and taught. No teacher wanted to instruct forty kids of different ages in a single classroom, so Miss Joyce had continued long past sixty-five. She said teaching kept her young, and maybe that was right. Only when Firebird graduated and Miss Joyce retired did she develop a dowager's hump and begin to use a cane.

But her eyes sparkled as brightly as ever.

"Do you need someone to drive you home?" Rurik asked.
"\
can take you."

"You're just trying to get out of cleaning up," Firebird said.
"I'll
take her."

The children began to squabble, but Miss Joyce held up a hand and an almost magical silence fell. "The Szarvas family brought me. I'll return with them."

"I've got to learn how to do that hand thing," Kon-stantine muttered.

"It's too late for you,
Hubov maya."
Zorana patted his cheek. "Let us help River and Sharon Szarvas load up their guests. Some of them are much the worse for drink."

The Szarvases were artists of some note—Sharon painted amazing landscapes; River and their daughter, Meadow, fashioned beautiful, magnificent works in glass—and every night the floors of their rambling old house and their barn studio were full of sleeping bags and cots as other artists, young and old, came to leam and to serve as apprentices at the feet of their masters. The master artists used all their money to pay for food, blankets, heat, and teachers for their students.

They were good people.

Tonight they'd brought five students. Five students whose eyes had lit up at the sight of the loaded table. The three guys and two women who talked incessantly about their art. They'd eaten their own weight in
blini.
And they'd drunk—too much.

Now Konstantine threw one thin, pale, lank, unconscious young man over his shoulder and carried him to the rusty Volkswagen van.

Sharon and Zorana walked behind, their hands full of baskets and blankets, chatting about the day and the town and the weather.

River walked with Konstantine. "Sometimes the kids've got no talent, but they want it so badly they come and stay with us in the hopes it will rub off. And that's fine—maybe they'll catch a whiff of the fever."

Konstantine nodded. This boy probably didn't weigh 130 pounds dripping wet, but he was heavy enough to make Konstantine gasp.
Must be getting old.

"This young guy"—River nodded at the man over Konstantine's shoulder—"he's been with us for a week. Hasn't done a thing the whole time, just watched everyone create and learn. Sharon and I, we thought he was one of
those,
the ones with no talent. But you wouldn't believe what he did tonight. I can't wait to show you."

"Show me?" Konstantine didn't have the breath to say more.

"Right before he passed out, he told me it was a gift to Zorana." River shook his head. "It's amazing. Extraordinary."

A tingle shot through Konstantine's hands where he touched the young man.
Odd. Disturbing.

"Fling him in there." River opened the door to the van. "This kid so has a crush on Firebird.”

Konstantine placed the limp boy on the carpeted floor.

River gathered a towel-wrapped something out of the front seat. "Come on."

They headed back toward the fire and leftovers stacked on platters and the neighbors visiting before the drive home.

Sharon and Zorana followed, prodded by curiosity.

"Look!" River placed the thing on the table and pulled the towels away.

The still-damp lump of clay had been formed into a statue of Firebird. The boy artist had captured her as she stood with one hand on her hip, the other on her belly, watching the children play.

"My God." Zorana backed away. "My God. It is ... Firebird."

"It's perfect." Konstantine threw the towel over the statue. "It's lovely!"

They didn't understand. None of the people here, the American people, understood. Zorana was a Gypsy. She was superstitious. Her people did not give life to lumps of clay, and this statue . . . this statue was amazing. Lifelike.

Eerie.

Zorana backed into Firebird's arms.

"Is that like me, Mama? I don't see it." Firebird hugged Zorana and whispered in her ear. "It's okay, Mama. It's okay."

Zorana slid an arm around her daughter's waist. She was so tiny beside Firebird, dark-skinned and dark-eyed where Firebird was fair and blond, and she allowed Firebird to comfort her. To River, she said, "When your young man awakes, thank him for his art."

River nodded. He was an artist. He saw things most men did not. He understood things most men did not. . . but he didn't understand why the Wilder family hated that statue.

The neighbors from the surrounding farms, from the Chinese restaurant in town, from the only burger drive-in for fifty miles, lined up to say good-bye.