Under the Willow Root

Chapter 1

"It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed."--Thomas Moore

My name is Sasha. I struggle to hold onto even this small bit of knowledge as I try to force my eyes open. A dull but intense pain hammers against my temples and makes my stomach churn. Finally, I succeed in pulling my gummy eyelids apart and squint, trying to make sense of the strange pattern of blue and gray and black that shifts and sways above me.

I can hear others stirring. Some are coughing and gagging, some gasping and scrabbling in the leaves. The sound of other people being sick triggers my own gag reflex and I turn my head to vomit, unable to move my whole body.

I lie gasping and trembling, naked except for a small, cold weight on my neck. A necklace, I realize, and it feels important, but I can't seem to grasp exactly why. I put that aside for the moment and return to what I do know. My name is Sasha. I breathe slowly, carefully, as if I can coax the memories from my spinning, drunken mind like I would a shy animal out of hiding.

Is that it? Am I drunk? Or hungover, maybe? But no, that's not right, I've never been drunk in my life. I'm a dancer, I don't drink. I seize on this, relieved beyond measure to have something more than a name to cling to. I'm a dancer. It's enough for now. It has to be, because I think I'm going to be sick again.

I force myself to roll over, only to find myself staring into the empty eyes of a little boy. I reach out and prod his chest, confirming what I already knew but didn't want to believe. The boy is dead. I heave, but nothing comes up except a thin dribble of bile. I find a clean patch of leaves and press my face into it. It's cold and clammy, and it smells like rotting things—like death.

A hand roughly grasps my shoulder and turns me over. I try to cry out, but nothing happens. A large man dressed in leather and metal looks me over, then barks a few words in a language I don't know. I try to speak, to ask him what's happening, who he is—anything. Again, nothing happens. I cough, trying to clear my throat. I try again. Nothing. I can't speak. It's as if in the microsecond before my vocal chords engage, I forget how.

The man in leather moves on and another, smaller man takes his place, helping me to my feet. His hands are gentle but strangely impersonal on my waist, on my back. He doesn't seem to notice or care that I'm completely naked. I look closer and see that he doesn't seem to notice much of anything. His eyes have a strangely vacant quality, almost like the dead boy's. He's just...empty.

For the first time, I look around. There are bodies all around me. Some are being helped along, as I am. Others are still wiggling like worms on the ground, remembering how to use their limbs. But many—so many—are completely still.

I quickly look away from the twisted limbs and blank, staring eyes and take in our surroundings. We're in a forest of broken, dead-looking trees. A blue-white fog shifts and flows around them, making trunks and branches appear and disappear and appear again so that it feels like the whole forest is moving. It makes my stomach hurt.

Recognition tickles my mind. I know this place. I've been dreaming of this very forest for days. Or has it been weeks? My mind stalls, unable to answer, so I focus on the new addition to my pathetically small hoard of facts: my dream, my nightmare forest. My heart speeds up and my breath comes fast. Spots dance in front of my eyes, my neck bends under an invisible weight. I slump against the man guiding me and close my eyes against the spinning in my head.

There's a ringing in my ears which digs its way into my brain until I realize that it's not just ringing but a melody. Images of wolves and cradles float to the front of my mind and I realize that I'm whispering--more like gasping--the words to a song. To myself, or to the Empty Man, I don't know.

"Bayu, bayushki bayu

Nye lozhisya na krayu,

Pridyot serenkiy volchok..."

I open my eyes. I'm lying in bed with the covers pulled up to my chin. My teeth are chattering, but my face is flushed with fever. My grandmother sits at my bedside, gently sponging my forehead with warm water while she sings a lullaby. I toss my head and shift restlessly, mumbling incoherently. Baba Nadia settles my teddy bear more firmly in my arms before tucking the covers around me again.

"You're alright, kitten," she murmurs. "Sing with me a little."

I swallow and whisper the words along with her.

"Bayu, bayushki, bayu

On the edge you mustn't lie

Or the little gray wolf will come

And bite you on the side

Tug you off into the wood

Underneath the willow-root."

"Babulya," I croak. "The wolf...the wolf will come and eat me..."

"No it won't," Baba Nadia says firmly. "Mishka will protect you, won't he?"

I hug my teddy bear to my chest and nod, feeling a little better. Mishka has always kept away scary things while I sleep. But as my head and stomach spin around each other, the images from the lullaby seem to take root and grow until all I can see is shadowy trees obscured by mist. Wolves pop in and out of the fog, snapping at me with long, distorted fangs. As I run, Mishka becomes heavier and heavier until I'm dragging him through the wet leaves. Soon I can't move him at all. I sob, tugging uselessly at my bear as the wolves approach.

I stumble as the Empty Man pushes me into a wagon that looks like a cage on wheels. Other women and girls are huddled in the back, looking as scared and sick as I feel. I try to ask them what has happened, but my voice is gone again. Another girl is shoved into the wagon and she stumbles against me, knocking me down. I pick myself up from the slatted wooden floor and move to the back, trying to ignore the bare skin of the other women pressing against me. I put my hand to my neck and realize that my necklace is gone, if it was ever really there to begin with.

When the cage is full, the wagon starts moving with a jerk. Someone toward the front—or I guess it's the back, now—is sick. I'm too numb to feel anything but a vague sense of relief that it wasn't anyone near me. I try not to think of what else the floor must have been designed to let out. Instead, I take stock of the facts that slowly accumulate in my mind.

My name is Sasha. I'm a dancer. I have a grandmother who speaks Russian—I speak Russian, and English too. I can't understand the language the guards speak, and I can't even identify it. Of course I can't be sure, given the sorry state of affairs in my head, but I don't think it's a language I've ever heard before.

I don't know what language or languages my companions speak, because I can't ask them and no one has said anything. I can only assume that their voices are gone as well. I think we must have all gone mute from the trauma of...whatever happened. I've heard of things like that, but I never imagined it would happen to me.

Eventually what little energy I had runs out completely, and I slip over the edge into unconsciousness despite the fear and physical pain which had been keeping me awake. I surrender gratefully, eager to escape into painless, thoughtless nothing. But instead of oblivion, I find memories.