“Look how colorful it is, Toma!” Galina exclaimed, jumping down from the gangway. Her new leather shoes made puffs of dirt. “Look how green the grass is. And the trees!”

Vanya remained at the other end of the gangway platform, within the shadow of the dirigible’s canvas-lined frame.

“Aren’t you coming?” I asked.

“Go have your reunion. I’ll catch up in a few minutes.”

I nodded and turned back ahead. It had been less than a month since I had first set out on my journey, but it felt like a lifetime had passed since I last opened the izba’s creaking door. As I crossed the uneven ground, I had to keep from trembling, half in excitement and half in dread.

I could envision it clearly in my head. The hearth would be filled with cold ashes, mold would blanket the bowl of fresh mushrooms, and on the floor, I’d find a scatter of bones and rotting fabric, with a pair of hand-carved wooden masks bristling from it all.

I was torn from my thoughts as Galina suddenly broke free of my hand and rushed on ahead.

“Galina, wait!” I shouted, running after her. “If you fall, I won’t be able to sew it up this time.”

Laughing, she reached the izba and cast open the door. It banged shut behind her, and for a moment, all I could do was freeze at the wooden pane, waiting for a scream of horror and anguish.

Galina’s silvery laughter echoed from within. My parents’ voices were so soft, the door stifled them to crackly whispers.

“Toma, what are you waiting for?” Galina hollered. “Come inside.”

I drew in a shuddery breath and opened the door, stepping into the cool, familiar dim. The hearth was unlit, as I had envisioned, and everything else remained as I had left it—the walls covered in quietly ticking timepieces, and the bundles of dried herbs nailed to the crossbeams, and my parents in their shrouds of fur and decaying fabric.

I came forward on watery legs, reaching out for them as if I were just a child again, tears flooding my eyes uncontrollably. There was so much I wanted to tell them but that I could spend an eternity trying to put into words, so all I could choke out was, “I brought her back. It’s just like I said. I told you I would.”

45

By the time I had finished telling my parents about Galina’s resurrection, my sister had fallen asleep on my straw-stuffed mattress and Vanya was waiting for me outside with a crate of medicine and essentials from the dirigible’s hold.

Wrapped in canvas and twine, Koschei’s sword rested atop the box. Not a souvenir, but a reminder of what I’d done. Of the blood I spilled. Of what it meant to survive in the outer world.

Vanya carried the items inside, and the moment he caught sight of Mama and Papa lingering by the masonry oven, the crate nearly slipped from his arms. For the first time, I saw my parents through his eyes—spindly constructs of rotten fabric, bone, and buckskin, with the hearth-light pooling on their carved birchwood masks and relinquishing the rest to shadows.