Lara's Gift Page 3

  “What could it be, Zar?” I feared the worst.

  Zar’s whole body tensed up, his ears stood on alert, and his eyes locked in on something in the distance, something I couldn’t see. And then Zar shot off like a bullet.

  I wanted it to be a hare that called him to the chase. But from the way Zar took off—with such intensity—I knew it was something he had never hunted before.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Red Thief

  “Don’t leave me behind, Zar!” I rushed over to Babushka, gathered the reins, and pulled myself into the saddle. I squeezed my legs hard against Babushka’s sides and clucked my tongue, until she fell into a quick canter. We followed Zar through the meadow, trampling through the tall grasses in our path.

  Boom!

  I flinched and looked around, wondering from where the shot had come, relieved that help was on its way. Babushka plowed on without a flicker of her ears or a stagger in her step. Zar, too, kept flying through the open field ahead of us, completely focused on whatever it was that had prompted the chase.

  “Gospodi!” I cried.

  A silvery-red-tipped wolf popped into view. It carried a leg of something white in its mouth—one of the Count’s sheep, I was sure of it!

  I wanted to scream: “Zar, watch out!”

  But the words froze up inside of me like a river does in the dead of winter.

  Zar gained on the wolf, leaped into the air, and caught it off guard—landing square on the wolf’s back, causing it to tumble and scramble. In the blink of an eye, the wolf quickly recovered on all fours and growled at Zar with revenge in its eyes and bared fangs. Then it lunged straight for Zar’s throat. Zar jumped up on his hind legs and thrust his chest forward to defend himself. Together the two stood on their back legs, fighting and butting against each other. Relentlessly, they pawed and growled and snapped.

  Without thinking, I dismounted from Babushka and looked around for a stick or a rock among the tall grasses. All I found were pebbles and little mounds of dirt—which I grabbed and threw, grabbed and threw.

  I was too far away to hit the wolf.

  Boom!

  The noise startled the silvery-red-tipped wolf just long enough for Zar to disentangle himself.

  The hooves of a horse pounded the earth in a hurried gallop. Across the field came Alexander, riding an Orlov Trotter with his rifle pointed to the sky. Ahead of him were Borei, Bistri, and Sila, barreling forward with such swift force and determination.

  By the time I turned back to the wolf, it was gone.

  And so was Zar.

  Borei, Bistri, and Sila reached me first, circling round me—their ears perked and eyes focused on the horizon for something to chase. Alexander rode up and pulled his white steed to a halt beside me.

  “Zar took off after the wolf,” I blurted. My lip trembled, but I resolved not to cry.

  “You saw the wolves?” Alexander asked.

  “Wolves? I only saw one wolf.”

  “They stole our sheep again.” Alexander shaded his eyes with his hand. “Did you see which way they went?”

  “My guess is that way,” I said, pointing to the crushed grasses. “I’ve got to find Zar.”

  I climbed into the saddle and nudged Babushka into a gallop behind Alexander’s horse.

  “Ou-la-lou! Ta-ra! Ta-ra!” he shouted to the dogs.

  We followed the trail of crushed grasses behind the trio of borzoi and came upon Zar and the wolves beyond the hill near the woods. With jaw-crushing bites, a silver wolf attacked the carcass of a dead sheep, while Zar held his own in a stare-down with the silvery-red wolf.

  Bistri and Sila worked as a team and distracted the silver wolf by nipping at its hind legs while Borei blind-sided it and pierced its throat with his powerful jaws. The silver wolf wailed as Borei clamped down. And in one violent shake, the wolf’s neck snapped, and dangled from Borei’s mouth.

  Zar and the silvery-red wolf circled each other, waiting for the right moment to make the first move. When the smell of death hung in the air and the crying wails of the silver wolf stopped, the bigger wolf lunged for Zar’s throat and caught hold. Zar let out a cry, yet wriggled free. The wolf pawed at its mouth and spit out chunks of white fur.

  “Zar needs help!” I screamed.

  Alexander raised his rifle and shot into the air.

  Boom!

  The wolf bolted into the woods.

  Zar chased after him, until his legs buckled and he collapsed.

  I began to dismount. “I’ve got to help Zar!”

  “Let me finish off the silver wolf first. Your father will kill me if anything happens to you.” Alexander pulled out his favorite knife—the one the Grand Duke Nicolai of the Perchino Kennel had gifted to him—and guardedly approached the silver wolf.

  I closed my eyes.

  “Molodietz!” Alexander praised the dogs when he was done.

  When I garnered the courage to open my eyes, Alexander was wiping the knife’s blade clean from the wolf’s blood against his trousers. So I dismounted and hurried over to Zar.

  I hugged and kissed and stroked him until I realized my hands were stained with fresh, wet blood.

  “Zar’s bleeding!”

  Alexander rushed over to us and took a closer look at Zar’s neck. “He just needs a few stitches. He’ll be fine.”

  “I hope so,” I said in a soft voice.

  “Don’t be so glum.” Alexander pointed to the Count’s Gold Medal trio of borzoi. “Zar’s one of them now.”

  “You’re right.” Just then, an eerie feeling came over me, as if we were being watched. Although I didn’t see the wolf that had gotten away, as hard as my eyes searched for it through the woods, my gut told me it was watching us.

  And then a lonely howl pierced the air, confirming my suspicion.

  “We should hurry,” Alexander said. “Zar will still need some medical attention.”

  This was why Alexander and I were such good friends, despite my being four years his junior. The dogs always came first.

  Alexander raised and lowered his hand to command Babushka to kneel. Then Alexander gave a quick nod to Zar. “Jump, boy.”

  “He’s never been trained,” I warned. In the absence of a sledge, injured dogs often rode atop horses to carry them home, as well as on longer hunts to keep their strength and endurance.

  “He’ll figure it out,” Alexander said. “He’s seen other dogs do it.”

  As if by instinct, Zar struggled to climb up onto Babushka’s hindquarters. The more he dug his claws, the more Babushka whinnied, until she finally had had enough and bolted upright. Zar slid off of her and landed on his rump.

  I moved to help him.

  “Don’t, Larochka,” Alexander cautioned. “If Zar ever expects to go on a hunt, he must learn to do this for himself.”

  Alexander tightened his hold on Babushka’s reins and repeated the hand signal. She snorted and pawed the ground with her hoof, before eventually obeying. “You can do it, Zar!”

  This time, Zar took a few steps backward, and then in one leap, he landed square on Babushka’s rump, carrying his head high. Once he was settled, Alexander raised his hand and Babushka stood up. With his fingers locked together, Alexander held them out for me as a human ladder. “Your turn.”

  “I, too, must do it by myself,” I said.

  Alexander smiled, gave me the reins, and stepped out of the way. He then made a sweeping gesture with his hand, as if I were the Tsarina of all Russia. “Pozhaluista.”

  Under a blue sky Alexander and I rode side by side through the crushed grasses in the direction of the estate. Borei, Bistri, and Sila ran big circles around us, their heads held high, their eyes still searching for something to chase. Zar rested his head on my shoulder.

  “I promised the French tutor I’d come back and finish my lessons,” Alexander said. “I’d much rather help you stitch up Zar.”

  How I wished I could learn another language. “Say something in French.”

 
“Like what?” he asked.

  “Anything,” I suggested. “Whatever comes to you.”

  “J’aime ces chiens plus que tout,” he said.

  Hearing Alexander speak French was magical like the moon, and just as far from the world I knew.

  “J’aime ces chiens plus que tout,” I repeated.

  “Perfect,” he said. “You have a good ear.”

  “What does it mean?” I asked.

  “ ‘I love these dogs more than anything,’ ” he answered.

  I would definitely have to remember these words and repeated them in my head a couple of times. As I did so, I kept a lookout for the basket of mushrooms Zar and I had collected.

  Alexander noticed it first and pointed. “Mushrooms?”

  I nodded. “While you were studying French, I was gathering mushrooms, until Zar noticed the wolf and stormed after it.”

  Like all the other visions I had had, I wanted to tell Alexander about my vision. Holding it inside was as difficult as keeping a borzoi tethered to a lead with a leaping hare in sight.

  Alexander dismounted, collected the basket, and peered inside. His eyes grew big. “Wow, so many!”

  He didn’t look like either one of his parents, but, at the same time, he was a perfect blend of both of them. His mother gave him his kind blue eyes and his porcelain complexion. He got his height and slim frame from his father, along with his thick black hair that hung to his broad shoulders in wavy curls.

  Alexander got back on his horse and tried to hand the basket of mushrooms to me.

  “Keep them.” I cringed at the thought of what might have happened to Zar had Alexander not come along when he did.

  “Nyet, nyet, I can’t,” he said.

  I knew he couldn’t resist a dish prepared by the Count’s head chef. “Marya will cook them just the way you like them, swimming in sour cream.”

  “Not fair! You know my weaknesses, Larochka,” he teased. “But I’ll accept on one condition.” Alexander searched through his pockets, pulled out the hunting knife that the Grand Duke Nicolai had given to him, and put it in my hand. “Without your help I never would have caught up with the wolves.”

  “I can’t take your prized knife, Sasha.” I knew how much it meant to him and tried to give it back.

  “I insist,” he said. “You might need it one day.”

  Zar nudged my elbow from behind.

  “Even Zar agrees with me,” Alexander said.

  There was no point in arguing. I was outnumbered. “I will cherish this gift, Sasha. Spasibo.”

  The handle reminded me of Papa’s horn. For it, too, had a decorative gold image of a borzoi running on it. “Look, Zar. It looks just like you.”

  When we got closer to the estate, Alexander took the hunting horn around his neck and blew into it to inform the stable hands that we had been victorious. Soon after, celebratory bells pealed. The ding-dong-clang of the stable bells made me feel important, like I was riding in a parade with the Imperial Family.

  Boris, the Count’s coachman, came running out to meet us, his arms pumped, cheering our success. “Did you get the ringleader?”

  “Nyet, it got away,” Alexander answered.

  “There should be a price on that wolf’s head,” Boris said. “The neighboring estates have lost livestock, too.”

  “We’ll get the Red Thief.” Alexander said it like it was a promise.

  For someone so big and gruff, with shoulders as big as a barn door, Boris had a gentle touch with the horses. But trigger his angry side and he could break horseshoes and thick iron keys.

  “We got the silver one,” I said, praising Borei with strokes along his head.

  “It’s in the field just beyond the birches,” Alexander added.

  “I’ll send someone for it right away,” Boris said.

  “Zar helped, too,” I made a point to say.

  “Zar?” Boris sounded surprised.

  “I wish Papa could’ve seen him,” I said with pride.

  “His neck’s a bloody mess.” Boris looked to Alexander. “It can’t be true.”

  “Of course it’s true,” I said with my hands at my hips. “Tell him, Alexander.”

  “Lara’s right,” Alexander said.

  Boris looked down at Zar, then threw back his head and bellowed, “Don’t try to make him into something he’s not!”

  “He just needs training,” I said in Zar’s defense.

  “Then training he shall get,” Alexander said.

  Training was what I had always wanted for Zar. Now all I could think about was Zar gripped in the Red Thief’s mouth.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Candle of Hope

  Thankfully, Zar didn’t need the sick animal hospital, where we quarantined unhealthy animals until they passed on or, if they were lucky, pulled through and got cleared to rejoin the healthy ones. For practical reasons the main animal hospital connected the dog kennel and horse stable. All three sections of the stable smelled of turpentine from the rags we doused and hung from the ceiling to overpower the stench of the stools left by the dogs and horses.

  I led Zar into an empty stall. And just like I’d done hundreds of times before, I gathered scissors, flax, a needle, and some herbal balm in preparation to stitch up a wounded dog—except this time the wounded dog was Zar.

  “Be still, boy. It’s going to hurt at first,” I said to him.

  I took a deep breath and punctured his skin with the needle, drawing the flax underneath the skin on the other side, and poking through it. Zar cowered and winced. I hated seeing him in pain, yet pulled the two sides together and repeated the process three more times before closing off the opening. When I was done patching him up, Zar rested his head on my shoulder and licked my ears—giving them tiny bites of affection.

  “Alexander was right. You’ll be fine, boy,” I said.

  Zar’s feet danced in place, from paw to paw.

  Just then, Maxim, Papa’s lead trainer, entered the hospital. He carried a sick wolf pup, bred from a pair of training wolves, in his arms. Maxim was twice Papa’s age and kept himself lean like his wolves. “Is it true Zar almost got killed?”

  “Hardly.” I pointed to the four stitches. “Take a look for yourself.”

  “Hmmm … looks like Zar held his own,” Maxim said, patting my back.

  “I can’t wait to tell Papa how fearless Zar was.” To draw Papa’s attention, I tied a long, white, cotton rag around Zar’s neck.

  At midday Mama was sound asleep, tucked under cotton bedding that barely covered her belly. At the head of her sleeping bench sat a sewing basket. I couldn’t resist taking a peek. I pulled out Mama’s work and admired the detailed embroidery and pearl beadwork along the lush, gold, silk fabric.

  “I can see why the Countess boasts about Mama’s work,” I whispered to Zar. As I neatly folded and placed her work back into the basket, Zar retreated to his pallet just under my sleeping bench.

  For luck I kissed the Mother with Child icon—which hung in the red corner decorated with vigil lights, eggs, dried flowers, and doves made of dough—not once but three times, just as Mama always did in times of hope.

  Please, give us a baby girl.

  So peaceful was Mama that I dared to rest my hand over her growing belly. Then I closed my eyes—longing to see a little sister inside.

  As hard as I tried to summon my gift—all I could see were the backs of my eyelids, and they were as dark as black bread.

  My gift never did come to me at will. The visions I had—always of the borzoi dogs, never of people—came to me at random, whether I wanted them to or not.

  Mama suddenly jerked upright. She clutched her belly with both hands. “Did you feel that?” Her voice sang with hope. “The baby moved!”

  I wanted to share her enthusiasm. With the baby so close to coming, the tension in our tiny, one-room home reminded me of a coiled-up snake ready to pounce. But I didn’t feel a single movement, only the tightness of her big, round belly. Given Papa’
s order for Mama’s bed rest, I was afraid to upset her with the truth and stared back at her with the blankest look I could muster.

  “Don’t be afraid, Larochka. I’m sure you’ll feel it. Here, let me show you.” She pushed the cotton bedding down to her knees, then took my hand and positioned it just below her belly button. “Now do you feel it?”

  My hand flew from Mama’s belly so fast, as if those little punches were on fire and would burn my fingertips. “Does it hurt?”

  Mama laughed—a gentle but tired laugh. “There’s discomfort … but movement is a good sign. I welcome each and every one.”

  Mama massaged her belly in big, wide circles. Suddenly her heart-shaped face bunched up in a frown.

  “What’s the matter, Matushka?” I took her hand into my own and squeezed.

  “Your brother’s restless and pushing against my back.” She shut her eyes and began to rock. She hummed a few choruses of a lullaby, and then she paused to catch her breath. “He won’t stop. He’s going to be stubborn, just like your papa.”

  Every mention of the word he fed my heart bitter bites of poison.

  Mama closed her eyes. In a soft soprano the words of the lullaby flowed off her tongue like the coos of a mourning dove.

  Baby, baby, rock-a-bye

  On the edge you mustn’t lie

  Or the little gray wolf will come

  And nip you on the tum,

  And tug you off into the wood

  Underneath the willow root.

  Mama sang this verse over and over. Each time the words became fainter and fainter until her weary voice faded into a tender hum. My eyelids had begun to feel heavy, as if weighed down by heaps of wet snow. Mama’s singing soothed me, and I could almost feel her arms around me.

  The only thing keeping me from a sound sleep was the thought of the Red Thief stealing me away into the deep, dark woods. Now that I was older, I heard the words to the lullaby much differently, for wolves, like the Red Thief, nipped and tugged for only one reason.

  Hunger.

  Mama rubbed her lower back with both hands. “My singing doesn’t calm your brother the way it did with you. I’ll have to find another way to ease his little soul.”