Beneath Ceaseless Skies #182 by Margaret Ronald & Jack Nicholls

Author:Margaret Ronald & Jack Nicholls [Ronald, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: _Beneath Ceaseless Skies_ Online Magazine
Published: 2015-09-16T22:00:00+00:00

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FLYING THE COOP

by Jack Nicholls

The hut lumbered past Nadia Daniilovna’s window, so close that she could have reached out and brushed her fingers against its dark timbers. It seemed to be having trouble with the rain-slick planking laid across the streets, because it moved like a drunk: tottering forward a few steps on its clawed bird feet, then pausing and listing from side to side. Nadia heard the scrape of its eaves against her roof and winced as a cascade of shingles crashed down into the street.

As the hut creaked onwards, she spotted Bogdana Osorgina peering out of her own window. Before Nadia could make some gesture of fellow-suffering, the older woman crossed herself and slammed the shutters closed.

The hut awkwardly navigated a twist in the road and turned towards the saltworks, disappearing from view except for its misshapen chimney bobbing above the modest rooftops. Its shuffling footsteps faded, and Nadia regretfully returned to the problem of her father’s corpse.

Daniil Ivanov, foremost fur trader in the north, was laid out in his whites with his feet pointed towards the icon in the corner. The three candles placed about his head were sinking into puddles of red wax, and still the priest had not come. Nobody had come. They were all hiding from the witch’s hut.

Nadia sat at the head of the bier and brushed a straying grey hair back behind her father’s ear. “What am I to do, Papa? I can’t carry you alone, but our friends are cowards. They would not have dared to disrespect you like this when you were alive.”

Daniil Ivanov said nothing. Nadia plucked at his fingers like she had as a child, trying to slip her hand in his. But his hands were as limp and cold as a dead salmon, and Nadia knew from a recent inspection that the skin over his sagging belly was turning an unpleasant shade of sea-green. Outside, the sun dipped towards the horizon. Already she had spent three nights alone with Papa’s body. The thought of another, while the room filled with the stench of his rotting, was too much to bear.

Rain spat against the roof, and the mantle clock ticked away the minutes. Nadia had just about made up her mind to forcibly drag the priest down from his churchyard when there was a tentative rap at the door.

Opening it, Nadia found herself facing a curly-haired youth in a marten-fur cloak. Aleksandr Parfeev, the son of one her father’s old trading partners and a frequent visitor at Nadia’s home when they had both been children. His beard was still more goat than bear, but he would be a fine pall-bearer.

Aleksandr doffed his round-brimmed hat and bowed low, the gallantry somewhat spoiled by the way he peered under his own armpit to check the road behind him. “My condolences, Nadia. I hope am not too late for Daniil Ivanov’s service?”

“No, Aleksandr, although everybody else is. You have to help me get him up to the church.

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