Chapter 6
A shaman needs a drum, so that the gods can hear them. And a daughter of mine needs a knife too, to feed the spirits [with blood]. It [the knife] can also contain a spirit.
— Metamorphoses by Marsymyaku (ed H”andula”amyaku)
“Sofia, do you have any spare knives? Preferably ones that are also idols,” said Vasilisa.
“Well…” began Sofia.
“You’re going after Artemis?” asked Alexey, accusingly.
“Wait, what?” asked Sofia.
“Yes. I’m going after Artemis. Got a problem with that?” levelled Vasilisa.
“Nope. It’s a good idea. I’ll get you a knife from my mother’s war chest,” said Alexey.
“Wait, no, what? No! You have no idea what you’re doing!” protested Sofia.
Vasilisa, already halfway to the stairs with Alexey, swivelled to face her. “We already had this conversation, Sofia, and it ended with Artemis leaving,” Vasilisa said pointedly. “Are you going to make it zero-for-two?”
“But…” Sofia couldn’t choose a complaint. “…what do you even plan to do?”
“Shamanize,” replied Vasilisa simply, in a tone that carried an implicit, “Duh.”
She and Alexey disappeared up the staircase.
“You’re not going to try to come with me, are you?” asked Vasilisa of Alexey, once they were in the master bedroom.
“Uh. Shouldn’t I?” asked Alexey, opening a large leather-bound chest at the foot of the bed.
“No. No, you shouldn’t, Alexey, come on. You don’t move your king into the middle of the board as an opening.”
“I’m not your king,” grumbled Alexey, who hated being reminded of the existence of chess, as he had only bad memories of it. “I’m as expendable as anyone else.”
“Oh, really? Then, like, ignoring that you’re the one keeping our whole friend group from going insane, what’d happen when you died, huh? Do you have a will? Who’s your next of kin?”
“I. Uh. Guess this place’d go to my sister.”
“Do you want that?”
Alexey wanted his sister to never have to come back to this toxic city.
“Hell no,” he said. “Alright, point made. I won’t have any adventures until I file a will.”
“Good. I’ll come up with some other excuse by then. Now, a knife?”
“Oh yeah. What material?”
“Metal.”
Alexey rolled his eyes. “What kind of metal?”
“I don’t know! Your favorite.”
“I’m just asking because none of the steel ones are idols.”
“Oh,” said Vasilisa, unsheathing various other knives in turn to find each in an advanced state of decay. “…can we turn one into one?”
“What, like, bind a spirit ourselves? To a steel knife?”
“Sure. Is it hard?”
Alexey grimaced at the memory of the most recent spirit-binding he was party to. It was a funeral he attended at the age of six, officiated by his mother. She had made a contract with the deceased that upon her death, one of her bones would become an idol for the disease spirit that was killing her. Like most Ryzhaya rites, this was considered very unnatural and unclean within the local religious canon, and the controversy it stirred up had deepened the stigma of the Ryzhaya name to its present state, leading directly to the predicament Alexey and his friends faced today.
“It’s… kind of a drag,” he sighed. “I don’t think we could pull one off right now. You need a sick person, and a way to treat their sickness.”
“So, like, when we take our meds…”
Alexey frowned. “Yeah. When we take our meds, we’re treating a disease. We could siphon off some of our depression and whatever into idols. If we had meds. Which we don’t.”
“Right. Assuming the meds even work, ‘cause mine sure don’t feel like they do. Still tired as hell all the time. Still can’t focus.”
“I told you, start taking a stimulant already.”
“I tried! None of ‘em fucking work! They just give me akathisia.”
“Okay, okay. Which knife?”
“Right, uhh, that one,” said Vasilisa, pointing to what seemed a boning knife. “It’s not like big or anything but it looks the sturdiest.”
“The handle’s wooden,” replied Alexey obviously.
“I’ll wrap it in leather. And it’s full-tang. I’m taking it.”
“Fine. Want anything else?”
“A drum.”
“…of human skin?”
“What?”
“Never mind, it’s a… Sump in-joke. Just take the one in the chest. I’d need to go looking for other ones.”
The oval of stretched reindeer parchment in the chest had all the standard branching designs on it that befit a Samoyed drum, as well as some less traditional icons of what looked like mosquitos. These were detailed in what Vasilisa could only assume was blood. She wondered how the designs didn’t fade or rub off. Magic? Or just high-effort dyeing with a good fixative?
“Isn’t this, like, your family’s most powerful drum? Being in the chest and all?”
“Hell if I know. I never paid attention to what drum my mother used when shamanizing. Big sand-colored oval either way.”
“Okay. I’ll take it. And lastly… I’ll need a god.”
Alexey raised an eyebrow. “A god?”
“Someone to shamanize to. You know. Someone who likes me? Please tell me someone likes me.”
“I…” What was Alexey supposed to say here? “I think the Moon-Mother likes me. I mean, she never granted any of my wishes, I think, but they were dumb wishes anyway. She was probably just looking out for me. I’ve prayed to her a lot, and made sacrifices to her. Maybe…” He bit his lip meditatively. “Just shamanize to her, alright? Tell her you’re a friend of mine and you’re trying to help me.”
Vasilisa sensed that Alexey was making an effort to be more vulnerable than usual here. “Alright, thanks. I totally will. I totally appreciate how… thank you. Really. Hug?”
Alexey nodded, and the two embraced tightly, heads over each other’s shoulders. Vasilisa wasn’t seriously expecting to die on her excursion, but she thought that just in case she did, she definitely wanted to hug both Alexey and Tosha first. And thank Sofia for all the help. One bucket list item down, two to go, she thought. Guess if you’re about to die your bucket list’s gotta be modest.
They went back downstairs.
“…not jellyfish, but it tastes the same and feels the same,” Tosha was explaining to Sofia when the pair returned. “Or well it doesn’t have much of a taste. But either way.”
Sofia nodded politely and held up a finger. She turned to look at Alexey and Vasilisa as they arrived. “Hi. Did you find what you were looking for? Wait, is that Mom’s drum?”
“Yeah,” said Vasilisa. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, just… it’s my drum! I was going to use it!”
While Vasilisa’s first instinct was to dispute Sofia’s claim to the drum, she realized it was a reasonable point. “Okay, I’m sorry, Sofia. May I borrow your drum? To go rescue Artemis and shamanize to the Moon-Mother?”
“Shamanize to the… how do you even know Artemis needs rescuing? You just assume she’s going to fail a simple grocery run? Is that what you think of your friend?”
“Hey,” said Alexey, who did not like where this was going.
Vasilisa took a deep breath, and let it out. “Okay. Okay, fair. Can you ask the mosquitos how she’s doing?”
“…alright,” agreed Sofia. “Give me a moment.” She closed her eyes.
Alexey and Vasilisa sat down in front of the fire while they waited.
“How’s it going, Tosha?” asked Alexey.
“Good,” replied Tosha. “I was explaining to Sofia what star jelly is. And how you can eat jelly fungi.”
“Nice,” said Vasilisa. “Can’t wait for you to make that garlic-and-cilantro jelly shroom dish again. I could eat that for days.”
“We’ll have to forage,” said Tosha seriously.
“Oh, yeah, unrelated, can I hug you?”
“Not unless it’s an emergency.” Tosha didn’t have anything against physical contact in principle, but still didn’t enjoy the feeling of it.
“It’s an emergency,” explained Vasilisa.
“Okay, then, yes.”
Vasilisa squeezed Tosha’s torso, pinning their arms to their sides. She rubbed her head against the crook of his neck some.
“Sorry,” she said afterwards. “I just dunno what’s gonna happen when I go look for Artemis, and I wanted to hug you and Alexey in case I die.”
“That’s fair,” said Tosha.
Sofia opened her eyes and looked at her friends. “Okay, yes, she’s in trouble. She’s alone, but not moving, and her blood is scared.”
The three non-mosquitos stared at her.
“Her blood tastes like she’s scared, okay?” said Sofia frustratedly. “Or it’s hot, or high-pressure, or really it could be a lot of things. But that’s what the mosquitos said. Vasilisa, I’m sorry, you were right. It sounds like the anxiety spirit overwhelmed her. I think you might actually be able to handle this one on your own, too. You just need to accompany her back here.”
Vasilisa stood up. “Alright. Thanks for the intel, and stuff. So, ‘sit okay if I borrow your drum? I’m sorry I took it without asking.”
Sofia sighed. “Yes, it’s okay. Try not to beat it where the drawings are, though. They’ll rub off.”
Vasilisa nodded. “Thanks. Thanks for, like, helping out, and being a generally cool person, too. So far it’s been real cool knowing you.”
Sofia groaned. She understood exactly why she was hearing this. “Just get her and come back! You’ll be fine.”
Vasilisa smiled, buttoned her puffy butter-colored parka, and gave a mock salute before disappearing out the door.
A daughter [of mine] won't ask only for the favor of gods. She will ask for the favor of the sick.
— Metamorphoses by Marsymyaku (ed H”andula”amyaku)
Slipped away. Artemis had slipped away out of the world, like she’d wanted to. She was floating in darkness. The darkness tasted like crude oil.
She hugged her newly bought possessions tightly, a habit she’d developed on her very first day ever on the streets. It was just common sense. Not that most of her cargo was valuable in the hands of someone without access to a kitchen. She supposed the knife was the most desirable out of any of it.
At this point, she didn’t know how to return. Was she dreaming? She tried to wake up, but couldn’t. She tried to find purchase with her feet, but couldn’t. She tried to remember which way was up, but—
“ARTEMIS!”
The yell tore chasms through her reality and brought jagged beams of cruel light crashing down on her face. It was around four in the afternoon, the sun nearly having set on her. The red of the sunset blended into the red of the blood being pumped to her retinas.
“V… Vasilisa?” she whispered.
Vasilisa was running towards her, holding a drum. Artemis idly noted that its parchment yellow color with red-brown accents matched Vasilisa’s parka quite well.
“Artemis! Hi!” Before Artemis could protest, Vasilisa threw her hands around her, in her third hug of the day.
“Infosec,” mumbled Artemis.
“Huh?”
“Yelling my name out on the main street. Bad. Who’s listening?”
“Chill, there’s like, no one here. Let’s go home, okay? I’ll help carry the stuff. …holy crap, is that a rice cooker?”
“It was on sale.” Still softly, waking up from a dream.
“I… I don’t think Shtchavel House has electricity, Artemis.”
“I know… I’m sorry.” Artemis buried her face in her hands and didn’t get up.
“Come on, Artemis. Can you please get up for me? Do I have to stand you up?”
“No… no, Vasilisa, I don’t want to move, I can’t move, I’m so tired of being seen. I don’t want to be here. Please, I just need some time to myself.”
“That spirit,” said Vasilisa. “It’s eating you alive. Where’s the idol?”
Artemis gingerly reached into her coat and retrieved the stone hedgehog pendant.
Vasilisa examined it. “Look, uh, spirit. You have about five seconds to let go of my friend, before I fling your idol out into the forest. Sofia said I can’t turn you off, but I can get rid of you instead, so, how would you like that?”
The idol didn’t react. “Um. Vasilisa,” said Artemis shakily. “Don’t taunt the disease spirit, please. It already feels really bad. I don’t want it to feel worse.”
“One…” Vasilisa lifted the pendant’s string off of Artemis’s neck and pulled it over her head.
“Two…” (“Vasilisa, please. I can feel it getting worse.”)
“Three…” (“Please?”)
“Four…” Vasilisa got in position to throw the idol into the forest. Artemis was terrified, and wished she’d told Vasilisa that Ryzhaya idols weren’t expendable, instead of just pleading for herself.
“Five!” Vasilisa lobbed the idol in the direction of the roadside forest, where it hit a rusted pole and shattered.
“…okay,” said Artemis. “Okay, thanks, Vasilisa, I do feel—”
A screech akin to a braking train filled the air, heard for kilometers.
“No, what? Smoking them is, like, the dumbest possible thing you can do,” said Alexey. “There’s literally no benefit to it.
“I swear, that’s what they did! They smoked the mushroom!” insisted Sofia through fits of laughter.
Tosha had been the one to instigate the discussion, having attempted to explain the nuances of mushroom foraging to Sofia. This had eventually led to a discussion on the effects of psilocybin, and finally a strange story about an evening Sofia had spent with her more adventurous pair of cousins.
“Did it work?” asked Tosha, curious.
“Of course not,” grinned Sofia. “All they did was give themselves coughing fits for the rest of the night.”
The noise of metal tearing against metal sounded in the distance.
“…was that a fox?” asked Alexey.
“No,” said Tosha. “I think it was a train, further away.”
“…a train crash? Maybe?”
The Aas River Basin was served by a light rail system known as Aastran, which made certain train sounds a regular occurrence in Keleykh. This noise, however, didn’t quite fit among them.
“Could be a spirit screaming? Those can sound like metal,” suggested Sofia.
“…they do that?” asked Alexey.
“Sure. If someone made them really, really angry. Like breaking a contract with them.”
“I see. Well, I dunno, in the absence of more evidence, I don’t really want to speculate.”
Tosha, meanwhile, started to form a worrying picture. “Uh. Guys. Vasilisa and Artemis are out there. Could it be one of theirs? One of their spirits?”
This immediately inspired Alexey, ever the pathological pessimist, to begin contemplating horrible fates for his friends. He tried to resist. “It could,” he said. “But, I don’t know how likely it is. I dunno, I’m predisposed to worry about my friends a lot, so, maybe I’m overrating its likelihood? But it’s the only thing that really makes sense, and that’s really concerning. I dunno, I dunno. I shouldn’t be allowed an opinion here. Sofia, thoughts? Are they in danger?”
“Well, I could just ask,” said Sofia. “But if they are, what would we do about it?”
“…go save them? Obviously?”
“Okay, look, here’s an analogy. Your friend is being chased by a bear. The bear is angry at your friend and can’t be scared away. How do you help your friend? Can you help them run faster? No, you can’t, unless you can pick them up and carry them, and you definitely can’t here.”
“Do Artemis and Vasilisa know they should run away?” asked Alexey.
“Well,” replied Sofia darkly, “If they didn’t know it yet, they’re going to find it out very, very quickly.”
Vasilisa had never noticed until now, but the roadside slush seemed to have a rainbow sheen to it. And it only just now became clear that the red of the sunset wasn’t caused by the sun; it was an array of distant oil wells, lit by—
A wave of anxiety passed over her. Her heart crumpled up and she fell to a knee in pain, clutching her chest. Every breath hurt. She looked up:
A hedgehog. No larger than any ordinary hedgehog. But it was made of splinters of glass stuck in her eyes, and blinking only made the pain worse. She could see the hedgehog even when she closed her eyes, as though the intention of her self-isolation, all along, were that she could be alone with it. The spirit approached the girls, and began vibrating, building momentum. At last, it let out the tension it had built up in another shriek, greater than the last. It rent Vasilisa’s mind in two.
She understood that this was her fault. The spirit was angry at her, and it was her fault. And that is how the spirit worked: always her fault. The spirit was a list of her mistakes.
The last thing Vasilisa wanted to do right now was cold-call a god, but there was nothing else left to do but what she came for. She shut her eyes tight in a grimace, regretting how much it hurt, and began to beat her drum. Her words were barely more than a whisper. The spirit, momentarily stymied by the drum’s sound, listened.
"Moon-Mother, please, i-it's me, Vasilisa. I'm a friend of Alexey's. I came here to help his friend Artemis, but I screwed up real, real bad. I totally fucked it up, I'm so sorry. I released this disease spirit, and, I think it's trying to give me a heart attack, or something… can you please help me? I totally don't deserve it, but like, I really wanted to help, I was just really bad at it. I dunno, could you maybe like, help me bind it again? I'm sorry, it's a lot to ask and I don't have any reindeer to sacrifice to you, but I promise I'll… uh… I'll ask Alexey for help with the sacrifice part, okay? I just need to live through this. Sorry again."
It was then that she noticed that, in the hand that she was holding the drum, she was also holding a white styrofoam cup full of hot tea. Vasilisa hadn’t had the occasion to handle styrofoam much in her life, and nearly dropped it out of surprise. Had she absentmindedly made herself tea at Shchavel House and brought it here, all the while failing to either drink from or spill it? Such feats were improbable, but not beyond her. Or was it a gift from…?
She sipped the tea a little and immediately felt better. It was green tea, cut with toasted rice. Not her favorite, but it reminded her of better days. Another wave of anxiety washed over her as the spirit renewed its attack, but all it made her do is sip the tea faster.
“Hey, Artemis, check this out,” said Vasilia. “I think I brought tea by accident.” She gave the remainder to Artemis, who, practiced in ascertaining the temperature of tea through styrofoam, immediately recognized that it was safe to down it in one gulp, and did so.
“Thanks,” she said. “That helped a lot. Uh, what about the anxiety hedgehog?”
Vasilisa shrugged. “I could try apologizing to it? My knife’s not gonna do anything.”
Artemis, who had no less than three knives currently on her person, agreed that a knife was not going to be useful here. If it were, then she’d have already used one. “I can try the other idol?”
Vasilisa turned to look at her. “What other idol?”
“A fever idol,” said Artemis. “It’s a lot more powerful. It’s supposed to, uh, mess with reality. I think.”
“Uhhh. Is involving another spirit really the right move here?”
A new wave of anxiety hit them both. Artemis’s hands shook. She really, really wanted to just be somewhere else, to leave someone or something else to deal with this situation and to just run away…
Vasilisa chose a different tack. She snatched the empty styrofoam cup out of Artemis’s hand.
“Hey! Spirit!” she yelled.
The hedgehog stood at attention again, like it had to the sound of the drum.
“Look, I’m really sorry I broke your idol, alright? I was just trying to protect my friend. I… I’m not good with this spirit stuff, I’m sorry. But, look.” She brandished the cup. “I’ve got tea. At home, I mean. You can come back home with us, and I’ll get you tea. And, and look, you helped my friend get all this food, right? You can have some of that, too. You can come home with us, and you’ll be… safe…”
As Vasilisa spoke, the hedgehog started approaching once more. It climbed onto her foot, and braced its front paws against her leg, like a dog asking for treats. Seeing the spirit up close made Vasilisa realize how little it really resembled a hedgehog. It reminded her more of a testate amoeba: an amorphous blob of sharp debris, flattened out somewhat, with a few abstract protrusions around its edge used to poke and prod at the world. Its “snout” was not much more than a modest knob on its mass that the glass shards happened to be pointing away from. Nevertheless, Vasilisa felt like she should be hugging it like a plush doll and placing it next to her pillow in her bed. (Her bed? Oh, right, she thought. I don’t have a bed anymore. Or, yet.)
“Um… are we good?” she asked. The spirit remained attached to her leg.
She had a flash of inspiration, and placed the cup on the ground. “Oh, right, you need an idol, right? This teacup will keep you safe until we get home. Do you want… oh, okay.” The spirit had already let go of her leg and crawled over to the teacup. It gingerly tipped it over with a paw, and spilled inside. The styrofoam became perforated with glass as the spirit shifted around inside, and eventually its snout emerged from the top. Vasilisa felt a different sort of anxiety stab her heart: an anxiety to get home.
“…nice,” said Artemis, who felt that she couldn’t just leave the incident without comment, but had nothing to actually say. Vasilisa picked up the cup by its rim, trying not to hurt her hand. The entity inside it started looking less like a hedgehog, and more like an ordinary pile of broken glass. She blinked. The glass was, indeed, no longer stuck in her eyes.
The girls picked up the groceries and walked home.
“Vasilisa. Tell me honestly. Are you mentally disabled?” asked Sofia.
“I…” came the reply.
“Do you have problems with reading comprehension, that you should have mentioned to me before I recommended books to you? Are you perhaps afflicted with narcissism? Because I would rather believe any of these things than that you, being of sound mind and having just read a text on their proper care, chose to destroy one of my idols and unleash its spirit on the town.”
“I didn’t know!” protested Vasilisa. “I’m sorry, okay? I’ve apologized like ten times already. I’m sorry, I know, it was stupid, I won’t do it again.”
“Sofia,” said Alexey coldly, stepping forward. “You will not diagnose my friends with mental disorders or disabilities in order to insult them. You wanna be angry at Vasilisa? Fine. I’m angry at her, too. She could have gotten herself and Artemis killed. But somehow, somehow I can express my disappointment in her without bringing mental issues into it. I suggest you be more understanding immediately or I will kick you out of the goddamn house. Yes, your goddamn house.”
“But it’s genuinely relevant to—” began Sofia.
“Shut the fuck up,” said Alexey. “Don’t pretend you’re trying to do a, what do you call it, a structured debriefing here. I know where you got your style of being angry at someone from. From our mother, yeah? The fact that it took me a lifetime to unlearn it is the only reason you haven’t already lost the right to talk to me or my friends. Either be polite or fucking leave.”
Sofia fumed silently for a few seconds. Nobody dared to speak.
“I… uh…” said Vasilisa hesitantly. “I was really worried about Artemis. She didn’t want to move or leave. That doesn’t make it okay, but like, I thought I could just throw the idol away and leave it, you know? I didn’t think it contained anything… that powerful. Or that it would come after me. I’m sorry. And… what kind of ‘illness’ is social anxiety, anyway? Like, obviously in this case it was bad, but like, it’s kinda arbitrary how bad it has to be before you call it a ‘disorder’, you know? And it’s not like it kills you. So I thought… maybe I wasn’t dealing with a serious disease spirit, or anything, and yeah I know how bad that sounds, but like, I have social anxiety all the time too, you know? And it’s just, like, a part of me, and I don’t really think of it as an illness or anything, so, um… yeah.
“I’m really, really sorry. I’ll take all the idols seriously from now on. And, destroying it was an accident. Sofia, Alexey, I’m, sorry I disrespected and destroyed one of your family’s idols. I, uh… I hope the new one makes up for it.”
Sofia squinted at the styrofoam cup full of glass that Vasilisa had given her upon arrival. She’d identified it as originating in Shchavel House’s closet. She remembered a time when her father would come back certain days from hunting trips, getting snow and slush all over the kitchen as he walked, and pour himself the lowest effort cup of tea that he could manage. Ever since he’d left six years ago, nobody had been using the cups. Her mother always swore she could taste the styrofoam and that Sofia would die from cancer if she drank from them.
“This is an improperly bound spirit,” said Sofia. “Not exactly the same one as the idol contained. You treated your own anxiety and bound it.” She wiggled the cup around, shards of glass clinking against one another. “You said you promised you’ll feed it tea?”
“And, uh,” Vasilisa faltered, “Keep it safe and warm and stuff, yeah.”
“I’ll have to… renegotiate that,” said Sofia. “We can’t feed all our idols the normal way. That would be a logistical nightmare. I’ll make another deal with the mosquitos, I guess.”
“Don’t,” said Vasilisa suddenly. “I’ll take care of it. It’s my mistake. I’ll deal with it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I’ll keep it on my bedside table.”
The five kids stood around, uncomfortably.
Tosha spoke. “I can make mapo tofu now.” There were nods and murmurs of affirmation.
Alexey gave Sofia a hard look. “Sofia. We need to talk. Come up to the study, will you?”
And though it was normally Sofia who was practiced at imitating their mother, the chills she got from his words felt nothing but authentic.