Yet I knew my sister was right. Undine wasn’t clever like Rose, who knew exactly how much to fear Papa the same way she knew how much motherwort to add to a poultice, and she wasn’t weak like me, who cowered at every clenched fist or sharp breath. She was vain, and cruel, and somehow had learned not to apologize for her wanting.
But what about my second sister? Rose only looked at me with calm, bridled anger. She had always been less enthusiastic than Undine about their midnight sojourns, and never tried to organize the outings on her own. Whatever desire she held closest to her heart, it was not orchestras or ballets or laughing and dancing in the street.
“What would you have me do, Marlinchen?” Rose asked at last. “The dancer will either return, or he won’t. And now you’ve made it worse for all of us, with this black sand. Undine will tear out your hair and slap you pink until you hand it over to her, if she finds out. And if Papa finds out it will be worse.”
“I know,” I said miserably. “I’ll get rid of it.” The words spilled from my mouth before they had even flickered like a light in my mind. “I’ll use it to leave once, to warn Sevas, and then we’ll never see it again.”
Rose’s eyes shifted, suspicious as a cat’s. “Just once?”
“Just once,” I promised, and hoped she would believe me even though my voice trembled.
She exhaled, and a bit of the meanness leaked out with her breath. “I’m sorry for what’s happened,” she said finally. “If only Papa let us have anything of our own, you wouldn’t pounce on the first pretty thing that caught your eye. It isn’t your fault. And your witchcraft is just for showing; it isn’t for doing or changing or making. That’s not very fair either. I can help you a little bit, but you must promise me three things first.”
I wanted to cry now, at her acquiescence. My nose grew hot as tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. A little hope started to gleam in me like a pearl. “Anything.”
“First, you must take the black sand, and destroy it.” Rose’s gaze rested on me as heavily as steel, as if I were a bogatyr from the old stories who had just won the favor of a king. “I don’t care what you do, but don’t bring it back here. Use it to leave once, and then never again.”
I nodded fervently, fisting the fabric of my dress.
“Second, you must return by the clock’s strike of three, before the dawn lifts Papa’s eyelids.”
I nodded again. “Of course.”
“And third, you must bring nothing more back with you. Your hands and pockets must be as empty as when you left.”
It was only then that I realized what I had truly asked for, what she was giving me permit to do. “You want me to go out into Oblya alone?”
“Well, I’m not coming with you,” Rose said. “It would be more dangerous if I did. Every gaze in the room turns to a Vashchenko girl when she walks in, and if there are fewer of us, perhaps it will draw fewer eyes. We can’t have any word of this getting back to Papa.”
That was why Rose was kinder than Undine. Even vexed like this, she tried to protect my feelings. We both knew I would draw no gazes, lascivious or otherwise. I was ugly in the most forgettable sense, like the unmatched silverware in a drawer, the dull knife that your hand passed over without your brain supplying a reason why.
Rose stood up and went to her boudoir and brought back Mama’s ivory-handled comb. Lips pressed thin, she started to brush through the tangle of curls, and I felt myself go weak a little in the knees; although her strokes were rougher than Mama’s, it was so rare an occasion that anyone tended to me.
But when she reached for her box of ribbons, I said, “Papa will see me when I bring him his supper and he will think something is wrong if there’s a ribbon in my hair.” So she left my hair down.
I did not mention that I still had her filthy pink ribbon knotted around my wrist, hidden under the sleeve of my dress.
And so with my hair loose around my shoulders I went and cooked Papa’s dinner: the chicken liver with browned onions and parsley and a splash of spiced wine, because I thought it might make him fall asleep faster, or stay asleep longer. Pouring it over the chicken made the pan hiss with steam and droplets of grease leap up at me and it felt like the most dangerous thing I had ever done.
The whole time I was breathing shallowly, wondering if I was pouring my secret in with the wine. What if Papa could taste my deceit like a growth of rot when he put the food on his tongue? I served up the liver with kvass, my fingers quivering. When I lifted the tray, it was almost unbearably heavy, and my legs were burning by the time I made it to Papa in the sitting room.