SAND

семь: 7

For a couple weeks, her days were divided between the usual relentless foraging, berry-picking, and trips to the hoard , with a supply drop at the tank farm. Her sisters knew her secret and Mamoschka was beginning to suspect, but there hadn't been any trouble.

But when she got home from her supply run, Nadya was weeping, her cheeks wet with tears. Irina was fuming.

"Kirill was here. He wanted to see Mamoschka, probably to beg for something. We tried to fob him off, but he shoved the door open and smelled the food on the stove. He asked us where we'd got beef and shpick, but we wouldn't tell, so he slapped Nadya's face and cursed us for not inviting him— our very own brother— to share. Then he grabbed the pot off the stove and burnt his hand, the idiot, so he took a towel to wrap it and made off with with the whole pot."

"Our very own brother, is it? The wretch!" Marozhka spat.

"He said he'll be back day after tomorrow for more food," Irina said.

"What about a stew with poison mushrooms?"

Nadya was shocked. "We couldn't poison our brother. That would be a sin!"

"If he brags to his mates about the prime tucker he's taking off his sisters, we'll have a crowd at the door."

"I told him to keep it to himself," Irina said, without much conviction.

She took her bowl of soup to a corner and thought furiously as she spooned it up, hardly tasting.

Now that Kirill was in on the secret, she had a week at best until the others would know. What would they do?

She could predict it, in vivid detail.

He would show up with a couple of his mates and barge in. First they would threaten her. Then, if she resisted, they would threaten to hurt her sisters. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to poison his stew, now, before he could tell anyone. She no longer believed there was a God, given all that had taken place, so how could it be a sin?

≈ ≈ ≈

She got up before anyone was awake and set out as quietly as she could, not even waking the cat. The sun was below the horizon but it wasn't dark. She had a careful look around before starting for the outskirts and the beach. The tide was coming up and would cover her tracks.

She wanted to carry two loads to the tank farm and also make a full inventory of the contents of the cellar. Perhaps the food should be shared. But there were some things, the vodka and the guns, that couldn't be given away without dire consequences.

She kept on along the beach, beyond the Pegasus and the stone circle, before she took a long look behind her and then turned inland. That was another weight on her: she'd been asked to arrange the cloudberry festival and it would come soon. She'd chosen a committee from the young women and needed to assign specific tasks. They were to meet. . .tomorrow! Damn!

She surprised some animal that leapt up and went crashing off through the strip of taiga forest. She couldn't tell what it was. When her heart slowed down, she kept on until she sighted the lonely house, out there in the waste of blown sand. She stood quiet and scanned the area, trying to catch the slightest movement. There— but it was a raven on a dead tree, that had seen her first and turned its head. There was an old story about a hunter who had a pet raven, that pointed him towards game and warned him of danger. Could she catch a young raven and train it?

She reached the house and checked to see that all was as she'd left it. Then she opened the attic door and went in, working fast in the half-dark to uncover the trap and clear the way down. Knowing what she wanted, she made up her first load quickly. She would pick cloudberries, to conceal it, on her return. Then she found a blank page in her notebook and started the inventory, listing each item and quantity.

She did the food first. Then the kitchen tools, cookers, and fuel. Cotton towels. Soap. Lanterns. There was a case of army first aid kits— handy— and two wood crates labelled: Field Hospital (Surgery and Short-term Care). There was no doctor in the village, but an older man—Ilya, Pyotr's father— had been a medic for the fishing fleet and his wife was a nurse. They stitched up wounds and administered such medicines as could be had.

Toilet paper! Candles! Four cases. Two cases of signal flares. Then the high explosive. Elsewhere, there must be the kits to set it off: wires and batteries and such. Then the wood crate marked Kanin Station/Chechnya Surplus– No Mag, with a loose lid, that held ten AK-47s. There were several steel ammunition boxes marked 7.62x39mm and another wood case holding black steel magazines. Then a smaller case marked RPKM (5) 7.62x39 No Mag: machine guns. Whoever hid this stuff was equipped to protect it. Were they planning a revolt? She wondered what had happened to them.

Nothing nice, she'd bet.

There were folding cots and cartons of sleeping bags and wool blankets. Two tents in neat bags. Clothing, some new in cartons and some jammed into boxes. Boots. Caps. Gloves. At the end of the shelf were two boxes, the smaller labelled Detonators (20)/Extreme Hazard and on the next wall another with batteries, control boxes, rolls of wire, pliers. Plastic rubbish bags. Hah! No one had rubbish anymore. Every scrap was boiled up for stock or composted or burnt.

In a corner there was a space between the ends of the shelves and two pallets of 20-liter fuel cans. Those on the left had a spray of red paint and stencil letters: BENZIN. The other pallet was marked with blue spray and the word DIZTOPLIVO. That's a prize, she thought. There were a few quad bikes but the petrol had run out. And the village tractor, in the same fix, ran on diesel. There was also a carton of all-weather motor oil and spray cans of ether starting fluid, and a steel toolbox that held wrenches and screwdrivers and files.

She kept on writing her list, thinking about what could be of use and what would be dangerous in the hands of the men. Unable to resist, she plucked a book of poems out of a box, Pencil Letter by Ratushinskaya. Books were a treasure. The village had a tiny library and the most popular books were falling apart. The long winters, with little daylight, made reading a much-valued pastime. People read ancient magazines and the labels on empty boxes. She'd been through the Bible four times and she wasn't even a Christian. She liked the old stories of blood and betrayal and miracles. They helped keep her mind off how hungry she was.

She set out a second load, so the next trip would be quick. Now that the inventory was done, there was thinking to do.