“What? No,” I cry. But before I can scream again, she has a hand to my mouth. Katyenka's behind me, her red scarf ready for Dasha, who strings it over my mouth, ties it painfully tight at the back of my head.
No, no, I think.No. I’m so stupid. I’msostupid.
They're strong, eerily strong, and pull me roughly forward, drag me down the corridor, down the stairs. Deeper down than before, to an underground passage where the walls are slick and candles are guttering and smells like mildew and rotting death.I gag behind the scarf. I pull back, try to resist, and I can't. I just can't. I'm too tired. I'm too weak. They're too strong.
Finally, we come to the end, a winding spiral staircase, and they force me up, step by rough step, and when we emerge, it's in a space I recognize.
The cathedral. Behind the iconostasis. Yet as we emerge, I see the space is filled with…flowers.
Every surface decked in clusters of pale, dried blossoms—from where I have no idea. Hanging from the rafters, tucked between every icon.
My body goes stiff all over again.
"Come," Dasha says. "Come, come."
She's practically skipping as she pulls me along in her iron grip. To the center of the church,to the throne, I realize. The same one as I recognized from Camlann House.
"No," I say, but the word comes out as garbled nothing. I shake my head violently.No, no, no. I don't want this. I don't want this. I don't want whatever this is.
Again I try to fight, but now there are more of them—the women from before, crease-faced and smiling under their headscarves from the sides of the church, bearing baskets overflowing with red fabric, their deep-set eyes sparkling. Terror surges in me, and I choke, gag on my tongue, until at last Sveta undoes the scarf.
I gasp for air. "Let me go," I cry. "Let me go!”
I feel like a five-year-old, like a petulant child, swinging my head back and forth. But it's like the girls can't hear me. They're humming—singing, I realize, some soft song in a strange harmony I don't recognize. As they hold me in place, one of the old women steps up to me. Peers into my face, strokes my finger with a gnarled finger, mutters something I can't hear.
Then she grabs the waist of my skirt and yanks it down.
"No," I cry. "Stop."
She doesn't listen. Tights, underwear, then my sweater, shirt, Dasha and Sveta working swiftly as Katyenka approaches with something from the basket, flowing red, bright with needlepoint flowers.
"Stop!" Naked, I thrash wildly, like an animal, every fiber in my body fighting, but I’m pinned. The two girls yank it over my head, over my body. Someone holds me by the neck as they clamp it tight and cinch the waistband behind me. It's heavy and scratchy and hot, and the sickly scent of the dried flowers mingling with the incense is starting to choke me.
"Please," I say, pathetic now. “Please stop."
Dasha and Sveta and Katyenka just sing louder, winding little melodies, broad smiles on their faces, as they comb my hair, pull it back and tie it, and set something on my head, a hat or a headdress I can’t see, heavy, clinking, weighing my head down.
"Please," I say. "Please. Why are you doing this?"
Maybe if I can make sense of it, I can stop it somehow, I think. But they say nothing. Just laugh and giggle and say teasing things to each other like they're bridesmaids getting me ready for my wedding. Above me, the dull brown eyes of the icons stare down, Christ and the Virgin and a thousand saints I've never heard of, as they push me to the seat.
The throne.
I brace myself. Tense every muscle in my body. Wait for whatever it is to happen—pain, sudden death, immolation.
But nothing.
Somehow, that’s more terrifying.
I feel someone breathing in front of me. I open my eyes and one of the old women has taken over my frame of vision. Yanking me down by the chin. She brandishes something at me, a brush dipped in white, something powdery or paint that she smears on my face, down my neck.
"Stop! I stop," I say, my voice breaking, "please."
Where are they?I think.Where are they, where are they? Have they noticed I'm gone? How would they even know? What will happen when they...
The old woman steps back, muttering with satisfaction to her compatriots. They glance at me, evaluating, frowning, drawing little circles in the air, and speak to Dasha. She stops her singing, answers quickly. And I catch one word I recognize.
Aloysha.
