On entering, I was relieved to see that my parents hadn’t vomited more blood since I’d left them. I placed fresh cold towels over their foreheads, pulled on a pair of black leather boots and a woollen hat, and wrapped a long black cloak around me before heading out into the night.
As I passed through our neighborhood, moans of pain emanated from dimly lit windows. Sacks of dead bodies lay strewn at the sides of the roads.
I tried to block out the horrors that surrounded me and think. I didn’t know how or where I would get the money. Even if I had the money, our horses had already died of the sickness.
I won’t find money or a healthy horse in this Godforsaken village. That much I do know.
If there was to be any chance of saving my siblings, I had to reach the highway that ran through the woodland, about twelve miles north from here. It led to the city, and there were often coaches passing by.
I trekked for hours through the ice and by the time I arrived at the dark, tree-lined road, I was beginning to believe that I might develop frostbite before a coach ever came along. Crouching down behind a bush, I waited. And waited.
Finally hooves beat against gravel in the distance. I peered over the top of the bush. A shiny black coach with two large steeds raced toward me. A thin man sat in the rider’s seat, and the curtains of the carriage were drawn.
I pulled my woollen hat further down to cast a shadow over my eyes, and pushed up my collar to cover the rest of my face. As soon as the coach was about ten feet away, I emerged from the bushes, one hand tucked beneath my cloak, nervously tracing the edge of the knife with my finger. I ran into the horses’ path and held up my other hand, waving it in the air.
The alarmed horses screeched the carriage to a stop. Before the coachman could react, I launched forward, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked him out of his seat, holding the knife close to his throat.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I whispered into his ear. “Just keep silent and do as I say, and nobody shall be harmed.”
“What’s going on, Ivan?” a female voice called out from inside the carriage. “Why have we stopped?”
I pressed the knife tighter against Ivan’s throat and said in a voice barely louder than a breath, “Tell her you’ve just stopped to check on one of the horses.”
The terrified man stammered, “I-I’m just checking on one of the horses, darling. Nothing to worry about.”
I turned Ivan round so that he was facing me, the steel still against his throat.
“I’m going to release you so you can untie one of the horses and give it to me. But I will be right here behind you. One wrong move and—make no mistake—I will slit your throat.”
Trembling, Ivan staggered forward and gripped the closest horse’s harness, working it loose. I winced as the animal whinnied.
“Release it gently,” I hissed. “So the lady doesn’t notice any bump.”
As soon as Ivan had untied the horse, he grabbed the reins and handed them over to me. I wrapped them securely around my arm before approaching Ivan again to once again hold the knife against his throat. But before I could grab him, in one sudden motion, he slapped the horse on the backside. The frightened animal galloped forward—knocking me to the ground and dragging my body after it.
By the time I managed to scramble to my feet, regain control over the horse, and rope it around a tree, the alarmed Ivan had already remounted the coach, which had started moving forward with just the one horse.
I reached the coach’s path just in time to fling myself at the driver’s seat, landing next to Ivan. He pulled out a knife of his own from beneath his seat and brandished it at me as the horse continued to gallop forward. Leaning back toward the edge of the seat, with one sharp thrust of my foot, I managed to knock the blade away from Ivan. Bone cracked as one of his fingers broke. He cried out in agony.
Grabbing the reins, I brought the horse to a stop.
“Now, let’s finish this,” I breathed, once again pointing my knife at his neck. “Hand over whatever supplies and coins you have. Don’t make me disturb the lady.”
“I know how filth like you work once you’ve finished robbing,” Ivan cried out, his eyes blazing. “I won’t let you lay a hand on my woman! You’ll have to kill me first.”
He ducked his head and threw all his weight against my midriff. As I fell back toward the ground, I instinctively grabbed him and pulled him with me. When he landed on top of me, I expected him to start punching me, but he went strangely limp. He lifted his head and looked down at me, eyes bulging. Then I felt it—blood seeping down the hilt of my knife.
The blade had buried itself deep into his stomach as we’d hit the gravel. He screamed as blood poured out of him, soaking through his clothes.
I rolled him off me and stood staring down at him, horror consuming me at what I’d just done.
At what I’d just become.
“Ivan!” A shrill voice pierced through the cold night air.
I turned around. A young woman in a blue silk cloak stood in the road, her face pale, her painted red lips parting in horror.
She screamed and ran back into the carriage. I thought she had run there for shelter, but she returned with a pistol in her hands, aimed directly at my chest.
“Drop the knife!” she cried out, tears welling in her eyes, her hands trembling.
I dropped the knife. She approached me cautiously, still pointing the gun at me, and picked it up. Then she ran over to Ivan and looked at his wound.
“You killed him!”
She whirled around in fury. This time she pulled the trigger. A bullet wedged itself into my shoulder. Warm blood spilled down my frozen chest.
I staggered back and fell to the ground. I began shaking uncontrollably, and I felt myself losing consciousness.
But then I remembered the promise I’d made to my brother earlier that evening. I remembered my parents’ tortured eyes looking up at me. I remembered Helina standing in the snow. And somehow I found the strength to turn myself over and slowly, steadily, quietly begin dragging myself toward the woman.
Her back was turned to me as she wept over Ivan. I reached out my uninjured arm and grabbed her. I knocked the pistol away from her hand. She kicked and screamed as I struggled to wrestle her to the ground. I grabbed the knife she had laid next to her and pushed it through her stomach.
Everything that I had ever identified myself with drifted away as that man and woman bled to death on the ground, tarnishing the white snow as their blood formed a crimson pool.