A distant rattle. Always out of reach but loud enough to be noticed when it finally stopped, and it was time for him to come back to her. But everything felt silent, and no one came. The war was not a war, but death was still death.

She became his shadow, always a soldier’s widow, never Vera, never the girl from the 5th house. He stalked her from every billboard, he was in the eyes of other soldier portraits printed up there, near the sky, looking down. Heroes, heroes, heroes. She should feel proud, she should feel glad, her husband — her hero. But she felt nothing at all, and nothing is a scary word when you start to know it well. Vera waited for them to bring his body, but instead, there were “take our deepest apologies” payments flooding her bank account. Shortly, she learned: that money can buy an empty casket but for the rest — she has to bring him home.

There was a talk about the woman — the one that takes care of things, the one to know. She lived on the outskirts of the Country, she was an outcast and the secret, and her name was not spoken, but Vera finally had cash to bribe, cash for a purpose. She got an address and a ride, and a return ticket for two.

Tuda ne Znay Kuda — there, don’t know where — was a long name, a good name, a nowhere, a no name. Big crow nests covered the twiggy edges of the naked trees, horror balloons, and murder parties. Pop, pop, pop, right above the road less traveled, hiding itself in the long-long shadows. Yet, before Vera takes a step, she sees right in front of her an old man, his face soggy, a red bucket in a dry hand full of shells instead of early berries. He wheezes through the gap in the front teeth: “They haven’t defussed all the minesss yet, foressst not saffe” as he passes by.

“I have to bring my husband back”, she feels responsible toanswer, to fend the warning, but the chap is walking fast for his age, the sound of metal on plastic mirrors his steps, tap, bang, tap.

And in she goes. She follows the path, broken reeds and nettle borders, through the trees, and so and so, across the river, small and springy. Crows take watch, they follow closely, and Vera hurries. She got so used to seeing dots in the sky and hiding, she got so used to the loud siren that is not a luring voice, she will get used to this — just a bit more, till the big tree, till the one to solve it all.

The house of the woman who knows was supposed to be surrounded by tall pines and birches. Instead, it’s a house in the dug-up field. Black puff of earth with shovels like darts, in and out, in and out. Working men, weird men, not fully men. Their bodies — limbs sticking out, marching their hands in unison through mangled hummocks.

 “I am here for my husband”, Vera says, her voice low and shaky, as she looks through their soldier uniforms, crosses and flags darkened, names inexistent. Husks don’t answer, don’t listen and don’t hear, she figures. Their expressions blank and unamused. Her husband was not among them. Her husband would not be a husk at all. If Vera thought of his dead face, it was a beautiful stroke of white brush. If Vera thought of him, he was alive.

Through grunts and rasps to and banging of shovels, a loud and clear voice calls out: “The first bird coming home”, and Vera finally sees her — a woman, an old lady, politeness forgotten — a hag, waiting near the now open door, crows gathering happily at her wooden foot. Screeching, curling up like kittens. 

“Your husband”, a hag continues, “was he a hero?”

He was, Vera is sure.

“To me, always”

Hag’s snicker reminded her of the rattle. Vera flinches, she tells herself: that the rattle stopped. The war stopped. It’s time for him to come home.

“Then, he has to work his due. Did you see him in the fields?”

“No”

“Then he is in the field, bird. Wait for my boys to dig him out first, and then we can talk”, she says, and beckons Vera closer, and crows take flight — up in the sky, always free.

 “Only a hero can leave this land. If your husband is a hero, he can go. If he is not, both of you will stay. Until we find him, you can live here, or wait outside”, a hag states her rules. She is surprisingly crooked and short up close. But a deal is a deal, and the deal is not fair. Vera looks out into the dark trees, to the forest cold as a grave, and the warning of the mines still troubles her, so she shakes a wrinkled hand, and the door closes, and the grunts are not heard anymore. It’s warm inside, the hut is well-built with old tree trunks stacked, and the pechka white-white-white like bleached bones, all across the maw of the oven. There is nothing else left for her, but to follow through the room, and to sit at the table.

A hag continues: “Call me Yaga”, a name to invoke fear, a name in the language unspoken, a name that came from countries of enemies, as Vera knows, but to her it sounds like “yagoda”, like a berry taken too early.

 “Rest now, there is work tomorrow”, Yaga points at the top of the pechka, and Vera listens. She sleeps, and dreams, but the dream is too sour to remember — a future that could never happen, their past never to return.

1

“Is that your husband?”, a hag asks, the morning sun creeping up slowly on them. Vera’s skin prickles from fear and cold. They stand outside for hours, one walking husk after another approaching them.

“No”, she deflects, “my husband is tall and strong, his face stoic and proud.”

Yaga nods, sending the husk away with a flick of a wrist.

In truth, she remembers him well before the war. She recallshis smile, a chipped tooth, a broad pinky from a childhood injury, and the smell of cigarettes. But it’s harder to remember him through rare calls and even rarer texts, but she remembers the last one, the one not from him, but all about him.

When they don’t look at husks, Yaga tasks her with silly things. Swipe the floors with a dried bush, peel potatoes, pick old cobwebs and keep them in a ball of yarn, and bake the bread until the smell wakes the mice. Vera is up at dawn, and the dawn comes earlier and earlier until she feels like she doesn’t sleep at all. But most days, they come out in the fields, and they walk, and Yaga searches for bones, her back hunched, like an old dog, and Vera is out of place, ashamed and broken. Each time she notices a white shard sticking out, she takes a moment to pray: let it not be him, let him come back to me. Until the last bone is found, she will hope, Vera thinks.

Her prayers don’t go unnoticed. Finally, at night, her husband appears. Vera screams, and he is alive, and he shushes her, while he talks about his glory, and he is slightly drunk, and he is blushing, and it smells of warmth, and she needs to feel complete, but she doesn’t feel anymore — she looks at herself from a side, with tired old eyes, always in the corner, she is a hag now, and she knows, she is dreaming. The next day, Vera asks Yaga to never peek into her dreams. Yaga laughs and laughs, and laughs. It is a sad laugh.

“What happened to your leg?”, Vera asks when they sip on berry tea.

“War”, a simple answer.

“This one or…”, is it prying, when it’s all around you?

“This one. And the previous one. And the one before that. And the first one. Do you remember the first one?”, Yaga looks at her, like Vera is supposed to know the answer.

“No.”

“That’s why I do. Someone has to remember the first one. Someone has to remember them all”, Vera nods. Sounds close to home, but Yaga’s expression is full of gloom and broken chicken necks, her eyes darken, she is here and she is there, and Vera tries to shake her out of it.

“Is that why you keep your garden in the state of decay?”, she tests again.

Yaga raises her eyebrows.

“If you don’t like it, change it. Just don’t bother me with your youthful ideas”

And so she does. Yaga insists that shovels are for husks, and Vera resorts to digging with her bare hands. She takes some cones and the birch buds that look like earrings. Vera, Vera! Bring some pochki’s! And she does, she brings them to the ground, and she warms the earth with her palms, and she whispers good things, and she asks to bring her husband home, and the earth listens. It takes root.

2

The next morning she waits for Yaga to show her a new husk, to test her, to humiliate her, instead, she jolts from a loud bang. A riffle glistens unnaturally on the white tablecloth, and the crumbs of dirt drip down. Yaga tries to wipe her hands clean, but the mud sticks everywhere. When she notices Vera awake, she says:

“It is your husband’s”,  but there is no name, no ingrained letters, no fingerprints. Just a cold weapon, just a death door.

“How do you know?”, Vera yields a little, looking at it. 

“Well then find out yourself! Take it, take it away”, but Vera stalls and Vera doesn’t reach out. It’s a weapon, it’s a bloody weapon. Yaga snaps like a twig, she storms from side to side, her wooden foot loudly banging on the floor.

“You wanted a shovel! So here is yours, go, dig your precious little man out! A stupid girl with her stupid ideas and questions, and the husband not good for anything!”, she is a venomous snake — this hag! a dirty, unloved creature! Vera purses her lips, and she grabs the riffle. It’s cold, it’s so cold, and — oh, poor one, it is heavy with the weight of a man. Sheaccidentally drops it on the floor, and yelps. It doesn’t misfire, but both of them freeze. Vera lifts the riffle with both hands and looks up, and Yaga is scared, her back pressed to the wall, eyes searching, glistening with tears.

In silence, Vera drags it outside. Was it a gift from the earth? Is she supposed to see good in it? It is a riffle, but it is also a shovel. To dig something out, to dig yourself in. Was it his? Was he killed with it? Was he killing? Of course, he was. Vera bares her teeth. Her smiling husband, her warm husband. A husk. A killer. What a wicked joke. A hag is playing with her, a hag knows, and she has been here for how long?

All of a sudden, when she reaches the fields, the riffle speaks: “Cradle me like your child, hug me tender, warm me up, and I will bring him out for you”.

The riffle tempts: “You saw the hag scared of me, you saw my power, take me close”

The riffle hints: “I am your salvation, I am the key, I am the only tool you need”

The riffle wants to point. The riffle screams for a target. Vera has to bend her knees to drag it further. That’s how heavy it is.

“You are lucky”, riffle says, “I am the new one. Others are heavier. There are some, you won’t lift at all. And don’t get me started on the flying toys”

Finally, after they walk across the field, it squeaks happily. “Here, girl, here!”, and Vera stops.

“Here is the deal”, riffle continues, “I dig him out for you, I can do that. But, each time I dig in, I will fire!”

“It is not a game of Russian roulette, you are not a pistol”, Vera frowns.

“I am, and I am”, the final words. And it’s quiet, and Vera stands above the field. Even the husks try to stay away. It is her choice. Vera pushes its heel into the earth, with the muzzle looking at her. Deeper, and deeper. It’s a tango of sorts. When she digs, the vibration comes like it’s about to fire. Vera covers the barrel with her palm, it scratches her skin in circles. Her muscles strain, and her body tenses, but she digs more and more, yet — surprisingly — the deeper it goes, the lighter it gets. It’s meant for this, it’s meant to get you closer to the dead. Vera pushes, and pushes, putting her whole weight down, until the butt hits something solid.

And the rifle fires.

As promised.

It’s loud. It’s heartbreakingly loud. Vera feels herself shake, like a rattlesnake. She peels off her palm, bloodied and sweaty, but it’s whole. Whole-whole! Vera falls down to her knees and she cries, but no tears come out, it’s all blood and sweat, and someone helps her up — she wishes it to be him, but it’s her — holding her tightly.

Yaga helps her wash and bandage her bloodied hands. Yaga boils some herbs for tea. There is fresh linen, and the tablecloth is changed. They dine in silence, and before Yaga blows the candles out, she says:

“Don’t ever point that thing at me”.

Vera doesn’t sleep at all. She thinks of the riffle that wants to be a child, lying abandoned in the cold of night. She thinks of the bullet shells in the old man’s bucket. She thinks of her husband and the price of bringing him back. Maybe she is not that strong. Maybe she is not strong at all.

Vera recovers slowly. Yaga gives her time until she is ready to get out of bed again. “I am raising a new husk today. Are you ready to dig your husband out?”

Vera shakes her head, but she follows Yaga anyway.

One day she notices the sapling first, before a husk smashes it with the shovel.

“Look out, you clumsy one!”, Vera scolds, and the husk listens. It’s so small, a tiny speck, but it’s alive, and she rushes happily to tell Yaga.

 “The tree! The tree is growing!”, and Yaga stands up with a young vitality, her body nearly anew, Vera notices, as they both run-run-run to see it.

3

The forest is lonely, the earth is lonely. A riffle still shines, a marble of war. The only one that accepts, the only one with promises sweet as sugar. When Vera passes by the field, it mocks loudly:

“A girl abandoning her husband! A girl is scared! He wasn’t scared!”

The soldier’s wife, the soldier’s widow. The loyal dog, the broken fence. Poor boys, devoted boys, deceived boys. All stumbling to the ground that won’t take them. But it’s just her and Yaga, two of them, waking, walking, tending to the forgotten dead, the dead that remember, and the dead that are remembered.

For a new husk to be born, do as follows: dig a body out, or parts of it; arrange the parts in a human fashion, or, if lucky, just lay the body on the ground; don’t cry, because you only cry for the dead; be grateful they died a hero; when gratefulness is all you feel — call for one. If they believe themselves a hero, if they wear their uniform proudly, if the only path to be a hero is to die at war, if everything is done correctly, if you didn’t shed a tear if you didn’t love them alive, if you don’t really care anymore, if the moon is turned upside-down, if no one comes after them, if money is enough to buy a life of many, then — a husk will awake at sundown, not sunrise.

 ​If not. If not. If not. Welcome the rising sun.

Yaga arranges limbs, her movements are sturdy yet loving, like mothers. “Maybe this one is yours?”, she asks out of habit now. Vera caresses the flakes of the man’s face. She knows it is not him, and she knows it is him. She will never see him again — the day he left — he was gone. The gun, the fast messages. Her husband loved to go mushroom picking on early Saturdays, and now he never sees wormholes, it’s all bullet punctured, shot dead — a glistening cap of arganita.

“No”, she answers, out of habit.

“Good”.

 The husk awakes shortly.

They sit together in silence afterward, until it gets too cold, and Vera is the first to go home. She starts the fire, she puts the kettle on.

“Why do they dig?”

“It’s better to ask for what, ” Yaga groans, pouring warm water on the frostbite of her fingers.

“For answers. They dig for answers, as all of us. It’s just that when you are not fully dead, there is nothing else left, but to understand.”

“And do they?”

“Do you?”, she smiles, and Vera feels ashamed again. She does, she does, and she doesn’t like what she understands.

It feels stupid to be stupid, what a miraculous ending to a philosophical debate. Why was she here in the first place? Whose laugh did she need to remember more?

When Vera works the fields, the riffle snickers loudly:

“A hag is lying to the girl! A hag is lying! Everyone is! Everyone is an enemy! So take me, take me, I will protect you!”

A crow barks. A crow! They are back! Is it autumn? Is it spring? A hag is lying. How long has Vera been here? She takes a look around. Trees, husks, trees, there are more trees than husks now! Even the riffle is overgrown with a berry bush. She stands near it, finally facing the dug-up pit. There is no one there. No body. No husband. No bones, but a long limb of an oak root.

She storms inside, leaving the door ajar. She packs her things! His things! No matter. She knows, Yaga is in the corner. Watching. Waiting.

“You lied to me! He is not here! You kept me here like a pet!”, Vera gets to her first, and crunches the shadow with her palm to bring the hag out. She waits for her to be laughing, to say poignant things, instead, Yaga’s face flickers, she is older, she is younger, she is Vera, she is me and you, and she is looking down, tired, mangled, black earth scorched by mines.

“Enough”, she asks, she begs, and she cries so softly, just one word, just one time.

They breathe loudly — it’s the first time Vera notices her breathing, her living, her being alive. Not a hag, not an archive, not a promiser. A Mother-Earth, that was promised a new sapling. A woman, with something else to cherish instead of glorified war. It makes two of them, surrounded by dead ground, and dead bodies, and dead dead dead hopes, and faith — anew — and everything for a second makes sense.

Yaga softly asks:

“Was he a hero?”

And Vera can finally say:

“Who is a hero?”

A fleeting smile.

“You are free to go.”