Find our interview with Halli here.
When Vasily wakes, the house is soft, but a little too soft. As if, in his haste to close the door on a yelling man last night, he had trapped bundles of cotton inside with him and they had burrowed inside his head, slowing his thoughts. The weak sun winks down at him through the window.
Last night, he slammed the door louder than he’s ever slammed it before, and held it closed while fists pounded on it and the voice seeped through the wood, saying, let me in. You’re a child. I can’t leave you alone here.
You can leave me for one night, Vasily had whispered back, and after an hour the only sound was his breathing.
The night is over. Sunrise has just begun. Unable to shake the cotton from his head, the only thing to do is take all his money and leave. The notes don’t all fit in one hand, folded haphazardly and pressed into a bundle, rubles upon rubles that his brother left behind.
The walk is quiet. He hums to himself, stepping on the leaves, avoiding the flowers.
Sometimes it really does hurt, trying to remember Sviatoslav properly, but Sonechka took away his antidepressants when he realised Vasily was only using them to forget. He still watches the window all day and all night, hoping his brother will somehow return, even though all the money from his death is sitting unused in his bank account and all the furniture has already been moved to the attic by forces unseen.
When he approaches the town, everyone is sleeping. No lights are on. In three hours, Sonechka will wake, and in one more he’ll start making his bread again. Vasily doesn’t know whether he should go up to his apartment or just wait.
Sonechka told him a while ago that he has now become his legal guardian. Vasily doesn’t know what that means.
He approaches the door; knocks, ever so gently. Then he waits, not expecting an answer, letting himself drift away into his thoughts where it is soft and warm and safe and he doesn’t have to worry about cotton.
A hand on his shoulder is the first thing he comprehends. He looks up, just barely, seeing Sonechka standing in the doorway, warm light spilling from behind him.
Vasily, he says, you shouldn’t be here.
That’s right, he shouldn’t be anywhere. He shouldn’t be here, or home, or down the road. He should be dead.
I lost my hat, he says instead, my little hat with the bee. I don’t know where it went.
His hat is in his hand. Sonechka knows that. But he still plasters on a smile and lets Vasily inside, comforting him and wrapping himself around him like a blanket. Vasily doesn’t say anything, sliding back into his mind. Sonechka isn’t angry. He was never angry, Vasily knows, but when his voice is as sharp as the polished tip of a needle, it really doesn’t matter.
You need to sleep, Vasily.
I know.
The next hour is a blur. Sonechka convinces him to change out of the clothes he’s been wearing for far too long and into something soft and warm, and then he takes him in his arms and turns off all the lights and falls asleep on the couch, but Vasily is still awake and pondering whether or not he can really trust Sonechka to keep him alive while he dies. Of course he can. Sonechka kept Vyacheslav afloat that time all his bees died and Sonechka always helped Sviatoslav when he needed it. Sonechka is kind. Sonechka is holding him, trying to get enough sleep to work in the morning but still holding him, hoping he’s okay, until Vasily falls so deep in his mind that he might as well be asleep too.
~~~
When the clock in Sonechka’s body says it’s time, he rises and leaves Vasily alone on the couch.
Vasily plays with his fingers until he can’t anymore, then he scratches deep welts all down his arms, drops of blood dripping onto Sonechka’s old shirt. He despises the weakness inside him, the one that brought him here, the one that makes him want to hide. He traces a finger on the scar on his abdomen and digs his fingers in, drawing blood, leaving a disappointed bruise on the too-pale skin.
Only an hour later, Sonechka comes back, while Vasily is writing little things on his thighs with his nails. He makes a strange sound. Taking Vasily’s wrists in his hands, he pulls, ripping Vasily’s hands from his skin, so hard Vasily cries out and whimpers and begs him to let go lest his hands be torn from his arms and leave him with only useless stumps. Sonechka does let go, and he comforts Vasily afterwards, but his eyes are angry and his touch not so gentle. Vasily endures it, and only then does he start to feel the pain of his injuries. It all comes all at once and he cries.
Pathetic, Sonechka’s eyes scream, but his voice is soft and gentle and Vasily doesn’t know which one to believe.
~~~
The words on Vasily’s thighs are strange ones. Sonechka can barely read them.
Слабый. Weak.
Жалкий. Pathetic.
Сломанный. Broken.
Vasily is none of those things.
There are more and more scars on him now. From his own hands have come no marks, but Vasily’s nails are sharp, and they all remember the day that Sviatoslav picked up that knife.
~~~
You shouldn’t do that.
Vasily doesn’t bother to say anything. He already knows that.
You need to keep yourself safe, Sonechka says, his words biting. You need to keep yourself safe. You can’t hurt yourself. Didn’t I already tell you not to? Didn’t I?
Vasily knows, he knows Sonechka is just concerned, but the shame is too much and the feeling in his chest is too much and everything is too much and he already knows he’s weak and he’s pathetic and he’s broken, he doesn’t need kind hands and antiseptic to tell him that!
Instead, he says, yes. And he hopes that whatever anger Sonechka feels doesn’t turn into violence. He turns away, both hiding his shame and presenting his cheek, as Sonechka sprays the stinging liquid on yet another wound.
~~~
Vasily is confused by the way Sonechka looks at him.
He’s angry when Vasily picks at his bandages and his skin and makes himself bleed again. He’s disappointed when he finds out Vasily didn’t eat today, or he didn’t bother to get out of bed, or he didn’t do the one thing he was asked to do. He is happy when Vasily shows him the healed wounds, the scars, the little marks. He is sad when Vasily comes to him in the dead of the night with an apology for something he didn’t even think needed one. The voice tells him all these things.
The eyes, on the other hand, tell the truth. Those honey-gold eyes look at him with the sticky gaze Vasily has come to associate with truth. And it hurts him sometimes, to have it known that he is a burden, and he is stupid and pathetic and weak, but if that’s what Sonechka thinks then it must have some truth to it. If that’s what his eyes say then it must be correct. He tries his best to do what Sonechka asks, even if it seems impossible, even if it seems like he’ll die trying. Sonechka asks and Vasily delivers, hiding the cracks in his mind behind a grotesque, sewn-up smile.
~~~
I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
At this point, Vasily doesn’t know what he’s apologising for. All he remembers is that he did something wrong, and now Sonechka and Vyacheslav are yelling at each other, and Sonechka has a rolling pin in his hand and Vyacheslav has a knife and he’s so scared that they’re going to hurt each other like Sviatoslav did to him.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
He digs his fingers into his arms as he rocks back and forth on the couch, knees drawn up to his chest, desperately trying to hide his tears. He’s terrified, honestly, he’s terrified. He’s so, so scared.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
It’s not long before he draws blood, and Sonechka is standing in front of him again, holding his wrists and yelling at him.
You’re not supposed to do that! You need to keep yourself safe! Do you hear me, Vasily? Do you understand? I already told you that you must remain safe! Never, never hurt yourself again!
I’m sorry! I’m sorry! This time he screams it, letting go of all resolve, the only thing on his mind is the urge to run and hide–to escape whatever wants to kill him now. He can’t run from sickness and depression but he can run from Sonechka.
I’m sorry!
He can see the moment when Sonechka realises something is wrong, and he takes advantage of the pause, ripping himself from the monster’s grasp and running down the stairs into the cold night air, down the road to his house.
He can’t go there. It’s not good to be there. So he takes his bee hat from his pocket and throws it down in the mud, stomping twice before running into the woods and not stopping until he finds a little hollow under the roots, hiding there, curling up and sobbing into his sleeves, hoping he won’t be found.
~~~
A leaf has settled on his shoulder.
In front of him, five metres away, is Sonechka. He doesn’t come closer and he doesn’t say anything, but he looks like he wants to do both of those.
Vyacheslav’s voice is echoing through the trees. Vasily resists the urge to flinch.
Vasily, Sonechka says, please come. Please come back. Come home.
His eyes are pleading, genuinely pleading. Vasily doesn’t want to die, or get hurt, or be in the way, so he stays in his hollow under the roots with a leaf on his shoulder.
It’s time to come home, Vasily, Sonechka pleads, come, it’s time to go home.
Vasily blinks, very slowly. Home is bad. Home makes him sick. Just thinking about it, he gags, and Sonechka flinches.
Please, Vasily.
Behind him, Sofiya and Vyacheslav are standing like omens. Good or bad, Vasily doesn’t know. He assumes the latter.
Sofiya is the one that ends up coming closer. She crouches down too close and takes something from her pocket.
Vasily’s bee hat.
I lost my hat, Vasily echoes, from that first day. My little hat with the bee. I don’t know where it went.
It’s right here, Sofiya hums, holding it out for him. And he takes it, and takes her hand, and lets her drag him up from the floor into her strong, flower-scented arms. Everything about her is flowery. He touches her brow, the embroidered headscarf he made.
You’re pretty, he says, and he doesn’t flinch when she raises her hand to brush his hair back from his forehead.
~~~
Vyacheslav has Sonechka pinned down, his body rolled on top of his, hands caught in a crushing hold. Sonechka doesn’t mind. If he can’t lend security to Vasily when he needs it, he might as well let Vyacheslav take what he needs. And it’s not as if he doesn’t enjoy it.
Vyacheslav is strong and his kisses are possessive, as if Sonechka would ever leave him. He wouldn’t dream of leaving the firm hold and soft smiles that the beekeeper reserves for him. So he kisses Vyacheslav back, lets his mouth be invaded, lets him take his fill of what’s his.
Once upon a time the door to the bedroom opened and Sonechka only remembers a pale face, silver hair, arms covered in blood. The knife had found its mark. Sviatoslav said, Vasily is in the ambulance, did you not hear the sirens? They were deafening. And since then Sonechka has not been able to look at Vasily’s kitchen knives.
~~~
Even though Vasily is asleep, he’s still wearing his bee hat.
It’s a little bucket hat, with Vasily’s first bee embroidery on the front. When he wears it normally, his eyes are ever so slightly concealed, and he looks like an excited schoolgirl. Now, though, he’s scared and small and curled up on the couch like he’s trying to become a throw pillow. He’s shivering.
Sofiya lets him rest in her lap when he eventually lands there. He’s soft, fitting nicely in her arms. She doesn’t understand why the universe hates someone so soft and sweet.
Vyacheslav and Sonechka are having sex in the other room. Sonechka is quiet—he probably has something in his mouth—but Vyacheslav’s soft murmurs are constant and mostly legible. Sofiya hopes they finish before Vasily wakes up.
Sure enough, Vyacheslav drags Sonechka out after a while, massaging the baker’s wrists and gently kissing his ear. Sofiya glares.
Really? she asks, with Vasily right here?
Sonechka looks away, and Vyacheslav comes closer and brushes Vasily’s hair out of his face. The little boy’s eyes flutter open, but he doesn’t move, and he doesn’t smile. He watches Vyacheslav for a minute before turning away and going back to sleep in Sofiya’s arms.
He’s very small, Sonechka says.
Yet you yelled at him.
Sonechka flinches. He hurt himself. He shouldn’t.
All the more reason to be gentle with him! Sofiya closes her arms around the little boy protectively, careful not to scare him. Vasily makes a small, broken noise, burying himself further in her arms.
Sonechka’s face falls. I'm sorry. I didn’t know what to do.
Apologise to him when he wakes up, Sofiya demands, tell him that you’re sorry. Make him feel safe again.
~~~
Eat, Sonechka says.
Vasily doesn’t speak. He can’t find his words anymore, not after Sonechka yelled, not after Sofiya picked him up from his little hollow under the roots. The plate in front of him is simple—potatoes, soup, a little Spam. Vasily takes the fork in his hand, then drops it, then pokes a potato with the tip of his finger, slightly scared it’s going to bite him.
It’s just food, Sonechka says, come on, eat it.
Vasily picks up the spoon and shudders, trying to suppress the urge to vomit. Sonechka seems to notice something is wrong, but not what’s wrong, so he just stations himself in front of Vasily and frowns.
I made it specially for you. Eat up.
Deep down inside Vasily, something snaps.
The first mouthful of soup is half bliss, half nausea. He hasn’t ever wanted to eat something more, but he hasn’t ever wanted to shove something away and hide more. Sonechka relaxes, satisfied, going back to his position in the kitchen, cleaning up the severed heads of carrots. Vasily takes another mouthful, blowing on it to buy himself time, clamping his hand over his mouth when he feels the need to spit it out.
Sonechka made this food for him. He must eat it, he must.
Not too hot? Sonechka asks, and Vasily feels his head spin.
But he shakes his head and picks up a little cube of roasted potato between his fingers. He pops it in his mouth, chewing slowly, pretending he’s okay. What kind of person can’t eat? People who need help. Vasily doesn’t need help. He’s already had all the help he can get and he’s still broken. He-
He desperately needs to throw up.
He runs to the bathroom before Sonechka even realises he’s moved. Spilling his entire stomach in the toilet, hands braced on the seat, hair falling around his face. It hurts, it hurts.
He wishes he could just rip his stomach out and throw it away, maybe tear it up a little, maybe give it to the wolves. Either way, he doesn’t want it anymore. He doesn’t want this anymore.
Gentle hands on his back are all he feels before he lets himself slip safely into his mind again.
~~~
Vasily doesn’t move when Sonechka cleans his face up and ties back his hair. He’s stopped responding, glassy eyed and limp, leaning back against Sonechka’s chest like he’s nothing more than a doll.
Sonechka takes him in his arms once he’s cleaned all the vomit away and settles him on the couch, then calls Vyacheslav and Sofiya. Vyacheslav doesn’t respond, but Sofiya is there in minutes, with nausea-relieving tea and some oranges. The only thing Vasily is doing is sitting, soft and small and weak, wrapped in a blanket and head lolling against Sonechka’s shoulder.
I don’t know, he says, when Sofiya asks him what made Vasily throw up. I just gave him food.
Sofiya looks him over and deems that he’s fine, he’s just in shock. The soup sits on the table, abandoned.
~~~
If before, Vasily was quiet, now he might as well be dead.
Vyacheslav doesn’t know what to think. He knew that his argument with Sonechka messed the boy up. But this much?
Sonechka said Vasily threw up after eating only a little bit.
Vasily, though he’s alive, is very still. He’s paused in the middle of his juice box, raised halfway to his mouth, looking out the window like his life depends on it. He doesn’t even appear to be breathing.
Vasily, Vyacheslav asks, what flavour is your juice?
Apple, Vasily answers without missing a beat. But the box in his hand clearly says orange and his eyes are still blank and he’s still so quiet and small. He doesn’t flinch when Vyacheslav settles a hand on his shoulder, but he does shake a little, and Vyacheslav can feel the fear beneath his skin.
You’re not thinking straight, Vyacheslav says, and Vasily doesn’t respond. The small window in his mind through which he momentarily poked his head is gone. He’s back in his protective shell, distanced from his body and his home, juice still raised halfway to his mouth.
~~~
You think, Sonechka spits, that I wanted this? And Vyacheslav picks up the rolling pin, and Vasily raises his shaky hands to cover his ears.
No one wants this. I never asked to be a parent. I’m twenty-two. He’s not even my kid. But I’m doing it, I’m keeping him safe, I’m giving him a place to heal. He may be weak but he’s human, and he’s the last thing Sviatoslav left us. He’s all we have of him.
And Vyacheslav shouts, you can’t talk of keeping him safe when you drove him to the woods in your anger!
Vasily wonders, pressing himself against the window, why he’s chosen this moment to be fully present.
You’re the one that fed him and made him throw up! You’re the one that yelled at him for hurting himself! You’re the one that held that rolling pin and turned yourself into a monster!
But you held the knife, Sonechka says, almost quiet but not quite there. You held the knife.
Vyacheslav stiffens.
Vasily lets out an almost inaudible whimper.
I can’t do this. Vyacheslav’s face is terrifying to behold, so Vasily buries his face in his knees. I can’t live like this anymore. First my bees, then Sviatoslav, and now Vasily is probably going to die as well. I can’t do this. I can’t.
Don’t say that.
Vasily breathes deeply, urging his legs to stay still. If he keeps quiet, if he stays still, maybe they’ll ignore him long enough for the anger to pass.
The door opens and a third voice joins the cacophony, catching Vasily so off guard he almost falls off his little seat at the window.
You’re scaring him! Stop this, right now! Haven’t you learned?
A second later, flower-scented arms close around Vasily’s body and he allows himself to relax, then slips into his mind before he can stop himself.
Everything is fuzzy. The voices sound muffled, even though someone is still yelling, and the sound of something hitting the floor stabs through the felt of his thoughts like a punch needle, compacting Vasily’s mind and tangling it together until he’s nothing more than a sobbing, babbling doll.
Sofiya holds him like he’s the most precious doll in the world. Just for a second, one single second, Vasily allows himself to believe it.
~~~
Hello, Sofiya says.
Vasily, predictably, doesn’t respond, but he does pause his movements only for a second. The little cross stitch piece he has in his hands is grey and a little green. Sofiya isn’t creative enough to tell what it is. She crouches in front of him—he’s decided that his new favourite spot is kneeling on the carpet in between the couch and the coffee table—and holds out her hand.
Hello, Vasily. Would you like to come to my garden?
Vasily hasn’t eaten anything since Sonechka and Vyacheslav started arguing again. Sonechka hasn’t been out of his room since Vyacheslav stormed off in a flurry and left a sticky trail of anger behind. Sofiya tasted it. It was like honey.
Sofiya waits until Vasily has lowered his hands, a silent expression of consent, before she lifts him effortlessly in her arms. He’s so small, only around five feet tall. She’s eleven inches taller than him.
Slowly, Vasily taps her shoulder, then rests his head against her chest when she nods. He’s light, and delicate, and weak. His eyes are blank as she sets his embroidery on the coffee table and carries him downstairs.
It’s a pretty garden, she says quietly, you’ll like it.
She’s quite proud of her garden, with all the flowers and the little patch of clover for sitting. She heard from Sviatoslav that Vasily hates the feeling of grass, so she set up a soft picnic blanket there for him so he could sit comfortably.
When she lowers him down, the noise he makes is akin to a bird. He reaches out and touches a pink flower, fingers only just brushing the smooth petals.
You can touch, Sofiya suggests, or you can just sit. It’s up to you.
Vasily withdraws his hand and flops over into a happy little pile, tentatively drawing circles on his own chest with the tip of his finger, hair spread like a halo around him. Sofiya notices it hasn’t been brushed for a while, so she draws a comb from her pocket and settles next to the boy, showing it to him silently.
It takes a minute for him to understand, but he moves his head to her lap in silent agreement.
She combs his hair gently, drawing her fingers through the long, snowy-blond strands, making sure to touch up his bangs as well. Vasily stays remarkably still during the process, though she has to verbally prompt him to move his head. He’s half looking at the flowers, half still lost in whatever place he went to to escape the argument. She doesn’t mind.
He’s alive, he’s not crying anymore, he’s starting to trust again. What else could she hope for?
~~~
It lasts too long, Vasily’s silence.
Sonechka waits patiently, then not so patiently, for the boy to speak again. He understands that Vasily is going through a lot, but… he used to speak, and now he just doesn’t. He used to be able to voice a few words, now he can’t even force one past his lips.
He still makes noise, he still makes all the sounds of a dying cat when someone is yelling and he still sounds like a crow when he screams himself awake from his nightmares, but he never speaks. The nightmares, Sonechka knows, are not about him. They’re not about anyone. They’re about knives held not in human hands, but by a puppet of paranoia.
If Sonechka were to accept it, he feels like it would be wrong. Vasily has never talked much, but he’s always talked, he’s always been holy and lively where now he’s just listless. It would be a disservice to his healing to let him remain like that.
So he asks Sofiya to slip in words and little things when she combs his hair, and eventually, Vasily starts making sounds with purpose. They’re not quite there, but progress is progress, and Vasily no longer has to knock on the fridge to get him to open it.
It’s slow. So slow. Sonechka has never been a patient person, but he doesn’t want to hold that rolling pin again, he doesn’t want to be that person again, so he waits and waits and waits until finally Vasily says, help me.
~~~
Sviatoslav, it seems, is still holding them in his ghostly hands.
All around them are Sviatoslav’s bones. His corpse is strung up in the trees above them, carved and hung out on strings, the pretty red of his blood decorating the leaves. His wood sits unfinished in his workshop, a sculpture of his own hands is abandoned on the kitchen counter. A carving of a man who lives far away is half done and waiting for the touch of a chisel to form a second eye, and this man sends medication monthly in the mail. Every chair stares at them with eyes that say, you killed him. You are monsters who could not keep him sane. This man was given a knife and told to wait, and no one cared to look until the only place the knife could go was a little brother’s flesh.
Sviatoslav was barely grown when he drowned and left behind a broken village to raise a little child.
~~
Halli Zhang writes alone at night and decides it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. Somehow, her friends seem to share the sentiment. She is working on her first novel length project.
