* * *
The next time Sofiya ventured out to the widows’ home, the fox followed her once more. Again, she sat down in the clearing and again she wept.
Koja hopped up on the fallen tree. “Tell me, Sofiya, why do you cry?”
“You’re still here, fox? Don’t you know my brother is near? He will catch you eventually.”
“What would your brother want with a yellow-eyed bag of bones and fleas?”
Sofiya gave a small smile. “Yellow is an ugly color,” she admitted. “With such big eyes, I think you see too much.”
“Will you not tell me what troubles you?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she reached into her basket and took out a wedge of cheese. “Are you hungry?”
The fox licked his chops. He’d waited all morning for the girl to leave her brother’s house and had missed his breakfast. But he knew better than to take food from the hand of a human, even if the hand was soft and white. When he did not move, the girl shrugged and took a bite of it herself.
“What of the hungry widows?” asked Koja.
“Let them starve,” she said with some fire, and shoved another piece of cheese into her mouth.
“Why do you stay with him?” asked Koja. “You’re pretty enough to catch a husband.”
“Pretty enough?” said the girl. “Would I be better served by yellow eyes and too large ears?”
“Then you would be plagued by suitors.”
Koja hoped she might laugh again, but instead Sofiya sighed, a mournful sound that the wind picked up and carried into the gray slate sky. “We move from town to town,” she said. “In Balakirev I almost had a sweetheart. My brother was not pleased. I keep hoping he will find a bride or allow me to marry, but I do not think he will.”
Her eyes filled with tears once more.
“Come now,” said the fox. “Let there be no more crying. I have spent my life finding my way out of traps. Surely, I can help you escape your brother.”
“Just because you escape one trap, doesn’t mean you will escape the next.”
So Koja told her how he’d outsmarted his mother, the hounds, and even Ivan Gostov.
“You are a clever fox,” she conceded when he was done.
“No,” Koja said. “I am the cleverest. And that will make all the difference. Now tell me of your brother.”
Sofiya glanced up at the sun. It was long past noon.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “When I return.”
She left the wedge of cheese on the fallen tree, and once she was gone, Koja sniffed it carefully. He looked right and left, then gobbled it down in one bite and did not spare a thought for the poor hungry widows.
* * *
Koja knew he had to be especially cautious now if he hoped to loosen Sofiya’s tongue. He knew what it was to be caught in a trap. Sofiya had lived that way a long while, and a lesser creature might choose to live in fear rather than grasp at freedom. So the next day he waited at the clearing for her to return from the widows’ home, but kept out of sight. Finally, she came trundling over the hill, dragging her heavy sled behind her, the wool blankets bound with twine, the heavy runners sinking into the snow. When she reached the clearing, she hesitated. “Fox?” she said softly. “Koja?”
Only then, when she had called for him, did he appear.
Sofiya gave a tremulous smile. She sank down on the fallen tree and told the fox of her brother.
Jurek was a late riser, but regular in his prayers. He bathed in ice-cold water and ate six eggs for breakfast every morning. Some days he went to the tavern, others he cleaned hides. And sometimes he simply seemed to disappear.
“Think very carefully,” said Koja. “Does your brother have any treasured objects? An icon he always carries? A charm, even a piece of clothing he never travels without?”
Sofiya considered this. “He has a little pouch he wears on his watch fob. An old woman gave it to him years ago, after he saved her from drowning. We were just children, but even then, Jurek was bigger than all the other boys. When she fell into the Sokol, he dove in after and dragged her back up its banks.”
“Is it dear to him?”
“He never removes it and he sleeps with it cradled in his palm.”
“She must have been a witch,” said Koja. “That charm is what allows him to enter the forest so silently, to leave no tracks and make no sound. You will get it from him.”
Sofiya’s face paled. “No,” she said. “No, I cannot. For all his snoring, my brother sleeps lightly and if he were to discover me in his chamber—” She shuddered.
“Meet me here again in three days’ time,” said Koja, “and I will have an answer for you.”
Sofiya stood and dusted the snow from her horrible cloak. When she looked at the fox, her eyes were grave. “Do not ask too much of me,” she said softly.
Koja took a step closer to her. “I will free you from this trap,” he said. “Without his charm, your brother will have to make his living like an ordinary man. He will have to stay in one place and you will find yourself a sweetheart.”
She wrapped the cables of her sled around her hand. “Maybe,” Sofiya said. “But first I must find my courage.”
* * *
It took a day and a half for Koja to reach the marshes where a patch of dropwort grew. He was careful digging the little plants up. The roots were deadly. The leaves would be enough to manage Jurek.