Like running the hurdles. Work so hard, jump over every one, fast, high enough but no higher, because you can't afford to hang in the air. And then, when the race is over, you're dripping with sweat, either they beat you or you beat them... and then a couple of guys come out and move the hurdles out of the way. Turns out they were nothing. All that work to jump over them, but now they're gone.

What will it matter, then, if I was happy or... whatever? After I'm dead, my parents will miss me, sure, but then someday they'll die, and then who'll remember me? Nobody. And that's fine. Because it doesn't matter. Baba Yaga will win or she'll lose. A thousand years later, nobody will believe she ever existed. And Taina will be completely forgotten. So what does it matter that some stranger loved the princess of Taina but never had her love in return?

He reached over and switched on the CD player. He had a Bruce Cockburn album in it. So Cockburn talks about how he's thinking about Turkish drummers, only it doesn't take long because he doesn't know much about Turkish drummers. A pounding in his head. Unshed tears. Bloated like the dead. This was not the best song to be listening to.

He let it keep playing.

When he woke up it was dark and silent. Night outside. He needed to pee, hadn't gone before he went to bed. He hated sleeping in his clothes. His pants always got twisted around and his clothes didn't fit right after sleeping in them. He pulled down his pants and Jockeys in one movement, then pried each shoe off with the other foot while he was unbuttoning his shirt. By the time he pulled his stocking feet out of his pant legs, his shirt was off. He peeled off his socks, then felt around in the dark for his bathrobe and drew it closed around his body as he opened the door.

The hall was dark, too. He stood in the hall, listening. How late was it? He didn't look at the clock. He heard his father snoring softly in his room. But just the one snore, not the duet, his mother and father snoring together.

He padded toward the bathroom. Then walked past it and stood outside the door to Katerina's room. Listening for her breath. Some sound.

But there was nothing there for him. And he really had to pee.

In the bathroom he had to turn the light on so he wouldn't miss. It blinded him. And then, when he was done, he turned it off and he was blind again. Can't win. He thought of getting Raid in his eyes. He thought of the wasp. What if the wasp had stung him? Got the potion into him, the curse. He would have had a bad five minutes there, but by now it would be over. He wouldn't have this dull ache in his heart, the sharp yearning in his throat, the words trying to escape.

"You can be sure of me." What an ass.

He opened the door and then remembered to close his bathrobe. He stepped out into the hall. Still just Father's snoring.

Maybe Mother was up. Downstairs somewhere.

He walked softly down the stairs not wanting to waken anybody. The lower floor was dark, too. So Mom wasn't up.

Or maybe she was in the back yard.

He walked to the kitchen door, opened it, stepped barefoot out onto the patio. The concrete felt cold on his feet. There was a breeze. It was the third of July, or maybe early on the Fourth. Shouldn't be this cool. Breeze off the lake.

He walked out onto the grass. It was damp on his feet. Away from the house, the breeze was stronger. It moved his hair. He opened his robe, to let the breeze move across his whole body. After a moment, he shrugged off the robe. Eyes closed, he stood there wondering why it felt so good to have the wind touch your whole body at once. And if it felt so good, why did people wear clothes all the time so they could never feel it?

He remembered standing there naked at the edge of the chasm, desperate to cover himself. What a fool. Naked is how you first feel the air, coming out of the womb. That's what it feels like—being born.

A rowboat was moving on the lake. Some predawn fisherman getting a head start on the Fourth of July crowds. In the moonlight it felt like he could see forever. But not a car moving. No fireworks, either—no late-night revelers getting a head start on the Fourth. Just silence. He imagined he could hear the dipping of the oars into the water, the tinkling of the drops falling from the oars when they rose again.

Then a bird began squawking in a nearby tree. Another picked up the tune. Not squawking, really. Just the normal twitter to announce the coming of day. But it was so loud, after the silence.

Time to go in. Go back to bed. Not that he was likely to get any sleep. He'd probably already had eight hours.

He turned around and picked up his robe, but as he was bending over to get it, he thought he saw a motion from the storage shed. Scooping up the robe, he looked sharply. Someone was standing by the door. His first thought was: The witch has found her way past Mother's protections. His second thought was: It's Mother, and she's seen me standing out here naked as a baby. Then she stepped from the shadow. It was Katerina.

She just stood there. Not a word. Not a smile. Just looking at him.

She'd seen him naked often enough. He stopped holding the robe in front of him and, facing her, pulled it on, then drew it closed, tied it. She watched, but showed no expression.

Whatever conversation might happen at this time of night, out here in the back yard, Ivan didn't want to work that hard. If she wasn't going to insist on some kind of empty chat, he certainly wouldn't. He walked across the grass and the patio, then went back into the house without looking at her again.

He went back into his room and this time looked at the clock. Three-thirty. Too early to be up. He turned the CD player on softly. Skipped ahead a few tracks. "Birmingham Shadows." Maybe the loneliest song anybody ever wrote. "Wearing the role of the young upstart." He smiled at that—he heard it as wearing the robe. "You show a little—I let something show, too." Cockburn always sounded so jaded. And hurt. On a night like this Ivan should be listening to something else. The Pointer Sisters' greatest hits or something. "Fire," yeah, that was the song. That old Springsteen chestnut. Or better yet: "He's So Shy."

Still, he didn't change the music. He took off the robe and pulled down the sheets, but he didn't slide his feet under the covers, he lay there on top, spread like a deerskin, feeling about as dry and empty as that. He thought of Katerina's face. Thought of her sweet, beautiful body. Thought of her voice, the way she gestured when she talked. Thought of her in Taina, surrounded by the love of the people, knowing everyone, having a hand in every task, every frolic. Thought of her here, so afraid at first, so uncertain, but taking it all in stride, mastering it. The way she took to Mother, the way she enjoyed Father, answered his questions patiently. He thought of reaching out and touching her cheek and having her smile and lean into his hand, and then turn her face and kiss the palm, kiss his fingers.

"If I fall down and die without saying good-bye, I give you this, you'll have lost a friend." Cockburn was cutting too close to the heart. "It's now or not at all." Could that be true?

He tried not to move. Kept his hands still, though they wanted to move, they knew the way. Then finally he did move, his whole body. He got up from the bed and walked to the door and opened it.

And there she stood, leaning against the opposite wall, watching the door of his room as he had stood watching hers. He was startled for a moment, but then he realized that he had been expecting her. That this was the reason he had to get up. Not because of some lonely depressed song. But because the princess was standing at the door, waiting for it to open.

"Ivan," she whispered. "All I could think of was... how close I came to losing you."