The Golden Carriage

Anastasia lifted her head, catching her wind-tossed red hair in one hand as it whipped wildly about her face.

Through the gaps in the crumbling old wooden fence, she could see the hill not far away. Halfway up its slope stood a small headstone.

"Mama…"

She murmured the beloved name in a tiny voice. The fierce wind, sharp with the bitter cold of the frozen earth, snatched her words away in an instant and cast them into the empty air. Anything without form vanished into nothing. The fact that even she herself could barely hear her own murmur—let alone the hilltop—filled Anastasia with a pang of sorrow, and at the same time, with relief.

"I hope I only get ten lashes today."

She cupped her frozen cheeks in her palms and cast the words skyward once more.

Even with her hands pressed to her face, the cold did not ease. Her hands themselves had frozen solid in the wind. With effort she lowered them and felt along her calves beneath her skirt. The places her father had struck with the rod the day before still oozed blood, unhealed after a full day.

"Papa says I'm a lewd girl because I take after Mama. He says I have to beg the Lord for forgiveness for my sins."

A sob crept into her murmuring voice.

Anastasia did not know what "lewd" meant. But the way her father looked when he spoke that word while beating her was so terrifying that she could only guess it was something very, very bad.

"I just… I only wanted to look at the book Anton has…"

She thought of Anton, the village headman's son, who had quietly called her out at the church the day before.

Anton was a boy the same age as Anastasia. According to the village headman, he was an exceptionally clever child. He could already read, and when he grew a little older they would send him to school in a big city. As if to prove the claim true, on his birthday a week earlier the headman had brought him a thick book from the city—a dictionary—as a gift.

Anton had gone around the village showing the book off to everyone. Adults and children alike had stared in wonder at the leather-bound volume in his hands.

This village lay on the outermost fringe of the outermost fringes of the Novgord Empire, a rural place where farming amounted to nothing more than the potatoes and rye they managed to grow in the short summer.

Most of the villagers owned so little that they never needed complicated sums. Even now their staple foods were fish from the river, mushrooms and berries from the forest, and whatever game they could hunt.

And so the only people in the village who could read were the headman, Anton, Old Viktor who claimed he had once lived in a big city, and Anastasia's father, Pastor Ivan.

If the book Anton had received had been an ordinary one, Anastasia would not have paid it much mind. After all, there were several books in her father's room. Ivan spent every hour from morning until night reading the scriptures that recorded the voice of God and His miracles. Though he knew how to read, he had never taught Anastasia a single letter.

"Knowledge in the hands of the unfaithful is nothing but a shortcut to evil. Just like the knowledge the serpent stole from paradise."

Ivan forbade her not only from looking at books but even from entering the room where they were kept. Still, Anastasia longed to see them. Then Anton had called her over through the church fence and shown her the book he had been given. She could not hide her admiration.

It was a deeper red than any book her father owned, with glittering ornaments attached. Golden letters were stamped across the cover. Anton told her they read Great Dictionary for the Young.

He flipped through the pages one by one just out of her reach, showing off. Anastasia gazed at it as if entranced. Unlike her father's scriptures, Anton's book was filled with beautiful pictures painted in many colors. Then one illustration caught her eye.

It depicted a beautiful landscape. Under bright sunlight every tree spread lush green leaves, and the earth was carpeted with flowers. Birds flew through the air, and wild beasts stood side by side with humans. Behind them rose a magnificent, splendid building the likes of which she had never even imagined. And beyond that, a green forest stretched away.

"What's that…?"

At her question Anton looked down at the open page, squinted, and sounded out the letters one by one.

"Let's see… Para… dise?"

He stumbled through the word.

Paradise. Anastasia clenched both hands tight. It was a word that appeared often when her father preached to the villagers, when he made her kneel and read the scriptures to her. Paradise. A place free of every hardship and every sorrow, always warm and abundant.

So it really existed.

Anastasia blinked and stared fixedly at the picture of paradise. Then Anton suddenly snapped the dictionary shut. The vision of paradise vanished in an instant, and she reached out in disappointment. In that same moment Anton seized the hand she had extended.

"No! Let go! Let go!"

Startled, she thrashed madly to free herself. But she could not overcome the strength of a boy a full head taller than she was. Anton yanked her closer, thrust his other hand through the broken fence, and touched her face.

Tears welled in the green eyes set in a face gone white with terror; those eyes trembled. At the sight, Anton felt a heavy heat gather low in his body. In the brief instant the boy lost himself, Anastasia swiftly sank her teeth into the hand that gripped her wrist.

"Ow! You little—!"

Startled, Anton let go. Why had the girl who was always so quiet suddenly gone completely insane?

He soon learned the reason. Her scream had brought Ivan bursting out of the church.

Ivan came running with a howl so savage it was hard to believe he was the mild-mannered pastor. Even with the fence between them, Anton flung up his arms to shield his face, certain the man would smash through and come after him.

Crack!

The sound of a palm striking flesh rang out, but Anton felt no pain at all. Instead Anastasia went sprawling across the ground.

"Lewd little slut! Turn your eyes away for one second and you're luring men! Just like your mother!"

"I'm sorry! Ah—I-I'm sorry!"

Anastasia curled around her head and begged. Anton stared at the man who had become a demon, then fled screaming. Ivan did not spare so much as a glance for the fleeing boy; he seized the fallen Anastasia by the scruff of her neck and hauled her up. Her body, so skinny it weighed less than half a sack of barley, hung limp in his grip.

Inside the church Ivan never stopped reciting scripture as he laid Anastasia upon the altar and, muttering endless prayers that she must beg God for forgiveness of her sins, flogged her calves with the rod. That had been yesterday.

Still tracing the calves that continued to bead with blood, Anastasia wiped away the tears that had gathered with her sleeve.

Her father had been so furious the day before that she would have to tread carefully for a while. Even so, she had missed her mother so desperately that she had slipped out into the back garden to gaze at the grave.

Having let the wind carry away every last sniffle, Anastasia turned. She had to go back inside at once. If she failed to recite the prayer of repentance perfectly tonight, a beating was certain—and she would be denied even the single meal she was allowed each day. The rod frightened her, but so did hunger. On the days she went without food, the cold of the frozen earth sank its teeth into her skin with even sharper cruelty.

She was about to step inside when—

"……?"

A strange sound mingled with the wind. Anastasia realized it was the sound of a carriage.

The village headman?

The only person in the village who owned a carriage was the headman. It was nothing more than a battered cart drawn laboriously by a single old horse, yet it was the finest vehicle they possessed. Listening more closely, however, she understood that the sound was different from usual. There were more hoofbeats than she was used to hearing.

Who could it be?

This was such a remote place, with nothing special about it, that almost no one ever passed through. Aside from the lord's agent who came once a year to collect taxes, the only visitor the village had ever received was a hunter who had gotten lost a few years earlier. When the villagers drank, they still told the story of that man, as if it were the single most astonishing thing that had ever happened in the world.

Anastasia peered toward the far end of the road that led to the front of the church. A carriage she had never seen before was racing toward them. Four great, powerful horses—and behind them a splendid golden coach.

"……!"

At the sight of something so magnificent she had never beheld in her life, Anastasia briefly lost herself. A horse's cry snapped her back to her senses. She darted inside the church at once, crawled beneath the nearest long prayer bench, closed her eyes, and covered her ears.

Please just pass by.

Ever since her mother had died, her father had loathed the idea of Anastasia meeting other people. He had locked her in the room where her mother had drawn her last breath and forbidden her to set foot outside the church. She was not allowed to see the village children she had always played with, and even when someone came seeking prayer she was forbidden to show herself, much less greet them.

If she ever happened to cross paths with anyone, she was beaten until she could no longer think straight. And so the moment anyone so much as walked past the church, Anastasia scrambled to hide. She covered her ears as if she did not even want to hear the sound.

But… I want to see it.

The image of the golden carriage approaching rose in her mind. At the same time a favorite line from the prayers came to her.

Pray. For the golden carriage that will carry you to paradise shall come unto you.

The golden carriage that goes to paradise. Perhaps it looked just like that.

She let herself imagine it. The carriage stopping before the church, a messenger sent by God stretching out a hand to her. She would take the messenger's hand and climb into the carriage that would bear her away to a beautiful place. Having never seen such a fine coach before, she could not picture the interior. But she guessed it must be warm inside. Soft, like a summer meadow thick with grass.

That was as far as the daydream went.

It will simply pass by.

Even in this sparsely peopled village the church stood in the most secluded spot of all. If the road had not led on into the forest, not even the villagers going out to hunt would have come this way.

On Sundays the elderly faithful brought sacks of potatoes and barley from their meager stores, offered their prayers, and left; beyond that, no one ever visited. So this carriage, whose reason for appearing here she could not guess, would surely continue on its way as well.

At that very moment she heard the sound of the carriage she had expected to pass by… stopping.

"……!"

Anastasia clamped a hand over her mouth. The carriage had stopped. Why? How?

A moment later came the creak of the old wooden door opening. From beneath the bench the only thing Anastasia could see was a pair of well-polished, gleaming shoes. Cleaner and finer than the ones the lord's agent had worn—a gentleman's shoes. Then the newcomer shouted.

"Chloe!"

She flinched hard. At the stranger's cry her whole body shuddered. Chloe. That was her mother's name.

"Chloe! Where are you!"

The gentleman was someone who knew her mother.