Free Under a Blood Red Sky by Kate Furnivall Page B

that. ‘You should have one too, Pyotr. You almost won.’
    ‘Almost is never good enough,’ Yuri grinned and took the pechenka from her. Very precisely he broke it in three equal parts and handed one to each of them.
    ‘No,’ Pyotr said, pushing it away. ‘You won it, you eat it.’
    ‘I insist,’ Yuri said. ‘Equal shares for everyone. It’s what we believe in.’
    That was the trouble with Yuri. He believed in applying Communism to every corner of his life – and everyone else’s life too. Even when it came to biscuits. Anastasia had no such problem.
    ‘Mmm,’ she mewed. ‘ Miod . Honey.’
    Before Pyotr could blink, her share of the biscuit had vanished into her mouth. Something about the speed of it embarrassed him and he collapsed back on the dusty grass, feeling it press shallow grooves in the delicate skin of his back. He loved the sky, the high blue arch of it over Tivil, with the sun a ball of gold, hovering and waiting to be caught. He lifted his arm straight up to see if he could touch it but all he caught was a passing insect. He squashed it between his fingers and wiped it on his shorts. Yuri was sitting up watching the next race, but Anastasia was licking her fingers with the thoroughness of a cat licking its fur.
    Through narrowed eyes Pyotr looked out at the dense jumble of greens that made up the forest as it marched up the steep ridges of the valley and over the mountains beyond. She was up there, somewhere, the woman with the moonlight hair. Living in the forest. Maybe he would sneak back to that old cabin tomorrow to see if-
    ‘Pyotr.’ It was Anastasia.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Look.’
    Her little bony hand was pointing beyond the broad cedar tree that marked the start of the village to a spot in the distance, where a ball of dust was rolling its way along the unpaved road towards them, slicing through the flat fields of cabbage on either side. Traffic on the road was always light, usually no more than a few carts a day and, on rare occasions, a car or truck. One of the boys in the Octobrians, the group for younger children, had also spotted the dust trail and was giggling with excitement, fingering the badge on his shirt. It was in the shape of a red star with a picture at its centre of Lenin as a curly-haired baby, the pride and joy of every young Octobrian who wore it. Pyotr and Yuri were too old for that now. They wore instead the scarlet triangular tie and their badge of membership to the Young Pioneers.
    Pyotr forgot the woman in the forest and felt the little boy’s excitement slide into his own head when he saw who was driving the cart that was trundling up the valley. It was Aleksei Fomenko.
     
    The cart stopped outside the school yard. The piebald horse in the shafts tipped its back foot on edge to rest it and snorted loudly. Yuri leapt to his feet, dragging Anastasia with him.
    ‘It’s Comrade Fomenko. Come on, let’s wave to him.’
    ‘No.’
    Pyotr stood up beside her. ‘Why not? What’s wrong?’
    ‘He took Masha last week.’ Anastasia’s face had gone blank but the mouse-freckles on her skin stood out like warning spots. ‘He just drove that cart of his right up to our back yard and took her.’
    ‘No, Anastasia.’
    Pyotr didn’t know what to say. Masha was the Tushkov family’s last sow. All they had left. Without her…
    ‘Here,’ he said and thrust his share of the biscuit into her hand.
    She crammed it into her mouth.
    ‘The pig was beautiful,’ Pyotr said and saw a spark of pleasure brighten her pale eyes, but her pointed chin gave a brief quiver. She put both her hands on top of her head and turned away, her elbows hiding her face.
    Pyotr’s chest hurt, though not from the running. He grasped Anastasia’s wrist because he didn’t know what else to do, and squeezed it. He was shocked to find it no thicker than a spichka, a matchstick, in his hand, just pale see-through skin stretched tight over a bundle of mouse bones. He glanced over at the rest of his