When I was fourteen or fifteen years old, and it was still
the Soviet Union, and the winters in Russia were very cold, I went to stay with
my grandmother in a village for the school winter break. The village was
surrounded by dense forests stretching far and wide, its spruces and pine trees covered by a thick layer
of snow. If, with your ski pole, you hit a branch of a spruce (branches so thick
we called them "paws"), you would be covered by a waterfall of snow
descending from it – a pastime that gave a lot of pleasure to us children.
One morning, on January 6th, I could not find any
companions willing to go cross-country skiing with me, so I went alone. I was
confident that I knew the nearby part of the forest quite well and that I could
never lose sight of the tracks. A
small blizzard started blowing, and at first I did not pay much attention to
it. Then I noticed that the tracks were now covered with a layer of snow. I
still thought I knew my way around, but then it started dawning on me that one
clearing in the woods looked exactly like another clearing in the woods.
Suddenly I had no idea in what direction my house was anymore. I realized that
I was lost.
Panic
seized me. I was running in one direction, then in another. It was getting
darker, and the pine trees in the wind made a noise that resembled the howling
of wolves. I started crying and thought that maybe I should try to spend the
night in the forest and then start searching for my way again in the morning once the
sun came up. But the fear kept me going.
Several
hours later I finally stumbled on a highway. The highway at that time of night
was empty, but after a while, to my great luck, a truck was passing. To my even
greater luck, the driver stopped at my frantic waving and agreed to take me to
the village I came from, although he was very much puzzled how I'd ended up so
far away from it. When we arrived at the village, we were greeted by everybody
and the local police who were, in turns, congratulating me on my miraculous
return or seriously scolding me for taking off alone into the forest.
A week
or two later, when I was back in Moscow, I received a letter. It was written by
somebody in the village, yet it was unsigned and I never learned the name of the sender. The
letter told me that, unbeknownst to me, I had gotten lost on the Eve of the
Orthodox Christmas (January 7th). And that my calamitous disappearance
and my miraculous return turned out to
be a reminder of Mary and Joseph’s strenuous and exhausting journey to Bethlehem
and the miracle that happened in a manger.
----
Istoria Books is proud to publish in print and digitally Mary Fisherov's historical romance, Love's Destiny Foretold, the sweeping tale of a Russian countess on the run in fin de siecle New York. It is her first work of fiction in English. Enter a Goodreads contest to win a free print copy!
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Love's Destiny Foretold
by Mary Fisherov
Giveaway ends December 31, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
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