Anya and the Dragon

CHAPTER ONE
NYA WAS NOT a good goatherd.

The sun had barely broken over the trees as she pulled Zvezda back to the barn by his horns for the third time. The stupid goat had broken his leg two weeks earlier, and Anya’s grandfather wanted him to stay in the barn and rest for at least a month. But the goat had chewed off his splint and, apparently bored with the comfort of the barn, pushed through the doors and followed Anya out to the onion fields.

Her grandfather, Dyedka, sat in the barn on a stool and milked a goat. When Anya pulled the door open, all the goats swiveled their heads toward her, and Dyedka said, “Back already?”

She shoved Zvezda inside. “Can you make him stay?”

Dyedka shrugged. “He’s not my goat.”

“They’re all your goats,” Anya said.

He shook his head. “That one’s yours. He doesn’t listen to me, either.”

“But you have animal magic, Dyedka.” Zvezda nibbled on her dress, and she pushed him away. “You’re a bad goat!”

Dyedka patted the goat he was done milking on her rump, and she walked away. He turned his head to Anya so he could study her with his good eye. He had lost his other eye, plus both of his legs at the knee, in a past war against the tree people -who Anya was disappointed to find out weren’t actually people made of trees but just people who lived in the forest-before she had been born. He had wooden legs that he got around on with the help of his walking stick, which leaned against the wall nearby.

Another goat stepped in front of him and bleated, ready to be milked. Dyedka scratched the top of her head and said to Anya, “You know no one is allowed to use magic, Annushka.”

She snorted and watched the line of goats wait- ing patiently to be milked. “You’re using magic,” she said. The goats didn’t behave this well for anyone but Dyedka and Papa, because both of them used animal magic.

Dyedka nodded. “Because I’m old and missing too many things. The tsar makes his laws in Kiev, but they don’t always apply to us out here away from the cities.”

Anya quoted a sentiment she’d heard a lot in the village when people decided to break the law: “God is far up high, and the tsar is far away’?”

“Exactly.” Dyedka milked the goat. “Besides, magic won’t solve all your problems.”