**A Sack Without Gifts**

If you stare long enough at Ded Moroz, Ded Moroz will begin staring back at you. Nietzsche had it a little differently, but he never found himself in Veliky Ustyug right before New Year’s. The city was flooded with gray-bearded men of every sort and age, yet nothing as suspicious as this had ever crossed Kira’s path in her short career as a Snow Maiden. Small and shriveled, like a pickled cucumber, wrapped in a tattered coat turned inside out, with a silvery mat of hair instead of a hat flowing straight into a beard of dubious origin. The monstrosity rose from a snowdrift by the roadside, and moonlight glinted off its filthy snow-sculpted face. Even in the dark it felt as if unseen eyes were watching the sleighs crawling along the road. As though a vagrant had been sealed into an icy crust, about to lift a hand and ask for a ride.

The sleigh was driven by Mark, the strangest Ded Moroz Kira had ever been paired with. Energetic and cheerful during performances, a favorite of children and parents alike, he turned into a sullen mute the moment he stepped outside. Hunched on his seat, Mark looked more like Charon ferrying the dead than a kindly wizard with a sleigh full of gifts.

“They don’t pay me for a good mood,” he’d complained that morning, nearly setting his fake beard on fire with a cigarette. “So I only have fun at strictly scheduled times—after prepayment.”

Now he was cut off from the outside world, driving the sickly-looking mare forward and jerking his head to the jingle of countless bells. The idea with the sleigh and horse belonged to management. Clients loved it, neighborhoods greeted them in crowds, orders were pouring in—so raising prices was fair game. That someone had to freeze in this contraption all day was just how life went. The pay was decent, especially by the standards of a Veliky Ustyug med student just starting an independent life.

Kira wrapped herself in blankets and peered at the lights ahead. New Year’s Eve was cloudless and calm. At her feet, like a favorite cat, the portable generator purred, painting the sleigh in every color of an electric rainbow. The light of sparse streetlamps along the highway carved orange triangles out of the darkness, like sand cakes. Fireworks boomed behind them in the city. There were almost no cars.

They passed a stretch of road taken prisoner by ranks of fir trees and rolled through the village of Zhuravlevo. Straight ahead lay the final destination—Korobeynikovo. The last, but the most important stop, because Kira had paid for this visit out of her own pocket.

“What’s the boy’s name?” Mark asked.

“Kolya. Just don’t make him recite poems forever—he hates that. And don’t drink with his father. He’s always looking for an excuse.”

Mark snorted.

“Don’t drink with this one, don’t drink with that one… Might as well die young.”

“You’ll have time for that later—it’s only nine,” Kira said, checking her phone. Back at the dorm everyone was seeing the year off with champagne, but even the sight of feasts made her sick. She’d had enough for years ahead.

“Uh-huh,” Mark muttered, and the sleigh rolled toward the village.

They were met outside by a big group, though no one thought to offer Ded Moroz a shot. Mark straightened his back, squared his shoulders, and in his trademark bass began recounting his adventures on the way. Kira smiled at Kolya’s delighted face. He ran through the snow, jumped into the sleigh, tried to recite poems, hid behind the adults, then reappeared wearing a bear mask—apt, given his shaggy coat, ushanka, and mittens.

“What a little bear!” Ded Moroz exclaimed. “Such a fidget!”

“What’s your horse’s name?” Kolya asked, a master of endless questions on any topic. “And why is there only one? There should be three!”

Mark froze for a second, then remembered the sack.

“Let’s take a look at the presents instead!”

Only a couple of brightly wrapped boxes managed to calm Kolya, who had been planning to feed the horse candy. While he tore open the packaging right there in the sleigh under Mark’s watchful eye, his father droned into Kira’s ear—about how he’d gone to get a Christmas tree, how much he missed his beloved daughter, the beautiful Snow Maiden. He bragged about a friend who promised him a job, once again. Kira didn’t care about his slurred speech or his guests soaked to the eyelids in booze. She was only interested in the snowman by the neighboring house, hiding in the shadow of the porch. A snowman made to look like Ded Moroz. Coat inside out, beard, dirty snow for a face—everything the same, except this one held a staff made of a massive icicle.

“So why the pout? What’s wrong?” her father said, misreading her silence. “So we sat around. So we drank, yeah. It’s a holiday—everything as it should be. What, should we cry instead?”

“Mom’s on duty at the hospital even on New Year’s,” Kira said with effort, “and look what you’re doing here.”

Her father’s buddies kept quiet, hands in pockets, shifting from foot to foot. They reminded Kira of pagan-era carolers playing spirits—plastic faces pickled in alcohol instead of masks, and instead of the ‘grandfather,’ the most fearsome, silent spirit, a terrifying ‘frost-man’ with an icy staff. All that was left was to turn their coats inside out and go caroling.

“Your mom—your mom’ll celebrate plenty there too, more than we ever could,” her father went on. “You bring her up—how about remembering where and with whom she sleeps in the city while Kolya and I are stuck here alone?”

Kolya was in full control of the sleigh now, tugging at the reins, rattling the bells, trying to score more gifts. Kira wanted to get closer to the snowman, examine the strange effigy, but her father took her arm and whispered conspiratorially:

“Kira, look… there’s a situation. Take Kolya for an hour, huh? Ride him around, there and back—beautiful out there. Winter, miracles. It’s warm enough, and Kolya needs to break in his new coat. I’ve got to go… take care of something.”

“To Katya, right? Or whatever her name is? Want me to make your bed in my room too?”

Her father winced and lowered his head, studying the tracks in the snow. He shrugged nervously, like a guilty schoolboy. He looked pitiful and knew it.

“You shouldn’t say that, I mean—”

The cold seemed to clear his head a little, but the smirk that returned ruined the illusion.

“Ah, whatever. Kolya!” he shouted toward the sleigh. “Want to go for a ride with Ded Moroz? See fireworks in the city? Sleigh ride with a horse!”

After that kind of betrayal, there was no chance of getting the child indoors.

They were expected at the intersection of Gledenskaya and Peschannaya Streets, about five kilometers from the village. Mark, having switched off his cheerful Ded Moroz mode, was furious when he learned about the extra passenger. He’d clearly decided he’d be the one driving Kolya back—and that meant another run.

“Is your coat warmer than mine?”

Mark convincingly pretended to be deaf and mute, but Kolya wouldn’t give up.

“Have you ever climbed into a house through the chimney?”

Kira smirked and patted Mark’s shoulder, but he flatly refused to entertain the child.

“And what are Ded Moroz beards made of?”

“Kolya, see, Grandpa’s tired, he’s old, so better not bother him,” Kira said, wrapping her brother in a blanket.

“I know he’s not a real Ded Moroz. And not even a grandpa.”

“Almighty Lord,” Mark exclaimed theatrically, turning right at a fork. “We’ve been exposed!”

Kolya burst out laughing, his childish voice echoing along the empty road.

Warming up under the blanket quickly grew boring. Kolya couldn’t sit still—he caught big snowflakes, fiddled with reflectors and lights, greeted every blooming firework with a shout of “Hooray!” and showered them with questions. How fast was the sleigh going? How long until New Year? When would Mom come? Why was the other Ded Moroz so small?

That was when Kira saw him herself. It wasn’t a snowman. The familiar little man stood in the middle of the road, peeking out of his cocoon-like coat, icicles crumbling from his face like scraps of dead skin. His thawed beard resembled a dog’s pelt, and in the black hollow of his mouth jagged jaws crawled over one another.

“Hi, Ded Moroz!” Kolya shouted.

The old man turned his head toward the boy, inhaled, and whistled the air out. The horse neighed and lurched forward. Mark cursed. An icy vortex slammed into the sleigh, wrapping it in gray shrapnel. Kira fell to the floor and covered Kolya with her body. Cold spikes pierced her back, frost crushed her bones. There was no air.

“Go! Go!” Mark yelled in the milky fog.

A fireball bloomed in the sky and shattered into thousands of sparks. The second wave of fireworks swept darkness from the heavens, and the cloud of snowflakes over the sleigh collapsed into slush. Everything fell silent.

“That was awesome!” Kolya laughed through a cough.

Kira lifted her head and looked back. The old man burrowed into the snow by the trees, dragging with him a massive stick like a frozen stalactite. The damned staff…

“Kira, that was him, right? The Evil Frost? You remember, you told me—if I misbehave, he’ll come. The pagan god.”

Kira remembered. Curse her for scaring her curious little brother—though who in Ustyug didn’t know Ded Moroz’s story? She’d told him about one of his less popular guises.

“Don’t be silly. I was joking.”

“So he doesn’t steal children?” Kolya asked doubtfully.

“He doesn’t steal anyone. Calm down. Just some grandpa who drank too much.”

“Like our dad?”

“No. Our dad is much better. Wow, look at that firework!”

The city was close now. The road stretched through a forest corridor guarded by giant snow-laden firs. On normal days there were plenty of cars here, but not tonight. Mark got through to management, and now they were to be met even earlier—by the turnoff to the railway station. Colored flashes tore through the black sky more often, the horse stopped jerking, and the mad old man vanished into a snowdrift behind them. No more reason to worry. Kira tried to smile at her brother, but her face still hadn’t recovered from the frost’s touch. Ded Moroz… Before agreeing to the Snow Maiden job, Kira had scoured countless sites on New Year traditions and characters. She’d decided to study Ded Moroz more closely if she was to be his assistant. That was when she learned something interesting. Ded Moroz hadn’t always been kind. In ancient times he was considered a cruel pagan god, son of Mara, death itself. He demanded human sacrifices and froze not only forests and rivers. Commanding blizzards, he ruined crops, killed animals—and people. It wasn’t for nothing that in Nekrasov’s poem *Frost, Red Nose* the heroine’s meeting with Frost the Voivode ended tragically. Lines surfaced in her memory—the ones after which Kolya refused to memorize even a snippet:

*I love to dress the dead

In frost within deep graves,

To freeze the blood in veins,

And chill the brain within the head.*

“Are you warm, young maiden?..” Kira shuddered and suddenly realized it had grown colder. Much colder. And that they were slowing down.

“Go on!”

The horse began to stumble and slide. Kira looked down at the road and saw only ice—a smooth, mirrored surface crawling with black cracks.

“Ded Moroz!” Kolya screamed, pointing into the darkness behind them. “He’s poking the ground with his staff!”

Transparent icicles, clear as well water, grew from the earth. They shot up, hooking the horse like pitchforks and tearing it apart. The sleigh tipped over, Mark screamed among the chunks of mangled flesh. The wind carried the smell of rotten potatoes and a poisonous laugh.

Kira dragged her brother, who no longer laughed or asked questions. He cried silently. Running was impossible—the ice devoured the road, spread to the forest, collapsed into pits beneath their feet. The sky clouded with snowy haze, fireworks no longer lighting the land. Dragging his staff along the ground, Ded Moroz followed.

Kolya stumbled as Mark drew level with them. A bizarre pattern of frozen horse blood crusted the boy’s face, tears frozen in his eyes.

“Y-you… said…” Kolya sobbed, gasping with every word, “that… you were joking…”

“Kolya, my dear, we’re almost there. Come on—you have to get up.”

Trying to lift him, Kira saw that his legs were frozen into the ground. Icy shackles closed around his old boots.

“He got me…”

The dark figure behind him approached and pulled a sack from under his coat.

“Mark, help!”

Ded Moroz flung Kira aside and bared his teeth. He deftly scooped Kolya into the sack, slung it over his shoulder, and stepped toward a snowdrift. He drove the staff into the snow, and a well rose from the icy ground.

“No! Stop!” Kira screamed.

Ded Moroz gripped the sack with both hands and jumped. Kira rushed to the well, but it was too late. The ring of black stones tightened with an icy crust and sank into the underworld.

When headlights licked the mirrored road, Kira was digging. Snowflakes drifted quietly from the sky as she recalled nonsense—how once Kolya had flown off the porch to meet her on her birthday, tripped, and splashed into a puddle in his festive clothes, soaking her too. Or how he’d brushed his teeth with Dad’s shaving cream and spent a week begging for soda to wash away the awful taste.

Car doors slammed. Voices rang out.

“He appeared too early. I tried—I told her not to take the boy, but who could’ve known…”

That was Mark. The strangest Ded Moroz in their company. Nasty and grumpy.

“Poor kid… But it’s not enough. The well won’t close. Not fully. Only for a bit. The staff stayed. Yeah…”

That was Semenov, a manager. Kira remembered all his “yeah”s and “hm”s from the interview. The voices no longer mattered. She had to dig. Kolya was down there. She tried to pull the staff from the ground, but the touch froze her mittens through. She dug with bare hands.

“All according to plan. Stay calm. We blocked the road just in case. He hasn’t surfaced in our area for a long time.”

That voice was unfamiliar—calm, confident, like a tech support operator. *Hello, my name is So-and-so, this call is recorded. How can I help you? What pagan god, you say?*

“Hurry.”

When they grabbed her arms, Kira screamed. She couldn’t stop—broken nails and numbed fingers didn’t matter. The well couldn’t just vanish. They dragged her to a tree, and enormous mittens embroidered with snowflakes wrapped rope around her.

Ded Morozes stood all around. Red coats, faces beneath cotton-beard masks, tired eyes in the headlights. Behind them, where the well had been, the snow crunched. A grumble sounded. The Ded Morozes turned their coats inside out and stepped back toward the road. A phone buzzed in Imyarek’s hand.

“Base? You hear me?” he whispered. “Highway R157 Uren—Sharya—Kotlas, station area. He woke up this year, yes. Call off the rest.”

Her face was washed with icy air and the stench of carrion. Cold stabbed her spine. Sensation left her limbs; snow dusted her eyes. Kira froze, unable to turn her head toward the folkloric legend, the Great Elder of the North. She saw only three Ded Morozes whose beards looked like skulls in the sick light of the headlights. The skulls weren’t looking at her paralyzed body but slightly aside—at the one sniffing the new Snow Maiden, rummaging through her blond braid, grinding his teeth. At the old man without whom no New Year passed.

“There’s no other way,” Imyarek said, looking at Kira. “I’m sorry.”

The ropes loosened, and Kira collapsed like a scarecrow cut from its crossbeam. She no longer felt cold, or fear. She felt nothing. Only an upside-down fragment of road remained in her unblinking eyes.

“There’s no other way,” Imyarek repeated and disappeared into the car. The others followed. The engine growled, and they were gone.

Burlap rustled on the crusted snow. Someone grabbed Kira by the hair and dragged her. Ded Moroz stroked her face, and darkness swallowed everything.

Inside the sack it smelled of dampness—and of Kolya’s shampoo for real superheroes.