No one liked this idea, not the girl’s parents, and least of all Marya herself, who still feared the dark. But the next day, when the men set out for the mines, she summoned her courage, took her rag doll in her arms, and clambered onto her father’s shoulders. Into the pits they went, the rock walls close around them, the air moist, the smell of copper in the earth like spilled blood.
The morning passed without incident, then the afternoon, and then the day was done. The workers heaved a sigh of relief and turned to make their way out of the tunnel, back to sunlight and the living world.
That was when the earth began to rumble. The tunnel ahead of them collapsed, blocking out all daylight. But just as the ceiling was about to give way above their heads, Marya, still clutching her rag doll, lifted her little hands. The ceiling held.
The rock walls of the mine shifted like silt in a pan. They shuddered and slid, making an opening so that the Suli might pass. Through the mountain they went, led by Marya on her father’s shoulders, the rock giving way to form a path before them.
They emerged on the other side and there, at the base of the Sikurzoi, the Suli have always been able to find shelter in the caves that Marya left behind.
She is known as the patron saint of those who are far from home.
SANKT EMERENS
The village of Girecht in southern Kerch had long been known for the purity and flavor of its grain, as well as the perfection of the beer made from its barley and hops. Each year when the leaves began to turn, the townspeople set long tables in the main square, hung the trees with lanterns, and welcomed guests from all over Kerch to fill their bellies with the town’s beer and fill Girecht’s coffers with their coin.
The next day, they would go to church to give thanks to Ghezen and their Saints. But one year, the townspeople had grown too merry in their celebrations, and the morning after the festival, they lay abed with headaches instead of going to pray. All but one child, a young boy named Emerens.
Now this child had been pious since his birth. He never cried on Saints’ days—except when the townspeople were late to services. Then he would bawl and howl, his shrill wail carrying over the rooftops and through every window, and nothing might soothe him until his parents and their neighbors went to church. On the morning after that very merry festival, Emerens knocked on every door, trying to rouse the citizens of Girecht, but all refused to answer.
Who can say if what came to pass next was merely bad luck or the hand of providence? Either way, a blight struck Girecht’s fields the following year, leaving the grain spotted and dying.
The villagers managed to cull enough untainted grain to fill four silos, enough for two years’ worth of festivals. They hung lanterns in the main square and set out long tables for feasting. But the next morning, they found that the western silo was a quarter empty. A search revealed ragged holes in the silo’s sides, where some of the grain had spilled out. One of the farmers climbed to the top of the silo, opened the hatch, and shrieked his horror, for the structure was full of rats, their hairy bodies and pink tails thrashing about as they gorged themselves.
The next day the eastern silo was found to have been infested, and the townspeople knew that the northern and southern silos would follow.
“What can we do?” they cried. “If we poison the rats, we’ll poison the grain and we will have no way to make beer for our festival.”
Young Emerens had the answer. “Lower me into the eastern silo and I will chase the rats away.”
The townspeople were disgusted by such a notion, but since they did not have to go swimming about with vermin themselves, they were willing to try it. They tied a rope around Emerens’ waist and lowered him into the grain like a bucket being dropped down a well.
Sure enough, as soon as Emerens sank into the grain, the rats sensed his holiness and chewed their way clear, eager to be away from such goodness. It took many hours of Emerens being lifted and dunked into the grain, but soon all the rats were gone and the grain was pure again.
The citizens of Girecht pronounced Emerens the savior of the village, hefted him up on their shoulders, and carried him around the town square, cheering his good name.
The next day, when the festival was to begin, the townspeople saw that, just as they had predicted, the rats had infested the southern silo. In went Emerens and the rats began to flee.
It was a long process, and as the evening wore on, the villagers minding Emerens’ rope heard music coming from the town square, heard the thump of people dancing, and smelled the syrups and sweet cakes and sausages they knew were being piled high onto platters just a short distance away. Surely, they thought, we can race down to the square, have a dance and a drink, and be back before we need to pull up the boy.
The next time Emerens sank into the silo, they raced down to the square. But after the first sip of beer, they couldn’t help but take a second. One dance became two and then three as the fiddles swelled around them, and soon they forgot that they’d ever been meant to do anything that night but enjoy themselves.
In the darkness of the silo, Emerens tugged on the rope in vain, waiting to be drawn up
