The Ring of the Queen (The Lost Tsar Trilogy Book 1)
Page 38
“Her name is Lydia,” Boris said. “And there she is! Lydia!”
She ran to us. Boris and Lydia didn’t look much alike. Boris was a stereotypical Russian dude. He had dark hair and dark eyes with rough manly features. Lydia was petite, with a sculpted face, blue eyes, and light brown hair. The shape of their faces were similar.
Lydia gave Boris a big hug. She seemed concerned about him. I couldn’t blame her. I would be going insane with worry if my brother was involved in this. Of course I didn’t have a brother to worry about any more.
Boris pushed her away after a couple of minutes. “Really Lydia. I am fine. Stop smothering me, but thank you for coming.”
Tania leaned over and tried to whisper so that they couldn’t hear her. “Older sister?”
Boris turned to her. “Yes. How did you know?”
“If she was your younger sister, she wouldn’t be so concerned.”
Boris shrugged. I wondered if families were different in Russia. I couldn’t imagine. After all, brothers and sisters were brothers and sisters, no matter where they grew up.
Boris guided his sister to us. “Lydia, this is Tania and this is Stacey.”
“Nice to meet you,” she replied. She stared at me for a moment. “I see what you mean,” she said to Boris. “She does look like Catherine.”
“I know,” he replied. “That is why we are in trouble. The government is concerned about this girl. we want to get her out of the country. The girls are overwhelmed. Stacey has been on TV as a fugitive.”
“I know,” Lydia replied.
“I’m sorry about all of this,” I said to Lydia. “If this is too much trouble for you, I’ll be happy to find another way. I don’t want to cause any trouble for you or your family.”
“Do not think about it,” Lydia said. “I have always wanted to have a more exciting life. I would not miss this. I must know one thing. Are you the one? Are you a Tsar?”
“I guess so. For all I know this could be a dream.”
“This is no damn dream,” Tania assured me. She turned to Nadia. “She’s the one all right. She looks like her. She has the ring. She’s named after Catherine the Great. The government thinks she’s the one. I’d have to say, she’s the one. I hate to be a pain, but could we go somewhere that isn’t freezing before my head explodes?”
“Of course,” Lydia replied. She took Tania’s bag from her. Tania wasn’t in any shape to be lugging it around.
Lydia immediately struck me as a genuinely nice person. I hoped that I didn’t cause her too much trouble. I had no idea how long we would be in St. Petersburg. No one knew. Winter was unpredictable there. I had no idea when the airport would open.
I didn’t know what to do at that point. I knew that I should check in with my mother. She would be going insane still. I hadn’t called her in a while. I wanted to eat again. I was so hungry. I’d never been so hungry in my life. Stress eating, I guessed.
Lydia took us to her car. She had a Nissan Pathfinder. It was bright yellow. As I looked around us on the streets, almost all I saw were Pathfinders and old Ladas. What to drive in the north.
Dark or light, St. Petersburg was beautiful. The streets were lined with lights. It had to take a lot of electricity to light a city that big 24 hours a day. The buildings that loomed behind the lights were large and beautiful. I’d seen pictures of Amsterdam and parts of England as well as pictures of St. Petersburg. Peter the Great had been right. It did look a lot like the pictures that I’d seen of the rest of Europe. There was something Russian about it as there should be.
Lydia lived in what we would call a suburb. The houses were newer than the grand buildings. Lydia and her family had a large Dacha looking house on a street that loosely translated was named Jester’s Court. I wondered if everything in town was based on royalty and royal things.
Lydia’s house was beautiful. The style of the house was sleek and modern. I thought that maybe her décor had been based on some of the styles that that came from nearby Finland. Her family had all modern appliances and entertainment pieces that any American had. It was the most modern and not Russian looking place I’d seen so far. Best of all, it was warm.
Tania looked around the living room. “Lydia, you have a beautiful home. I hate to be a pain again, but is there somewhere that I can go to get some sleep?”
“It is only two in the afternoon,” Lydia commented.
“She’s had a rough day,” I replied.
“There is a room for you upstairs to the right,” Boris told her. “There are two rooms. You can choose. Stacey may take the other one.”
Tania walked away up the stairs mumbling to herself.
“What dear?” Lydia asked after her.
Tania stopped and turned around to face Lydia. “I was just wondering if everyone stares at their watch all the time, or if I’m missing out on some easier way of telling whether it’s day or night here.”
Lydia turned to me, without attempting to answer Tania’s snotty remark. “I take it she was drinking on the train.”
The Ring of the Queen