The Chalice and the Crown

by Kassandra Flamouri

  I rub my temples, grimacing against a headache that’s been brewing all night. If only I could sleep, everything else would fall into place—Dave, Swan Lake, my failing body, everything.

  I’m just tired. So, so tired.

  Instead of fading into the distance, the sirens’ wailing cuts off abruptly. I frown. The emergency must be close by, then. My neck prickles. It couldn’t be—no. No, nothing could have happened to Baba Nadia. I’m just being paranoid.

  But I speed up anyway, my purse bouncing against my hip as I break into a jog and then a run.

  The firetruck is on my street.

  And the ambulance…God, it is. It’s in front of our house. Two paramedics are loading a gurney into the back.

  “Wait,” I pant. “Wait!”

  But I’m too far away and too out of breath for anyone to hear. What breath I have left is better spent on my legs. I take the last block at a dead sprint before skidding to a halt just as the ambulance doors slam shut. It rumbles away, leaving me gaping after it. I cast around wildly. There must be someone left. An EMT. A police officer. Something!

  “Sasha!”

  I spin around and find James dashing toward me. My foot catches on the uneven sidewalk and I lurch forward into James’ arms. I clutch at his jacket and pull myself upright.

  “What happened?” I gasp. “Is it Emily? Or—”

  “It’s Nadia,” he confirms, his face stricken. “She must have fallen on the stairs. Emily needed to stop by the office after dinner and—we found her.”

  I swear my heart stops dead in my chest before shuddering back into a full gallop. “She’s not—”

  “No,” James says quickly. “God, no. She’s broken her hip and collarbone and who knows what else, but she’s alive. Emily went with the ambulance. I just need to finish with the police and then we’ll follow.” He pulls me into a rough hug. “Just sit tight for a minute, okay? Everything will be alright.”

  He hurries back inside before I can respond. I sink onto the curb, my head between my shaking hands. My body rocks back and forth with no conscious direction from me, like someone is sitting beside me and pushing, pulling me away into the dark. Pain flares behind my eyes, and my vision goes gray.

  “Baby, baby, rock-a-bye,” I whisper, “on the edge you mustn’t lie.”

  My throat closes before I can finish the rest of the line: or the little gray wolf will come and bite you on the side.

  A tiny whimper escapes my lips, and I wrap my arms around myself in a vain attempt to stop shaking. My nails dig into my sides like teeth. The wolf is coming. Something dark, something dangerous has been stalking me from the shadows of sleep, and it’s getting closer.

  The wolf is coming to drag me away, and this time Baba Nadia won’t be there to save me.

  Pirouette

  The drive to the hospital is tense and silent. James makes a few attempts at reassurance and, when that fails, at light conversation. I say nothing and lean my head against the cool window, watching the streetlamps flash by. But the lights make my headache worse, and eventually I close my eyes.

  The melody of Baba Nadia’s lullaby drifts in and out of my ears, swelling and receding in sickening waves.

  “Bayu, bayushki, bayu,” I sing softly, hardly aware of the words.

  “What’s that?” James asks, tilting his head toward me.

  “Nothing,” I mutter. “Just a song.”

  “Good idea.”

  He turns on the radio—Classical FM, of course—and what should be playing but Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake Suite? I bite my lip. If I’d been able to do my job, if I hadn’t let my dislike of Dave get in the way of my performance, I would never have been out with him tonight. I would have been at home with Baba Nadia, and none of this would’ve happened.

  I press my face into the window hard enough to bruise my cheek.

  Bozhe, please, let this not be real. Let me be dreaming.

  My wish is granted…but I’m falling into the dream, not out, and this dream is even worse than what I left behind.

  * * *

  We stand in a line—all of us, men and women, all naked and shivering in the rain as a man inspects each of us closely, somehow making marks on a leather tablet with a piece of crystal. He looks different from the other guards. He’s small and a little chubby. Instead of leather and metal, he wears soft, loose robes in shades of red.

  When he gets to me, he smiles widely, chortling with pleasure, and turns me around in a circle. I stare at the ground, unable to muster the energy to be offended.

  After the inspection is finished, the man in red says something to the guards and shows them his writing pad before toddling off. I watch him go, glaring sullenly at his back, until a sudden motion at the end of the line catches my attention.

  A trio of guards moves down the line, two of them grabbing each captive by the arms while the third does…something. I can’t see what’s going on.

  As the guards come closer, I find out. I look on, helpless, as they take hold of a boy barely into his teens. He’s tall, but so skinny the guards’ hands circle all the way around his biceps. His face looks like a child’s. The third guard presses something into the captive’s hip, making the boy’s face contort in a silent scream as he thrashes in pain.

  When the guards move away, I see an angry red starburst pattern imprinted in the boy’s flesh. A puff of wind blows the scent of charred flesh across my nostrils, and my stomach lurches. But I don’t move. I don’t even tremble: my every muscle is frozen in disgust, pity…but mostly fear.

  The next captive, well-muscled and clearly in the prime of his life, stares at the brand in horror. Then he spins, jerking his arms out of the guards’ grasps. He shoulders the third guard aside and runs for the woods, his legs pumping frantically.

  Go, go, I want to shout, my heart in my throat. But the man doesn’t make it ten yards before a spear appears in his lower back as if by magic. He staggers and falls to his knees, hands wrapped around the shaft protruding from his stomach. He stares at it almost curiously, as if he hasn’t yet realized what it is or what it means.

  My legs ache with the need to run—but toward the dying man or away? To help or to flee? I want to believe I don’t know, but I do. And it shames me.

  A guard saunters forward, drawing a long, wicked looking knife, and jerks the man’s head back by his hair. Now the wounded man knows what’s happening. Even impaled upon five feet of wood and metal, he struggles, right up to the moment that the guard slits his throat.

  I gag at the sight of dark red blood pouring out onto the ground, but there’s nothing in my stomach to come up. The guard turns and shouts something at us in his strange language, pointing at the body repeatedly with his knife. I can’t understand his words, but the message is unmistakable: This is what you get. Don’t try it.

  The guard plants a foot in the dead man’s back and jerks his spear free. He drags the body off the road with the help of the other two guards, and then they continue on down the line as if nothing happened.

  No one else moves a muscle, not even to cringe away from the branding iron.

  No one screams.

  When it’s my turn, I almost fall to the ground, I’m shaking so badly. But I notice the guard with the branding iron hesitate. He touches the silvery scar bisecting his face and wavers, only for a moment. Then his eyes harden, and he motions to the other two guards to take my arms. I want to faint at the sight of a killer’s bloodstained hands gripping my elbows, but no such luck. At least the murderous one isn’t wielding the brand.

  I close my eyes, hoping that it will make the agony easier to bear; it doesn’t. Oh, it doesn’t at all. I want to escape the evil thing eating away my flesh, but I can’t. I can’t move—they’ll kill me. I try to scream instead, but no matter how hard my chest heaves, no sound comes out, not even a whimper.

  My knees buckle when the guards release me. I sink to the ground and weep silently, forcing air into my lungs through a throat constricted by pain and fe
ar. My teeth chatter. My limbs shake.

  Why are they doing this?

  Why are they hurting me?

  What have I done?

  * * *

  I return to myself with a gasp, my heart pounding. What have I done?

  Oh, I know what I’ve done. I’ve been thinking of myself as some tragic heroine burdened by the weight of responsibility, like stupid Henry IV. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, my teacher had declaimed just this morning, and I nodded as if I knew exactly what she meant. But I didn’t know a damn thing.

  I’ve been acting like a prima donna for months. I see that now. I let myself get distracted by my own feelings: I was resentful and petty, and I dropped the ball. The problem was never Dave. It was me. Even if he was insufferable, a real dancer—a professional—would be able to put that aside and dance. I’ve let my grandmother down, and now she’s—she’s—

  “Sasha,” James says, loudly enough that it makes me wonder if it isn’t the first time he’s said it.

  “Sorry, what?” I wedge my hands between my knees to keep them from shaking.

  James makes a sound like he’s about to say something, then stops himself. After a moment, he says, “We’re here. I’ll drop you off at the door. Parking can be a nightmare.”

  James pulls up to the curb, and I’m out and running almost before the car has stopped. I burst into the lobby and whirl around in a panic, squinting against the harsh fluorescent lights and shiny linoleum. Where is Baba Nadia? Who can I even ask? Shouldn’t the information desk be front and center? Where the hell is it?

  “Sasha!”

  I whip around and find Emily striding toward me, her phone in her hand. Her eyes are red, her cheeks pale.

  “I’m sorry, I thought you’d be at the main entrance,” she says. “Is James coming in?”

  “I guess,” I say. “Where’s Baba Nadia? Is she okay?”

  “She’s stable,” Emily says, which doesn’t really answer my question. After a brief hesitation, she adds, “They think she didn’t just fall. There’s something the matter with her heart—though whether that caused the fall or the other way around, they don’t know. They’re running tests now. But either way, her injuries aren’t helping the situation. It…it doesn’t look good.”

  I stare at her, uncomprehending. “What does that mean? What’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know, honey,” she says gently. “No doubt they’ll tell us in the morning. For now, we’re going to go home.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “No, I want to stay. I need to see Baba Nadia.”

  “You can’t, sweetheart.” She closes her eyes, stricken. “I know you’re disappointed. I am too, I—I thought we’d be able to see her. But the doctors said—”

  “I don’t care,” I yell. “I don’t care. I need to see her.”

  “Sasha—” She reaches for me, but I slap her hand away.

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” I snap. “I’m eighteen. I’m an adult.”

  Her lips tighten, though I can’t tell whether it’s from grief or stress. Guilt flashes through me and vanishes just as quickly as it came. I don’t care if I’m being unreasonable. I don’t care if I hurt her. All I care about is my grandmother.

  Emily rakes her fingers through her hair and closes her eyes for a moment. When she speaks again, her voice is steady.

  “We aren’t allowed to see her right now. So we’re going home.” Her eyes soften and fill with tears. “I know you’re an adult, Sasha. But I promised Nadia I would take care of you if anything happened to her, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  * * *

  There’s food. They throw a few crusts of stale bread into the cage and laugh as we fight over them. A dirty, stubbled knee smashes into my face as I reach into the melee with one hand and shove aside a frail old woman with the other. My hand closes spasmodically around a scrap of bread but, as I bring the prize to my lips, another girl tries to snatch it from me.

  I jerk away and bite her grasping fingers, lips pulled back from my teeth. She glares at me and rubs her hand, like I’ve done something rude, like she has every right to my food. I glare back and chew as slowly as possible, both to make it last and to rub it in the thief’s face. I hope they sell her soon. She’s been a steadily growing pain in my ass for weeks now.

  I’m not sure what it is that annoys me so much, there’s just something about her. Every time I see her stupid, pouting face, I want to slap it. I try to remind myself that I don’t know her, she’s probably a nice person—and anyway, why shouldn’t she pout? We gave up hope of escape long ago. Most of us don’t even bother looking beyond the bars of our cage. We’re broken, hopeless, wretched scraps of flesh and bone. If ever there was a situation to warrant a good pout, this is it.

  It’s no use—I hate her. I hate every inch of her, from her stupid blond head to her once no doubt perfectly pedicured toes.

  She used to be pretty. But now her long golden hair is no longer gold so much as a dull sand color, almost brown, and it hangs in greasy tangles around her face.

  Not that I can point fingers. My hair looks—and smells—like something you might find smeared on the bottom of your shoe. Several weeks’ worth of grime has crusted on my body and raised angry, putrid rashes in the creases of my elbows, armpits, everywhere skin touches skin.

  But at least I’m alive. A few days ago there was rain, and the next morning one of the girls began to cough and shiver. Last night the guards pulled her corpse from the cage and left it by the roadside. Our only response was to take advantage of the extra leg room.

  The giddy surge of relief lasted no more than a day. New aches and pains arrived to take the place of old cramps, and now we shove and twist against each other just as violently as before. Another inch or two and I could unbend my knees. Another foot and I could lean against the bars.

  We need more space. I consider the pouter, eyeing her emaciated form, and smile as thunder rumbles in the distance.

  * * *

  I wake, shaking, in a pool of sweat. Each thump of my heart is like a hammer blow to the chest. My breath comes short and fast, making my head swim.

  “Ba…Babulya…”

  It’s like one of those nightmares—almost everyone has had them. The ones where you scream and scream, but you can only whisper with death inches away. Is this what it was like for Baba Nadia as she lay broken and hurting after her fall? Did she call for me, for Emily? Is she trying to call for us now, all alone in the hospital with doctors hovering over her like crows?

  The moonlight streaming through the window goes dark as I gasp for breath. Grief and discomfort give way to real fear—Bozhe, what is happening to me?

  Instinctively, I try to call out for Baba Nadia before I remember that she’s in a bed somewhere…dying, just like me.

  My throat closes, and for a few awful seconds I really think it’s the end. But then my bedroom door bangs open and seems to blow the air back into my lungs. Emily freezes, silhouetted in the doorway, then rushes to my bedside and clicks on the light.

  “Oh, honey.” She takes my hand and chafes it gently. “Sasha, listen to me. You’re going to be fine. You’re having a panic attack. Just listen and breathe, okay?”

  Emily keeps up a steady stream of quiet reassurance until my breathing eases, then brings me a set of fresh pajamas to change into. I pull them on with shaking hands, the terror of my dream clinging to my mind like a stubborn film of grease. I don’t want to go back to sleep. I don’t want to dream again.

  Thunder booms, rattling the window frame. Sweat springs to my skin once more. But I say nothing as Emily tucks me into bed with a kiss, just like Baba Nadia used to. She hesitates in the doorway, then turns the clicks the light off. I open my mouth to ask her to stay and then close it again. I’ve already scared her. If I scare her too much, she might not want me anymore. And if she doesn’t want me—who will I have left?

  My hands begin to tremble as Emily closes the door, leaving me in total d
arkness. God only knows what I’ll see if I close my eyes.

  A wisp of melody slides out of the darkness and into my ear, slithering into my head and through my veins, rattling my bones. I burrow deeper into the covers and hum to myself, rocking back and forth, until the shaking stops. I hold my hands to my face, as if I can hide from it all.

  But I can’t.

  I know I can’t.

  Pas marché

  It’s almost a week before Easter, the opening night of the Academy’s production of Swan Lake. The stage seems ominous and dark, despite the glaring stage lights. I try not to wince as I glide through the crowd of white-clad swans. My step is light, my lines are perfect. I trust my partner completely—recklessly—and I fly.

  Baba Nadia would be proud, if only she could see.

  But Baba Nadia isn’t here, and she doesn’t know that my trust in Dave could more accurately be called apathy. I don’t care anymore if he drops me. I don’t care about anything, really. My world has ended, and I have nothing left to fear.

  Baba Nadia is wasting away in hospice care and has been for weeks—not quite ready to go, it seems, but with no way back. I was so relieved when she was released from the ICU. I thought she was just going to stay in the hospital for a little while to convalesce. But Emily isn’t one to sugarcoat things, and the doctors were very clear: Baba Nadia is going to die.

  Someday soon, I’ll be an orphan.

  But it hasn’t happened yet, and a small, secret part of me hopes for a miracle today. At Easter, we say Khristos voskres…Christ is risen.

  Millions of people all over the world believe that a man rose from the grave. Is it so far-fetched to believe, then, that Baba Nadia might beat the odds and rise from her deathbed? Well…yeah. It is. I know that. But still, a part of me believes that I’ll take my last bow and see Baba Nadia’s face in the crowd.

  I look out at the audience, and something inside me unravels. My mind hovers over the stage while my body continues to spin far below me. The audience takes over my vision, glowing as if under a spotlight. There are so many faces, all of them staring…