by Joy Preble
“Are you okay?” Mom walks back to me. She’s looking at me closely, which is never a good thing.
“Fine,” I lie. “Just fine. I, uh—fine. I just—I really have to go. I’m late.” It is almost exactly what I told Ethan right before chemistry—right after the lightning bolt or whatever it was jolted into me.
“Your father and I have that fund-raiser dinner, tonight, remember?” My mother presses a quick kiss to my forehead. “So I’ll leave dinner for you.”
I nod at her, which is about all I can manage, words having pretty much dried up in my throat. Then I grab my ballet bag and rush from the Jewel Box and across the street so I can head down the block to Miss Amy’s.
I don’t look back at the lacquer box. If the hut on the cover makes another move, I just don’t want to know.
Nor am I in the mood to realize, as I dash by Java Joe’s, that my blue-eyed friend, Ethan Kozninsky, is sitting at a table at the window. Or that although he turns his face when I see him, he’s clearly been watching me.
I hesitate for only a second and then let my feet make the decision for the rest of me.
“Hey,” I say once I’m inside Java Joe’s and standing next to the table where Ethan’s sitting.
“Uh, hey.” He tilts his head and looks up at me as though he’s seeing me for the first time.
“So,” I say, “are you following me?”
The question clearly stumps him. He shoves his long fingers through that thick, brown hair.
“No,” he says finally. “Um, no. I’m, uh—waiting for my study group.”
Other than his cup of coffee, I see nothing else on the table. No backpack at his feet.
He shoves his hand through his hair some more. I should walk out of here and not look back. I should yell, “Stranger!” loudly and point at him like they told us to do in elementary school if we thought someone was trying to kidnap us. But I don’t do any of that. The look in those blue eyes—part surprise, part amusement, part something I can’t identify—holds me there.
Plus, I’m still sort of collecting my freaked-out self after the lacquer-box incident.
I glance at the clock over the coffee bar. I’m officially late for ballet.
“Enjoying your latte?” I ask him. I’m unnerved and kind of pissed, and also feeling like an idiot right now.
“I—sure,” he says. “Are you getting some? Please, sit. I’ll get it for you. I know you think I’ve been rude. Here, really. Sit down. Join me.” These are the most words I’ve heard him string together.
He reaches up and places one hand lightly on mine.
The tingling sensation flickers up my arm again.
My mouth dries up so the words sort of stick to my tongue as I force them out. “No,” I manage to say. “Absolutely not.”
And before he can say another word, I bolt from Java Joe’s.
Tuesday, 6:05 pm
Anne
“So spill.” Tess mops her face, then shoves the towel into her oversized, maroon gym bag. We’re sitting together on the wooden bench in the changing room at Miss Amy’s. It’s been a beast of a class, and we’re both fairly rank at the moment, but there’s no shower here, so all we can do is towel off the surface layer of sweat and make the best of it.
“Spill what?” I rub my aching feet and wonder idly if I can guilt Mom into doing the mother-daughter spa pedicure thing this weekend. My toes look like they’ve been through a war. And lost.
“Whatever’s up with you, that’s what. You are seriously knotted up about something. You have been for a couple of days now.” Tess pushes a few sweat-soaked strands of blond hair away from her forehead and slings one long leg over the bench so she can face me. “And don’t give me that innocent, ‘Who, me?’ look. I’ve known you since we were practically in diapers.”
I finish wrapping my ballet slippers and tuck them into my bag. I’m not even sure where to begin. “I’d tell you if knew,” I say. Even as it exits my mouth, it sounds utterly lame. “Really, I would.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Liar,” she says, but she doesn’t push me for more. Instead, she zips up her bag, shrugs into her denim jacket, and stands up. “C’mon, my dad is probably waiting in the car.”
Like me, Tess still has just a learner’s permit, which means that unless hell freezes over, neither of us can drive without an adult in the car—which also means we have to walk everywhere or bum rides or wait for a parent to pick us up.
I gather my gear, shove my arms through the sleeves of my navy blue hoodie—the one with the Miss Amy’s logo and the slogan, “Ballerinas do it better,” on the back—and follow her to the front of the studio and then out into the night air. We both look around. Tess’s dad is nowhere in sight.
“Figures,” she mutters and rummages in the pocket of her jacket for her cell phone. She presses three on the speed dial and taps her foot impatiently.
“Where are you?” she asks when her dad answers. I watch as she nods her head to whatever he’s saying on the other end.
“Stuck in traffic.” Tess flips the phone closed and shoves it back into her pocket. “He says he should be here in about five minutes.”
“Still better than walking,” I say. Brutal ballet class or not, I’m still so tense from everything that keeps colliding with me lately that I find myself standing there contemplating squeezing in a run after dinner. Probably impossible since I’ve got an essay to finish for English, approximately a zillion pre-calc problems to solve, and a large number of Latin verbs to commit to memory for tomorrow’s test.
“Well,” Tess says now, interrupting my less-than-thrilling mental rundown of the drudgery known as homework, “now that we have a few extra minutes, I say we spend it getting to the bottom of whatever’s got your panties in a bunch.”
So what do I tell her? That ever since I bumped into Ethan this morning—ever since we saw him at Swan Lake , actually—I’ve felt like all my nerve endings are standing at attention? Like I’m a gazelle on one of those Animal Planet shows—the one that senses something is about to attack but doesn’t know where?
Down the street, I can see a crowd in front of Java Joe’s. I wonder if Ethan’s still there, and why he seems to keep popping up everywhere I am. The usual stream of SUVs and Volvo sedans whiz by us, along with a few hybrids.
“Ethan,” Tess says loudly enough to make me jump. “It’s mystery hot guy, isn’t it? Oh. My. God. Anne. I can’t believe that he’s got you all wired. I mean, he’s cute and all, but geez, it’s not like you to get so crazy over some guy you’ve known for all of three seconds. What are you now? Me?”
“I know—” I begin, but she cuts me off.
“Ha! I’m right. It is him, isn’t it? Well, we need to take care of this right now. We simply can’t have you moping around anymore, looking like you’ve lost your best friend—which is me, by the way. Remember me, your BFF, the one who knows all your nasty little secrets? Or at least who did till now? Where does he live? We’ve got time. We’ll tell my dad to drop us off. Tell him we’ve got a study group we forgot about. We can stalk old Ethan. We can peek in his windows. Ooh, we can see him naked, and—”
“Enough.” I put my hand over her mouth for emphasis and try my hardest not to laugh. “Enough.” Any more of this, and we’ll end up lurking in Ethan’s bushes—which is sort of funny, if you think about it, stalking the stalker and all—but still not exactly what I had planned for the rest of tonight’s entertainment.
“Party pooper,” Tess says. “Remember, my dear Anne,” she makes a grand gesture with her arms, then executes a full ballerina curtsey in front of me and an elderly woman in a head scarf walking by us, “love has no schedule. And neither,” she wiggles her tongue at me, “does lust.”
I just shake my head. I see what looks like her dad’s Avalon coming up the street. And then I realize that the woman in the head scarf has stopped alongside us.
She’s so old. That’s the first thing that pops into my head when I look at her. Impossibly
old looking. Her skin is brown and wrinkled, her hands veined and broad. And suddenly my pulse kicks up hard and fast, like it’s sprinting through me. Her gaze fixes on mine. My skin flushes—a burning prickle that rushes its way up my arms, my throat, my face.
“Anne?” Tess sounds like she’s a million miles away.
I’m falling, I think, into those two dark eyes that won’t leave mine—eyes dark like pools of oil, a tiny skull in the center of each.
She smiles. Her metal teeth gleam in the twilight.
All I want to do is run. But I can’t even move, can’t even scream. My heart slaps against my ribs so hard that I think they might break.
“You’re the one.” Her voice echoes around me, inside me. “You feel us. You know we’re there. Now, come to us.”
Unable to even swallow, I close my eyes. The world spins dangerously around me, turning and turning.
“Anne.” I hear Tess again at my side.
I open my eyes.
The woman is gone.
“You okay?” Tess tilts her head a little and peers at me. “You sort of faded away for a second.”
“Did you see? Did you see her?” My voice is tiny and thin, like it’s afraid to come out.
“See who? And why are you so pale? Here.” She rummages in her bag and hands me a bottle of water. “I think your electrolytes are screwed up or something.”
I realize that she hasn’t seen a thing, hasn’t felt the world turn into one giant carnival ride.
Tess places a hand on my shoulder and looks me in the eyes. The connection feels good, solid. Maybe I really am just tired—just imagining that I saw the crazy, metal-tooth witch lady from my dream here on Central Avenue, staring at me with her skull eyes.
Mr. Edwards pulls up to the curb in his maroon Avalon.
“Whatever it is, Anne,” Tess says, one hand on the car door, the look on her face no longer joking, “don’t you dare go turning yourself inside out about it. You watched me do that over the summer and you know it wasn’t pretty.”
She means her summer romance with Neal Patterson, the guy she’d decided was special enough to let divest her of her virginity, and who, according to Tess had sworn he was also a novice to such activities. Except it turned out that he’d used that line on at least three other girls—which, let me say, did not sit particularly well with Tess. “Thank God I made him wear a condom,” she’d said of the experience, “especially since the whole thing was over so fast, I barely figured out what he was doing down there in the first place.”
“Don’t worry,” I whisper as she slides into the front seat of the car. “It’s not like that. It’s just—” I stop in mid-sentence. My heart jolts into my throat again. I wait for the world to start spinning, but nothing happens. No lady. No voices. And for once, no Ethan.
“What is it?” Tess asks from inside the car.
“Nothing. I guess I’m just jumpy tonight.”
I climb into the back seat. I take one more look out the back window as we pull away from the curb. A dark sedan that might be a Mercedes is turning the corner about a block behind us. I watch it until it disappears.
“Hi, Anne,” Mr. Edwards says from the front seat. “Are we going to pick you up tomorrow morning, as usual?”
“Sure thing,” I tell him. Then I sit back, pretend everything is normal, and listen as Tess and her father banter back and forth about nothing much in particular.
“Thanks, Mr. E.,” I say when we get to my house a little while later. “See you tomorrow.” I slide over to the door and grab my bag. Tess reaches over and gives my free hand one more squeeze. I look at her, and she smiles.
“Be careful, Annie Bananie,” she says, using the name she used to call me when we were eight.
“Will do,” I assure her, although I’m not sure why she’s said it. Do I really have something to be careful about?
They drive off down the block, and I let myself into the empty house. Our tabby cat, Buster, races in from wherever he’s been hiding and meows hopefully, rubbing himself around my legs.
“In a minute, Buster,” I say to him. “Just let me put my bag down, and I’ll feed you.” I reach down and scratch his ears. He allows me a few seconds of petting him and then slips away and pads toward the kitchen. I follow.
There’s a note on the fridge from my mother, detailing, in her slightly compulsive way, what’s available for dinner and how I should go about preparing it. The leftover spaghetti is in the blue Tupperware on the second shelf of the fridge. As though I’d be completely flummoxed if the note simply said, Spaghetti in fridge.
I pour some Purina in Buster’s dish and then snap on the kitchen television to keep me company as I—phew!—manage the task of heating up leftover pasta in the microwave.
A few minutes later, I’m sitting at the kitchen table, scooping the now reheated pasta primavera onto a plate. On the television, E! is showing part three of a special series about celebrity weddings—just the type of mindless distraction I need. Then, as I reach for my fork, I glance idly at my hand—and notice that it seems to be glowing. Yes, glowing—a distinctive, blue and white aura type of glowing. My fork clatters to the table, startling Buster, who runs from his food bowl, an angry look on his little cat face.
I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them, my hand is—well, just a hand again.
So I sit there while the E! reporter gushes over Angela Kurasowa, baker to the stars, and Buster edges cautiously back to his dinner, and my pasta cools and congeals on my plate. Either this is indeed the strangest day ever, or I’m losing my mind.
Maybe a little of both.
The Forest, Midnight
Anastasia
At night, next to me, my matroyshka doll whispers. I am not Vasilisa, and this is no fairy tale, but still she talks, which is a secret that not even Auntie knows. She is the nesting doll my mother gave me—my mother, who believed, even until the end, that there was more to this world than we could see, although I think those thoughts were part of what destroyed us. Because in looking so intently at what might be, my mother did not always see what truly was.
Like the parts of the matroyshka doll herself, the truth is sometimes hidden. Layered so deeply, each piece inside the other, that it’s often impossible to see. Even so, I do not question the idea of the doll’s speaking. I simply listen.
Be sure to sweeten Auntie’s tea the way she likes it, she tells me. Three sugar cubes should be just right. Or, Be kind to Auntie’s black cat. Feed it tidbits from your plate when Auntie is not looking. Or what she tells me tonight, just as I am about to drift off to sleep, hoping the dreams will not come again.
Listen carefully, Anastasia, she tells me, even though her red painted lips do not move. You must not sleep tonight. You must stay awake and watch Baba Yaga. Promise me, Anastasia. It is important that you know what she does. That you see what she sees.
Ever so slightly, I turn my head. Across the room in her rocking chair, Auntie stares into the fire, humming some wordless tune I do not know.
I nod. “Yes,” I whisper. “Yes, I will.” Then, gently, I slide my matroyshka under the red and blue quilt. Tuck her away where Auntie will not see. And with half-closed eyes, I watch, and I wait.
The fire burns lower, its embers glowing red in the hearth. Auntie rocks in her chair, hums that same wordless tune. The room is warm, close. I think for a moment that I might drift off to sleep. And then the rocking stops.
Auntie reaches with both hands into the front pocket of the apron she wears over her dress. Her huge, wrinkled, brown hands—the same hands that hold the mugs of sweet tea I bring her. And from inside that pocket, she brings forth a skull.
In the life I used to have, I might have gasped. Certainly my stomach still clenches, and my skin feels flushed with the panic that never really leaves, just recedes from the surface and lets me seem braver than I am. Although in my old life, I would have screamed or run, I do none of those things. Instead, I watch.
She holds the skull,
its surface smooth, bone bleached and pale like the twelve skulls that surround this hut. Skulls that stand on wooden spikes in even intervals and remind me, even when I try to pretend that this place is now my home, that I am somewhere I do not want to be.
The skull floats into the fire, the flickering flames dancing in and out of its empty eye sockets.
“ Ya khachu videt! ” Auntie calls to it.
Three times she repeats it. “ Ya khachu videt. ” I want.
I think for a moment of my mother—how she scolded my sister Olga just before Christmas the year I turned thirteen. The year Olga desperately wanted a pair of diamond earbobs. “Do not say that you want something,” she told Olga. “Polite young ladies say, ‘I’d like,’ not ‘I want.’” And I almost laugh aloud as I imagine my mother standing here, scolding Baba Yaga the way she once reprimanded Olga.
Only then I remember. My mother is dead.
Inside the skull, the flames glow red, then yellow, then blue. Stronger and stronger, they have now become a single ball of fire that swirls and opens. Ya khachu videt. I want.
And then, inside the flames, I see him. The man with blue eyes who was there the day I disappeared. The man who was not the one I expected. Not at all. The one whose blue eyes, ever watchful, ever serious, filled with tears as my family died, one by one.
What did he know as he stood there? What had he been told? Did he know the lies I had been fed? Or was he betrayed as well?
“The time is coming,” Auntie says. “Soon.”
Ya khachu videt. I want. But what I want, I am not certain.
Wednesday, 2:00 am
Anne
It’s the middle of the night, and my parents are sleeping. I, however, am huddled in my brother David’s bed, clutching so tightly at his navy blue comforter—the one that still smells faintly of boy sweat and Lucky cologne—that I think the feeling is going to leave my fingers. I’d curled up here a couple of hours ago, chasing sleep. Sometimes, this helps. Neither Mom nor Dad has had the heart to change this room yet, even after almost two years—as though changing it might erase David even more than he’s already been erased. In fact, for a while they didn’t even turn off his cell-phone service—not until they got the bill and realized I was calling his phone two or three times a day just to hear his voice when it flipped over to voice mail.
