by Joy Preble
She pauses.
“I used to dream I was Anastasia Romanov,” she says. “You remember your history, right? What happened to her and her family?”
I nod. I taste the acid backwash of coffee on my tongue. For a moment, it’s so quiet between the two of us that I can hear the clock above the stove ticking.
“I never remembered much when I woke up.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “Just that I’d been her when she died and that it was horrible. I’d wake up feeling hollowed out—like an open wound.” Her eyes sort of drift as she tells me this. I can see she’s thinking about more than just poor Anastasia.
“Must sound crazy,” she says when I stay silent.
“Not really,” I manage.
She runs a hand through her hair, which is auburn like mine, only with a little more brown. Her gaze refocuses on me. “I guess that’s what started my Russia obsession. I figured if I was going to dream about it, I might as well know about it.” She smiles. “Hey,” she says, and I can tell from the look on her face that she knows we’re both thinking about David now and that she’s going to say something to change the subject. “Maybe I should try that borscht recipe again. I think I’ve figured out what I did wrong.”
“Please don’t,” I say. “Anything but that.”
“So what did you dream?” my mother asks.
I open my mouth to reply. A horn honks outside. I glance out the window. Tess and her dad are here to pick me up.
“Nothing I can really remember,” I tell my mother. “Love you.” I’m out the door before she can say what I know she’s going to—or at least what she should—which is that I’m not telling her the truth.
“You look tired,” Tess’s dad says, glancing at me in the rearview mirror when I slide into my spot in the back seat.
He doesn’t know the half of it.
Wednesday, 10:15 am
Anne
“Can you believe he’s with her?” Tess whispers. “She’s wicked nasty. I bet they’re doing it like monkeys every chance they get.” Her eyes narrow to a rather evil squint. “And no,” she adds, “I’m not taking back the wicked.”
I narrow my eyes right back at her but let it go.
We’re sitting at a table in a corner of the library halfway between fiction and biography, courtesy of both Coach Wicker and the speech teacher, Ms. Tallie Bozeman, who also directs the Pom Pom squad and whose claim to fame is being able to stand on her head for prolonged periods of time. They’ve both brought their classes here for research, although given the flirtatious body language they’re giving off over by the copy machine, perhaps other factors were involved.
But they’re not who Tess is focused on, which is just fine with me, since even the vague thought of two of my teachers having sex is a disturbing mental image I’d rather not have lingering in my brain. Instead, Tess is in full obsession mode over Neal Patterson, who’s cozied up in the back of the room, putting the moves on senior Kate Harris.
“Even if he’s screwing her brains out,” I say to Tess, still keeping my voice low, “you’re done with him, remember? And besides, this is Kate Harris we’re talking about—the same Kate Harris who did it with the entire starting lineup of the baseball team last spring.”
“It wasn’t the entire starting lineup,” Tess corrects me. “Just the infield.”
“Whatever. This is the guy who slept with you and then wouldn’t return your phone calls. Why on earth would you care what—or who—he does?”
“Because,” Tess says, and I can hear the misery in her voice, “what does that say about me? Is that why he went out with me? ’Cause he thought I was easy? Is that the vibe I give off?”
We’ve been through this discussion, and various versions of it, many times since August, when the cheating scumbag known as Neal broke Tess’s heart. He told her he was one thing and turned out to be another, and then she had to dump his sorry ass, and I guess there’s still a piece of her that just can’t let that go.
A piece of me too, I suppose, since Tess is my best friend and I hate it that some guy could hurt her like that. “No,” I tell her. “You’re perfect. He’s the jerk, remember? Not you.”
She nods, but I’m not sure she’s convinced. Tess puts on a good show most of the time, but even she has her moments, and this is definitely one of them.
A wave of exhaustion rolls over me. I’ve come no closer to figuring out what’s going on with me. The mark on my arm is still aching dully, and what little energy I’d had left has now been diverted to Tess’s current crisis. And Ethan Kozninsky—he of the blue eyes and stalker tendencies—has yet to make an appearance.
“I’m going to get on the computer now,” I tell Tess. “I’ve got to find three articles about the current elections in Chile. Just don’t look over there anymore. Don’t you have something you’re supposed to be doing?”
She rolls her eyes. “Nothing I can’t do in three minutes on my own computer once I get home.”
I know if I walk away and leave her to her own devices that she’ll do something—like smack Neal’s head with the bust of William Shakespeare resting on top of the reference shelf—that we’ll both regret later. So I grab her by the arm and pull her out of her chair.
“C’mon.” I push her toward the bank of computers, shove her into an empty seat in the last row, and flop down next to her. “I can get my work done and you can—I don’t know, check your email or something.”
“You know,” Tess whispers, “maybe this whole Neal thing happened for a reason. My Aunt Margie says there are no coincidences. She says…”
Tess rambles a bit more, but I’ve stopped listening. No coincidences.
How could it not have occurred to me?
“I need to look at something,” I say to Tess. My heart gives a little skitter inside me. “Just give me a minute.”
I log on to my computer and type in the words Vasilisa the Brave , the name of the fairy tale my mother had mentioned. I skim through the first few entries, read the basic story which someone’s posted on one of them, look at the drawings of Vasilisa and the witch she has to find.
A violent shiver arcs its way from my toes to my scalp. Because that witch whose hut Vasilisa is headed for on the cover of the lacquer box? She’s a close match for the hideous old woman in my dream—the one who paid me a visit in front of Miss Amy’s.
I pull up a couple more images and read another version of the story, but they’re all the same. The witch is huge with enormous hands, a long nose, and iron teeth. In every picture, she’s inside this little hut that stands on chicken legs, and outside are all these spikes with skulls on them. And she’s got a name: Baba Yaga.
“Yech.” Tess elbows me aside so she can peer at my monitor more closely. “Who’s that?” She points at the illustration of Baba Yaga on the screen.
“She’s called Baba Yaga. She’s a witch in Russian folklore. I’ve—well, I—”
“We should fix Neal up with her,” Tess interrupts, clearly not ready to leave the “Neal sucks” topic anytime soon. “Maybe she could chomp him in two with that metal grill.”
“Tess,” I say. I put my arm on hers. My heart is now hammering in my chest. I haven’t been able to get the words out, but now I feel desperate to tell her. “Stop. I need you to listen. Things have been happening to me. I’ve been seeing things and hearing things, and that guy, Ethan, he’s been—”
“Whoa.” Tess looks at me sharply. “Slow down. Ethan? Hot guy? What’s he done? And what’s it have to do with her?” She gestures to Baba Yaga.
Now that she’s listening, I barely know where to begin. “She’s on the cover of this decorative box—lacquer boxes, they’re called—that my mom gave me from her store. Well, not the witch, but her hut. And a girl named Vasilisa. She’s on the cover too. It’s a Russian fairy tale. Vasilisa’s wicked stepmother sends her to get light from Baba Yaga’s hut. And so she travels through the forest with just her doll for company. The doll talks to her and helps her so she can get
to Baba Yaga’s and escape. ’Cause most kids who go to Baba Yaga’s end up getting eaten. But not Vasilisa. She’s too smart to get caught.”
“And what’s with the poultry motif?” She points at the chicken legs on which the hut is standing.
“I don’t know yet,” I tell her. “I think it may be—”
“It’s so she can move the hut from place to place,” says a deep and familiar voice behind us. “So she can elude her enemies. Have a world without set boundaries until she chooses to set them.”
The mark on my arm gives a sudden, intense throb of pain. Tess and I whip around.
Ethan is standing behind us. He’s got on the same brown leather jacket he was wearing yesterday. He’s looking at me with those blue eyes that Tess keeps telling me are so attractive.
“Who the hell are you?” I ask him.
“Ethan,” he says.
“Yeah, I got that part,” I tell him.
I don’t know whether it’s stray traces of righteous indignation at Neal and his crappy behavior toward my best friend, or lack of sleep, or just plain old fear at all the weirdness that has barreled its way into my life. Maybe it’s a combination of all of those things. But now I’m angry. And I’m really certain that whatever is happening to me, Ethan is connected.
“I’m asking you again,” I say. My voice is louder than I’d like it to be, but I have no patience to control it. “Who are you? First we see you at the ballet. But you disappear before intermission. Then I bump into you yesterday—and you know, right now, I’m not even sure that it was my fault—and since then, everything in my world has gotten totally weird.”
“It has?” Tess asks. I’ve almost forgotten that she’s still sitting next to me.
I ignore her and go on. It’s like there’s a flood of words that has to flow out of me, and I can’t do a damn thing to stop it. “I’ve had these dreams that no sane person would ever have. And guess what? You’ve been in them. And my hand—I almost forgot about my hand. Last night, my hand starting glowing.”
“Seriously?” Tess is looking at me like I’ve gone totally crazy, which is about how I feel right now. “You didn’t tell me this. Why didn’t you tell me this? Are you saying that—”
“Not now,” I tell her. I turn back to Ethan.
“You know that, don’t you?” Although I know it’s true when I speak, I’m still shocked when he nods his head yes.
“I can explain,” he says. “If you’ll just come with me, I’ll explain—”
“Come with you?” I can hear my voice getting shriller by the second. “Come with you where? Back to 1918 Russia and the Romanov assassination? To some witch’s hut in the forest, where she can chew me up and spit out my bones? To wherever—”
Oh my God. This absolutely cannot be happening. I stop and turn back to look at the screen. Her hands. Baba Yaga’s enormous hands.
I look over my shoulder at Ethan. “It’s her.” I jab my finger at Baba Yaga’s picture on the screen. “It was her hands that came out of that cloud and swept up Anastasia.”
“Yes,” he says evenly. He steps a little closer. “I need to explain. And you need to calm down. We’re drawing a crowd here.”
It’s the longest string of words I’ve let him get out. And he’s right. Coach Wicker has stopped flirting with Ms. Bozeman and is looking at us, clearly trying to decide if it’s worth coming over. Even Neal and Kate have come up for air.
The mark on my arm gives me another intense jab of pain. I place my hand over it. Ethan places his hand over mine. The look on his face is fierce and focused, but his touch is surprisingly gentle. I can feel the warmth of his palm against the top of my hand.
“It’ll be okay,” he says softly. “You just need to trust me.”
“It was just a dream, right?” My cereal and banana threaten to reappear.
“No, Anne, you know it wasn’t just a dream.”
“What wasn’t just a dream?” Tess is looking from me to Ethan and back again. “Have you two taken a whole lot of drugs or something? What the hell are you talking about?”
“And the hut that moved on the box?”
“You saw what you think you did.” Ethan’s hand is still pressed firmly over mine. His gaze is boring into me.
“That’s impossible,” I tell him. “Things like that just don’t happen. Objects in pictures don’t just move on their own. Giant hands don’t swoop down out of the air and grab people.”
I yank my arm away. “C’mon,” I say to Tess. “We need to get our stuff. The bell is going to ring.” I half-drag her back to the table to get our backpacks. She keeps turning around to look at Ethan, who follows behind us.
“What’s going on?” she says to me. “I don’t understand. Were you two talking about the lacquer box your mom gave you? What’s that got to do with the Romanov assassination?”
“Nothing,” I hiss at her as the bell bleats overhead. “Just ignore him.” I hustle Tess out of the library with Ethan behind us. “Listen,” I say, whipping around to face him. “You need to leave me alone. Whatever it is you think you need to tell me—well, don’t. Keep it to yourself. Whoever it is you think I am—your long-lost cousin or true love or date with destiny or whatever—it’s not me. So get lost.”
“I wish it were that simple,” he says. “Anne, I—”
“What’s going on here, Anne?” Coach Wicker strides over, having chosen this particular moment to pay attention to something other than football or hitting on Ms. Bozeman. “And you.” He turns to Ethan. “Where do you belong, young man? I’m sure there’s somewhere you need to be that’s not here bothering these young ladies.”
I’ve got an out here if I want to take it. All I need to do is tell Coach Wicker that Ethan is acting like a deranged lunatic and the academic cavalry—or at least the grossly overweight campus police officer—will come to my rescue. Whatever happens next, or whatever it is that Ethan wants me to know or understand or do, will no longer be my problem. I’ll head on to chemistry like I did yesterday, and I’ll balance some equations or cook something in a test tube, and then I’ll eat lunch with Tess and maybe Sarah.
But that’s not what I say or do at all.
Because when I look over at Ethan—who’s standing there watching me with those ridiculously blue eyes––something inside me shifts. I don’t know if it’s his eyes or the sound of his voice. I’m no less angry and no less scared. But all at once, I simply believe him.
I stand very still, not at all sure what I’m supposed to do.
Next to me, Tess looks confused. Around me, students are racing to their classes, talking, laughing, and going about their days like always. But my entire universe has reduced itself to this moment.
“Anne, please,” Ethan says. “Please.”
And just like that, I take a breath and make my choice.
“It’s okay, Coach,” I say. “Just a friendly little argument. It’s over now.”
To his credit, Coach Wicker doesn’t seem to buy this. “You’re sure?” He looks at me closely. “What were you two arguing about?” He directs this last part to Ethan. Personally, I can hardly wait to hear his answer.
Ethan opens his mouth, but Tess speaks first. I’ve leaped into the fire, and it seems she’s leaped in after me.
“It’s my fault, Mr. Wicker,” she says. “I bet Ethan ten bucks that Anne wouldn’t go out with him. Told him that she’s got better taste than that. And I was right. She just told him to piss—uh, bug off.”
I stand there staring at her like she’s lost her mind. She raises one eyebrow and then holds out her hand to Ethan. “Pay up,” she tells him.
He just sort of gawks at her for a few seconds, then digs in the pocket of his leather jacket and hands her a slightly crumpled ten-dollar bill. She folds it up and stuffs it in the back pocket of her jeans.
“All right,” Coach Wicker says then. The fact that he’s fallen for this little charade is not raising my opinion of his intellect. “All of you need to get to your
next class. Now.”
We do as we’re told. Or at least we move around the corner and out of sight.
“Okay,” Tess says to Ethan. Her voice is ice. “I saved your ass back there, but enough is enough. Now you really do need to shove off. She told you she didn’t want to go with you.”
“Is that what you want?” Ethan reaches over and pushes my sweatshirt sleeve up, revealing the mark on my arm. “You really believe that this means nothing? That those dreams mean nothing? That none of this is happening? Are you really going to continue to delude yourself?”
“Okay, you’ve got five minutes to explain yourself,” I tell him, and Tess gasps. I point to the outdoor courtyard, now completely empty since everyone but us has made it to class. “We’ll go out there where it’s quiet, and you’ll explain. And then we’ll see.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, Anne,” Tess says. “He’s crazy. What the hell are you doing?”
She’s right, of course. He is crazy. But so, it seems, am I.
“I’ll be fine, Tess. You go to class. I’ll see you at lunch. Go on. What can happen in the courtyard in broad daylight?”
“I don’t like this,” she says. But she doesn’t stop me from following Ethan outside to the bench in the corner of the courtyard.
He’ll explain himself, I think. This is all just some bizarre coincidence or something. I mean, it’s just like I told Tess. What could happen in a courtyard in the middle of campus?
Of course, it’s then that a strange buzzing sound fills my ears. The wind whips up, a black cloud appears out of nowhere, and a giant, wrinkled pair of hands dips down and tries to grab me.
“Run!” Ethan shouts. He yanks my hand.
There’s no time to think. I let him pull me across the courtyard, back through the front lobby, and out the door to the street.
Wednesday, 11:00 am
Ethan
Black clouds are swirling in a mass over the courtyard. I don’t let go of Anne’s hand as we keep running, putting distance between us and the school. Between us and Baba Yaga. Or rather, between us and her hands.
