Romanov

by Nadine Brandes

  “You might be surprised what I know,” I responded. She busied herself brushing off her skirt and adjusting her head scarf. “But you are also not ignorant. You know something.”

  She looked up, no surprise or guilt on her face. “All spell masters know of his renown. I’ve heard it said the only way to find Dochkin is through his spells, of which he is very selective to bestow. That is all I know.”

  That lined up with what Yurovsky had said when he claimed the doll. It may be a wives’ tale, but it was one worth pursuing. “Thank you for your help.” I reached into my corset, slit through some threads with my thumbnail, and handed her a small pearl. “Is this sufficient payment?”

  She pushed it back toward me. “Serving the tsarevich and grand duchess is sufficient enough for me.”

  “I would like to pay you. To thank you.”

  Vira handed Zash a bundle of items that had not been in the room prior to my falling asleep. “The thanks is accepted. You may pay me by leaving this house and not returning.” She tossed me a flowered head scarf. “A pearl like that could get me shot. To a village woman it is as useless as it is lovely.”

  I’d never had to deal with money or payment, so I tucked the pearl back into its spot, my face warm. I hadn’t meant to insult her. I tied the new scarf around my bald head. “Thank you again. Your kindness will never be forgotten.”

  “Babushka . . . will you be safe?”

  Vira shook her head. “Likely not, but who is in these times?” She kissed Zash’s forehead, then saw us to the door.

  Before we exited, she turned to me. “You are right, Grand Duchess. Dochkin could save your brother. He is likely your only hope. But finding him will be like searching for a strawberry in a field of blood.”

  28

  Vira sent a stretcher with us, on which we carried Alexei once we made it back into the forest. It was a long piece of cloth with two wooden poles sewn into each side. We balanced them on our shoulders, but I was significantly shorter than Zash, so poor Alexei slipped every time we jostled too much.

  “We should head toward Revda,” Zash said from ahead of me. Joy trotted around his ankles. “We could board a train there.”

  “We?”

  “To get you away from Ekaterinburg.”

  I knew nothing about the surrounding villages. My life had been in western Russia. The Bolsheviks had kept any new information from us once we were exiled. “How far is that?”

  “About a day’s walk. Ten hours, perhaps.” The wood pressed into my shoulders, already forming bruises. At this moment—after a night of bloodshed and walking and grieving and worrying for my brother—ten hours might as well have been ten years.

  But what logic remained in my brain reminded me that it wasn’t impossible. I could do it for Alexei. It would make Papa proud.

  We walked for an hour. There were no stars by which to navigate due to the midnight sun, but Zash had a compass. Again, I was forced to follow. And to trust. I stared at the back of Zash’s head and let the anger bubble. I recalled his face as he lifted his pistol. The sweat—the nerves—sliding down his brow. What had gone through his head when he shot me?

  He stopped and lowered the stretcher. “It’s time for Alexei’s spell.”

  Every step had been agony to both my body and my mind. I understood the importance of waiting for Vira’s spell to mature, but marching while aching and watching my brother bleed weighed me down far more than any stretcher could.

  Zash pulled the spells from his pocket—each one labeled. Joy popped into my lap, curling up to rest the moment her paws were off the ground.

  “Do you think Yurovsky has stopped to rest? Perhaps he is no longer hunting us?” The pattering of my heart told me otherwise. It told me not to stop. To run. Run. RUN.

  “We can only hope.” Zash’s fingers shook and his eyes drooped as he peeled open a paper. “Once we use these, we should walk until the sun dips. Push ourselves as far as we can and then stop to sleep.”

  The word sleep struck my mind like a spell of its own. A golden reward I would do anything to win.

  Zash handed me the spells for Alexei. I was too tired to pay mind to my bitterness toward him, but not too tired to feel gratitude for him handing over the spells. He knew what it meant to me to help my brother.

  I sent the stitching spell onto Alexei’s hip and hand wound. “Stezhok.” The spell glowed and then the skin over the wounds came together, meeting in the middle and bonding as though entwining miniature fingers. It left a messy scar in its wake, but was far more efficient than my sewing had been.

  Alexei groaned and twisted. I took his hand. “It’ll be okay. This will help you.” For now. “I will save you.” Maybe. “I love you.” Always.

  The next spell—the numbing one—was less visible but far more comforting. The moment I spoke it, Alexei’s entire body relaxed and he breathed the most contented sigh I’d ever heard exit his lips. He looked, almost, to be merely resting. Oftentimes quality rest was a body’s best healer.

  “Let’s go.” I reached down to lift the stretcher. I wanted to get to the end of our day so Alexei and I could sleep. My own body craved the same sigh Alexei just gave.

  “There’s a spell for you, Nastya.” Zash held out another square. “We need to do that one first. Babushka said you were injured?”

  I took it and turned my back. “Thank you. I’ll do it.” As if he didn’t know I was injured. He sent a bullet into my torso. I checked over my shoulder to ensure his back was turned before untucking my shirt and releasing my corset enough to reveal my skin. Each movement stiff. Each breath more painful than the last.

  A blossom of purple spread across my ribs, with a dark spot in the center like something I might see in the night sky when watching for the aurora borealis with Papa. Only now it was on my skin. And Papa would not wish to see it.

  I let the spell slither onto my finger and then pressed it to my ribs with a wince. I whispered its name and it sank into my skin. The bruise did not change, but something shifted inside my body with a dull pop. I cried out and steadied myself on a tree.

  “Nastya, are you—?”

  “Stay away!” I flung my free hand toward Zash, palm out. The pain had lessened but not completely abated. I straightened, returned my corset to its place, and tucked my shirt back in. “I’m ready to go.”

  He nodded and allowed me to lift my side of Alexei’s stretcher before he lifted his own. We placed Joy on the stretcher with Alexei, then heaved it onto our shoulders and continued into the forest.

  Darkness took years to arrive. By the time it did, I was walking with my eyes closed. Tripping and catching myself, sweating beneath the reindeer clothing. Finally we stopped and I didn’t care how near or far Yurovsky was. I lowered Alexei to the ground and curled up beside him.

  The air was chilled, already preparing for the upcoming August frosts. I’d take that over the mosquitoes. Soggy ground gave way beneath our movements. Zash rolled out the two soldier bedrolls he’d been carrying. He moved Alexei to one. “Take the other. You will sleep better without the wetness of the ground.”

  I didn’t want his kindness. I didn’t want his sacrifice. And a dark part of me thought that, yes, of course I should have the last bedroll and Zash should sleep on the damp marshy ground. But the human part of me—the part that loved Papa and now heard his voice in my heart—asked, “What of you?”

  “The cloth of the stretcher is sufficient. I will keep watch for a time.”

  Keep watch. How could he possibly imagine keeping his eyes open? Even Joy had already snuggled beside Alexei and drifted off. “We are the safest we’ll ever be. Sleep now. Tomorrow and every night after is when we will need to be on alert the most.”

  He didn’t argue. As one, we all accepted the embrace of darkness and weariness. A sleep that comforted and revived the saint, the sinner, and every being in between. A night that would finally separate us from the longest and blackest day of our lives.

  29

 
I woke coughing on the thick, wet fog rising from the forest ground and then grinding my teeth from the pain it caused to my ribs. The sun was up and warming the day. Joy licked my face. I petted her head and sat up. That was when the wave of reality struck me in the throat as I recalled the previous day’s events.

  Papa.

  Mamma.

  Olga.

  Tatiana.

  Maria.

  Their names flowed in my chanting blood. Boiling. Bubbling until they sent me scrambling away from our little camp and heaving yesterday’s borscht into the bushes.

  Romanov. Romanov. Romanov.

  My blood was lonely. I couldn’t do this without them. Without my family. All the hope we had clung to had been held as a family. Every dream, dreamed as a family. We planned to live together or die together.

  But I was left behind.

  The tears came swift and hot. I dug my fingernails into the ground and wept. Wept for the life ripped from me. “The bond . . . of our hearts . . .” I gasped.

  Maria wasn’t here to finish it for me. I pictured her voice. Her face. Her smile. “. . . spans miles, memory, and time.”

  But what about death? Did it span death?

  I stayed in that spot. Weeping the names of my family. Weeping for my loss. Weeping for my helplessness and confusion. Until, finally, I managed to shove the sorrow away. Not forever, but for today.

  I’d spent so long waking to joyless days that it was easier to move forward than to look back.

  Back at our spot in the woods, both Alexei and Zash still slept. Joy whimpered and licked my hand, as though she knew where I’d gone.

  I allowed tiny thoughts to trickle back in. Alexei’s wounds. Vira the grandmother. The Matryoshka doll. Dochkin. I pulled the doll from my corset and stared at it. No new seam. The gold and red swirls gleamed against the black body. Such elegant mockery. It was as solid as the previous layer before it had been used prior to my using it to escape our execution.

  I gripped it tight. “I need you,” I hissed to the doll, thinking of Dochkin. “I need this spell to heal Alexei. To reverse time and bring my family back. I need to find him.” I twisted the doll. When in the Ipatiev House, I had thought the seam appeared because of our need. That’s what Papa hinted at. I’d used it and it saved Alexei and me. But now Alexei was dying and I needed it more than ever. Why wouldn’t it open?

  “Would you like me to try?” Zash asked softly, pushing himself into a sitting position from his place on the stretcher. “I could—”

  “No,” I snapped. “It was entrusted to me.”

  “Perhaps a different person has to alternate spells.”

  “Then I’ll wait for Alexei to wake.” I tucked the doll back into my corset. Alexei hadn’t moaned or expressed pain since Vira’s spells. But my eyes strayed to the purple bruise on his head. Was I at risk of letting my anger at Zash hinder getting help for Alexei?

  I tossed Zash the doll. “Fine. Go ahead and try. We need all the help we can get.”

  He examined the doll just as I did. I turned back to Alexei and covered him with my reindeer overcoat to make sure he was warm enough. Hunger and injuries were likely taking a toll on his body temperature.

  “Oh, here’s the seam.” Zash held the doll close to his face and slid his thumbnail along a tiny line around the center.

  No! That definitely had not been there when I tried. He gripped the top and bottom in his fists. I reached for it. “Wait. Let me—”

  The doll popped open, and before either of us could react, a shimmering rainbow light sped from the inside of the doll and disappeared into the trees like a startled pixie.

  “The spell!” I squeaked, scrambling to my feet. “You let it escape!” Joy ran after it, yapping as though it were a squirrel. I stumbled a few feet, but the streak of light was long gone. Joy disappeared into the underbrush, but soon her barks communicated that she’d lost it, too. “Wasted!” I threw up my hands. “Did you even see what the word was?”

  I spun to face Zash, but he stared at his compass. “The spell went west. Exactly west. Like a shot arrow.”

  My mouth formed a silent O. “It’s leading us to Dochkin.” That was the spell. That’s what I’d asked for when I tried to open it this morning—for help finding Dochkin. It wasn’t wasted. It was directing us. Finally, we had a destination. Or, at least, a direction.

  “Nastya? Nastya!” Alexei woke in a panic, shoving the reindeer coat off of him.

  I knelt at his side. “I’m right here.” I recalled how I felt upon waking this morning—not ready to remember. Not ready to grieve. “How are you feeling?”

  His gaze locked onto mine and he held it, as though it was the only offer of safety. “I feel . . . strange. I know that I’m hurt, but I don’t feel much of it.” He lifted his shot hand and examined the now-closed wound. “Are we ghosts again?”

  I took his hand. “No. We visited Zash’s babushka—a village spell master—and she managed to gift us some spells to help us.”

  “How long do I have?”

  “If we use the final numbing spell tonight, you have until tomorrow evening. About thirty hours.” That didn’t sound like much. I prayed that Dochkin wasn’t too far west. We were on the edge of Siberia. Cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg were days away. “How’s your head?”

  “It doesn’t hurt right now, but I feel . . . sluggish. I can’t seem to focus my vision.” He lifted his head. “I’m likely dying. Will you be alright with that, Nastya?”

  I jerked back. “Nyet! No, I will not!” He asked me so calmly that it stirred my anger. “You are all I have left, Alexei!”

  “Well, what are our options?”

  Once I caught my breath again, I filled him in on our recent discoveries. How Yurovsky could track spells with his watch, how Dochkin was the only one who could help with Alexei’s injuries, how the Matryoshka doll sent a spell that pointed the direction we needed to travel.

  “We should go.” Alexei hauled himself to his feet, using the trunk of a tree for leverage. “It is lucky Dochkin lives in the west, since the train can take us that same direction.”

  “Are you certain you can walk?”

  “For now.” I admired his push to be strong, his will to be a soldier and leader. But also his willingness to admit when he needed us. He knew stubbornness only hindered. “Besides, the stretcher is soggy.”

  There was, indeed, an imprint from where Zash’s body had pressed the material into the wet ground.

  Joy returned to our spot, saw Alexei up and moving, and ran circles around his feet. “Joy!” Alexei scooped her into his arms. “Joy, you crazy pup! You’re alive!” For the first time Alexei showed a crack in his armor to stay strong.

  “Zash found her.” I didn’t want to give him credit. I didn’t want to stir any gratefulness in Alexei’s heart toward my executioner, but Zash was helping us. He seemed as though he cared about our survival and I didn’t understand it. I wasn’t ready to understand it, because to accept it meant to move past what he did. I could picture Papa telling me to care for the soldiers.

  But he didn’t care for me!

  Joy’s barks echoed through the forest and I couldn’t stop the heightened alertness that tingled my ears. If Yurovsky was anywhere close, he’d hear us.

  “Tishe. Let’s go.” I took the bedrolls and carried them over my shoulder. After a bit of protest, Zash gave me a pack of goods and he took the stretcher since it was too awkward for me to carry.

  Off we went. West toward Revda.

  This time as we walked, there was less panic. Less pain. Less distraction from our predicament. Zash led the way with his compass, keeping us due west, though picking the paths of least resistance, like game trails. Alexei trudged behind with Joy. His walking seemed awkward and tentative. It kept our going slow, but it left us with more energy since we weren’t carrying him. We picked some bilberries as we walked, the dark, sweet fruit reminding me painfully of other days.

  I let the silence continue for a w
hile, though Alexei tossed a stick for Joy to fetch every few steps. Eventually, the silence grew heavier than the packs and even the stretcher. I never used to back down from a challenge. So I willed myself to quicken my pace until I was level with Zash. He raised his eyebrows as though surprised I’d come this near him. He wouldn’t be happy to discover why.

  I chewed on my lip for a moment. It pained me to speak with him and show . . . vulnerability. “Why?” I cleared my throat and tried again for a stronger voice. “Why did you shoot us, Zash?”

  He stumbled on a fallen stick and it cracked in half with a snap. “I . . . shot only the one bullet—the one you saw.”

  “The one at me.” Did he think that excused him?

  “Da.”

  “Did you know my camisole held jewels in it? Did you know the bullet would ricochet?” A small part of me clung to this hope that might redeem him.

  He shook his head. “Nyet. I did not know.”

  So he’d intended to kill me. I almost lost hold of my voice completely. “You know, shooting one bullet instead of ten doesn’t make you any less guilty of what you’ve done.”

  “I know what I’ve done, Nastya.” He choked on an inhale. “And I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t think . . . I don’t think you’ll understand.”

  “I want to understand!” As if there was any reason he could give that would make his choice acceptable.

  “You’re . . . you’re not in a place to hear it yet.”

  “You don’t know me!” I practically screamed. “You don’t know where I am or what I’m feeling.”

  He dragged a hand down his face. “I’m not in a place where I can talk about it yet.”

  As if it were hard for him. As if he hurt. I wanted to scoff at his hurt—to dismiss it as inconsequential. But I couldn’t. Everyone’s heart had its own aches—and that was not something I could scoff at.

  “Very well. But please . . . please explain soon.” I wanted my ache to disappear. I highly doubted Zash’s words could do that. But Dochkin could. With a reversing spell that would undo the execution, he could heal my ache. He could even fix Zash.