by Joy Preble
“Aw, Anne,” the David thing says. “C’mon. She was just having a little fun. Where’s your sense of humor, sis?” He grins, and then one tiny crack shows in the façade—like Lily, his teeth are far too sharp to be human. Mr. Michaelson gasps. Behind me, I can hear Anne’s mother sobbing.
We need to end this. Now.
Lily cocks her head. Water pounds against her almost naked body. Her hair whips around her in the pressure from the sprinklers, dark strands of hair curling like snakes.
She smiles at me. Licks her bottom lip. Raises her arms to the sky.
Above us, there’s a crack of thunder and then lightning sheers a jagged finger through the night sky. The mild breeze turns into a brisk wind.
Lily’s body straightens and grows taller, thicker.
“Whoa.” The David thing’s eyes grow wide. His tone admiring.
Lily’s hair shortens. Her features shift and morph. Her lilac gown becomes jeans and a blue collared shirt.
Ben Logan stands in the rain where Lily had been. Anne inhales sharply.
“What’s happening?” Ben rubs his eyes as the sprinklers pelt against him. “Anne. How did I get here? I was—did I drive here?”
“Is that Ben?” Mrs. Michaelson pushes past me toward her husband. “Anne. You can stop this. Please. Make it stop.”
“She’s mine, dude.” Ben’s gaze fixes on me. “You know that, right? She may think she loves you, but she’ll figure it out. She belongs with me, not some freak like you. I can read your head, you know? Just like she can. Maybe better. So I know she’s seen your spicy little past. That Tasha chick was a trip, right? And you are one stupid bastard. That’s what Viktor liked about you, you know? That you were dumb like a pile of rocks. If you jumped into my pool, you’d sink to the bottom. And I definitely wouldn’t save you.”
“Ben” holds out a hand to Anne. “C’mon, Annie. Give me a kiss. Even your parents like me better. Make ’em a lot happier than knowing that you let freak boy put his hands, well, you know.”
My anger rises too swiftly to rein in. As if in reaction, Lily morphs again. Ben disappears. The rusalka stands in front of me, her wet hair snaking around her in the wind.
She hisses, an inhuman sound. “I thought to make it easier. To give you truth in the body of a boy who loves you. But no matter. I do not have much time here. Viktor watches me, you know. And the witch—she watches too. They want what they want and I am their pawn. But they still fear me. Stories within stories, Anne. Secrets hiding within secrets. How many times will you hear and still not understand? I cannot do any more. You think I lie, granddaughter. But I do not. This man is not what you think. Ignore me at your own peril. I have told you. Baba Yaga has told you. Even your own brother comes to you to tell you what you need to know.”
The magic—my regained power from sources yet unknown—swells with my fury. It fills me—flows into my veins, my arms, my hands. I curse at her in Russian as my mind conjures a spell that I do not consciously remember learning.
“Atebis rusalka! Paslushayte! Vy dolzhny ostavit! Vernut’sya k vode rusalka!” Listen. You must leave. Go back to the water, mermaid. It is not a request; it is a command—an imperative backed up by a magical push. And before that, the universally rude suggestion of what I’d like her to do. I leave out her name. Names conjure a presence. Names bring forth their own power. I want her powerless. I want her gone.
The magic takes physical form. Stronger than the lightning that’s searing the sky with its jagged edges. The stream of light burns as it pours from my fingertips—white, then blue, then dark as ink. With a shock, I realize I’m smiling. My magic plows into Lily and lifts her into the air. Beneath her gown, her tail morphs into feet and then back into tail. Still dangling above the grass, she doubles over in agony.
Only then do I realize that maybe I can’t control this.
Worse: something inside me likes it.
“Ethan!” Anne screams and shakes me. “Stop it.”
“I’m trying.” But the magic streaming from my hands and slamming into Lily tells us both otherwise.
Lily crashes to the ground, tries to push herself upright, then stumbles—over feet, then tail, then feet—and smacks against the elm tree. She is not human, not alive in any true sense of the word, but still a long gash opens on one of her pale, thin, naked arms. Blood pools along the cut, mingling with the sprinkler water.
The magic skips across my hands. Somersaults through the air and hits the elm, stripping the bark straight down to the ground. The smell of burning wood fills the air.
Anne gasps. “Damn it. What is this? You’re going to burn down my whole neighborhood.” She grasps my hand and I feel her own power join with mine. Her magic feels familiar, feels like Anne, but riding underneath it, the witch’s power deepens the burn. Magic, ancient and primal. The thing inside me slithers around this new power source, twists itself tight to take what it can.
Anne doesn’t have to tell me that my eyes darken. Everything inside me feels wrong. Everything inside me feels invincible.
“Ethan. Ethan. Whatever this is, you need to snap out of it. I’m going to try to help you. I think I can help you. Let me help you.”
The link between us tightens like a fist. Like before, images come: Viktor at the edge of the Chicago River, staring at a heavy, woolen coat as it sinks. Anne kneeling next to Ben in Baba Yaga’s forest. Baba Yaga at her table, slicing Anne’s hand and watching the blood drip. A young Viktor talking to Tsar Nicholas while Anastasia stands at her father’s side. Anne bending over to kiss me as I lie dying on the forest floor. My eyes open. I sit up. I smile.
“Focus on that,” Anne says. “Just you and me, Ethan. Ignore the rest of it.” She cups my face in her hands. Forces me to look into her eyes. I’m burning, I think. Whatever’s inside me is burning me alive.
Somewhere Lily is shrieking.
Somewhere there’s smoke.
This isn’t me. This magic swimming in my veins is not mine. I force it back—will it to shut down. Turn off. Stop.
“Push it back,” Anne says. “I’m going to help you push it back.”
And then, a voice that is Anne but not Anne, a voice deeper and more ancient: So I will it. So let it be. Her lips have not moved, but the words echo between us.
The magic pulls back. Then back some more.
“Let her go,” Anne says. She sounds like herself again. “Just let her go.”
There’s a settling inside me. Like a compartment opening and shutting something away. Slowly, Lily falls to the ground.
The sprinklers shut off.
Lily and the boy disappear.
“What the hell was all that?” Anne’s father pushes a wet hank of hair out of his eyes. He looks at Anne. “What have you gotten yourself involved in? And you, Laura.” He turns to his wife. “You knew about all this? What? It’s not enough that I’m losing you a little day after day. You think we don’t notice that you’ve stopped eating again? For a while I thought you were better. But you’re not.
“Do you think that you’re the only one who lost your son? I lost him too. We all did. But I went back to work. I hurt every day, do you know that? Sometimes the pain of it is unbearable. But I didn’t get caught up in some craziness—whatever this is. Have you let our daughter put herself in danger too? My God, Laura. I thought I knew you. I don’t understand any of this.”
“Don’t blame her, Dad.” Anne unlinks her hands from mine. “When we tell you the whole story, you’ll understand. It’s complicated. I know it all looks crazy—it is crazy—but it’s not Mom’s fault. It’s…it’s not anybody’s fault. It’s just what is. The world isn’t always what you think, Dad. There’s stuff people don’t see. And it’s not make-believe. It’s real.”
“No.” Mr. Michaelson shakes his head, a sharp motion. “That’s not possible. This g
uy here that you’ve been seeing, doing God knows what with while your mother just turns a blind eye, maybe he’s the cause of it. But no. We’ve had enough trouble in this family. Whatever this is, whatever hallucination or illusion or goddamn trick, it’s going to stop.
“You will not see Ethan again. He is not welcome in my house. You will spend the summer with your mother, helping her with her work. You will finish your college applications. And in the fall, you’ll go back to school. All this running around and keeping secrets—it’s over, Anne. I will not have this family destroyed.”
“Mr. Michaelson,” I begin.
He steps forward, fists clenched at his side. “Shut the hell up. You are not—I repeat, not—welcome here. Leave. Now. If you have any decency, you’ll go. My daughter is off limits to you. Understood?”
“Daddy!” Anne’s voice is shrill, her face pale. “You need to let us explain. It’s not what you think. Ethan isn’t the cause of what’s going on.”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “I don’t need an explanation. Your mother is sick. Your brother is dead. Whatever is causing the rest of it—I don’t give a damn. We were getting better until Ethan showed up. And now we’re not. When he’s gone, we’ll be better again. Problem solved. No further discussion needed.”
“But Mom—”
“Your mother is going inside to lie down. You are going up to your room. And in the morning, when we’ve all had a little sleep, we’ll figure out what to do. I’ve been telling myself that this would all resolve itself. And for that I’m sorry. God, Laura, I’m sorry. But after tonight—we’re going to do things my way. End of story.”
“You need to listen to your daughter,” I say. Under my skin, I feel the magic skip across my veins. I could make him believe whatever I want, I think, and find myself horrified at the thought. Do I have that kind of power? Why?
He splits my lip when he hits me. Blood trickles down my chin.
“Daddy, no!” Anne shoves her way between us.
And here’s what goes through my mind: he’s not entirely wrong, her father. I am the cause. Even worse, right now, I don’t even know if I trust myself.
“Stop it, all of you!” Mrs. Michaelson, her face streaked with tears, grips her husband’s arm.
“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you before, Dad. We just thought it would be easier if you…Tell him, Mom. You’re part of this too. You can’t just let—”
“You need to do what Steve says, Ethan.” Her voice is flat. “It will be for the best.”
Around us, the wind picks up again. Anne’s hair blows behind her. Her fingers flex, simmer with light.
“Don’t,” I say quietly. “It will be okay.”
I tell her parents that I’m leaving. Walk to the back gate.
“Fine, then,” Anne says. Her voice cracks, then steadies. “You guys want to pretend that what you just saw isn’t real? Okay with me.” She joins me at the gate.
“If you leave with him…” her father says. The threat hangs empty. I can see in his eyes that he has no idea what he will do if she goes.
“I need to give them some space,” Anne says softly. She touches a finger to my split lip. I feel the cut draw into itself and close. “I don’t know what else to do right now. Plus, in another second my dad is going to realize that he’s standing out here in his boxers.”
Ten minutes later, the moon still full in the sky, she meets me at my car, backpack in hand. Her father stands at the window, but he doesn’t stop her. I don’t know if this makes him strong or weak. I don’t know what I’d do if I were him. I like to think I’d make her stay.
“This is probably stupid,” she says. “I mean, are they even safe if I leave? She could come back, Ethan. Lily could come back. God knows what she might convince my mother to do. Something worse than just make her see my dead brother. But I don’t want to be here right now. I can’t spend another minute watching my father pretend that all my mother needs is to gut it out.”
“Do you want to stay?”
She hesitates. Then says, “No.”
I don’t tell her that I’m surprised at her answer. Nor do I judge her choice.
Together, we do another warding spell around her house. Her magic is potent; I can feel it everywhere. It should be enough. It needs to be enough.
The power that has come back to me thrums in response. Soon, I will have to uncover its source. But not right now.
Protections in place, we drive down the quiet street, no particular destination in mind.
Wednesday, 2:41 am
Viktor
Like Baba Yaga and the rusalka, I watch them. It is a risk to do this in person, but it sweetens the pleasure—the frisson of fear that I will be caught. More often though, like now, I do not need the physical proximity.
Magic, time, Fate—their combined potency affords me certain privileges. The witch can see things that were and that will be. But I can see what is. Blood connects me to Anne and thus to the foolish man who has no earthly idea what he is up against. Oh, he suspects. But he will not catch me. And even if he does, it will not matter. That is how clever I am.
In the witch’s hut it was not only time that worked differently. It was everything. The rhythm of our days, the progress of the sun and moon, the beating of my far-too-human heart. All of it altered. Not good or bad, just not the same. Maybe it was the movement—the chicken legs in almost constant motion—carrying Baba Yaga’s hut into the farthest corners of her forest, deep inside the woods where no one could find us.
Almost no one, that is.
I was Baba Yaga’s prisoner, but I still had my eyes. I watched her: always, always I watched. And when she peered into the skull in her fireplace, I watched then too. She could see things—and not only what was. She could see what had been and what was to be. Even when my body was broken and my skin burned from her touch, I knew that this was something I could use.
This is the difference between those who succeed and those who do not. Even when I wished for death, I plotted what I would do once I was free. The irony, of course, did not elude me. I was there because I had compelled her to protect a Romanov. Viktor, the bastard son, suffering and profiting from the birthright that my father denied me right up to his bloody end.
In the visions in the skull, the future was murky, changeable. The fire would sputter and the flames grow huge, then diminish to embers. The vision would shift, small pieces altering its fabric. People were not always predictable. The future was, I learned, mere guesswork—witches and diviners and powerful magicians could see into it, but they could not control it. They could not force it into being. They could only look and meddle and hope that their influence had the desired effect.
Free will, I came to understand, was exactly that. Even the mighty Baba Yaga could not make someone do something he didn’t want to do. Even what she did to me there in the hut. On some level, I came to her of my own volition. If my tenure in her world turned me mad at times, so be it. History is full of madmen. Most of them are sane enough.
My great-great-granddaughter Anne complains that she has no choice. She is young. She does not understand that everything is a choice. Even that idiot Ethan—so easy to manipulate—even he knows that in the end, his actions are still his own.
But the past, ah, that is another story, and one that took me a long, long while to understand. Even I, who uncovered the secrets of the ancient magic, who found the way to compel the most powerful witch who ever was, even I did not understand that it is in the past that true power lies.
It is risky, but it can be done. Still one must work carefully and with great precision—like a surgeon cutting just the right amount and at just the right level of pressure. Too much and the future sits in peril. Too little and what is the point? I have always admired those who could take another life in their hands and not quaver as they held the knif
e and made that first incision.
In another life, I think, I could be such a person.
Perhaps someday, I will give it a try. Why not? I have all the time in the world.
In the hut, here was my question. The magic to do what I needed was possible. The flexibility of time was mine for the taking. But where does one hide a soul? Koschei had his hiding place. So did that crazy bastard Rasputin. I needed mine.
I promised myself that I would not squander this knowledge like they did—Koschei and Rasputin—who grew careless and carnal and allowed those desires to make them vulnerable to attack. Rasputin was, in the end, just Father Grigory, a greasy-bearded magician with a taste for young girls. Had he not been murdered, I think someday I would have killed him myself. There was no truth to the rumors that he and Alexandra were lovers. But if he had had his way, he would have added Anastasia and her sisters to his list of conquests. I felt no remorse when they pulled him, dead at last, from the river. Once, I thought I might learn magic from him. In truth, he should have desired to learn from me.
I thought about this for a very long time—or so it seemed to me. I was not Koschei and certainly not Rasputin, but I was also not Ethan, who has always believed in love. My Irina, the dancer who thought she had won my heart, was beautiful. But she was also a curse. The revelation of Tasha Levin’s unfaithfulness has shocked Ethan. Foolish Tasha, who believed that I would make her immortal. Why would she want to live forever? To play Rachmaninoff until she got the notes right? To remain young, firm, vibrant? A waste of a gift.
Irina was not unfaithful. It was I who left her. But she had her secrets nonetheless. I did not know she was pregnant. I did not know when she gave birth to my daughter and set in motion the bloodline that must end with Anne. A small piece of me regrets this, but power does not exist without sacrifice. Certainly my willingness to be Baba Yaga’s captive was proof of that.
One day, crouched in the bed that had been Anastasia’s, I realized the solution. Silently—no sense in letting Yaga in on my revelation—I laughed at the simplicity and perfection. Why had it taken me so long to understand? Perhaps because it was so perfect, so fitting to the thing I would place there. My soul would be safe and I would be alive for as long as I chose. I could reclaim the power that would once again show history that I had bested my father. If someday I found living tedious, then I would extract it. Return my soul to my corporeal body and make myself vulnerable once more. And like an ordinary mortal, eventually I would die.
