by Joy Preble
Tess falls to the floor. Her head hits the carpet with a muffled thud.
My knees buckle. My head feels strange and floaty. My vision blurs.
“Here, doggy,” I say weakly. “Give me the doll. C’mon, dog. Open your mouth and spit it out.”
My jumbled brain attempts to work. Egg—jostled. Doll—falls. Doll—bounces on carpet. Tess—lying on floor looking really bad. Me—fading fast. Somebody’s spaniel swallowing the doll with Viktor’s soul attached like it’s a magical Milk Bone. All of the above not working well for Tess and me. Well, one question is answered. What would happen if we tried to destroy the doll right here rather than bringing it back to our time?
Someone’s damn dog would try to eat it and kill us in the process, that’s what.
“The doll!” I hit the floor on my knees. “We need to get the doll away from the dog.”
We both start to crawl. Spaniel thinks we’re playing. He runs in happy circles, the doll still in his mouth.
How do I know it’s in his mouth and not crushed between his doggy teeth? Because I’m still here thinking these absurd thoughts.
“Dog!” I say. “Oh, please, doggy. This cannot be happening.”
Behind me, I hear the door creak again. Does it open? I can’t turn my head.
“The doll,” I say, more weakly this time. “We have to get the doll.”
“Jimmy!” a girl’s voice says. Then she says something else in Russian. Jimmy? Wait. I remember this. Jimmy is the dog. Bad Jimmy. Give me the damn doll back, Jimbo.
“Jimmy!” the voice says again. The spaniel stops racing in circles. Sits. Good Jimmy.
Through blurred vision, I see the dog drop the saliva-covered matryoshka doll into someone’s hand. The hand places it gently on the Tsar’s desk. Then reaches down for me.
My head clears.
Anastasia Romanov, still holding my hand, stares at me like she sort of knows me. Says something in Russian. Then looks curiously at the egg, the doll, the dog, and me.
Wednesday, 9:48 am
Ethan
“So what now?” We come to a stop at the huge sculpture in one of the tourist-jammed plazas of Millennium Park. “Just stand here and wait?”
Dimitri scowls.
I check my phone—just like I’ve been doing every minute or so. Nothing. It’s almost ten in the morning. Anne and Tess have been gone for over three hours. Three hours real-world time. Who knows how long—or how short—a time frame has passed in Baba Yaga’s forest. If that’s even where they still are. For so long, Anne and I have drifted in and out of each other’s thoughts. Now there is nothing. The absence of that connection frightens me. Where is she?
A quick phone call from Ben. “Anything?” he asks.
“Not yet,” I say.
The unsaid commentary is much longer.
Ben is right. I never should have let Anne go without me.
Ben is wrong. My presence would have changed nothing. Would have made it harder for her. A rule of combat: never risk something you are not willing to lose.
A problem: Anne is not willing to lose me. But in going she has asked me to accept the possibility of losing her.
Thus the one thing on which Ben and I agree: to lose her is unthinkable.
“Americans and their art,” Dimitri comments dismissively. He’s looking at the sculpture—the one everyone calls the “Bean”—made of smooth curved panels of stainless steel more than thirty feet high with an arch beneath it, tall enough for people to walk under.
“Sculptor’s British,” I tell him. As though it matters. The mirrorlike surface reflects the crowd. I can see the two of us at the left corner. Even close up we’d be warped by the curved shape. Like the truth of us, I think. The steel’s reflection altering what we are, just as we ourselves are not what we seem. Dimitri and I are from another age, another place.
“The Brits aren’t much better.” His nostrils flare in disdain. “God, Ethan, don’t you miss it sometimes? Russia? The old days. We were men, then. Now—look at us. Still waiting for that bastard to show his face and your little girl to wrestle information from a witch we once thought was beneath our concern.”
“No.” The one-word answer suffices. I have no interest in listening to him wax poetic about Mother Russia. I have never known him well, and now is not the time to start. He came from a more privileged background than I did—that much I had gathered long ago. As for me, I had thought there was nothing left to lose when Viktor took me in. Offered me the Brotherhood’s protection.
Now, I wonder. Was my family’s death not just random destruction? Was that Cossack who killed my father actually connected to Viktor? Did he make me an orphan so that I would be of use?
I scan the plaza. No Viktor. Just Dimitri and me and a crowd of strangers.
And this: “What did he promise you?” I ask him. “Before he promised you Anastasia. When you had a choice. What made you join the Brotherhood?”
He stares at me oddly, as though this is the first time he’s considered this particular question. I don’t expect him to answer. But he does.
“I’d been sleeping with one of our maids—Sonia was her name. We lived in Minsk, a nice house. Nice for then, at least. When she told me she was pregnant, I said I would marry her. My father disagreed. He fired her on the spot. Sent her packing in the middle of the night. It was weeks before I tracked her to an aunt’s little house in some country village.”
Something hard and cold flickers in Dimitri’s eyes. “Sonia’s father had his own opinion on the subject of her having my child. There were ways—even back then. The women, they knew how to take care of unfortunate circumstances. Sonia wouldn’t speak to me. I told my father to go to hell. He disowned me, told me to get out. A few weeks later, someone introduced me to Viktor.”
His gaze rests on the curved steel sculpture. “I should have fought for Sonia. But I didn’t. I don’t even know why. Stupidity. Fear. Arrogance. But Anastasia—she didn’t see that. She saw only a shallow fool who was kind to her. Who was a friend of her ‘secret brother.’ The truth? She had no idea how I felt about her. But I saw in her everything I had lost with Sonia. And when Viktor promised that he would help make the match, I believed that too.”
“You were young.”
He shakes his head. His dark eyes focus somewhere that only he can see. “What fitting punishment our lives have been, eh, Brother? To keep repeating one age over and over, and still we never get it right.”
“We’re moving forward now,” I remind him. “Things are not the same.”
“People don’t change, Ethan. All these years, and this is what I believe. What is that saying? ‘A tiger can’t change his stripes.’ I think that is it. If I had it to do over again, any of it, would I behave differently? Would I choose more wisely? You tell me. We are what we are, my friend. No more. No less.”
“What are you prepared to do?” The question slips out without me being consciously aware that I was about to ask it.
He hesitates for a long moment. Long enough that I grow uneasy.
“Kill him if I can. If death isn’t possible, then destruction, suffering. Whatever I can manage. We have part of his power now. Who knows what will happen?” He tilts his head, then flicks a finger toward my throat. Against my will, my breath seizes in my lungs.
“I know you remember this trick, Ethan. He’s used it on you, after all. So I ask myself: even if a man could live forever, what life would he have if he couldn’t breathe? He might not die. But my power would still squeeze at his neck. It is an interesting conundrum, wouldn’t you say?”
The finger flicks again. Air rushes back where it belongs.
And I realize that I’m standing here with a madman.
He moves his hand again, but this time I’m quicker. The magic I’ve been repressing, holdi
ng deep inside me, rises swiftly, hungrily.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I say. His feet lift from the ground because I tell them to. He shoots across the plaza toward the sculpture, knocking a few tourists off their feet as he goes. The back of his head smacks against the left side of the curved steel. He slumps to the cement.
Part of me registers shock at what I’ve done. Part of me finds it amusing.
“Ah, Ethan,” says a voice behind me. “Showing your true colors at last. Perhaps our friend Dimitri was wrong. People can change. Look at you—finally enjoying yourself.”
Viktor, thin but no longer skeletal, claps his hands in slow applause. His dark hair is streaked with white. Deep lines etch the skin around his eyes. A small scar runs from the corner of his mouth to his chin. Dimitri struggles to his feet, a crowd—as yet unaware that I’m responsible for what just happened—gathering around him.
“I’d thought to share with both of you,” he says. “A man needs options, you see. But I see now that I need to make some alterations in that plan. Don’t worry, Ethan. This won’t hurt. Not much anyway.”
Dimitri has shaken off the crowd. I see when he recognizes the man who’s joined me. He walks faster, then seems to change his mind. Stops.
Inside me, the magic anticipates. Block him. Hurt him. Do damage. Survive at all costs. This is what my brain interprets from the power.
No, I tell myself. This was a mistake.
Viktor clears his throat. Angles his gaze to our old friend who stands reflected in foot after foot of dark, curved steel.
Dimitri raises his arms.
I double over in searing pain. Fall to my knees on the concrete. My body feels like it’s on fire. What has he done? I was going to stop him, wasn’t I? But the pain burns and my mind blurs. Through the haze of red, I manage a glimpse at Dimitri. He is standing in the middle of the plaza, a perplexed look on his face.
Every movement an agony, I hold out my hand. My brain struggles for a spell to stop him. And then my gaze falls on the swirling dark tendrils of power flickering at my fingertips.
What the hell is this?
Viktor pulls me to my feet. “You know,” he says. “There are so few surprises for us, Ethan. We have seen so much, after all. But who knew that after all this time, Dimitri would share his sad, pathetic tale with you. Who knew that he would prove such a liability. But you—this is a much better plan. I can feel the difference already, can’t you?”
He claps me on the back. “Enjoy, Ethan. Enjoy. This will all be over soon, I’d imagine. We will all go our separate ways—some more permanent than others. But until then, live a little. Let loose. See how much fun it really is.”
He smiles, then walks in front of me toward Dimitri, moving purposefully but with the casual stride of a man who is in no particular hurry. One step away. Two. Three. Understanding washes over me.
“Don’t worry, Ethan,” Viktor calls over his shoulder. “Even that is only a small taste of what I’ve managed to get back.”
Asking why is pointless right now. The why will come later. Now I only know one thing. He has transferred more power to me. It writhes inside me, darkening my own thoughts, smudging the lines between what is me and what is not.
No. I control what I do or don’t do. I will not give in. I need to wait for Anne. We need to find Viktor’s soul. We need to stop him. I have to protect her from Baba Yaga. Anne, who’s given her life for mine. That is who I am. Not this. Not…
Viktor closes the distance between himself and Dimitri.
A smile tugs, unbidden, at my lips.
The power surges from me. Smashes into the ground. The concrete plaza cracks, spiderwebs of lines running everywhere, ground buckling and bending. The enormous steel sculpture groans as the earth beneath it vibrates.
“No!” I yell it aloud.
The power screams back. And keeps on going.
Still at Alexander Palace and Not Happy about It
Anne
She sees me. Anastasia sees me. Holy crap, she sees me. Like little Ethan saw me. I really do need an instruction manual for all of this.
“Um, hi,” I say. “Hello.”
“I speak English,” she says. “You are English?”
“American.” I gesture to Tess, still sprawled on the Tsar’s carpet in a rather unladylike position. “Both of us.”
Anastasia’s forehead wrinkles. “I am sorry about Jimmy. He is not an obedient dog.” Then, “Do I know you? I think I know you. What are you doing in my papa’s study? Did Viktor bring you with him?”
Tess snorts. I flash her a look of warning.
“Sort of,” I say slowly. “But we need to get going now.” And take the dog-spit matryoshka doll with us, which is going to be problematic since it’s sitting on your father’s desk and Tess and I don’t belong here and any second now you’re going to sic your spaniel on us. Or the dog is going to swallow the doll, and Tess and I will be lying dead on your carpet.
“That’s mine.” I point to the doll. “The dog startled me and I dropped it. Thanks for getting it back. He’s quite the scamp, huh?”
Anastasia looks from me to the doll to the dog to Tess. Then back at me. Or rather, at my hands. More specifically, at the Fabergé egg I’m still holding on to for dear life. The one that Viktor has altered by adding his picture. Will it stay that way? Or if we get his soul back where it belongs, will everything else revert to normal too? Unless Tess and I don’t make it out of here because Jimmy is a bad little spaniel.
“You cannot touch that,” she says, holding out her hand. “Those are very special.”
I hand her the egg. “Sorry. And yeah, Viktor brought us. I guess we got turned around or something.”
I can tell she doesn’t believe me. She shouldn’t believe me. I wouldn’t believe me. Hell, the dog doesn’t believe me.
Any second now, here’s what’s going to happen: she’s going to call for help. Scream to a guard or her father or a servant or someone. Will they see us too? That’s anyone’s guess. If they do, we’re in even bigger trouble. And if they don’t, then guess what? I’m hurting Anastasia even more than she’s already destined to be hurt. This is the last thing I want for her—to be the girl who gets in trouble for messing around with her father’s things and spinning some crazy story about two girls and a little doll. A piece of the same doll her mother hasn’t even given her yet.
Slowly, gently, so I won’t spook her, I rest my hand on Anastasia’s. Look into her eyes. Hold her gaze and let my magic do the rest. Manipulate a person I care about. A person who deserves the truth but is never going to get it, not even from me.
She hands me the soggy matryoshka doll. Careful not to jostle it, I slip it into my pocket. For a second, I feel a ripple, but I will it to stay still. Use Baba Yaga’s magic to weave a protection around it so it can stay whole and solid until I need it to be otherwise. Would have been nice if I’d have thought of this before. I’m learning. Slowly. Painfully.
You won’t remember us, I tell Anastasia in my mind. You will think that you have come in here to find your dog. That you found him and he bumped your dad’s desk and you had to put the egg back on its stand.
I motion to Tess. She stands. I’m going to take us out of here and get back to Ethan and Ben and our world. Fix this whole mess and then go home and deal with that mess too.
I don’t consciously plan what I do next. Or if I do, I don’t admit it to myself.
“Anastasia,” I say. “You won’t remember me the next time you see me. But I want you to remember this. Viktor is going to promise you all sorts of stuff. Don’t believe him. Terrible things may be happening. But you’re going to have to stay strong. Your mom is going to give you a bigger doll, just like the one you just saw. She’s going to tell you to hold on to it, and she’s right. Do what she says. But not Vik
tor. You can’t trust him. I know you think you can, but you can’t.”
“Anne.” Tess’s eyes are wide. “You can’t do that, can you? I mean, isn’t that going to…”
She’s right. I know she’s right. Everything we’ve been doing—even everything good that’s come from this, like Ethan and me—I might have just ruined it. In my head, I do my best to take it back. Is it too late? I guess we’ll know soon enough.
“We’ve got to go now,” I say. “You won’t remember that we’ve been here. At least I hope you won’t.”
I pat my pocket. Make sure the doll is still inside.
Jimmy the spaniel gives a cheery woof.
I take Tess’s hand.
And find myself turning again to Anastasia.
“I’m Anne,” I say. “Anne Michaelson.” Will she remember? When she sees me again when I come for her in the forest, will some tiny molecule of her recognize me? How nice it would be to know that in her grief and terror, she remembered a girl named Anne who told her to be careful.
I close my eyes. The world folds and contracts. My stomach pitches.
Just like that, the Alexander Palace disappears.
In its place stand the IHOP parking lot and Ben.
Just Ben.
“Thank God,” he says. “Are you guys okay?”
Tess leaps on Ben like a crazed spider monkey. “You are so not going to believe what happened.”
“Wish that were true,” Ben says. “You can tell me in the car. We need to go. This guy named Dimitri showed up right after you guys left. Ethan’s gone with him to confront Viktor. At least that’s what they said. Who knows what’s really going on.”
“Dimitri? Gone where? Ethan left? Before we got back?” Why? Why? He should be here.
“Downtown to Millennium Park.”
“It’s a public place,” Tess says. “That should be safe, huh?”
“No. Shit. Where’s your car?” My head is still spinning from the time travel. Does Ben even drive a car?
