Alexander, Soldier's Son

by Alma Boykin

  Morena’s voice came into Little Catherine’s ears, faint at first, then louder, in Russian, then English. “What do with body?”

  Body?

  “Nothing. He died of natural causes. Cerebral hemorrhage would be my guess, probably had high blood pressure. Runs in Alexi’s family too.” Her mother did not sound the least bit upset, rather clinical in fact. “Playing with that kind of power did not help.”

  “Evil is evil.”

  Little Catherine took a deep breath. “He didn’t think so, Aunt M. He said in class Wednesday that the Church turned good spirits bad, including Ba—” she caught herself just in time. “The Sweeper and the Swamp God.” This wasn’t the time to use proper names.

  “Mrow. Mroh, meh maa hsss fffft mrOW!”

  “Not going to argue, I’m just repeating what he said in class. The Church and tale collectors made good into evil.”

  Morena walked up to where Catherine crouched. “The rain’s ending. You can stand.” She offered her hand, fully human once more.

  Little Catherine stood, then hugged her aunt, ignoring the tattered clothes and scent of scorch. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Morena! I had no idea he’d go crazy, no idea that you’d be hurt. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, I just wanted to show him that he was wrong and that I really am a Slav and that he shouldn’t mark my papers down because he disagrees with everyone else doing Russian folklore and—”

  “Shhh, little one.” Morena held her as she sobbed, stroking her back. At some point her mother took over, letting Catherine Theodora cry into her shoulder. “You did wrong, but it is over. He is dead, I am healed, and the magic is broken.”

  “Mraw.” Gatta nodded once, as if to end the discussion.

  Little Catherine sniffed. “I didn’t want him dead, I just wanted him to re-grade my paper.”

  “Magic has consequences, Catherine Alexandrovna,” her mother said. “Both for him and for us. It will take a lot of tap-dancing and work to explain why we found him here and what happened to him. And now you know why your father and grandmother and I never try to use magic ourselves. It is one thing to understand and try to counter it. It is another to wield it, especially old-world magic in a new land.” She tipped Catherine Theodora’s face up and met her daughter’s eyes. “While Tolstoy brought his death onto himself, you did play a role. And you will have to live with that in your heart for the rest of your life, princess. I’m sorry. Your father and I tried to protect you and your brothers.”

  “You cannot shelter her forever,” Morena said. “My parents thought they could hide me, sell my embroidery without anyone noticing, even though it glowed and brought joy beyond just the joy of beautiful things. Koschai found me anyway. Babushka came here to get away from evil, men and spirits both. They found.” Morena shrugged, rubbing her arms against the cold. “Catherine Theodora, magic is real, it has consequences, and evil is real. Now you see, understand?”

  “Yes, Aunt Morena. I’m, I’m sorry.” She sniffed, tears starting again.

  “Mrooo.”

  She picked up wet Gatta and hugged her.

  Catherine Mary planted her hands on her hips, after pulling her jacket closed to hide the pistol. “Right. We get ourselves back to Golden, you get back to your dorm, and make darn certain you have a solid story for security about why you were in the closet.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  As it turned out, Little Catherine did not have to come up with a story. Campus security put her being locked in the closet, her bags and other things being found in Tolstoy’s car, and his death in the grove together and came up with enough of a story that she just nodded, said, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I was very lucky. Thank you, sir, I’m sure it will never happen again to a student,” and did her best to forget what she’d seen.

  But she couldn’t.

  The department chair read over her amended paper, muttered under his breath in Polish, and gave her a B+, meaning she got an A- for the semester. “Excessive use of dialect, Miss Zolerovich. Use academic Russian if you choose to write in that language, just as we use formal English for papers.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When she got back to Babushka’s, her grandmother introduced her to the Little Humpbacked Horse. “You help him. Curry, feed, whenever he want. That your summer job. He help save you.”

  Little Catherine was not entirely certain about spending her summer with the world’s most egotistical pony, but kept such things to herself. Her mother was generally pleased, Stavros George had signed up for summer camp in New Mexico as a junior counselor, and Morena had a very nice new modeling contract in Denver, so she would not have to brave summer airlines.

  “Um, have you told Dad?” Little Catherine asked over supper that night. Aunt M had joined them, since Babushka was in one of her “Pickle all the things!” moods.

  Her mother gave her one of those looks. “Not unless you think I need to.”

  Rapid head shaking. “No, ma’am. You and Aunt M discovered how to break the last of the magic and get rid of the bad-luck feathers, she’s using the pearls that are left for church and other stuff, and Gatta and Ivan will keep their muzzles shut. Right?”

  “More or less. Your father won’t know unless he asks directly or you tell him.”

  After a few more bites, Little Catherine ventured, “What did happen with the feathers?”

  The older women both shook their heads. “Magic calls to magic. As best we can tell, as long as feathers existed, spell remained on me in part. When feathers touched, spell finished and cancelled. I could feel happen but not explain.” Morena made a funny gesture with the hand not wielding a fork. “Not worry. Magic gone.”

  “And we all live happily ever after!” Catherine Theodora smiled, leaned over, and low-fived Gatta under the table.

  “Until Ivan get phone back,” Morena sighed. “Two kilo sack of catnip arrived yesterday, pay on delivery.”

  Tale the Seventh: Ivan the Purrable and the Twelfth Dancing Princess

  Chapter 1. Youngest Son

  “Crap. I do not have time for this,” Stavros George “Steve” Zolnerovich grumbled, hitting the ignore button on his phone. His sister really needed to quit with the joke texts pretending to be Ivan the cat. That or she was reminding him to feed Ivan, since she was at some kind of academic thing in Chicago. She needs a life, seriously needs a life. Steve picked up the insulated pizza carrier and double checked the address against the one on the screen at the delivery window. They matched, both of them, and he risked a peek into the big padded envelope. Yup, five extra large pizzas. He pushed the order-confirmed check-out pad with his thumb. He heard a chime and the door opened, letting him out and cold air in. Steve hurried to his car, hugging the pizza boxes a little.

  He needed to get the car’s heater fan fixed—like a month ago. As soon as I have spare money, whatever that is. He knew better than to ask his folks for help. They were tied up in knots trying to sort out his Zolnerovich grandparents’ estate and get them into assisted living. Steve started the engine, fingers crossed. The third-hand wagon’s engine caught on the first try and he fist-bumped the dashboard, then backed out of his slot at Padre’s Pizza Palace and headed north to his first stop. His father refused to buy him a new car, and his brother and sister wouldn’t help, either. “You’ll break it, Georgie,” Peter had said. Steve hated the old nickname, hated his older brother’s refusal. You’ve got a lot of deployment and combat pay, Pete, why won’t you at least help me with a loan? It’s not like you have anything to spend it on. Life is so not fair. He could kind of understand Catherine’s not helping, because she made like diddly-squat as a folk-lore specialist and free-lance Slavic language translator. Not that many Russian and Ukrainian speakers in the Denver area needed her. Well, she could have majored in something useful, but nooooo, hyphenated studies and fairy tales it was.

  Hooonk! Crunch! Steve stood on the brakes, then steered hard right into the gap between two other cars as the fool in front of him discovered why you don’t tailgate
in November in Colorado after a snowstorm. Steve gave the wrecked cars a one-finger salute without removing his hands from the wheel or his eyes from the road. They didn’t see it, of course, but it was the thought that counted. Two more lights and his phone’s GPS chirped. “Turn right.” Steve did as ordered, passed four houses and an empty lot. “Turn right. One hundred meters.”

  Damn. Big house, small tip. Expensive cars spilled out of the driveway from the almost-mansion that matched the address on the first delivery. Steve winced a little as he totaled up the value of the eight vehicles. The Jaguar alone cost more than he made in a year, and that was the cheap, no frills model. Was it a bankers’ meeting? Nah, probably university administrators getting together to discuss tuition raises. Steve parked well clear of the Mercedes at the end of the row, got the big pizza envelope out of the passenger seat, and trudged up to the door. At least they’d cleared the snow and tossed out grit so he wouldn’t fall. Probably lawyers. No one wants to be sued. He rang the bell.

  “Great timing!” The lean kid who answered the door said, smiling at Steve.

  “Three extra large, sir.” Steve opened the envelope and pulled out the first box, warning, “They’re really hot, so you might want to hold the edges.”

  “Thanks. Will do. Here. It’s all yours.” The kid handed over two twenties.

  “Thank you, sir. Let’s see, this is the vegan special, this one’s vegetarian, and this is the Greek special.”

  The teenager nodded and wrinkled his nose. “Uncle Ted and his ethnic kicks. Got ‘em.”

  Steve trudged back to his car. Five buck tip on the order. Oh well. That had to be the first Greek special he’d delivered in months. Who in their right mind ordered pizza with Feta cheese, black olives, hamburger, and tatziki? Even his mom’s folks would balk at that one. Uncle George Pagonis ate a lot of funky Greek things, but no, just no.

  After the next delivery Steve decided that the new moon was making people strange. Someone had actually ordered Padre’s Special with ghost pepper dipping sauce. It came with a disclaimer form that the buyer had to sign and send back. Padre’s accepted no liability for burned tongues and complaints that the pizza and the sauce were too hot. I bet there was a dare involved. And alcohol, lots of alcohol. Steve’s phone chirped four more times and he ignored all of them.

  He made his last delivery at ten thirty that night, turned in the money, and stopped off at a gas station to put ten-dollars worth in his car, then drove to near Golden. Catherine should have hired a house-sitter to feed Ivan and check on the house. I’ve got things to do and gas costs money, more than she’s paying me. The clouds from the afternoon snowstorm had blown out and the stars seemed really close to the ground, even with all the light pollution. Steve turned on the car CD player and Seattle alternative filled the car, followed by hip-hop. His dad hated hip-hop, which was why Steve listened to it. Some heat from the engine seeped into the wagon and Steve decided that he could live without a heater for another few weeks. If he could get through Thanksgiving, he’d have enough in tips to see about getting the thing fixed. A shooting star lit the sky, streaking from behind him straight toward the southern horizon, scattering red and green sparks. Green? That’s different. That’s what, copper? Yeah. Huh. Cool. Then darkness returned, as dark as it ever got with the sprawl of the Front Range cities lighting the world to the east.

  Why did Catherine and his parents not sell the place? It was out in the middle of nowhere, or had been when his great-grandparents bought the land back in the 1960s, or was it ‘70s? Anyway, before people actually wanted to live in the Denver area, and now their old house sat on a gold mine. His family would be really, really rich if they’d subdivide the place and build houses, or rent the land out to someone besides the guy with the horses and cows. Instead they were thinking about getting some kind of open-space easement so no one could build on it. That is so stupid. I wouldn’t have to work two jobs to pay for school if they’d sell the place. Its not as if they need that much land. Maybe there’s some kind of strange thing in great-grandma’s will about they have to keep it until her old cat dies. That would be my family. They put the we in weird.

  Steve turned off the highway and onto the road leading to the house. He stopped at the heavy pipe-stem gate and leaned way out the open window, entering the code to let himself in. Each of the kids had a separate code, although Steve bet that Pete had forgotten his. The gate opened, Steve drove in, and pulled straight to the garage. He didn’t mess with letting the gate close behind him while he blocked the driveway, then going on. No one would come in this time of night. And besides, there were easier ways to trespass, like jumping the fence.

  He let the engine run a bit before he got out in order to warm the car, then went to the front door and stopped, keys in hand. Blaat blaat blaat came from inside, and Steve hesitated. That was the burglar alarm: the fire alarm honked instead of blatting. “Aw crap, I bet the damn cat set it off.” Ivan probably knocked something off the counter in the kitchen and it triggered the sound detectors. Catherine was supposed to have turned those off while she was gone. Steve unlocked the front door. Once inside he typed the cut off into the keypad and the sound stopped. “Stupid cat.”

  He hadn’t gone four steps when he heard breaking glass, lots of it. “What the fu—?” Steve ran toward the sound.

  “Mrow! Mraaaaw!” That sounded like a pissed off cat. Steve skidded on the kitchen tile and saw shattered glass and felt cold air pouring in from the door to the back deck.

  “Stop!” A black shape loomed up in front of him. “Who?”

  Thunk.

  #

  “Ow, my head.”

  “Mro.”

  Steve blinked and saw stars. Not hit-on-the-head stars, but real stars. They didn’t match the night sky. And they were a sickly white green, like the moss on a rotting log. The air was warm and smelled odd, a bit like garlic. “Huh” He rubbed his head. “What hit me?”

  “Stupidity comes to mind.” Steve looked to the sound of the voice. It came from a black cat with blue eyes. It was his great-grandmother’s old cat Ivan, but a very big Ivan, now as large as a good sized dog, at least going by how far Steve had to look up to see him. The cat continued, “You did not get my messages, I take it.”

  “Um, no.”

  The cat sighed and licked one paw. “Well, you’d better look in the future. If there is a future.”

  I’ve been hit on the head and I’m hallucinating. Cat’s don’t talk, they don’t text, and I’m imagining someplace that doesn’t exist. I’m just going to close my eyes, and it will all go away. He was already lying down. Steve tried to go back to sleep.

  “Ow!” Very sharp claws dug into the back of his hand. “Stop that!”

  “Read your messages and start thinking, boy. This is not a bad dream. It is a nightmare. We’re in the Sweeper’s world.”

  The who? I am hallucinating. An imaginary cat that talks is talking about an imaginary bogey my parents and big brother used to scare me with. “Oof!” Two large paws pressed down on his chest, shoving the wind out of him, and the blue eyes leaned very close. The cat had very large white teeth, and cat-food breath.

  “Stop it, boy. You ignored the warnings once. Ignore them again and you’ll be in far, far worse trouble than you know. I can’t help you here, and you have no allies, not like the rest of your clan.” The cat backed up, letting him breathe. “Stay here while I look to see just where we are.”

  Steve sat up. “Look dude, I— Ow!” A very strong paw slapped him on the side of his head.

  “Your father, mother, and sister have the right of familiarity. You, boy, do not. I am called Ivan, or sir. Not dude.”

  “Um, yes, sir.”

  Ivan stalked off. As he did, Steve realized that the cat wore a black nylon harness with pockets and pouches, like his dad and older brother did in the Army. Ivan the ninja cat? Steve shook his head and wished he hadn’t. It hurt, not where the cat had slapped him but on the other side, and he reached up, pok
ing a little. He had a nasty lump but he didn’t feel any blood leaking.

  The world around him made no sense. The greenish stars did not twinkle, exactly, but neither did they look like the stuff in that documentary about the cave that he’d seen in biology class. Now that he thought about it, the air wasn’t that warm, since he wasn’t sweating in his parka and heavy pants. Was it really night? Yes, and no. He could see trees, dark shadows with lots of leaves on them and big trunks, not pine trees. And bushes here and there, and what might have been a road or trail leading into the woods. Steve craned his head and peered over his shoulder, wincing as it pulled the lump. The trail led into a grassy area but he could not see farther than that because of mist. The only light came from the stars, or did it? And how dark was it?

  Steve pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped the screen. Ow, that’s bright. He toggled it dimmer and entered his code and fingerprint, then read the messages. One from Catherine, reminding him to keep the heater set to sixty-five and that she’d pay him when she got back. Then one from Ivan, in broken Russian. Steve stared at it, mouthing the words until he figured out what they had been before Otto Corrupt got to them. “Someone watch house. Be careful.” Two hours later, “Not-bear sniffing around. Bring silver, be ready.” Well that’s silly, what good’s silver going to do against a bear? Crazy cat. Then, “Sweeper pass by house!” That came fifteen minutes before he’d left the road, as best he remembered. Two more messages from Catherine finished the chain. “Listen to Ivan,” followed by, “Do not open the door tonight!”

  “Been nice if you’d told me earlier,” Steve growled before clearing the message list. He still had 99% battery left, so he wasn’t going to have to worry about the thing running down soon. No bars though. “Of course. Fairytale world of wherever I am doesn’t have cell service.” He put the phone back to sleep and stowed it again, this time in a different pocket inside his coat. No point in wasting battery by accidentally calling someone, or losing the thing.