by Ann Hood
Or: “They have their own routines.”
Routines were the way of life here, Felix quickly learned.
Every morning, after a breakfast of bread and butter, everyone except the Empress and Alexei went swimming in the sea. Usually, the Tsar followed that with tennis while the Grand Duchesses knit or sewed or read until lunchtime. Lunch was the big meal, with a lavish spread of suckling pig, caviar, whole fish and smoked fish, soup, and fruit set out. After lunch, they went for long walks in the woods, always collecting treasures—twigs, nests, mushrooms, berries, flowers—for the Empress. Then it was teatime, followed by performances of the plays the girls wrote, or piano concerts, or poetry recitals. Supper was served late at night, and afterward everyone went off to bed.
The routine rarely changed, although a few times the Tsar took everyone by horseback to nearby villas. Felix found the sameness of the days comforting, and easily adapted to them. But he found himself more and more looking forward to those moments when he could be with Anastasia, writing little skits or just walking together on the grounds. By the end of the week, Felix knew that he had a big-time crush on Anastasia. And by the way she blushed when he spoke to her, or good-naturedly teased him, he thought she had a crush on him, too.
Meanwhile, Maisie spent all her time recovering in bed. Sometimes she heard the Empress and the Tsarevich talking together on the Empress’s balcony, their laughter carrying in the breeze. By the end of the week, Maisie began to sit on her little balcony every afternoon. From there she would see the Empress driving a cart pulled by a pony around the grounds, or wandering in the gardens. She looked sad, Maisie decided. How could someone live in this beautiful palace, surrounded by such a big and loving family, and look so sad?
But even as she wondered this, Maisie realized the answer. Little Alexei suffered from hemophilia. And that was the source of the Empress’s great sorrow.
At home, Easter used to be an egg hunt at the playground, Easter baskets filled with hot-pink and neon-green plastic grass with chocolate bunnies tucked inside, and a special brunch out somewhere nicer than the corner diner. No matter where they went, Maisie and Felix’s father always got eggs Benedict, his fancy brunch order. The rest of them tried the restaurant’s specialties, or something extra special like stuffed French toast or house-made sausage or crepes. They would pass families wearing Easter outfits—kids in matching clothes or women in big hats. But after brunch, they just went home and got back in their pajamas and played rounds of charades or hearts until their mother finally announced it was time to watch the old movie Easter Parade. Maisie and Felix groaned and complained, but eventually they got caught up in Judy Garland and Fred Astaire singing “A Couple of Swells” and the big finale of the song “Easter Parade.”
Their father could be counted on to do a terrible imitation of Peter Lawford singing “A Fella with an Umbrella,” and their mother could be counted on to beg him to stop, which he wouldn’t. That was Easter at 10 Bethune Street.
Easter at Livadia Palace was an entirely different occasion, and Felix watched with great interest as the household prepared for the celebration.
Anastasia explained to him that in Russia, Easter was even more important and more fun than Christmas.
“More fun than Christmas?” Felix said in disbelief. “That’s impossible!”
“You’ll see,” she promised.
For several afternoons before Easter, Felix and Alex joined the four Grand Duchesses to make Easter eggs.
“Wow!” Felix said when he first saw some of the complicated, intricately decorated eggs. “At home we just stick hard-boiled eggs in dye!”
Alex gave a look of disgust.
“Some of us do,” he said. “Other families make traditional Easter eggs.”
Suddenly, he seemed very sad.
“What’s the matter, Alex?” Felix asked him.
“I’m so happy to be here,” Alex said wistfully. “But I miss my babushka. You see, both of my parents died when I was very young, and it’s just been Babushka and me for most of my life.”
“Your parents died?” Felix asked. “Both of them?”
Alex nodded.
“It was very sad, of course. But I was too young to even remember them. Babushka and I decorated traditional eggs every Easter. She makes the most beautiful eggs you can imagine.”
“You’ll be back with her in no time,” Felix said.
To his surprise, Alex’s face changed completely, from sadness to resolve.
“We shall see,” Alex said, turning his attention back to the egg he was painting.
Olga’s hand on his arm brought Felix’s attention back to the others at the table.
“I will teach you,” Olga said.
Olga showed Felix the tools he would need to use.
“These are the kistkas,” she said, picking up three different things that resembled pencils, but with wooden handles and copper tips. Each one was a different thickness.
“We just heat the tip over the candle like this,” Olga continued, demonstrating. “And when it’s heated through we hold it gently against the beeswax.”
Felix watched her as she filled the kistka with the melted beeswax.
“Now I can draw my designs,” she explained.
“You are forgetting one very important detail,” Anastasia said.
“What’s that?” Olga asked, concentrating on her decorating.
Alex laughed. “I think I know!”
Anastasia picked up a white egg from a basket at the end of the table, and a pin from a pincushion beside it.
Carefully, Anastasia poked the shell at the broadest end of the egg with the pin, then she inserted the pin enough so that she could mix the yolk into the egg whites. She took another pin and pierced the other end of the shell with it.
“You should let Felix do it,” Tatiana said, her eyes merry.
“I’m not going to eat a raw egg,” Felix said.
“You don’t eat it!” Alex said.
Anastasia laughed. “Watch,” she said, picking up a straw and holding it over the small hole.
She took a deep breath and blew, hard, sending egg guts out the other end.
“Anastasia!” Olga said. “You’re supposed to do that over the bowl.”
“Oops!” Anastasia said, unapologetically.
Maria held up a finished egg for Felix to see. It was black with large yellow flowers, red berries, and delicate green leaves painted on it.
“It’s beautiful,” Felix said.
“My babushka’s eggs are even more beautiful,” Alex said.
Maria added it to the basket of other eggs: deep purple ones with green, red, and blue geometric designs; black with yellow and red bees; red swirls with gold; light blue with white scrolls . . . a display of color and design like Felix had never seen before.
He couldn’t help but think of the spotty pink, blue, and green eggs his family had dyed when he and Maisie were very little. His mother bought a kit from the drugstore and dropped tablets of dye in paper cups with water and white vinegar. They all wrote their names with a crayon on the egg, the name appearing as the dye took hold. The entire process took about twenty minutes, and then for the next week they had egg salad tinged blue, or deviled eggs with pink around the filling, which Felix refused to eat.
These Easter eggs were exciting to make and beautiful to look at. Maisie would love making them, too, he thought. But when he invited her to come downstairs the next afternoon, she refused.
“I don’t want to be a third wheel,” she said, huffily.
“What are you talking about?” Felix asked, confused. “Everyone’s doing it together in the salon. OTMA and—”
“Oh! It’s OTMA now, is it?” Maisie said, rolling her eyes.
Of course Felix had gotten all cozy with the Grand Duchesses while she lay in bed recuperati
ng. Just like in school, Maisie thought with a familiar pang. Everyone loved Felix, and she was an interloper.
“That’s just what they call themselves,” Felix explained.
“I don’t even like dyeing Easter eggs,” Maisie said. “We used to do it, you know. When we were little.”
“Of course I remember that,” Felix said kindly. “But this is different.”
He held out one of the eggs he’d decorated.
“Look,” he said. “I made this one for you.”
Maisie frowned at the fancy egg in his hand. It was the prettiest shade of blue and covered with white flowers that had red centers and a trellis of pale green leaves running around it.
“You made that?” she said, even more miserable now.
Somehow Felix had learned to make these gorgeous eggs, and if she went downstairs everyone would be decorating eggs, except her. She wouldn’t have a clue where to begin.
As if he’d read her mind, Felix said, “I’ll teach you how to do it. It’s really not too hard. You should see the ones Alex made. And you get to blow the yolks out of a tiny hole in the egg! That part is really fun.”
That part did sound like fun, Maisie had to admit. But still, she was tired of always being the one who walked into a group that was friends, having to prove herself somehow.
“Maybe tomorrow,” she said, and closed her eyes to signal the conversation was over.
After she heard Felix leave, she opened her eyes again.
He’d placed the decorated egg on the table beside the bed. When Maisie picked it up, she was surprised how light it was, as if it weren’t an egg at all.
“I think,” Anastasia said, her voice low, “this one is the most beautiful of all.”
Felix watched as she took a Fabergé egg down from a mantel on which a dozen others sat. This egg was blue, green, and yellow, with thin silver lines running across it.
Anastasia traced the silver lines.
“This is Siberia,” she said, “and these lines are the route of the railroad.”
“Wow,” Felix said, impressed.
“Papa was the chairman of the railway committee that built the Great Siberian Railway,” Anastasia explained.
“Isn’t he the chairman of everything?” Felix asked.
Anastasia looked delighted.
“I suppose he is!” she said.
She sat cross-legged on the floor and patted the spot beside her for Felix to sit.
When he did, she said, “Mr. Fabergé made this in 1900, to commemorate the railroad.”
Anastasia touched the golden two-headed eagle at the top of the egg, and to Felix’s surprise the top lifted.
“Look,” Anastasia said, excited to show him the surprise inside.
Felix could not believe what he saw when he did as she asked.
Inside was a train with five cars and a locomotive, all of it only about a foot long and less than an inch wide.
“It’s the Siberian Express!” Anastasia said with delight, clapping her hands together.
She held up a gold key.
“Play with it,” she told Felix, handing him the key.
“Really?” he asked.
Anastasia nodded and Felix turned the key, illuminating the diamond that made the headlights of the gold and silver locomotive.
“Turn it again!” Anastasia said, excitedly.
When Felix did, the locomotive began to pull the five cars.
“That’s the baggage car, and the ladies car, and that one is our car!” she explained, pointing as each moved past.
“And the one with the cross is the church car,” she continued. “See the gold bells on the roof?”
“This is amazing!” Felix said.
Miss Landers had told the class to only say awesome when something truly inspired awe, and to only say amazing when one was truly amazed. He decided this was the kind of thing that earned both awesome and amazing.
From the mantel, the top of another egg flew open and a bejeweled rooster emerged on a platform, flapping its wings and crowing.
Felix stared at it.
“Awesome!” he said.
As he watched the rooster sink back down into the egg, his eye caught sight of something familiar.
There on the mantel, with all the other Fabergé eggs, sat the one he and Maisie had brought with them.
Now that he had found it, he just had to figure out how to get it back.
“What’s your problem?” Alex Andropov asked Maisie.
His nose was peeling and his cheeks were pink from sunburn.
“I don’t remember inviting you into my room,” Maisie said. “In fact, I don’t remember inviting you to Russia!”
Rather than getting angry or offended, Alex smiled at Maisie.
“Easter begins tonight,” he said. “It’s the most important celebration of the year.”
“So?”
“So you have to get out of bed and celebrate,” Alex said patiently. “Aunt Alex—”
“She’s your aunt now? The Empress?”
“She’s always been my aunt,” he reminded Maisie. “And she’s worked tirelessly to prepare for Easter here, and you need to show up.”
Maisie sighed. “I know,” she mumbled.
Alex sat on the edge of her bed, looking worried.
“What’s wrong? I mean, other than your arm?”
“My arm is actually better,” Maisie admitted.
“Then what?”
“For some reason, I always get left out,” Maisie said. “And now if I show up, everyone will have private jokes and know things I don’t know and . . . they even have memories together already that I’ll never share.”
Saying it out loud made her worries seem dumb.
“I know it’s dumb,” Maisie said.
Alex laughed softly.
“I don’t think it’s dumb at all,” he said. “I feel that way all the time. I miss so much school, and when I’m there I never know what anyone’s talking about or what’s going on in class. That’s why I got so excited when you said you were interested in Imperial Russia,” he added, his cheeks growing pinker. “I thought, Finally someone who likes something I like.”
Alex had been looking down at the floor as he spoke. But now he looked at Maisie.
“Now that sounds dumb,” he said.
“No!” Maisie said. “No! I get it! I do!”
“Will you come to the Easter celebration if I promise to stick by your side? I’ll be sure you won’t feel left out,” Alex said.
Maisie couldn’t say no.
“All right,” she said. “But if you go off with a Grand Duchess or two and leave me behind, you’ll be sorry.”
“The festivities start at midnight,” Alex said, heading toward the door.
“Midnight?” Maisie repeated to herself.
Alex stayed true to his word. He even explained all the traditions to her.
“Imagine,” he said, his eyes shining, “all across Russia everyone is doing these very things.”
Maisie thought of how big Russia was, spreading across the wall in the Map Room at Elm Medona. It’s impressive, she thought, that cathedrals and houses everywhere in this enormous country are saying the same prayers and eating these same foods.
Eating seemed to be a very important part of Easter here. All night and the next morning, the Tsar and Tsarina hosted hundreds of people, serving food from enormous tables and giving their guests three kisses.
“One for blessing,” Alex explained, “one for welcome, and one for joy.”
He brought Maisie extra helpings of the creamy dessert she liked, and also made sure she tasted the Easter cake topped with white frosting. He even tried to teach her a Russian dance that involved lots of kicking and spinning, but Maisie’s legs got tangl
ed together, and she got so dizzy trying to keep up with Alex when she spun around that she knocked into two other dancers. Usually, something like that would make her feel embarrassed, but the dancers and Alex just laughed good-naturedly. “Maybe no more spinning,” Alex said. Instead, he concentrated on trying to teach her the secret to such rapid kicking.
Even though Maisie had a good time, she hardly saw Felix during the entire celebration. He was swept away by Anastasia, sending Maisie a wave across the banquet table and a shrug as he helped hand out Easter eggs to the schoolchildren of Yalta who filed in the next morning. If it wasn’t for Alex Andropov, Maisie decided, she would have had another terrible time, and Felix would have been clueless, as usual.
When the festivities were finally over and everyone went to rest, Felix passed Maisie in the hallway. He was, of course, following Anastasia.
“Wasn’t that great?” he asked Maisie.
He didn’t wait for her to answer. He just kept walking.
“It was great!” Maisie shouted after him.
Anastasia turned and grinned at Maisie.
“Just wait until we leave for Finland next month,” she said. “That’s lots of fun, too.”
Finland? There was no way, Maisie decided right then and there, that she was sticking around long enough to go to Finland.
Chapter Eight
ALEX ANDROPOV’S THREAT
But Maisie had never been more wrong in her life. She and Felix did board the Imperial yacht, Standart, along with Alex Andropov and the entire royal family. Even though Felix looked anxious, Maisie decided to stay mad at him. Anastasia and Maria were both stuck to him like Velcro, so Maisie explored the yacht by herself.
The decks were all white—awnings, wicker tables, wicker chairs.
Maisie went below, wandering through dozens of rooms with rich wood paneling and sparkling chandeliers.
“Oh! Excuse me,” murmured a man who bumped into her with his trumpet case.
“Pardon me,” said a man right behind him. This man carried an enormous tuba case.
“Pardon,” said the next man. He held a strange-shaped instrument in his hand. It had a long neck and a triangle-shaped body with just three strings.
