Dreaming Anastasia

by Joy Preble

  For a second, our gazes meet. Alex’s words hang between us. The answer is always there somewhere, he’d told us. Now we need to figure out where.

  The train continues to race into the city. I flick my gaze over the other passengers in the car. On the seat to our left, a man in his mid-forties sits, checking his Blackberry. Near the door, a guy in a gray hoodie slumps in his seat, dozing. A stout, elderly woman in a thick, navy wool coat and a head scarf sits near the front of the car.

  I can feel Dimitri’s presence still, but only in a vague, distant way. I don’t sense Viktor either. For the moment, I think we’re safe.

  I open the box and run my finger along the raised painted key. “Talk,” I say to Anne. “Tell me all you remember.”

  So she does. She tells me Baba Yaga’s story of the three horsemen, how each one circles the hut three times. She reminds me of what she told me in the car: the witch had sliced Anne’s hand and squeezed out three drops of blood.

  “They dropped on the table one by one,” Anne says, “and I remember thinking it should hurt, but it didn’t. I remember I pressed my hand to my chest and the blood was soaking into my shirt.”

  As she talks, I experiment with the lacquer box. I close the lid, then open it again. I turn it around in my hand, tap it on the top of the seat in front of me, and even flip it upside down.

  Anne watches me. “I’ve tried all that,” she says. “Why won’t any of it work? I mean…Hey!”

  She grabs the box from my hand. “I just remembered. That dream didn’t start in Baba Yaga’s hut. It started with me and Tess. We kept shifting back and forth from the Wrap Hut to Baba Yaga’s. Tess kept throwing onions, maybe because my brain was thinking of the onions from our sandwiches. Then the onions turned into skulls. And then Tess told me, ‘Three’s the charm.’”

  She looks down at the box and then back up at me. She’s grinning. So am I.

  “Three,” Anne says. “Three. Oh my God, Ethan. It’s everywhere in fairy tales, isn’t it? Three wishes. Three pigs. Three guesses.”

  I nod my head. Three horsemen. Three stars. Three drops of blood. Three. It hadn’t occurred to us, but Alex figured it out. Three. Our magic number.

  “It makes sense,” I say. “Maybe if we just do this.” I take the box from her and turn it around three times. “Like the three horsemen riding around Baba Yaga’s hut. Maybe that’s the clue.” But when I open the box, there is still no actual key.

  Anne’s face pales. “The napkin the professor was holding,” she says. “The one with the drops of blood. Where is it?”

  Grief spears through me as I hand the lacquer box back to Anne, then pull the napkin gently from my pocket. I hold it up so Anne can see. The drops of blood we’d seen around the Wrap Hut logo aren’t just random. Not two or four or even ten. Just three.

  “He was telling us,” I say.

  Anne’s eyes well with tears, but she’s smiling too. “That’s what Baba Yaga was telling me too. Ethan, think. She may be compelled to stop me, but I think she’s trying to help anyway. She showed me how when she cut my hand. Blood. My blood.”

  For the first time in a long while, I feel hopeful.

  “Do you think that’s it then?” Anne asks. “Both those things together? Turn the box three times and bleed on it? Could that really be it? Then we get the key?”

  “We won’t know until we try,” I tell her. I think about something else Baba Yaga said, about how matters of blood are never simple.

  “Then let’s do it,” Anne says. “We’ll need something to cut my hand.”

  I nod and shove the bloodied napkin back in my pocket.

  And then I feel the train slow.

  I look up. In the front of the car, the guy with the Blackberry stands and moves to the doors. I look out the window. At least twenty people crowd the platform as the train approaches. The train slows some more. The air feels alive, crackling with energy.

  “Ethan,” Anne says. I can tell she feels it too. “Something—”

  “I know.” My throat tightens. I can’t tell what’s happening, but I know it’s not good.

  The train stops. The doors slide open. Blackberry guy starts to step off.

  Then he’s slammed across the car, crashing into a window on the other side as the train rushes forward, the doors still hanging open. He slumps to the seat below the window, moaning, and the elderly woman in the blue wool coat begins to scream.

  The guy in the gray hoodie lurches from his seat, then tumbles toward the open doors. He scrabbles at the floor, grabbing onto the bottom of one of the seats to keep himself from rolling out.

  The train picks up speed.

  “Help me!” the guy on the floor screams. His hand is losing its grip on the seat bottom. “Oh God, someone please help me!”

  Anne stands. I shove her back in her seat. “Stay here.” I inch my way into the aisle and head for the guy in trouble. “Hang on,” I call. “Just hang on!”

  The train speeds up some more. Everything is whipping by as I weave my way forward. “Grab my hand!” I say when I’m close enough. I grip the bar on top of the last seat and reach down to the man with the gray hoodie. He slides a little closer to the open door.

  I stretch out, reach his free hand, then pull. When he’s far enough from the door, I drag him back to another seat. “You’re okay,” I say. “You’re okay.”

  “Do you really think so?” asks a familiar voice behind me.

  I whip around to see Viktor holding Anne in front of him, a gun to the back of her head. “Ah, Etanovich,” he says. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? But it seems you have not changed at all.”

  Thursday, 9:47 am

  Anne

  The color drains from Ethan’s face, and I’m certain that I’m not looking too perky either, given that Viktor has his gun jammed against my neck and is holding me so tightly that he’s cutting off the circulation to my arms. He’d come through the door from the next car. I’d tried to scream when he grabbed me from behind, but something—some magic something—had swallowed up the sound.

  “You realize, Brother, that I can’t let her go through with it?” His free hand snakes out so fast that I barely see it move. Magic slaps the space around us with enough force to jerk us both backward.

  “Ethan!” I watch the spell lift him from the floor and somehow suspend him in midair. Swirling blue ribbons of energy wrap around him, then squeeze tight. He’s still holding his arms out, as if he’s trying to pull me to him. Vaguely, I’m aware that the old lady in the blue coat is still screaming.

  “What the hell is this?” The guy that Ethan has just saved from sliding onto the tracks stands and starts to edge toward us. This time, Viktor is so fast I don’t even see what he does. But the guy in the gray hoodie sits down, and the woman stops screaming.

  “You thought you were special, didn’t you?” I feel Viktor shake his head as Ethan hovers above us. The train roars past another stop. “That I picked you because you were stronger or smarter? I asked you to pledge your life, and you didn’t hesitate for a second. The virtuous Etanovich. So devout and so committed to his cause.”

  Ethan manages to clench one fist. I can see him straining to break whatever hold Viktor has on him.

  “It never occurred to you,” Viktor says, “that perhaps I picked you because you were none of those things. Not smart. Not strong. Just young and foolish and weak.”

  Anger sends the power I still haven’t learned to control flooding through me. I can feel my hands burning. I twist and press them against Viktor’s sides. He yelps and loosens his grip on me ever so slightly.

  In that moment, Ethan breaks through whatever’s holding him. In one motion, he drops to the floor and starts to rush toward us.

  Viktor grabs me to him again. He flicks a couple of fingers in the air, and pain shoots through me. It’s as if the power I’d been trying to direct outward has reversed itself and is trying to burn its way through me. I feel my knees buckle, but Viktor’s grasp keeps me s
tanding.

  “I will kill her, Ethan. I hope you don’t have any doubts about that. So I would stay where you are. You and I may be immortal, but your little girl here isn’t.”

  Like I needed reminding.

  “You don’t want to do this Viktor,” Ethan grinds out, his breath ragged. “Let her go. Deal with me.”

  “I thought I told you, Brother . That’s not going to happen.” Viktor edges us forward. “You two will fail Anastasia, and she will stay where she is. Just like you failed your friend Olensky. Such a nice man—and so easy to get rid of.”

  Without warning, I’m in Viktor’s head, seeing the professor, watching as he opens the door to a voice in the hall that he thinks is Ethan’s.

  I hear Baba Yaga’s words echo somewhere inside me. You can take, but you must also give up. Was the professor’s death the price we paid for trying to fix history?

  “No!” Viktor whirls me around to face him. His dark eyes glitter as he watches me. “Your girl is meddlesome, Ethan. She thinks she can search my mind. Like that bitch, Baba Yaga. She has no idea what I am capable of!”

  A muscle in his jaw tics. His gaze holds mine, and an unseen fist plows its way into me. This time, I do double over. Nausea rises in my throat. Then I’m on the floor, so racked with searing pain that all I can do is clutch the bottom of one of the seats and hang on as the train keeps flying down the track.

  “It is such a shame.” Viktor turns his attention back to Ethan. His tone is almost pleasant, like we’re all just friends having a simple conversation. “You have turned out to be such a disappointment. I gave you the perfect life. You were nothing—just a sniveling, filthy little orphan. I gave you knowledge and power, Ethan. I let you see what it was like to be more than the dirt on some aristocrat’s boot. And then I gave you the best gift of all. Immortality.”

  “You think that was a gift?” I can hear the fury in Ethan’s voice. He jerks one hand in the air. Viktor stumbles backward and clutches his head. When he brings his hand away, I see it smeared with his blood. “Is that what you think? That you gave me this great gift? This wonderful thing?”

  “And what are you going to tell me, Ethan?” Viktor wipes his hand on his leather jacket. “That it’s not? That you’d rather go back to—what were you doing when I first found you? Oh, yes, stealing some rotten potatoes. Sleeping in pigsties. Waiting until starvation or disease or some angry Cossack caught up with you. How silly of me, Ethan, to forget how much I robbed from you.” He shakes his head, and with a slow, deliberate motion, he brushes a spot of dirt from the arm of his jacket.

  “Enough. This is getting tiresome. Say good-bye to your dear Anne, Ethan. She won’t be around for much longer.”

  “Why not?” I have to work to make my voice come out. I force myself to stand. “Because you want to go on living forever? Because you love immortality so much that you just don’t want to give it up? Is that it? And now you have to get rid of me so I don’t mess it up for you?”

  This time, Viktor doesn’t even move a muscle, but the magic flares out at me again and slams another blow to my midsection that leaves me breathless.

  “You’re a coward, Brother.” Ethan’s voice rings out over the wind rushing through the train. “And a liar. You used Anastasia. Now you want to hurt Anne. And for what?”

  I’m still doubled over, trying to keep my balance as the train hurtles along, but I raise my head. Ethan’s gaze is fixed on Viktor. When he speaks again, something inside me just knows it’s the truth.

  “This whole thing is about Nicholas, isn’t it? It’s always been about him. Not about saving Anastasia or helping the Romanovs or even living forever. You just wanted to stick it to Tsar Nicholas, didn’t you? Dear old Dad wouldn’t acknowledge his bastard son, and you couldn’t stand that. You son of a bitch. All this because of him. Anastasia’s life. Anne’s. Mine. Every other brother who let himself be sucked into your lies. All because you just couldn’t let it go—because you needed your vengeance.”

  Viktor’s face hardens. He raises one hand and cuts through the air with a slashing motion. A jagged wound opens itself on Ethan’s cheek. Blood runs down his face, but the cut begins to close itself. “Do not ever presume to—” Viktor starts.

  “Presume to what?” Ethan moves closer yet. “To know that you would take revenge on a man who’s been dead and gone for almost a century by trapping his daughter? And,” he gestures at me, “by killing an innocent girl whose only crime is fulfilling a mission you made us all believe was real?” Ethan uses his thumb to wipe blood off his chin. His gaze is fixed on Viktor. “By murdering a kind old man in cold blood?”

  Viktor doesn’t answer. His eyes kind of glaze over, like he’s gone back somewhere. “Do you know why I joined the Brotherhood?” he asks. “Because I thought it would please him. But he looked right through me, even when I warned him that the Revolution was at hand. He just laughed and walked away—told me a tsar didn’t take orders from a peasant, even if that peasant was his illegitimate son.” Viktor laughs—a crazy, bitter, Demented Relatives—Next on Dr. Phil sort of laugh. “So his blood flowed,” he says, his eyes still in that hazy place, “and he paid for his arrogance.”

  “And Anastasia?” Ethan crosses the distance between us. “What is she supposed to be paying for if you let her rot in Baba Yaga’s house so you can go on living?” He slams Viktor—maybe with magic, maybe just with sheer force—against the back wall of the train. The gun clatters to the floor. Ethan motions at it, and it crumbles to pieces. “What gives you the right to play with someone’s life like that?”

  Ethan grabs my hand and pulls me to him. For about two seconds, I feel relief—until, of course, I realize that the train still hasn’t stopped, that we’ve blown by every stop on the north side of the city. We’re headed into the downtown underground tracks, and we’re picking up speed.

  “Think carefully, my dear Etanovich.” Viktor’s now looking straight at me, and I don’t like what I see in those dark eyes. “Our lovely young woman here—the one you seem to care so much about—did you give her a choice? Can you really tell yourself that she is here completely of her own free will?”

  He flicks a finger toward me. The breath rushes from my body. I reach my hands up to my throat, but it’s like my dream all over again. Only this time, it’s all real. The invisible vise tightens. I can’t breathe at all.

  “Take a good look at her, Ethan. You’ll want to remember that face—remember what it looked like as she died. And then try to convince yourself that you had nothing to do with it.”

  It’s funny what crosses your mind when you think you’re dying. And what crosses mine is that I’ll never be able to talk to anyone I love before I go. Which makes me think of my cell phone. Which makes me realize I’ve got one more chance after all.

  But Ethan’s got a last-ditch idea of his own.

  He shoves me in front of him. “You don’t know who she is, do you? You think you know everything, Viktor. But I don’t think you really do. You look at her, Brother. Think. Do you remember a woman named Irina? A ballerina back in Russia?”

  I think I see something wash across Viktor’s face. Then again, I’m hurtling in this metal box toward certain doom and the life is being sucked out of me, so it’s really hard to say for sure.

  “Do you know that when you left her, she was pregnant? She had a child, Viktor. Your child. A little girl named Natasha. And Natasha had a daughter, and that daughter had her own child.”

  The stranglehold on my throat eases enough for me to gulp a little air. I dig my hand into my pocket, wrap it around my cell phone, concentrate with all I’ve got left, and squeeze.

  “That child was named Lily, and she had a daughter too,” Ethan says. “And then, Brother, another girl was born. Her name was Anne.”

  “You can’t know this,” Viktor says. He clamps down my airway again.

  “I told you to look at her, Brother,” Ethan shouts. “Look at her eyes, her mouth. Look at her, Viktor! Can you do it
? Can you kill your own great-great-granddaughter?”

  I feel the heat rise through my fist. Then I yank the cell phone, more than fully charged, from my pocket and aim it at Viktor’s head.

  It hits him smack in the forehead and explodes in a satisfying burst of flames and smoke.

  A small piece of metal from the explosion flies out and slices into the still-outstretched palm of my hand. But my lungs fill with air.

  Ethan grabs my hand. “Glad you remembered,” he says as we run toward the front of the car.

  Yeah—me too. Now if only I can think of something wickedly brilliant to tell my dad when he discovers I’ve destroyed my cell phone.

  I risk a quick glance behind us. Viktor’s lying on the floor, his eyes closed, but I know he’s not dead. He can’t be. Not as long as I’m still on this train and Anastasia is—well, wherever she is.

  The guy in the gray hoodie has somehow moved over and is holding the elderly woman in the blue coat. The train door to my right is still gaping open. With a sudden jolt, the train begins to slow.

  “Viktor’s magic must be breaking,” Ethan says, “but I doubt he’ll be out for long. Let’s put some distance between us.”

  For one freakish second, I think he’s suggesting we jump from the speeding train onto the tracks, but he just pulls open the door that leads to the next car. “Move,” he says.

  I start to follow him. My heart is pumping wildly. I can feel the slickness of my bleeding hand against Ethan’s as he clasps it. I look down. Blood trickles from between our hands and falls to the floor. It leaves a little red trail at my feet.

  “Wait.” I hold Ethan back. “My hand. Ethan, I’m bleeding. We need to do it now.” I grab the lacquer box out of my pocket with my bloody fingers. If Viktor wakes up while we’re still on this train, there may not be another opportunity.

  Three’s the charm, Tess had said in my dream. Three times. Three turns. Three drops of blood.

  “Hold the box,” I tell Ethan. I shove it into his hand. “You turn it, and I’ll do the bleeding.” I grin at that last part. If you’re about to open a magic box while the bad guy is a few feet away ready to wake up and try to kill you again, you might as well smile.