Dreaming Anastasia

by Joy Preble

  Then he strides over to the red horse, kind of nods to its horseman, and mounts up. And I admit, watching him leap onto that horse like it’s second nature to him—which I suppose it is, since he was born before the automobile and all—is pretty damn hot.

  “ Spasiba, ” Anastasia calls to the horsemen. She turns back to me. “Thank you,” she translates. Then she pours out some more Russian at Ethan.

  “She says they know the way,” he tells me. “The horsemen have taught them. They’re not bound like Baba Yaga is—not bound by the magic. She thinks Viktor doesn’t realize this, that it’s something he didn’t anticipate.”

  “That’s what Baba Yaga said in my dream too, but is she sure?”

  Ethan shrugs. “Does it matter? There’s no other way.”

  “Next time I do something like this,” I say, “I’m doing it with someone who knows all the rules before we start.”

  Ethan doesn’t comment. He just guides his horse around to stand in front of ours, digs his heels in, and makes a soft clicking sound with his tongue. The horse begins to trot away from the hut. Behind me, Anastasia makes the same sound and kicks at our horse. It follows Ethan’s horse.

  But then the black horse—the one without a rider—breaks away from its horseman, who’s still standing alongside it. It trots quickly ahead of Ethan’s horse, then picks up speed and leaps over the gate. It comes to an abrupt stop, snorting, whinnying, and pawing at the ground. Without warning, Ethan’s horse and mine both follow it. My heart thuds as we leap over the gate, and Anastasia grips me even more tightly around my waist.

  And then—nothing. The horses don’t move.

  A few seconds later, I understand.

  Viktor, only a few feet ahead of Baba Yaga’s disembodied hands, comes tearing out of the forest, eyeballs us all for a second, and leaps onto the black horse. The hands clap together—hard—then fling themselves skyward. Behind me, Anastasia breaks into an angry stream of Russian. Some of it sounds like swear words. But there’s no time for Ethan to translate. All I can do is cling to the white horse’s mane, gasp as it gallops to the front of the other two horses, and ride.

  Thursday, in the Forest

  Ethan

  Looks as if we’re all leaving Baba Yaga’s forest together.

  Anne and Anastasia’s horse takes the lead. The two girls sit together on the white horse, their hair streaming behind them in the wind. My horse and Viktor’s follow. Their hooves pound the forest floor beneath us, crushing the dead leaves deeper into the soil. That sickly sweet smell of death permeates everything.

  Above us, the howling begins. A deep sobbing sound—mournful, weeping, gnashing at the air in its misery. “Anastasia,” howls the wind, which whips around us fiercely. “Do not leave me. Do not leave your Auntie.”

  Her iron teeth gleam through the darkness of the forest as she cries out. Her eyes glow with madness.

  Suddenly she’s standing in front of us. Her gaze fixes on Anne. “To save or to sacrifice, girl. Which will it be?”

  She’s gone before we can even cry out, but her words freeze in my ears. Sacrifice. Hasn’t there already been enough of that?

  I urge my horse to gallop faster. We’re nearing the edge of the forest. I cannot risk thinking about what will happen—to all of us—if we don’t make it.

  And then it occurs to me: I have no idea how to get us back.

  Even if I did, where would we end up? On a runaway El train?

  We gallop out of one last stand of trees and come to a stop in front of a stream so small and thin that it’s barely visible in the dim light. If there is a way back, it’s beyond this stream, but the horses dig in their hooves. They’ll move no farther.

  It seems entirely possible that we’ve come this far only to be trapped. Perhaps Viktor was right about me after all.

  Above us, Baba Yaga whirls through the sky, stirring the air in her mortar. “I can’t help you, girl,” she shrieks to Anne, “but you can help yourself! Round and round and round. Choices, my girl. Think carefully! It is not as simple as it seems. Where do you want to be?”

  The horses line up in a row. One, two, three; side by side, they stand in front of the stream.

  “Move!” Viktor shouts to them in Russian. He slashes his hands through the air commanding a spell to compel them as he compelled Baba Yaga so long ago. But they do not move. Our magic is still useless here.

  “Get off!” I shout to the others. “We’ll need to go the rest of the way on foot.”

  “No! Nyet! ” Anastasia waves her arms at me. “Wait. Please.” Her voice is loud and clear. “Wait,” says the tsar’s daughter. “Watch. It will come.”

  “We can’t wait anymore,” I say. I start to swing myself off the horse.

  “No, Ethan!” Anne shouts to me. “I think she knows what’s she’s doing! Hold on! Please!”

  “My God,” Viktor thunders. “Are you crazy? We need to make a run for it.”

  “Ethan,” Anne says, “you really better hold on. Look!” She points to the ground below us.

  “ Koshka, ” says Anastasia. She reaches into her pocket and tosses some crumbs to the ground. Between the narrow stream and the horses, the black cat—the one that led us through the forest—walks slowly, delicately, and stops to nibble on the crumbs of bread or cake that Anastasia has dropped to the ground.

  I grab tight to my horse’s mane. The others hold on tight as well. The cat arches his back, looks up at the three horses, and hisses, baring his razor-sharp teeth and flicking his pink tongue. The horses whinny in fear, rear back, then paw at the ground. They back up some more—step by step as we cling to them. Back and back we go.

  “Choose now, young Anne!” Baba Yaga’s voice fills the air, the forest—everything.

  The cat hisses again. The horses bolt forward, racing to the stream. We’re going to jump over it, I think. But then they balk. All three stop dead at the foot of the stream. I close my eyes. Anne, Anastasia, Viktor, and I—we tumble over their heads, across the stream, and out of Baba Yaga’s forest.

  When I open my eyes, though, we’re not back on the El train. We’re rolling in a heap out the front door of the Wrap Hut, tumbling onto Second Street in the middle of afternoon traffic. When I finally sit up, I’m staring at Java Joe’s.

  And then something else begins.

  Thursday, 2:35 pm

  Anne

  She’d told me to choose, so I did. I chose to go home, and it looks like it worked.

  “We did it!” I shout to Ethan as we all sprawl in the middle of the street. “We did it! I can’t believe it was that easy. I guess Baba Yaga really did want to help us. She told me to choose, so I thought of home. Well, I thought of here, anyway. It was the first normal thing that popped into my head. Java Joe’s. The Wrap Hut. The Jewel Box. Normal stuff. And it worked, Ethan, it worked! I can’t believe it really worked!”

  I grab Anastasia’s arm and pull her to her feet. She says something to me in Russian, but I’m too busy avoiding the speeding soccer moms in their SUVs who clearly think we’ve all rolled into the street just to piss them off on their way to Pilates or something.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I say to Anastasia. “It’ll all be okay.” I haul her with me to the sidewalk in front of Java Joe’s. She looks a little terrified—and why not? She left this world in the long-skirt-and-corset days, survived like a hundred years in a witch’s hut, and now some suburban Botox queen almost mows her down trying to make it to the head of the carpool lane. I haven’t even told her the price of a double latte at Java Joe’s yet!

  I glance up at the huge clock on the bank down the block near Miss Amy’s. It’s just a little after two thirty in the afternoon. It feels like it’s been a lifetime, but school isn’t even out for another thirty minutes. And if it’s still Thursday, my mother’s got the afternoon off, so if I’m living right, she’s not across the street watching me dodge through traffic with the last living grand duchess of Russia.

  Things are looking up.
<
br />   And then I remember what’s supposed to happen once I’ve saved Anastasia.

  Ethan. He’s made it out of the street to Java Joe’s. So has Viktor. They’re standing a few feet from us, kind of weaving back and forth.

  “Ethan,” I call to him, but he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even look up, especially not once he begins glowing. Yes, glowing, right there on the sidewalk of Second Street in front of the plate-glass windows of Java Joe’s.

  Viktor too, and he doesn’t look very happy about it.

  My gaze swings back to Ethan. He looks at me, but I don’t think he really sees me. Light’s shining everywhere—in his face, his hands, his hair, his eyes—like this big spotlight is just beaming down on him.

  He stiffens. His hands clench into fists, then open. His eyes—those bright blue eyes—close. The light about him grows even brighter. Pure white now, it pours into him. He throws his head back, opens his mouth, and seems to just sort of gulp it down. His eyes open—two blue crystals shining.

  And then it’s over.

  He turns, starts to stagger toward me, then sinks slowly to his knees. Right there in the middle of the sidewalk in front of Java Joe’s, Ethan’s life returns. A mortal life—and eventually, a mortal death.

  Just like he was meant to have.

  I kneel down next to him and watch quietly as he studies his hands, clenching and unclenching them as the last shreds of light drift away. He covers his face with his hands. His shoulders start to shake.

  “Ethan,” I say again. I touch my hand gently to his shoulder. He lowers his hands from his face and looks at me with those blue eyes, now wet with tears.

  “Anne,” he starts, and for a second, it’s just the two of us here on the sidewalk. “Anne, I—”

  But he never finishes whatever he’s about to tell me—maybe something like, Hey, I’m really eighteen now, so let’s do something normal together like get a Mocha Madness at Java Joe’s, or catch a movie, or anything not involving a life-and-death scenario.

  I stop feeling so smug about having rescued Anastasia and figured out how to get us back. In fact, all of a sudden, I don’t feel very well at all.

  In the sky, a huge bank of black clouds rushes in and swirls over Second Street. A bolt of lightning rakes through the sky and slams into the roof of the Wrap Hut. The building ignites in seconds, flames leaping everywhere. People start racing from the restaurant. A young woman lurches out screaming. Her clothes are on fire. She rolls on the ground to put them out.

  “Ethan!” I yell. “What’s happening?”

  Anastasia is screaming too. Viktor calls something to her in Russian. Like Ethan, he’s still kneeling on the sidewalk, his body glimmering.

  Another bolt of lightning streaks over our heads, rips through the roof of a parked car like it’s just a tin can, and then powers its way into the asphalt. The street cracks. A minivan with a mother and a couple of kids buckled into the back seat skids into the fissure, one front wheel jammed in the opening, the car tilted at a crazy angle.

  Everywhere, people are running and screaming.

  The third lightning strike aims itself at Java Joe’s. Ethan hauls himself up off the sidewalk and grabs me. He screams something in Russian to Viktor and Anastasia. We race back across the street and make it to the front of the Jewel Box just as white-hot destruction shatters the plate-glass window of Java Joe’s, sending shards of glass everywhere.

  Something makes me turn around. My back to the street, I peer through front door into the Jewel Box. Mrs. Benson is standing at the counter, staring open-mouthed at what’s going on outside. She doesn’t seem to register my presence on the other side of the door. Behind her, there’s a flash of motion. She turns and says something I can’t hear.

  Sometimes, you just know what’s coming next. Sometimes, you do everything in your power to prevent it. But sometimes, there is nothing you can do.

  My mother runs out from the back of the shop. She comes to a halt at the counter next to Mrs. Benson and looks out toward Second Street. Her eyes meet mine. She moves toward the door to come for me, probably to get me inside where she thinks it’s safe. In that moment, I don’t hear or see anything else. Not Anastasia or Ethan or Viktor. Not the people running and screaming, or any of it.

  Nothing but my mother coming to help me.

  Ethan shouts something. I’m fighting against him. He keeps pulling, dragging me away. I’m shrieking, although I can’t even hear the sound of my voice. Some distant part of me registers that Viktor and Anastasia are following to wherever Ethan is forcing me to go.

  When the lightning sears through the roof of the Jewel Box and the roof collapses, I’m in the middle of the street, screaming for my mother.

  Thursday, 2:55 pm

  Ethan

  She wasn’t supposed to be there!” Anne shouts at me. She pounds her hands on my chest as I try to hold her. Rain streams from the sky, huge drops of water pelting down on us. The fire on the restaurant sizzles out—one small blessing in all this destruction and chaos. We’ve rescued Anastasia and escaped from Baba Yaga.

  But the witch has come after us. And the magic has gone wrong.

  “We have to help her!” Anne shouts at me. She breaks from my arms, dashes back to the jewelry store, and starts digging through the rubble, pulling at hunks of roof and ceiling tile and dry wall. Even through the blinding storm, I can see the glow of her hands.

  I hurry to her. Only part of the roof has collapsed. There’s a chance, I think, if we get to her soon. Through the hole where once there was ceiling and roof, Baba Yaga swoops down through the clouds in her mortar.

  “Anastasia!” she shrieks. “My girl! Anastasia!” Her long hair is wet and matted. Her voice is hideous.

  I whip my head around to look for Viktor. He’s just standing where we’ve left him, staring up at Baba Yaga.

  If Anastasia hears the witch calling her name, she doesn’t look up. She’s too busy kneeling next to Anne, searching for Anne’s mother.

  “Her mama,” Anastasia says in Russian. Mat. I have no idea how she knows, but somehow she does.

  “Oh God, Ethan.” Anne’s eyes have gone blank. She pulls at the pieces of broken roof and tells me what I’m already thinking.

  What we’ve both understood too late.

  “We should have realized,” Anne says. “It’s the threes, Ethan. Three drops of blood. Three horses. Don’t you see? There were only supposed to be three of us. You, me, and Anastasia. I think that’s how it was supposed to work. But there weren’t three. We were four. Viktor made four! And now it’s all wrong. The magic’s screwed up somehow. And my mom may be—”

  “Over here!” Anastasia says. “Come quickly!” Even above Anne’s screams, above the storm, above Baba Yaga’s cries, her voice rings out clearly.

  I go to where she’s frantically pulling at a heavy piece of tile. The store owner coughs and groans, but sits up when we free her. I lift her in my arms and carry her out to the street.

  She’s too dazed to speak, but she’s alive and moving. An older man with a jagged cut down one arm takes her gently by the shoulders and walks her down the street toward the bank building. It’s still in one piece. At least for now, it’s a place of safety.

  I run back to the store. Anne and Anastasia are bent together over the rubble. I step over the broken pieces of the roof toward them. They’re moving in unison—the princess in the torn white dress and my princess in the battered denim jacket, two young women who deserve more than this.

  “Mom!” Anne cries.

  “Mama!” Anastasia says.

  But only one of their mothers is still alive.

  I move over to help carry Anne’s mother—bleeding from a shallow cut on her forehead, but breathing and in one piece—from underneath the fallen tile.

  “She’s unconscious,” I say to Anne, “but she’s alive. That’s all that matters right now. We’ll get her to the bank. But then you have to stay with me—stay focused. We’ve got to stop Baba Yaga, stop
whatever’s happening, and I know I can’t do that without you.”

  Anne nods. “Okay,” she says. She bends over and kisses her mother on the forehead. I see now that one of her arms is hanging at an odd angle. “You’ll be okay, Mommy. Just hang on. Please.”

  Her mother’s eyes flutter open. She gazes curiously at Anne. “What are you doing here?” she asks. Her eyes close again, but she’s still breathing.

  Anne turns to me. “Let’s get her to the bank,” she says. “Fast.”

  Thursday, 3:20 pm

  Anne

  “You’re right,” Ethan says tersely. We’re huddled under the overhang of the bank building. My mother’s lying on a makeshift bed of coats and jackets inside.

  I’m trying to do what Ethan says. I have to see this thing through, but I’m just not that brave.

  I look at Anastasia standing there, looking—well, regal, despite everything she’s been through. How could it not have broken her? How could anyone have thought that keeping her trapped there all this time would have solved anything? And how the hell could I ever have thought I was special enough to do something about it?

  There’s always a choice, my mother had said to me the other night, when I mentioned Lily to her. My mother—the woman who’s lying in there unconscious because of me.

  Choose, Baba Yaga had told me.

  They were both right. There’s always a choice. But how do you stop yourself from making the wrong one?

  “What am I possibly right about?” I put the question to Ethan. The rain continues to pour from the sky. Baba Yaga circles and howls. Anastasia is a few feet away from us, saying something to Viktor. Another lightning strike hammers into the strip of stores a block down. The Gap sign shears off from the store’s façade, smashes into the sidewalk. I can see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles a few blocks down, but they don’t seem to be getting any closer. Something—real or magic, I don’t have time to figure out which—is keeping them from us.