“Rasputin used . . . uncommon magic. We’d consulted countless spell masters and doctors about Alexei’s condition. Only Rasputin could heal his episodes. But that was because Rasputin and I had an agreement. An agreement your papa did not condone.”
Her voice turned as mechanical as a record on a turntable. “Rasputin’s spell work alone was not enough to help Alexei. So I allowed him to draw from my health. It was an exchange. He channeled my good health into Alexei during the direst times. That is why I grew ill.”
“But . . . how is that possible?” I breathed. “I’ve never heard of such spells.”
Mamma shrugged. “I did not question his ways.”
“Is that why you have a weak heart?” Rasputin did this to my mother? Spell masters were supposed to help the people. Heal them. How did I not connect her illness with his arrival at our palace?
“I demanded it, Nastya! It was a small sacrifice to keep my son alive. Any mother—peasant or royal—would have done the same.”
Perhaps that comforted her, but instead of relief I felt only fear at such raw power. For the first time I understood the people’s caution. They had known Rasputin had mysterious spell powers, and in their fear they destroyed the line of spell masters.
“That’s why you never asked Rasputin to heal you.” We’d begged Rasputin so many times to attend to Mamma’s heart, but Mamma always refused. Because he was the cause of her weakness and headaches. “You didn’t want us to know what you were sacrificing.”
I forced myself to think from her position. To think about how she had anguished over Alexei’s illness. How his hemophilia came from her bloodline. Wouldn’t I allow a spell master to do whatever was needed if I thought it would help Alexei?
“Oh, Mamma.” I embraced her gently.
She patted my back. “It is a small relief to have someone else know.”
“Thank you for telling me.” I tucked the information into the pocket of my mind, thankful I had it but not yet sure how to process it. In her attempts to save Alexei’s life as future tsar, her secrets had cost him—and Papa—the throne.
* * *
The next day when eleven o’clock signaled our time to enter the garden, Avdeev did not come to get us. Instead, Zash opened the door, Ivan at his side. “We will escort you to the garden today.”
Maria hung on Ivan’s arm. We filed out of our rooms and followed the soldiers. I was behind Maria at the front and Zash took up the rear. The call of the outdoors sped up my heart. We burst into the sunshine, but Maria pulled up short a few steps in front of me. I skidded to a halt to avoid running into her.
She held Ivan’s arm as she stared ahead into the garden. Ivan beamed as he watched her. I followed Maria’s gaze toward our garden. Something was different in the tiny space.
From the branches of the birch trees hung a flat board attached to two thick ropes.
A swing.
We both squealed and ran for it. The board was thick and long enough for both of us to fit. During our race to the new amusement, I caught a small collection of guards grinning ear to ear. Taking in our joy. They clapped two soldiers on the shoulders—the first was Ivan, to whom Maria blew a giddy kiss as she plopped on the seat.
The other was Zash.
10
Avdeev had forbidden us from speaking in any language other than Russian. He’d forbidden us from signaling anyone outside. He’d forbidden us from opening windows. But nothing could forbid us from squealing like children as we swooped back and forth on our swing.
He didn’t take the swing away. He might have even given permission for the soldiers to hang it for us. In fact, oftentimes he overlooked the fact that our half hours of exercise stretched to ninety minutes more and more frequently.
With each whoosh—back and forth, back and forth—my heart caught an extra gust of hope. The soldiers made us a swing. Many of them, beyond Zash and Ivan, seemed to relish our delight. They no longer wanted to kill us.
The Bolsheviks here were trying to keep us contained until the Soviet government decided what to do with us.
Papa took a turn on the swing and his boots flew high over his head. His laugh pierced the air, contagious as a revolution. Even the guards joined in. Alexei crossed the garden—sans wheelchair—and joined Papa on the swing. A few guards cheered.
I caught noise from behind us, near the giant gate. Guards in the opening with their rifles held in a threatening manner. “Walk on, Citizens, walk on. There’s nothing to see here.” They took a few menacing steps toward the street on the other side.
By now, all of Ekaterinburg knew the Romanov family was being kept at the Ipatiev House. I wasn’t surprised our laughs had lured the curious passersby.
“Well, if there’s nothing to see, then why can’t we stand here if we want to?” came an irritated reply.
I snickered and turned back to the fun.
I caught Zash watching me out of the corner of his eye. My smile stayed wide as I moved his way. He stepped from the clump of soldiers, and I could sense him trying to school his features once more into something controlled and firm. He lost the fight.
We met by the wall of the house and stopped with a good amount of distance between us. I leaned against the warm exterior wall and beamed. “I don’t know why you took part, but . . . thank you.”
Zash dropped his gaze. “Perhaps it’s hard to believe, but even as your guard, I—we—don’t wish despair upon your family.”
“I believe you.” Grateful warmth flooded my chest. “Because of you, Alexei is walking on his own again.”
A pause. “I am glad he is feeling better.”
As though sensing us talking about him, Alexei made a little mock-kissing face at me while swinging back and forth. I flushed. But when Zash followed my gaze to Alexei, Alexei had the decency to drop the mockery just in time and send an honorable salute to Zash.
To my surprise, Zash returned the salute.
“He is grateful.” I willed my skin to calm back to a regular temperature.
“I did nothing.”
Let him think I didn’t know. Let him believe his own lie. But I knew what he did for us. And it had crumbled a wall in my chest. “All the same. Thank you, Zash.”
A breeze picked up, blowing dark clouds across the city and toward our prison. With visible effort Zash resumed the soldier face. “You’d best enjoy the garden while you can.”
“Yes, of course.” I left his side, our interaction now concluded with a formal air. Perhaps it was best that we stayed Bolshevik and exiled princess.
Neither of us seemed pleased with that.
The swing was our new savior. It broke the final thread of tension between us and the soldiers we interacted with on a daily basis. Even the pacing and rifles of the patrolling Bolsheviks couldn’t keep the hope from slipping in.
We bottled every pinhole of light and sunshine as though they were spells of old—from a soldier’s smile to a new tree swing to an extra five minutes outside. I had to make a daily list in my mind so when Avdeev was particularly drunk or when the unkind Bolsheviks pillaged our food, I still had encouragement to remind me that humanity and joy existed.
Summer heat blew the storms in, bringing gusts of torment with them. The heat pulled us outside into the shade of the poplars one moment and then the gale drenched us the next. “Everyone inside,” Avdeev hollered, exiting his alcohol-ridden office.
“We don’t mind the rain!” I threw my arms wide and embraced the drenching.
I hadn’t taken in how drunk Avdeev actually was, because at my proclamation he stomped across the wet grass toward me, his face as thunderous as the clouds above. I backpedaled, but a strong hand gripped my arm from behind. “I will see her inside, sir.”
I relaxed at Zash’s presence, even though his voice was brusque. Avdeev nodded and then herded the rest of my family indoors.
I returned to the house with Zash at my side. Did Avdeev really have to cut our half hour short? Why couldn’t we be out in the
rain? It did us no harm.
As we ascended back to our prison cells, the sealed windows kept in all the cigarette smoke from the soldiers taking shelter from the rain. It also trapped the vile odors of the overused lavatory, which quickly mixed with the smell of lunch coming from our small kitchen.
No wonder poor Mamma never got well. She was breathing this in every moment of every day.
Avdeev stood in the doorway of his office with narrowed eyes, ensuring our reentry. With Zash at my side I felt bolder. “Please, Commandant, let us open some windows.”
“And allow you to signal the citizens outside for help? Absolutely not.” Avdeev shoved me into our room, severing the connection between Zash and me, and shut the door.
Not even a pause. Not even a flash of empathy.
Swine.
I was so angry, I stomped right through the dining room and into Alexei’s room where I popped open the fortochka and breathed in the storm.
Wet boots from thirty soldiers and hot brows turned the house into a sealed, airless crate of stench. When Avdeev checked on us during breakfast the next morning, and it was still raining, I tried the meek approach. “Commandant? May we open a window, please? Just for a few minutes?”
He held my gaze for a long moment. “No.”
No matter how many times we asked over the next few days, Avdeev would not allow us to unseal a window. How could he stand the smell? Did not he and the soldiers feel as encased and suffocated as we did?
The rain did not abate, nor did the heat. The humid air hung like airborne grime, attaching itself to our skin and bedclothes. The five-room tomb became a breeding ground for parasites. We cleaned our linens as best we could, trying to keep the filth at bay. But the dogs started scratching first. Then Tatiana and Alexei. And then me.
My scalp itched to no end, and no matter how many times I rinsed my hair or washed my pillowcase, the itching wouldn’t stop. Finally, Mamma’s maid, Anna, stepped into the room with an armful of linens. “Head lice.”
I startled from my card game with Maria—one hand flying to my head.
“Lice have bred in this prison and I pray that the commandant feels their bites on his scalp more severely than any of you.” Anna set the linens down and faced us with a grim set to her mouth. “But since you are infested already, there is only one thing we can do.”
She held up a pair of scissors and a razor.
Maria burst into tears.
* * *
“You are still beautiful.” I caught Ivan’s gentle murmur on the other side of the door to the landing.
I’d come to ring the bell that would summon a guard—him—to escort me to the lavatory. But apparently Maria was out there already . . . with him.
Maria sported the baldness best of us all. Her head shape was elegant and proportionate, but that brought her no comfort coming from me. I was her sister. Yet when her handsome Ivan asked, “Do you believe me?” Maria released a breathless whisper. “Yes, Ivan. I will always believe you.”
Always. She would always believe him. She had let her heart go. If Avdeev saw them . . .
I rang the bell with a clang and burst onto the landing. Maria and Ivan jumped, but I saw how close they’d been standing. Inches apart. Barely.
I hauled Maria back into our room and shoved a pack of cards into her hand. “Shuffle these.”
“I don’t want to play bezi—”
I stalked back onto the landing, shut the door behind us, and went toe to toe with Ivan. “My sister is beautiful and you are handsome, but if you dare to touch her then you risk all our necks. I like you, Ivan. But I don’t want to see you shot. Even more so, I don’t want to see my sister shot because she kissed a guard.”
Ivan’s Adam’s apple bobbed severely and he had the honor to look ashamed. It gave me no pleasure to scold him—but better him than Maria. Maria wouldn’t listen to me. I liked seeing her happy. But not if it meant she would die.
I stepped away and only then spotted Zash at the top of the stairs. How much had he heard? He stared at Ivan and I thought about the words that had spilled from my lips—what if I’d endangered Ivan? Maria? What if my rash actions resulted in the danger I so desperately sought to avoid?
“I am here to relieve you of your post, Ivan.” When Zash met my gaze, he looked kind. Understanding. He’d heard it all. But then I remembered my bald head. Heat flooded my face. I spun on my heel and shut the door behind me. What a silly response! What did I expect? That I could hide my haircut from him for the rest of our exile?
It didn’t matter what he thought. If I told myself that enough, perhaps I’d believe it.
I leaned my back against the door, breathing hard. What was I doing confronting a soldier right outside the commandant’s office? I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. Voices drifted through the thin door.
“She’s right, you know,” Zash said quietly.
“Why shouldn’t I be kind to Maria?” Ivan argued. “Why shouldn’t I tell her she’s beautiful? Their lives are miserable. We can leave this place if we wish. We have a future outside of this rotten house. They don’t know whether they’re going to live or starve to death. I almost hope the White Army gets them out of here.”
“They are here because of the tsar and tsarina’s actions.” Zash sounded as though he was quoting a reason rather than thinking it on his own.
“Do you really believe that?”
I pressed my ear against the wood for Zash’s response. “I don’t know what to believe, Ivan. Neither side seems right to me, but this side seems safer. I am here to protect my family—to serve where our government tells me to serve. To be compliant.”
“What a disgusting way to live.” Footsteps denoted Ivan’s attempt to leave, but Zash cut him off.
“Why are you here then?”
A pause. “At first, for the money. But now . . . for Maria.” Ivan’s boot clomps faded down the stairs.
Zash wasn’t here because he supported the Bolsheviks. He was here to protect his family. But didn’t he say he had no parents? Who was he protecting? And Ivan . . .
I pushed myself off the door and found Maria. She stood in front of the small wall mirror, trying to tie a worn string of lace around her head. I stepped up beside her and knotted the lace, finishing the bow. We were almost the same height. “You are beautiful, Sister.”
Her chin quivered and her hand dropped from her head, but she gave no response. She’d always been more concerned with her appearance than the rest of us—probably because she was stocky and strong. She focused on that aspect of her build. But everyone—every relative and every male suitor—always commented how Maria was “the pretty one.” Why did her ears never hear that?
She would be turning nineteen this month. Mamma had fallen in love with Papa at age seventeen. Maria likely feared never experiencing love.
I couldn’t afford to fear or hope for love. Then I thought about Zash and how my heart desired his friendliness more than the other guards’. Exile was affecting my emotions. That frightened me.
I scratched at my dried scalp and compared my pudgy face and bulb of a head to Maria’s gentle features. I tried to imagine what Zash had seen from the top of the stairs. I thought I’d read kindness in his gaze, but had it actually been pity?
Maria turned from the mirror and shuffled the cards for bezique. My baldness did not become me. Good. It would deter Zash from getting any ideas.
I laughed quietly at myself. As if he had any ideas of attraction. I was the one stirring that pot. Still, my face flushed in embarrassment at my sickly appearance. Was it so petty to wish to be rescued—or to die—beautiful?
When I joined Maria, I looked anywhere but at her—at the cards, at the dogs scratching themselves and chewing at their backs, at Papa trimming his mustache. It felt so wrong to tell my sister that happiness was dangerous and loneliness was safe.
But if the White Army was coming, we needed to be ready to leave everything behind.
Everything.
>
Even people we loved.
* * *
The White Army was near. I could see it in the fidgeting of the guards. I could smell it in the alcohol that soaked Avdeev’s skin. Hope sat in my mouth like a pastila confectionery I couldn’t bring myself to swallow.
I’d woken to another rainy day. Suffocating from the dimness, the heat, the imprisonment, the humidity. Everyone else still slept, so I crept to the fortochka to watch the sun rise and to inhale false freedom. As I slid to the small cracked window, I half expected to see the White Army marching through the town and advancing on the Ipatiev House.
But all I saw were the sisters from the convent on their way to deliver our daily basket of goods. They did not wish for our deaths. They were nuns. They were good. They were even walking through the pouring rain to bring us food.
An idea struck me as abruptly as one of the raindrops splashing my face. I watched the sisters. I thought of my family. My hope.
And I scrambled for a piece of stationery.
Avdeev wouldn’t unseal the windows because he was afraid we’d signal people outside. All this time I’d had the small fortochka for fresh air, yet I’d never considered signaling for help or trying to send a message. If Avdeev was afraid of that, this meant that some people outside the walls were sympathetic to our cause.
What if I could somehow get a message to the White Army? What if I could tell them how many guards were here and where we were located in the house and what our routine was? They could rescue us. They could prepare adequately.
I could save my family.
I scribbled the details on the stationery, glancing up as the sisters approached. They were almost here. I wrote what I could, ink dribbling down my hand, smearing on the paper. I almost blotted it with my nightdress, but that would leave evidence or lead to questions. So I dabbed it with another piece of paper and then grabbed one of Papa’s paperweights.
The sisters were at the gate.
I crumpled the letter of information around the paperweight, then tied it with one of Maria’s lace hair ribbons. The sisters handed their basket of food to the soldiers and turned to leave. In mere seconds they would be passing by the palisade directly across from me.
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