I leaned my cheek in my palm and glanced back at my latest traveling companion—Alec, Sven, or whoever he was. I stood and walked to the grimy window and took in the fairytale-like city of Prague. Of all the places in Russia and Europe I had traveled, Prague was my favorite so far. Maybe it had something to do with my degree in Russian folklore that had led me to the magical city. It wasn’t the first time I had visited in the last ten years.
“Danica?” a gravelly voice called from the bed behind me. I ignored him and continued to stare as the nightlights winked out and morning shopkeepers prepared to open for the new day. I barely felt his soft hands run over my flesh. I had stopped feeling ten years ago.
“Want to go to the pastry shop down the street?” he asked me in thickly accented English. English was our common ground since he was a local and the only other language I was fluent in was Russian.
I shrugged when he kissed my neck. “Sure.”
“Danica…” His grip on my torso tightened as his hand reached up to play with my breast. “I cannot get enough of you, princess. Do you really have to leave tomorrow?”
“Yes.” I grimaced when his hand traveled lower. “Enough,” I ground out. “I still have a hangover.” I pushed his hand aside and walked back toward my open duffel bag. I threw on jeans and a black, off-the-shoulder top.
Alec, Sven, or whoever he was followed and tried to cop a couple more feels. “C’mon, princess, don’t you want to stay here with me? Think of all the beautiful things we could do together.” His tone suggested he meant a lot more than his day job as a street artist. I remembered that much about him at least. We’d met on the street two weeks ago when I had stopped to watch him perform with his fellow vagabond troupe members. I’d always been a sucker for artists.
“I have a train ticket. If I ever want to get paid, I have to be on that train tomorrow.” I tugged my thigh-high black boots on and avoided eye contact.
“What is it you do? After all this time we have spent together, I still don’t know a thing about you.” Alec-Sven-whoever crossed his arms over his chest in a pout.
In a glance, I took in his Slavic features and perfectly messy blond hair with vague dissatisfaction. He wasn’t really my type, but then again, none of them ever were. It was much safer that way.
“Does it really matter?”
One look in the mirror told me I wasn’t getting away with brushing my waist-length black curls today, so I threw it all back in a messy ponytail. I put on light makeup out of habit more than anything. I’d grown used to putting on my daily armor and hadn’t gone without it since high school.
“It matters to me, princess. Why would you think otherwise?”
His questions were really starting to grate on my ever-loving nerves, and I forced a smile before I turned around. “Hey! I have an idea—breakfast in bed sounds fantastic now that I think about it. Why don’t you go down to that little pastry shop and pick up something extra chocolaty for me?” I rested my hands on his broad shoulders and leaned in to add in my best husky seductress voice, “Then we could do that little thing you wanted to try the other night.”
I could almost feel the change in his demeanor and despised him even more when he grabbed my face for a searing kiss. His smoldering brown eyes glowed with promise at me.
“Be right back, princess.”
I kept my smile pasted on until he let the door slam shut behind him. “In your dreams, you ass,” I murmured. Then I got to work. Forget leaving tomorrow. I was unfortunately done with Prague and officially done with Alec-Sven-whoever. I threw the rest of my things in my duffel and hefted it over one shoulder. With my other arm, I grabbed my “crazy bag lady” purse and left the hostel behind.
The train station was in the opposite direction from where my former traveling companion had lit off to. I picked up my pace, eager to get going. My ticket really was for tomorrow, but it shouldn’t be a problem to change. The sooner I got back to St. Petersburg, the better. I had been on the road for over six months and was ready to tuck my wanderlust away.
I’d been all over, from Romania to Prague, since I’d finished my master’s degree at university. Thanks to Papa’s old family money and living cheaply on the road, I had no real financial worries. There was always my father’s house in St. Petersburg to come home to, even if it was empty as a tomb most days. As much as my mother’s gypsy blood made me wander, my father’s Russian side craved the motherland.
I had learned to hate my mother over the years, even as I feared becoming her. But I could admit now, after scouring every caravan and carnival I’d come across, that this trek across Europe was more about finding her than me. I dreamed about confronting her sometimes, blaming her for all my troubles.
But we know better, don’t we, Zvezda? No one forced you to do anything you didn’t want to do.
I ignored the rumbling in my stomach and the light drizzle of morning rain as I neared the train station. I was caught somewhere in a maze of cottage-like businesses. On a good day, I would have let my feet step where they may and explore every one of these places. My most interesting treasures had come from shops like these. For a moment, I considered avoiding all the places Alec-Sven-whoever might have been so I could enjoy myself for a change.
That was when my phone started buzzing through my jeans pocket. I cursed as I tried to find a safe alleyway to set down my burden and pull the slim plastic out of my back pocket. I stared in open-mouthed shock when I saw the name on the caller ID.
Peter Pavlov, my half brother and former guardian, was older than I was by ten years. I used to call him every day when I first came back to Russia from the States. Peter and I had grown up there until Papa moved us to the US when I was eight. After the first year, my daily calls had trickled to monthly. The last call was months ago. I hadn’t been a good sister in a long time.
“Peter?” I answered, a little out of breath.
“Hey, baby girl,” he answered in his rough, westernized accent. Hard as he tried, Peter would always sound Russian. “Where you at today? Last I heard, you were in Nuremburg? Enjoying Germany?”
“Sure. The city was nice; the men not so nice. I ran into a lot of horny American soldiers while I was there. They beat the crap out of my German boyfriend. I might have had something to do with it.” I grinned as I recalled that snowy night and the way my boyfriend’s fists went flying when I’d flirted with a boy from Kentucky. The fight had bled outside the bar and onto the frozen streets.
Peter chuckled with half his usual gusto. “You always know how to pick them, don’t you?”
“That’s me, Zvezda Danica Pavlova, breaker of hearts and bones.” I snorted, and after a pause, added, “I’m actually in Prague, ’bout to grab a ticket for St. Petersburg. I’ve had enough of Europe and Eurotrash.”
“Good. I’m sure the motherland misses you.”
“Oh, sure, she misses her favorite wayward child. So, what’s up, Petey? The kids okay?” I bit at my thumbnail. I wasn’t winning any awards for best aunt of the year. Besides the rare phone calls, I had Skyped my niece and nephew maybe twice in the last year. The silence that followed my question made me nervous.
“Petey?”
He sighed. “Dani, I wish I could tell you this in person…”
“What.” The word came out more like a demand than a question.
“Dani, I've been dragging so much lately. The guys actually persuaded me to take a day off to go to the doctor. Well, they did a lot of tests, and I got the results today.”
“What do you mean ‘results’?”
“I have leukemia, baby girl.”
“Petey, you can’t have leukemia—that’s what Papa had. You’re too young for that.” Flashes of Papa’s rapid decline, hospital smell, messed-up sheets, and death came to mind.
“Guess cancer has no age limit, especially not this kind. I’m sorry, baby girl. I know how rough this has to be after what we went through with Dad.”
I choked. “H-how far? How long?”
/> “Thankfully, it’s in the early stages. Doc is confident we can keep it contained. I may still get to watch the kids grow up, Dani. I can still have a life.” The more my brother talked, the more I could hear the difference in his voice, the weariness. My brother was strong, had been my rock all my life.
“This isn’t fair, Petey,” I whispered.
“Neither is what I’m about to ask you. Dani, I let you ship off to St. Petersburg on your own. I know it was the right thing for you. Now I need you to do something for me.”
“What? Anything—you name it,” I said.
“I need you to come home and live with me, help out with the kids for a while. I wish I could promise you it won’t be permanent, but the truth is I don’t know how this is gonna go yet. Until I can figure things out, I need you here.”
North Carolina, home… Adam…
“I’m going to the airport now. You’re not going through this alone, any of you.”
Peter sighed again, this time with what sounded like relief. I felt horrible as I realized he had thought I would say no.
As if I could say no.
“Thanks, baby girl. I wish I didn’t have to ask this much of you.”
“Shut up, Petey. You’re right. I’ve been selfish for too long, missed out on so much with the kids. Let me do this. Let me be there for you guys.” This might be my chance to finally give back to my brother, to be the kind of aunt I used to imagine being.
“Love you, Dani. Text me and let me know your progress. I can pick you up from the airport when you get here.”
“No way, I’ll get a cab. I’m a transcontinental traveler now, big brother. I can handle myself. I'll see you at home.” Only after I hung up did I begin to panic.
2
If I Needed You
Adam had been my best friend almost from the moment I’d walked into that tiny classroom of chalk dust and wood desks, fresh from Russia, at eight years old. Mrs. McWilliams’s third-grade class seemed strange to me after my primary school in St. Petersburg. Everything in America was different in small ways. I wanted to hate it because it was new and big. I was young, and my English wasn’t very good.
“Come on over, Zvezda.” Mrs. McWilliams urged me to the front of the classroom. She said my first name wrong, like it was stuck at the front of her teeth.
“Danica,” I whispered.
“What’s that, dear?” Mrs. McWilliams waited for me to repeat myself, but I was too scared to tell her I preferred my middle name, afraid the other kids would hear my thick accent and laugh.
I stood in front of my teacher, and she rested her wrinkled hands on my shoulders. “Class, this is Zvezda Pavlova. She came here all the way from St. Petersburg in Russia. Isn’t that neat? I want you all to welcome her.”
Great, I thought, now they know, and they’ll ask me questions. The idea was terrifying as the curious eyes glued to my face. I tried not to look at them directly, but Adam’s eyes, like his goofy smile, were impossible to ignore. I bit my lip as he made faces at me and tried not to laugh out loud. He crossed his eyes and pulled back his lips in an even sillier grin, and a giggle escaped me. I covered my mouth with my hands.
“What on earth?” Mrs. McWilliams looked down at me then scanned the classroom. “Adam King! You stop that right this instant!” The rest of the class turned to look, but the boy with the funny face was sitting perfectly in his seat.
Later, on the playground, he walked up to my lonely spot under the jungle gym and stuck out his hand. “I’m Adam King.”
“Zvezda Danica Pavlova,” I replied in the way I’d practiced with Papa that morning. “But you may call me Danica.”
He nodded and shook my hand. “Cool! Wanna play tag with me? I bet I’ll beat ya! I’m the fastest in our grade. Everybody says so, even though I’m actually supposed to be in second grade.”
“Why?” I wanted to ask him more, but the words in my head were a garbled mix of Russian and English.
He winked at me. “Because I was too smart for those babies. C’mon! Let’s play before they blow the whistle!” He tugged at my arm until I stood up. “You’re it!” he shouted and ran. We’d chased each other until the whistle blew that day, and the day after that…
“This it?” The cab driver interrupted my reverie, and I looked out the window. I wasn’t sure why I chose to think about the first time I’d met Adam King when I hadn’t seen or heard from him in ten years. I pushed the wave of nostalgia aside and took in the faded two-story we had parked in front of.
“Yeah, this is it.” Peter still lived in the house he’d helped raise me in. I had mixed feelings about being back again. Coming home was the right thing. Peter and the kids needed me. It felt good to be needed again, even if the implications were terrifying to me.
What if it’s not enough?
“Hey, you going to pay or what?” The cab driver tapped the meter, and I rolled my eyes.
“Here.” I shoved a wad of bills into his hand. “This enough?” The guy was an ass, but he did drive me all the way from the airport to the outskirts of Chapel Hill in the rain.
His eyes lit up as soon as the cash was in his hands. “This’ll do. Enjoy your stay, darlin’.”
I watched him from the rearview mirror as he salivated over the money I’d forked over. Clearly, I wasn’t getting any help with my things.
“Guess I’ll help myself out.” I pushed the door open and kicked it aside farther with my boot until the metal hit the picket fence. The driver didn’t even notice. I hauled my pack and duffel over my shoulders and left the cab without shutting the passenger door. I grinned when I heard him grumble and get out to shut it himself.
The picket fence gate opened with a quick nudge of my hips, and I noticed a few things had changed since I’d been gone. The flowers I had tried to keep alive in the front yard were gone, which was no surprise. Poor Petey had a black grease thumb rather than the ideal green. The house looked as though it could use more than one coat of fresh paint. The pretty light blue I’d picked out years ago was peeling and gray. I knew my brother was busy keeping his business running and raising the kids, but the neglect made me sad.
I trudged up the front steps, onto the porch, and jumped when the door burst open, bathing me in light. For a moment, Peter’s silhouette appeared as full and strong as I remembered. He had always been this larger-than-life person to me. Maybe it was the age difference, but I think it was much more than that.
“Dani!” My brother wrapped me up in a tangle of bag straps and arms. That was when I could feel the difference in strength, in muscle mass, evidence of the sickness eating away at him. I buried my face in his neck and inhaled the familiar scent of my big brother. I dropped my bags to hold him.
Peter led me inside and insisted on carrying my big duffel, while I held on tightly to my satchel. He kicked the door shut behind me and turned the lock. I followed him inside. “The kids are already asleep upstairs. You’ll get to see them tomorrow. I almost didn’t get Anya to bed. She was so excited you were coming. Sasha’s excited too, even though he won’t admit it. He’s nine and thinks that means he should act like he’s a teenager. You know how boys are.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said with a smirk.
The house hadn’t changed much on the inside—same paintings on the wall Papa had brought from Russia and the lingering scent of cinnamon. The furniture was a bit on the faded side, but the entertainment system was up to date, including a sixty-inch flat screen mounted on the wall. But it was the other changes I noticed most, like the kids’ artwork displayed against the far dining area wall and kitchen, and the shadows on Peter’s face.
Peter carried my things upstairs, and he waited until we were in my old bedroom to talk again.
I couldn’t hold back my surprise. “Petey, I didn’t know I was staying here.”
He shrugged and grinned at me as he plopped on my old twin bed. “I just never had the heart to change your room into an office, you know, though I did consider a movie room at on
e point.” He winked at me, and I shoved his arm as I sat next to him.
“Never knew you could be so sentimental, Petey. I mean, seriously, you didn’t have to leave everything like it was. It’s been ten years.” I stared at the desk and bulletin board covered in high school photos. Artwork I’d tacked onto my wall in high school was still there, collecting dust. More than one piece was done in Adam’s hand. We had both loved art. My throat clenched tightly as I reached for Peter’s calloused hand.
Peter shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. The kids never bother coming in here. They sleep in my old room and your old playroom. I’ve got Dad’s spot downstairs. I wanted to make sure you always had a place in our home. I guess I figured you might want to come back here someday.”
I looked up at him then. “All these years, you were waiting for me to come home, but you never asked. I wish you had.” He shrugged, and if I didn’t know him better, I might have missed the tightening at the corner of his eyes. More worry and laugh lines creased his face than I remembered, and I noticed some gray peeking through his auburn hair.
“I knew you would come home when you were ready, baby girl. Besides, I wanted you to have the kind of chance I never did, you know?”
“Petey, I feel so bad you dumped all your dreams for me.”
“You kidding me? You’re my baby sister. I’d do anything for you, same as I would for Sasha or Anya.” He smiled, and I wanted to forget he was sick, forget the reason I’d come here. I wished so much that I had come home for the reason he’d mentioned before—because I wanted to. Instead, I was the selfish, worthless sister who had never given a second thought to the only family she had left.
“You’re too good to me, you know that?”
“You’ll make it up to me somehow.” He relaxed and patted me on the knee before standing up. “I’m going to hit the hay. Got an appointment in the AM. Kids have been riding the bus to school every morning. Can you make sure they get up on time?”
“When?”
“I usually wake them up around seven.”
She Walks In Moonlight Page 2