by Joy Preble
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Just like that, it's gone.
"Did you do that?" Anne's voice is edged with what seems to be a potent mixture of fear, relief, and anger. The anger, I would presume is fully directed at me, the person who has gotten her into this whole mess.
"I--uh, I don't think so. I started to do something, but then it was just gone. I think we're okay for now."
"Okay? You think we're okay? We are so far from okay, it's not freakin' funny!" She glares at me. "Is it going to come back? Are we safe? And was that what I think it was? The giant hands of a witch from some fairy tale? How is that possible? And once again, let me ask you, who the hell are you?"
Who am I? I'm the z alupa who thought he could handle all this. Who had been convinced up until this moment that he knew the exact sequence of events that was supposed to occur. Our magic had compelled Baba Yaga to take Anastasia and protect her. I'm one of the good guys. The one who, after all these years of searching, has found Anne so that we can finish this thing and free the grand duchess.
So why are we being attacked?
I look around us. The park is empty. "C'mon," I say to Anne. "Let's sit, and I'll try to explain." She nods and walks with me into the park, although I can see by her face that the last thing she'd like to do right now is sit and talk to me.
We settle ourselves on one of the wooden benches. For the moment, this park, with its swings and sandbox, its wide, wooden benches, seems safe.
"Look," I tell her. I shrug off my jacket and roll up my shirtsleeve. Her eyes grow wide as she sees the mark on my arm that mirrors her own. She gasps, and then she reaches out to touch it.
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"It sort of burns," she says, pulling her hand away. She reaches out again and once more runs her fingers over the mark. "I--I still don't understand," she says. "I need to get back to school. I can't just sit here in the park. I'm supposed to be in chemistry. I--"
"We're connected, you and me." I reach over gently and remove her hand from my arm. "It's--well, it's a bit of a story. It may take a while for you to understand all of it."
I'm feeling a little better about all this. She's calmer. I'm calmer. We're going to feel our way through this, and maybe everything will work out.
Then the expression on Anne's face shifts. "Understand what?" Her voice is pitched higher than I'd like it to be. And she's glaring again. "Why I dreamed that you were some turn-of-the-last-century guy with really bad hair who was there praying or something while the whole Romanov clan was getting murdered in a basement in Russia in 1918? That was just a dream right? Or do you want me to believe that you were really there when a giant pair of really ugly hands reached out the sky and took Anastasia away? The same hands which, let's not forget, just tried to kill us back there? Or maybe you want me to understand what my role in all this is? What are we now, two little supernatural mark-on-the-arm buddies who are supposed to spring Anastasia from Baba Yaga's hut?"
"Maybe," I say, "the explanation won't take so long after all."
She stands up from the bench, pulling on her backpack that she'd placed on the ground as we had sat down. "I'm right? I can't be right. I mean, if I'm right, then I shouldn't have just-- You can't possibly have been there then and look exactly the
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same now. What would that make you, like a hundred years old or something?"
I smile at her. "Something like that. There's a bit more to it. If you'll sit back down, I'll--"
"You'll what? You know, I'm rethinking this. You just sit here and do whatever you need to, and I'm going to--"
"Shh." I hold my hand up and look beyond her to the street behind the park. "Just a second." A bad feeling washes over me. Really bad.
"What is it?"
I don't answer her. I'm too busy watching as a black limousine pulls up to the curb. One of its doors swings open, and it occurs to me that while I might be one of the good guys, I'm no longer sure about everyone else.
"Run!" I yell to Anne as she stares at me with a startled look on her face. I grab her hand and pull her behind me. "Run!"
She hesitates for only a second, then follows me. I can hear the thumping of her backpack as it slams into her while we sprint across the playground, leaving a wake of scattered gravel behind us.
I know I shouldn't slow down to look, but I can't help myself. Behind us, just as I'd expected, two men clad in black dusters are advancing on us at a swift pace.
We zigzag through the park, Anne's dancer's legs pumping to keep up with me, then sprint down the tree-lined street in the opposite direction of the school. I can see my car not too far down the block.
"Over there!" I shout as I half-guide, half-drag her the last few steps to the Mercedes. With my other hand, I search my jacket pocket for the remote. My fingers find it, and I press the
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top button. I yank open the passenger door and shove Anne inside. Then I race around the car to the other side.
One of the men is completely unfamiliar to me. But the other--the other is someone I haven't seen in a long while. And unfortunately, it doesn't look as if he's interested in having tea and getting reacquainted.
This time, when I reach my arms out, I don't fumble for the words. My brain clears of everything but the spell. I can feel the power surge through me as the magic does its work.
The air around me crackles, and I watch with a solid satisfaction as the thin blue flames fly from my fingertips and meet their mark. In front of me, the two men--the one I know and the one who is a stranger--kneel on the street, doubled over in pain. On the ground next to the stranger, a pistol lay, glowing a deep red.
I yank open the driver's door, climb in, turn the key in the ignition, and throw the car in gear. This is not good, I tell myself. Not good at all
Next to me, Anne inches up from where she's been crouched on the floor and settles herself into the passenger seat. She glances briefly behind us, then at me.
"Oh my God," she says. "Oh my God. They were trying to kill us. Do you know them? Why were they--? And you? What did you just--I mean, are you--?"
"We need to get out of here first," I say. "I need to keep you safe. And you're not safe until we put some distance between us and them."
She nods and looks behind her another time.
As for me, I breathe in deeply, trying to slow my heart from slamming its way out of my chest. Then I steer the car around the corner and head west.
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The Forest, Late Afternoon
Anastasia
THE HANDS CRAWL SWIFTLY AND STEADILY ACROSS THE shining wooden floor. Auntie Yaga sits in her rocker, waiting. She holds out her arms, the sleeves of her brown dress empty and limp. She gestures to the hands, the ends of her sleeves flopping up and down as she does so.
Obediently, as I have seen them do many times before, the hands continue their passage. Up, up Baba Yaga's skirt they climb, up her legs, over her lap, and then, with a twisting motion, back into her sleeves. She smiles her hideous, gleaming smile. Her eyes glow deep and black, like two coals.
The house settles around us, its two hen's legs shuffling for a foothold amid dead leaves and piles of twigs and branches, curved and knotted like so many broken fingers.
"I let them compel me," Auntie Yaga says. "I let myself fall prey to their magic. Gave my power to men who dabbled in spells--men whose pride let them believe they could alter what no man should alter."
She stands, and with an odd grace, drifts across the room to me. My pulse skips a beat as she rests one of her hands--the same hands which have just returned to her from wherever they have traveled--on my head.
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"But how could I do otherwise?" she says as she gently strokes my hair. "You are safe here. You are alive. And they are coming for you now, Anastasia. I did not believe he would keep his part of the bargain. But he has done what he set out to do. Ethan, they call him now. The one with the blue eyes. He has found the young woman who can take you back. Her name is Anne. Not that differen
t from your own.
"I have seen her. Spoken to her. Tried to bring her to us now. Save her as I've saved you. But they ran from me. They do not understand the truth of what is happening. They do not see the danger."
We stand in silence for a moment. In the hearth, the fire crackles. I wait for Auntie to reach into her pocket. To remove the skull and bring forth the visions. But she does not.
"Look into my eyes, child," Auntie tells me. I bristle at being called a child. But to Auntie, seventeen is just that: a handful of years, inconsequential as dust.
I do as she tells me. Stare into those glowing black coals. In each pupil, a tiny skull appears. It is as though I am falling into her eyes, falling and falling until there is nothing but darkness. Her gaze consumes me.
'Watch," Baba Yaga tells me. "Learn."
In Auntie's eves, a man sits at a table in what must be a restaurant, for there are many tables, each with a snowy white table cloth. He reaches into his jacket and removes a small, black device. He opens it, jabs at it with his fingers, and waits, tapping his other hand against the table. An impatient sound--the sound of a man who is used to getting his way. Then he speaks.
"You will stop him," he says. "Remember, he is holding something back. He has not told me everything. His betrayal is
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a surprise, Brother, but it is not something we--you--cannot handle. You are at an advantage. Ethan does not know I am here. He thinks I am still in St. Petersburg. Let us keep it that way."
He closes the device and slips it back in his jacket.
A waiter approaches and sets a plate in front of him. On it rests a cut of meat so thick, so large, it fills half the plate. The waiter steps back. I have seen this behavior before--the deference of servants to my father. Waiting to see if his meal is well cooked, his wine of the correct vintage, his every need met. My father was like the man I am watching--a man who looks at the world as if it owes him its bidding; who likes his fine surroundings, his comforts.
In that instant, I know what Auntie meant when she said they do not understand. For who could understand that this man--this man who I think is determined to stop the one Auntie says is now called Ethan--is not who he appears to be. That while he may enjoy the world of luxuries, they are not what he was born to. Not exactly. But they are what he has wanted for as long as I have known him.
Another waiter appears with wine, pours a taste in a goblet. Viktor sniffs, approves, then drinks with pleasure.
Viktor: the man I called my secret brother. The man who told me my family would be safe. The man I trusted.
"Enough," I say to Auntie. My voice breaks as I speak. It has been a very long time since I have cried.
But now I weep.
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Anne
Drink." Ethan places the steaming mug of tea on the small wooden table in front of me. "It will help."
"I doubt it," I say, but I pick up the mug anyway and sniff. It's fragrant--like orange and some kind of spice--and when I take a sip, the tea is hot on my tongue.
"I've got honey," he says. "Maybe some sugar too. Let me look..."
"It's fine," I say. "It's fine."
We're in the kitchen of his loft in an older area on the far side of town. It's one of those places that used to be all factories and warehouses and is now slowly turning residential, slowly being the operative word here. I'm very clear on the fact that I'm alone in a loft with him in a basically isolated area, and that the only reason I've let him bring me here is because we were chased by a giant pair of hands, after which some guys started shooting at us, and he's assured me--oh, right--that we'll be safe.
Ethan's said more than once that he's going to explain, but so far what he's done is make me a cup of tea, which involved boiling water in a kettle, packing loose tea leaves in a metal-strainer thing, and then combining the two in an actual teapot before pouring it into my cup.
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"Are you going to drink some too?"
"I--well--yes," he says, and it's clear he wasn't going to, but he walks over to the open shelves above the sink, pulls down another mug, and fills it with tea from the pot. Then, mug in hand, he sits down across from me.
"Is this how you always make it?" I ask. "I mean, this whole tea ritual?"
"It's not a ritual. It's tea. That's how it's made."
"Not in my house. We use a tea bag."
"Well," he says. And takes a swallow of tea.
He's performed another ritual since we arrived, but that didn't have anything to do with tea. It did, however, involve some more of the muttering and hand waving he seems to know so well. Warding is what be called it.
As in magic. As in something that, up until this morning, I really didn't believe existed.
As in, Anne, I've warded the doors and windows, so we should be safe.
Not that I'm feeling any great confidence about that at the moment. In fact, I'm doing my best not to freak out and just start screaming. The nine thousand OMG where r u? text messages from Tess on my cell phone aren't helping matters.
Neither is the fact that since the warding process, I haven't been able to get sufficient reception to text her again after my initial, I'm ok. Talk 2 u later, that I punched in when we got here. Now, I've given up on it, and my phone is tucked into my backpack, which is currently sitting on the floor at my feet.
We both take another few sips from our mugs. I glance around. I can see a bed over in a far corner, one of those armoire things where you can store clothes, a chest of drawers, a door that looks like it leads to a bathroom. A few
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other chairs. A laptop on a low table near a leather couch. Not really much else. If he lives here, he's been living pretty pared down.
"Okay," I say. I set my tea back on the table. My pulse is bumped up enough that I can feel it in my throat. "Talk. Tell me what all this means. Explain to me why I shouldn't just run from here screaming. Which, by the way, I'm not sure I won't do at some point anyway."
"It's a long story," he says. He takes another sip of his tea. "But the main thing is that you're--"
"No." I hold one band up. "Not the part about me. Not yet. I--I need the whole story. I need to know who you are. Why you're here. Why I should possibly believe a word you're telling me."
"You need to believe because it's true," Ethan says.
"I'll be the judge of that. Start at the beginning. It's not like we're going back out there anytime soon."
He rests his thumb on his lip for a moment, like he's thinking that over. Studies me with those blue eyes of his.
This is all just crazy, I think. He's crazy. And I am too for ever listening to him. All this Anastasia stuff, and witches with removable hands, and huts that move on chicken legs. No one wakes up and suddenly gets swallowed by a fairy tale.
For a second, I think I really am going to scream, then try to find a way out of here--only Ethan finally begins.
"You must understand," he says, "that what I'm telling you happened a long, long time ago. That I am--well, you will see. It isn't a simple story in that way. But the beginning---well, it's not so complicated."
"Accepted," I say. "Now talk."
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"I grew up in Russia," he says. "When I was ten, the Cossacks rode into our village. I had gone to the market for my mother. She was pregnant again, and my younger sister, Masha, was ill. It was harvest time, so my father was out in the fields.
"When I got home, I found them. Masha was dead, stabbed by Cossack swords. My mother lay on top of her, her belly sliced open."
Ethan sips again at his tea. His long fingers--the same fingers that wove the air as he performed the magic earlier-- tighten around his mug.
"I was still on the floor holding them when my father ran in from the fields. I begged him not to go after the men who had done this. But he would not listen. How could he? His wife, his babies, were gone. I don't think he even really saw me as he turned and ran out the door."
He pauses. I can tell that
he's seeing it again. That however long ago it was, there's probably never enough time to shut out that kind of hurt. And I get that. I might not understand all the rest of this. But that part, I get.
"When I caught up with him," Ethan says, and I can see the pain in his eyes as he remembers, "it was too late. He was stabbed from behind. The Cossack who killed him never even dismounted--just ran him through, pulled out this sword, and rode on. So there I was, orphaned at ten. In a few short hours, I had lost everything."
Ethan rakes his long fingers through his hair and looks at me. He takes another drink of tea.
"After that," he tells me, "I wandered from village to village. I lived with some cousins for a while, but when they could not even feed their own children, they closed their door to mc. Winter was
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coming. I had the clothes on my back, a hunting knife that had been my father's, and the memories of my family's dead faces.
"And then," Ethan says, "I met Brother Viktor."
"Brother? Like a monk or whatever? You mean that's why you had that robe on in my dream? Is that what you are?" Tess, I figure, is going to be pretty disappointed. So much for her stealthy, hot-guy fantasies if Ethan is in some sort of weird religious order.
"Was," he says. "Then. And for a long time. I was a believer then. Now, I suppose it is much harder to say. But yes, Viktor was of the Brotherhood. And for a time, so was I."
Ethan stands then. He walks back to the counter, picks up a small, covered cup and a spoon, and carries them back to the table.
"I like it sweeter," he says, pointing to his tea. "In Russia, we liked sweet tea. My father used to put a cube of sugar between his teeth so it would sweeten each sip as he drank it."