by M. J. Rose
The Dowager nodded.
“So they don’t tell you about the pain?”
I understood then what she was asking. She needed to prepare herself for what she might hear if indeed I found any of her grandchildren.
“No, they don’t.”
“I don’t think you could bear it if they did.”
Or you, I thought, but didn’t express it.
“But this one who did tell you, do you know why? What was different about him?”
Ah, how to explain about Jean Luc? What did I even know for certain?
“I don’t know, but rest assured, it’s not something likely to happen again.” My voice broke, and I was embarrassed. No, it wouldn’t happen again. There would never be anyone else like my ghost lover.
“It was so terrible . . . ,” she said. “So terrible you haven’t recovered still?”
How to tell her how difficult it was to hear Jean Luc describe the last attack on him and his men. How for hours afterward I was unable to do anything.
The words of the dead are much heavier than those of the living because each requires so much effort and energy. We take our words for granted. While we live, our minds and our bodies are connected, but once we die and the connection is severed, the soul is awkward on this plane without having a corporeal presence.
Jean Luc said it was like being one with the air, and the feeling, while freeing, was too limitless, too uncontrolled. Ghosts are unhappy creatures, not pleased to be stuck in our realm, uncomfortable and disassociated. Remaining with us is a hardship.
“Do these talismans you make always work?”
“No. A few times I’ve created one and not heard a spirit.”
“Do you know why?”
I shook my head.
She rose and walked to the window, where she stood looking out at the sea.
“I think I’m afraid of what you do,” she said. “We’ve always embraced the mystical in our country. The long winters and dark nights lend themselves to tales of the strange and incomprehensible.” She turned back to face me.
Behind her, in the sky out the window, the sun peeked through clouds, illuminating her from behind. For a moment she seemed to float there, surrounded by a nimbus of opalescent light, very much an otherworldly creature herself.
“At first I hesitated about meeting with you. And even now I’m not sure I want to proceed.”
I didn’t know what to think. Grigori and I had risked our lives to come here and meet with the Dowager. Anger bubbled up inside of me, but I couldn’t show it. This woman had been the tsarina of Russia. The mother of its last ruler. The grandmother of its now uncertain future. She wasn’t like the women who came to me in the shop who knew their sons, fathers, brother, lovers, and husbands were dead. This woman had no idea how many of her loved ones she had lost, had no idea how much deeper her grief would go. Compassion supplanted my anger.
If I were in her place, I might not want to know either.
“We don’t need to proceed, Your Highness. If you’ve changed your mind, we can abort the exercise.”
Her fingers worried a string of marvelous pearls looped twice around her neck, their luminosity and shimmer exaggerated by the black silk behind them. Other than two simple gold bands she had on her ring finger, the strand was the only jewelry she wore.
I knew, because the Orloffs had talked of it many times, how the royal family had been stripped of all their possessions. Their vast stores of money, securities, antiques, artwork, and jewels had all been conscripted by the revolutionaries. The remaining Romanovs were broke. Even those who’d managed to escape with some treasures had little left. Most needed to sell their valuables in order to live.
“In addition to the locks of hair, I brought more keepsakes, the few I still have. I wasn’t sure if they would aid you.”
I watched her withdraw a purple velvet pouch from inside a hidden pocket in her voluminous skirt, open it, and pull out the sapphire enamel box I’d noticed in her bedroom. Twisting the double-eagle insignia, she opened it and stared down into its interior, lost in thought.
I’d never had insights into what people were thinking. Only the dead spoke to me. But I imagined, based on our conversation so far, she was wondering if it would be better to know the worst about her family or be left with hope.
With a sigh, she tilted the box toward me, showing me its contents.
One would have expected emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, and pearls to be nestled in the casket lined with pale robin’s egg blue satin. But none of those would have been worth as much to the Dowager as the items she withdrew.
“This is the first tooth Alexei lost.” She placed it in front of me. Next, she took out a faded coral length of grosgrain. “This is a ribbon from Anastasia’s confirmation bouquet of flowers.”
There were a dozen other small keepsakes, and she described each one to me, lovingly.
“I wanted to make sure you’d have what you needed.” Her voice broke. A tear escaped from her eye and rolled down her cheek. She blotted it with a handkerchief embroidered with a royal insignia.
Anna told me they called her the Lady of Tears. In one lifetime, she’d already witnessed the assassination of her brother King George I of Greece, the premature death of her first fiancé, the early death of her husband in 1894, the abdication and then assassination of her son Tsar Nicholas II, the execution of many members of her family during the Bolshevik Revolution, and the dissolution of her entire way of life.
“Excuse me, I just miss them so,” she whispered.
“I understand, and I am sorry.”
Returning all the items to the box, she composed herself, and once she was again in control, she continued. “So you have what you need, correct? These items will work as a conduit and enable you to make contact with them if they have indeed passed on?”
I nodded, then answered aloud. “Yes, that’s correct. I might only need the locks of hair, but thank you for bringing all these other bits and pieces. I might be able to use them as well.”
“You won’t destroy anything in the process?”
“No, certainly not. What I do is encase a few strands of each child’s hair or a sliver of the tooth or a thread of the ribbon in between sections of a rock crystal, then bind that with gold and lock it together. I give you the talisman to wear on a cord, as well as the key.”
“How long will it take you to make this amulet?”
“I brought everything I needed with me and should be finished by this evening. We can do the reading tonight if it’s all right with you.” As long as it works, I thought. As long as the crystals don’t crack. As long as the stone’s energy intensifies the mementos. As long as the magick has traveled with me across the channel.
The Dowager picked up her exquisite enamel box and caressed it. “I’ve already lost my darling son. My entire beloved country. All I have left is the hope of these children.” She put the box in my hand and curled my fingers around its cold rectangular shape. Then, with surprising strength, she squeezed her hand around mine with such force the edges of the box dug into my flesh, hurting me. “Opaline Duplessi, I hope to God you fail,” she said, and gave me a heartbreaking smile.
I’d seen women weep in my shop, held them sobbing in my arms. I’d heard them speak with grief and anger, passion and pain, pleasure and melancholy about their lost loved ones. But I’d never seen anyone whose smile was as sad, or whose burden as heavy as the tsar’s mother’s in that moment.
She stood.
“Wait, before you go. I have something to give you,” I said.
“I expected you might. My son liked to plan ahead and told me Monsieur Orloff owned a necklace that—”
A knock on the door interrupted her.
“Who is it?”
“Yasin, Madame, there’s a visitor here to see you.”
Leani
ng forward, the Dowager whispered: “Only my sister and my nephew the king know I am in England. She’s come to visit for the day. I’ll come back later, you can give it to me then. I don’t trust everyone in this house, and we need to be very careful, you and I, yes?”
Chapter 27
I wept as I placed part of each of the five locks of hair into the recess. I’d brought the finest crystal egg I’d ever found with me. I unfolded and smoothed out the list I’d drawn up of the Dowager’s grandchildren and checked the eldest’s information.
Olga, November 15, 1895, Scorpio
Tatiana, June 10, 1897, Gemini
Maria, June 26, 1899, Cancer
Anastasia, June 18, 1901, Gemini
Alexei, August 12, 1904, Leo
Once I’d carved the names, birthdates, and astrological signs, I added my tokens. The Ouroboros. The crescent moon. The single star. These, the symbols I’d chosen as my mantra when I’d made my first piece. Even without being trained, I’d chosen the symbolic sentence all Daughters of La Lune were taught. The crescent moon that marks our skin and brands us. The star-shine to shed light on the mysteries we encounter. And the Ouroboros to open magical doors for us.
I never received messages while I worked. When I made the talismans, I was a jeweler. Nothing else. Not the daughter of a witch. Not a mystic who could divine messages from stones. Not someone who could speak to the dead but an artisan practicing her craft. Designing and building a charm to give its wearer pleasure and comfort. Just a jeweler continuing a time-honored tradition of making mourning jewelry to commemorate and immortalize the love that tied one person to another.
As I worked that afternoon, rain pelted the window, and wind rattled the frame. Newspapers reported the summer of 1918 had been the rainiest season England and France had suffered in years. For us it was only gloomy and wet—for the men at the front it brought misery. There was no shelter on the battlefields, and trenches turned to mud. With soaked clothes, soldiers who were worn down and in already compromised states became ill.
At three o’clock, Grigori came to check on my progress and ask me to tea. I said I’d prefer a tray in my room so as to not waste time. He surprised me when, a half hour later, he arrived with it himself and set it on the desk.
I removed my jeweler’s glasses and joined him for finger sandwiches, scones, clotted cream with jam, and a large pot of very fragrant black tea. All despite the war rations in England, which were similar to ours in France.
“How is your work progressing?” he asked.
“It’s painstaking, but going well.”
“And you haven’t experienced any . . . you call them messages, correct?”
“No, I haven’t. I usually don’t at this stage. The only thing that happens sometimes is I get ill while I’m putting the talisman together.” I took a bite of a salmon sandwich and chewed. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.
“But you don’t feel ill?”
I shook my head.
“Do you think that means anything?”
I took another bite of my sandwich. “No, probably not.”
“What’s wrong, Opaline?”
“Nothing, why?”
“When you’re upset, you purse your lips, like this.” He showed me.
“I do?” I said, surprised. Not so much that I made the same expression my mother made when she was upset. Rather, I was astonished Grigori knew my face so well.
“You do. So what’s bothering you?”
“There’s danger here. I can hear it, Grigori, like a low-level hum coming from the house itself.”
“You’re probably picking up on the castle’s history. Briggs told me about its bloody past as he was arranging the tray. He said he would never have chosen to serve here had the royal family not requested it of him.”
“That may be, but not what I’m sensing. Distant tragedies feel a certain way. Like wood worn smooth. But when I touch the crystals in the lamps in this house, or the marble on the fireplace, I hear a tense sound. High-pitched and jarring. As if the house is bracing for a new crisis. Something is going to happen while we are here. The Dowager must be in danger.”
“Of course traveling during wartime is always dangerous.”
“I don’t think that’s what I’m sensing. This feels like specific danger. Do you think the Bolsheviks found out she is here?”
Grigori stood up and came to sit beside me on the settee. He put his arm around me and held me close. When he spoke, he measured each word carefully. “I don’t think they could know she is here, no. And I don’t want you to be alarmed.”
“But isn’t she one of the symbols of the politics they’ve overthrown?”
“Yes. And for the same reason, she is precious to the tsarists and those who want to restore the monarchy.” He took my hand in his, reassuring me. “And that’s why this trip was arranged in such secrecy. But I don’t want you to be concerned. The Dowager is here anonymously as Madame Silvestrov. Only her own staff, the king, and his mother know who their guest is.”
“Thank you. I feel better. Now I should get back to work. I have a lot to get done and not a lot of time.”
Grigori leaned forward and kissed me. Not a chaste embrace, but not an invitation either.
“Don’t let me bother you. But if you don’t mind I’d like to stay.”
I preferred him to leave, but it wasn’t really a hardship to let him stay. So I went back to my makeshift workstation and the talisman while behind me Grigori stood and began to pace. The sound of his footsteps on the carpet, because of his limp, had an unnerving, uneven rhythm. And the longer he kept it up, the more it disturbed me and added to my growing unease.
If all was well, why was I so nervous? Why was he?
“What is this?” he asked.
I turned. He’d picked up the Dowager’s jewel box. “Is it Fabergé?”
“I don’t know. The empress brought it with her and it has—”
He’d opened it.
“No, don’t, it’s—”
He stared at me. My tone had been too harsh. What was wrong with me that I was so anxious? Grigori was a fine arts and antiques dealer—he knew how to handle precious objects. Was it just that I always worked alone and found his presence distracting? Or was I sensing something about the tsar’s children I didn’t want to face yet and felt uneasy because of them?
Grigori inspected the contents, taking them out and putting each on the desk blotter. First the locks of hair, four of them tied with lavender ribbon, one with navy. Next the tooth. Then the grosgrain ribbon.
His face gave away nothing, and he remained silent as he continued searching through the contents.
“Grigori, please don’t. If something has happened to the children, what you’re doing is like rifling through their coffins.”
“What a strange thing to say.” His eyes softened. “How hard this must be for you. Spending so much time working the remains of the soldiers. Hearing their voices. I’m sorry I’ve never really asked you about it before. Does it seep into your dreams?”
Twice in one day now, someone had asked me almost the same question.
I nodded.
“Tell me.”
“No, not now.”
“Imagine the value you could place on your service if you could ask them questions and they could answer you. Have you ever tried that?”
I couldn’t tell if he was teasing or serious.
“No, I haven’t. I just accept the messages. It’s not the same as having a conversation,” I said. Or at least it hadn’t been, I thought, until I’d met Jean Luc.
“You should at least get paid for what you do.”
“We charge for the piece of jewelry.”
“You should get a fee for the readings as well.”
Grigori was a good salesman. I’d been in the shop when he’d c
harmed clients into paying high sums for a candelabra or an armoire. Several times, I’d heard Monsieur admonish Grigori for being too greedy, but I’d written that off to the friction between them. Was I wrong? Since we’d arrived at the castle, Grigori didn’t seem the same to me. Was he more himself on his own, out of his father’s orbit, and I was seeing it for the first time?
“Are you uncomfortable being here?” I asked.
“Uncomfortable?” he asked. “No, the accommodations are fine. Aren’t yours?”
“No, I meant being away from Paris, here in the country, at this castle, on this mission. You seem anxious and perhaps a little angry.”
Grigori frowned, and then, like the sun rising, one of his sparkling smiles transformed his pensive face. “I’m sorry. And yes, I am anxious. I am worried about what you will discover when you finish that charm.” He pointed to my work. “I suppose I’m finding it intimidating to be around the Dowager, to be in the same house as her. And I’m concerned she has traveled all this way and you will have to give her bad news. And then we will have to witness her grief. And somehow my father will find a way to make even that my fault.”
It all made sense, but as he said it, his eyes kept returning to the ruby enamel egg necklace I wore.
Without meaning to, before I realized what I’d done, I’d put my hand up, protectively covering the piece, and examined yet again the subterfuge of wearing this necklace over the other. Of the request to give them to the Dowager, but only when we were alone.
“Is that a new piece of jewelry?” Grigori asked.
“It is. Your father gave it to me for luck.”
And the greatest question: Why hadn’t Monsieur wanted his son to know about the real gift? I’d accepted his logical answer, but I wasn’t sure I believed it.
Inadvertently, I shook my head.
“What is it, Opaline?”
“Nothing, I should get back to work or I won’t finish.”