Haunted

by Joy Preble

  I ease my hands out from under Ethan’s shirt, sigh, and push him away. He opens his eyes, only slightly surprised.

  “I can’t,” I say. This sounds silly since obviously I can and just did. “I’m—well, Ben and I, we’re…” We’re what? I wonder.

  Ethan reddens a little as I stumble around it.

  “Oh,” he says. “Idiot. Me, I mean.” He clears his throat and looks uncomfortable.

  “I’m glad you’re back, Ethan. I’m glad I called you to come get me. I don’t know what I would have done if—”

  “It’s fine. You’re safe here,” he tells me softly. “You did exactly what you needed to do.” I know there’s more unsaid between us, but those few words are enough. The tension in my body eases.

  “I’m so tired,” I tell him, because all of a sudden it’s the truth. “I’m just so very tired.” Exhausted is more like it. Fear, magic, guilt—it’s easier, I think, to just close my eyes.

  Ethan pulls me back into his arms. “I know,” he whispers to me softly. “It’s okay. Be tired.” He kisses me again—a little tentatively, but I’m so wiped out that I don’t protest this time. He strokes my hair as I nestle my head against his chest and keeps holding me as I drift off to sleep.

  FRIDAY, 3:03 am

  ANNE

  You better not take the last slice.” David slaps my hand away from the pizza box.

  I smile. It’s been so long since I’ve seen my brother. All I’ve had is just the slightest scent of Lucky that still clings to his comforter hidden in the back of my closet.

  “Let your sister have the pizza.” My mother’s curled up on the couch, the remote in her hand. My father is sitting next to her, his arm looped over her shoulders. She leans over and kisses him.

  “Gross,” David says. “Get a room, you two.”

  Mom tosses a throw pillow at him, and David falls backward on the carpet, laughing.

  He’s got auburn hair like I do, and brown eyes like mine, and a long straight nose like mine too. He plays football, and his buddies hang around our house eating everything in sight and teasing me. Judd Angstrom and Drew Miller and Zach Geller—who plays center and once told me that I was really cute. I mooned about him for days after that, writing his name and his football number—55—on my social studies notebook over and over, sometimes with little hearts.

  David’s number is 18. I love going to watch him play. He’s a natural out there on the field. Like he was born for it.

  This is what I remember when I dream about my brother.

  “You could see him, you know,” Baba Yaga says to me. “If you wanted to.”

  “I do see him,” I tell her. “He’s right here.”

  Baba Yaga smiles, a huge grimace that shows off her iron teeth. “We see what we want to. Like I taught you. Ya khachu videt. ‘I want to see.’”

  “I don’t want your spells.”

  “You are so very certain of this? It will not take much. The power is already inside you. You cannot give it back. Use it, then. Time shifts here. Bring him back to you. To your mother. Ease her sadness.” She brushes my cheek with one enormous wrinkled hand. Her touch is oddly gentle, her skin dry as cracked leather.

  On our family room carpet, David is still laughing. Worms slither out of the back of his head where it meets the carpet.

  “You can’t bring back the dead,” I say.

  “Don’t.” My mother’s voice quavers on the verge of tears. “Don’t say it. If you don’t say it, then maybe it won’t be true.”

  “There are worse things than death, Laura.” Anastasia sits next to me on the floor. She’s wearing the same white dress she had on the day I took her hand and walked with her from Baba Yaga’s hut.

  “How do you know my name?” My mother turns her attention to Anastasia.

  “You’re part of me. But hasn’t Anne told you that?”

  “Shhh. She’ll tell her when she’s ready. Won’t you, Anne?” Ethan sits on the other side of me, his brown hair a little bit too long, his eyes the startling blue of the sky on one of those cloudless summer days. “But don’t tell her about me. That will just be our little secret.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like to lose a child,” my mother says.

  “Oh, my dear woman.” Baba Yaga hovers above us now in her mortar. The ceiling has expanded to accommodate her, opened up to the night sky. “I beg to differ.” Stars wink around her. One. Then two. Then three. “We all live as happily as we can. Then we move on. It is the order of things. Haven’t we learned that?”

  “Hush, Yaga.” The rusalka shimmers into view. “Hush. You’ll frighten the girl, and then she won’t help me. You know the story doesn’t have to go like that. Some of us don’t move on. Some of us can’t.” My nostrils fill with the smell of the sea. Salty. Ancient. Powerful. Her dark eyes look wild, and so does her long dark hair. Her arms are bare, her skin very white. She reaches out one pale hand and points it at my mother.

  “Don’t look at her,” Ethan whispers in my ear. His breath is warm against my skin.

  “You’re all fools. You don’t know what’s coming. You can’t see beyond yourselves. Only I could do that. But not even I can stop it.” Viktor leans against Baba Yaga in her mortar. His hair is pure white, his face skeletal.

  “You cursed him!” The woman with the wild eyes points her bony finger toward the sky. “And then you cursed me! He doesn’t know what you did. But I do. I know the truth. I won’t forget. I can’t. I gave her up. And look where it got me.”

  She touches one bony finger to my face. Water surrounds us. We float together in an endless sea. Tiny fish dart around us. I feel them bump against me. Deeper and deeper, she pulls me under, the shafts of light above us dimming. The heaviness of it exhausts me. My hair fans out around me and entwines with hers until I can no longer tell where mine ends and hers begins. Even as I’m afraid, there is a familiarity to her—a connection as primal and elemental as the water in which we’re swimming. But it all makes no sense. We swim deeper yet. The need to breathe fills every fiber of my body. I struggle against the impulse to open my mouth and swallow.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Anne.” Tess sits next to me now, her long blond hair pulled into a tail. She’s sipping something from mug. It smells like coffee. “You’re dreaming. Wake up.”

  Still dreaming, I open my eyes. They’re all gone. But the smell of the sea lingers.

  THE FOREST, EARLY MORNING

  BABA YAGA

  It is time,” I tell Viktor. “My girl is ready. She doesn’t know it yet, but she is. All is aligned. Soon, she will understand. She will see what she has not. She will have no choice but to act.”

  Viktor stares into the fire, its embers reflected in the dark irises of his eyes. My cat, my koshka, sits at his feet, occasionally flicking at some stray crumb on the floor with his sharp, pink tongue. Viktor chuckles. It is an odd sound; he has not laughed much since he has been with me; certainly, his situation has not amused him. But today, he is his old self, at least for now. “Perhaps, Yaga. Perhaps.”

  It angers me that he questions my judgment, but I let him have his illusion, his false sense of security. Really, he is like a dog on a very long chain. Round and round the yard he goes, until he is choked back when he strays too far. It is the illusion of freedom. Sometimes, I have seen, it is easier to just let him believe. But today, the gleam in his eyes tells me that perhaps he is not fooled at all. It is no matter. He remains my prisoner, whether he understands his fate or not.

  “She will do what she needs to. She will right what has been wronged. It is what she is made for. It is what is inside her.”

  “Yaga. Dear.” With effort, Viktor stands up. His body is wrecked, his bones brittle. But his eyes and tongue—when the madness ebbs—are still sharp. “Even Ethan will realize the truth eventually. And when he does, he’ll act. Do you honestly think he will keep his secrets from her then? When he knows for sure? He is what he has always been—virtuous to the bitter end. More virtuous than
your girl, perhaps.”

  I point my hand at him, and the burn that travels across his skin makes him scream. I watch the red, scarring sizzle move up his fingers, travel the length of his arm under his tattered shirt, and spread over his chest. I pull back my power before the damage is too great. This is one of the lessons of keeping him captive: knowing exactly how long to sustain the pain before his body wears out. It is an art that I do not enjoy, but one I have perfected.

  “You loved once.” I settle into my rocking chair, pick up my mug of hot, sweet tea with one hand, and reach down to stroke my koshka’s head with the other. “Or have you forgotten? Even I still remember what it is to feel that passion. But you—with you, I do not know. She is your blood. The blood of your blood. And yet you speak of her with such disrespect. She is the one who was strong enough to defeat you. Do not forget that. There is great strength in giving your heart to someone. Even I know this. And I gave up the right to love a long time ago. Have you forgotten the sacrifice the rusalka made? Have you forgotten why she made it?”

  He does not speak. But he shrugs his gaunt shoulders, so I know he understands. It is time for me to intervene. All worlds are colliding. The outcome will be what it will be.

  Because I can, I reach through my girl’s dream and ease her pain. “You will remember,” I say to her. “But later. For now, rest. You have the answers you need. You just need to understand what they are. It will come to you, my girl. But for now, just rest. Let your heart open.”

  “Ah, Yaga.” Viktor smiles despite the pain still coursing through him—perhaps because of it. “You are a clever one, just as always. It is what has made you a legend. Stirring hearts like you stir that mortar of yours. Clever, clever woman.”

  “I have not been a woman for a very long time,” I tell him. “But some things one never forgets. I cannot make her do what she might not on her own. But perhaps I can speed the process. I have waited long enough.”

  I turn from him then, stir the fire, watch the embers spark and burn. Watch my girl dream. And then I stir things just a little more.

  FRIDAY, 5:25 am

  ANNE

  Anne. Anne! Wake up! You’re dreaming.”

  Ethan’s voice jerks me awake. We’re still on the couch, and it’s still dark outside. My cheeks feel damp. Have I been crying?

  “What time is it? How long have I been asleep?” I rub my face, then run my hand over my hair. Even without a mirror, I’m fairly certain I’m not a pretty sight. It’s entirely possible that I’ve drooled on Ethan’s shirt.

  “It’s a little after five in the morning. Not quite dawn.” Ethan rolls his shoulders and stretches. His stomach and chest are warm where I’ve been leaning on him. I move to sit up, but he pulls me back, encircling my waist with his arms. “You were crying. What were you dreaming?”

  It’s weird that I don’t know what to tell him. When it comes to my dreams, I always know. That’s been a given since this whole mess started. I didn’t know I was dreaming as Anastasia, but I knew what I saw in the dream. No matter how freaky my dreams are, I always remember them. But not this time. It feels like I’ve got a word at the tip of my tongue, but I just can’t figure it out.

  “Don’t know,” I tell Ethan. “Baba Yaga, maybe? My family too, I think. I woke up at some point, but I can’t remember. I just know it was sort of scary, and I think it was sad.”

  “I should get you home.” Ethan stretches again, yawns. “We can talk more later. Maybe write down what we know. See if there’s a pattern to what’s happening.”

  I run my hand through my hair again, and Ben’s bracelet clinks against my wrist. The dream isn’t coming to me, but everything else that happened last night returns in a big, stomach-dropping whoosh!

  I came back because I couldn’t stay away. Because everywhere I went, I just kept thinking of you. Ethan’s lips on mine, his hands on me and mine on him. And that moment when I told him I couldn’t do this. I feel myself flush a little, remembering the rest of it—the two of us lifting off the floor as my power meshed with his and the cut on his thumb disappeared. Me stumbling over my words, trying to tell him about Ben. Drifting off against him and waking up just now, still in his arms. I might not remember my dream, but I know how I feel right now in this moment.

  Ethan goes on talking about what we’ll do and how we might get the rusalka to come out again, but I’m not really listening. Everything inside me has gone sort of still because it has occurred to me that the last thing I want to do right now is talk. I shift to face him, quietly unclasp Ben’s bracelet, and tuck it into the pocket of my jeans. Then I lean in and kiss him on the lips. “I don’t want to go yet.” I kiss him again. His lips taste sweet and bitter at the same time. I hope I don’t have morning breath.

  “I missed you too,” I say, because I haven’t told him this, not really. “I kept telling myself that I didn’t. But I did.”

  Ethan studies my face, and my stomach goes whoosh again. It’s not entirely unpleasant this time. He takes my hand in his and kisses it. The gesture is so sweet that for a second, tears sting the backs of my eyes again.

  My world has shifted a lot lately. When my brother died. When Ethan held out his hand that day in the library. When I held out my own hand and led Anastasia out of Baba Yaga’s hut. The first time I kissed Ben—really kissed him, that is, even though I’m thinking now that he wasn’t the person I was supposed to be with. It was still important. Still a shift from one thing to another. This moment right now with Ethan feels like that. Maybe that’s what happens when you let someone into your heart—not just say that you like them, but really let them in. It’s scary and risky, and right now, I know that I could be making a huge mistake.

  “Anne, I—are you sure this is—?”

  “Nothing’s sure. Nothing’s going to be.” It makes me sound cynical and not a little jaded, but it’s the truth. “You know that, Ethan. You know that.”

  He does know it, and I can see it in his face. How could he not?

  “What about Ben?”

  My heart jolts as I hear Ben’s name. I wonder at how suddenly reckless I feel. Is that like me? Maybe it is. Maybe once you know for sure that things don’t always turn out the way you want them to, that there isn’t always a happily ever after, you just get reckless.

  “I don’t want to be with Ben. I want him to be safe. I don’t want him to get hurt. I’m sorry that he’s in the middle of all this, and I’m sorry that it’s my fault. But I don’t love Ben. And it isn’t fair to pretend that I do.”

  “Ben loves you.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Ben loves the idea of me. Or at least, the me he thinks I am.”

  “You aren’t any different. I know you think you are. But you’re not, Anne. It’s what I admire in you. You’re steady, and you’re honest. Even when you’re not exactly telling the truth.” Ethan leans very close. He kisses the tip of my nose. Runs his hand gently against my cheek. He dips his head and kisses the center of each of my palms. The wonderful sensation of it rockets through me. “You’re beautiful,” he says softly. “Perfect just the way you are.”

  I don’t think either of those is true, but I like hearing him say it. We ease into another kiss. And then another.

  It’s different than kissing Ben—less familiar and, weirdly, more familiar at the same time. Ethan’s lips are fuller. There’s the faintest taste of tobacco when my tongue flicks against his—not bad, really, but definitely there. His arms around me feel as strong as Ben’s, but his fingertips are slightly rougher as he pulls back from me to trace a finger over my eyelids and forehead, my cheeks and nose, lips and chin, like he’s trying to memorize the feel of me. I do the same to him. I wonder if you really can learn to remember someone that way so that if age or time or something you’re just not expecting takes it all away, your fingertips will still know, even in the darkness.

  Which is all so crazily intimate and romantic that it stops me for a second, even though most of me had no intention of stopping anytime
soon. In fact, my hands had honestly been sort of itching to peel that T-shirt off him and take a peek at the lion tattoo.

  We both catch our breath, edge apart, and lean back against the couch. And I guess because I still have thoughts of Ben, I ask, “Have you ever been in love?” The question sounds random as it pops out of my mouth, but it occurs to me that I’m sprawled on Ethan’s couch contemplating all sorts of things, and maybe this is something I should know.

  Ethan blinks. Those blue eyes register some definite surprise. I wonder if he’s going to evade the question. But he doesn’t.

  “Ah. Well.” He sighs. “Her name was Natasha. Tasha was what she went by. Tasha Levin. I knew her in London. It was about five years after the Revolution. I was living there for a while, renting a flat that I’d come back to every few months or so. She was Russian, like me—from a small town in what’s now Belarus. By then, I’d finally understood the nature of what I’d become. The Brotherhood vows seemed sort of, well, restricting. Forever—or at least the possibility of forever—is a bit too long to go without…well…” He plucks up his lips in that crooked, ironic smile of his.

  “And?”

  “And I loved her. Tasha was a classically trained pianist. Her family had immigrated before the Revolution. Her parents had both died of influenza not long after. She’d stayed in England and had started her own small music conservatory. It was doing quite well—enough to support her while she earned a name as a performer. That’s how I met her, actually. She was playing a Rachmaninoff concerto at a local hall one night, and I’d gone on a whim. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”

  I think about this as I listen to his quiet, even breathing and trace my fingers over his face again. I don’t ask him what she looked like, but in my head, I see a tall slim girl with long graceful fingers and wavy brown hair that she weaves into a long braid to keep it out of her face when she’s at the piano.