Babusya didn’t really like her. Dad said she was wrong, but the way her grandmother watched her… it was almost like she stared through her. And while she was affectionate with Pavel, she flinched when she touched Tatiana.
“Hey, dummy,” Pavel said, glancing at her before opening the refrigerator. Even though he lived on his own, Mom still bought his favorite foods. He popped the top on a soda and drank the whole thing, burping when he was finished.
“Gross.”
He smiled wickedly before burping again then blew the air at her. “So what did the doctor say?”
Heaviness fell over the kitchen, though Mom continued to bang pots and pans like she was busy. Tatiana dropped her gaze to her hands.
“That bad, huh?” he asked.
Tatiana nodded. A chair scraped across the floor and then a balled-up napkin hit her in the forehead. “They’ve been wrong before. They’re wrong again. All those doctors are doom and gloom. You’re tough, Tati. You’ll be fine.”
The thing with her brother, he didn’t try to make her feel better. That wasn’t how he operated. If he had truly been worried for her health, he’d have been nice. The day he was considerate of Tatiana’s feelings was the day she knew she was really dying.
“That’s what I think, too,” Mom said as she filled a pan with water. “But your father likes to know everything. Even if he doesn’t like to go to the appointments.”
Her dad wasn’t good at doctor’s appointments. He took the doctor’s prognoses much more seriously than her mom and brother. Often, he fell into a depression after them, or worse, cried. There was nothing more horrifying than watching her bear of a father dissolve into tears when faced with her mortality.
The doorbell rang before Tatiana could defend her dad. She tilted her head to the side as it rang again. “Is that Deck the Halls?”
“Yes!” her mother cried. “I got it on Cyber Monday. Great deal.”
“How have I not noticed?” she muttered.
“No one visits you, Quasimodo,” Pavel retorted, bounding past her before she could swat at him.
“Hi, Dad,” he said from downstairs. “Babusya.”
“Pasha!” her grandmother cried before the sound of smacking kisses filtered upstairs. “My beautiful boy. Look at you. So handsome!” Her grandmother sniffed. “What is that smell? Is something burning?”
At the stove, her mother groaned, lifted her fingers to her temple and pretended to shoot herself. Tatiana snorted before covering her face with her hands as her family appeared.
“Hi, Dad.” She slid off her stool to hug him.
“Tati,” he whispered, hugging her carefully. Always so careful. In the old days, Dad hugged her up tight, lifting her off her feet, but the older and thinner she got, the more gentle he was with her. She wanted to tell him she wouldn’t break. “You look beautiful.”
“Humph.”
“Hello, Babusya,” Tatiana said, facing her disapproving grandmother. The older woman stood glowering and graceful. A ballerina when she was younger, she still held herself like her spine was steel. Her sleek black hair, the only thing Tatiana had inherited from her, was cut in a bob and shone in the light.
Her grandmother was beautiful, but she was hard. At least toward her.
“Hello, Tatiana. You look like a ghost.”
It took all her self-control not to lift her fingers to her face and press against her cheeks. Surely she didn’t look as bad as that.
“Natasha.” Her mom interrupted anything else Babusya would have said. “You’re visiting.”
“Your powers of perception are as precise as ever, Emily. Your decorations are quite…” Babusya narrowed her eyes as she took in the Christmas figurines. “Yes. Well. You’ve decorated.”
Her mother smiled, her teeth clenched. “I have,” she said through them. “Dinner will be finished shortly.”
“How are you, Em?” Dad asked, dropping a kiss on her cheek.
Mom flushed and quickly turned toward the refrigerator. She opened it and stuck her head inside. Her voice was muffled. “Fine.”
Tatiana frowned. She wondered, if it hadn’t been for her, would her parents have stayed together? It was clear Mom still cared for Dad. And if the way his gaze followed her as she placed vegetables on the counter was any clue, he cared for her, too.
Maybe when she was gone, they’d get back together. Be happy.
She sighed, and as she glanced away, caught Babusya glaring at her. Suddenly tired beyond measure, Tatiana pushed away from the island. “I’m going to take a shower. Going to the hospital always makes me feel weird.”
“Good,” Pavel said. “You stink.”
Babusya ignored her, but Dad blinked, his blue eyes watery.
“Go on,” Mom said. “It won’t be ready for a few minutes.”
Without a backward glance, Tatiana hurried to her bedroom and into the bathroom. She flicked the light switch and let out a breath, catching her reflection at the same time.
Babusya was right. She did look like a ghost. Her collarbones, visible because of the boat neck shirt she’d chosen, looked prominent. And her cheekbones, usually her best feature, seemed too pronounced. She always had pale skin, but it was paler than pale, and her lips had a blue tinge. The doctor had commented on the blue as a sign her heart wasn’t working efficiently.
Placing her hand over it, she stared into her blue eyes. “I’m dying,” she whispered, just to hear it out loud.
She tried to imagine it, not being alive. Ceasing to exist.
But how could she? The closest she came to unconsciousness was sleep, and at least then she dreamed. What would happen when there was nothing? She was just—gone.
Tatiana opened her eyes. The doctor was wrong, like all the other doctors. She wasn’t going to die. Maybe her body was weak and she was thinner than she’d ever been before, but her will was strong. Her soul would have to be dragged from her body before she gave up.
She glared at herself. “You’re not dying. Hear that? You’re not.”
A tap on the door made her jump, and she caught a flush of pink along her cheekbones as she moved to open it.
“Sorry, Mo—” The apology died on her lips as she met her grandmother’s stare.
“Tatiana. I will talk to you now.”
2
Tatiana
Babusya pushed her way into the bathroom, wrinkling her nose as she studied the small space. Finally, she crossed her arms and leaned against the door. “So the doctor said you are dying.”
“Don’t worry about my feelings, Babusya,” Tatiana replied, mirroring her grandmother’s posture. She leaned against the sink and crossed her arms protectively over her chest. “Just say it.”
“Tatiana. You’ve been dying since the moment you were born. The fact that you’ve made it nineteen and a half years is a shock.”
“Twenty.” Not that Babusya kept track of her birthdays, but she was twenty years old. She wanted credit for every month she’d been alive.
“No, Tatiana. You are nineteen years and six months old. You were born the day my real granddaughter was stolen from my son and his wife. You are nothing but a replacement.”
A sound like a croak left her throat before Tatiana snapped her mouth closed. “Have you lost your mind?”
Her grandmother flicked her fingers toward her. “You are not my granddaughter. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you. Your father didn’t believe me. And your mother certainly didn’t.” Babusya shrugged. “In Ukraine, these things happen. But most of us are careful. A red thread tied around the baby’s ankle… a broom in the corner. I blame your mother.”
“Of course you do,” she muttered. “Babusya. I know this is hard for you.” Probably not. “But sometimes people are sick.”
“You are not a person, Tatiana. You are an exchanged child.” Babusya approached her slowly, a gleam in her blue eyes.
Tatiana sidled away, her back sliding against the glass door of the shower. “Babusya. I’m tired. And hungry
. I’m going to take a shower, and then I’ll come downstairs and you can tell my mother how I got sick because she didn’t put a broom in the corner of my nursery.”
“You got sick because you weren’t supposed to live once the rusalka put you in the crib.”
“What the hell is a rusalka? Actually—never mind. This is insane. Babusya. I’m dying. You get that, right?” Tatiana stopped her retreat and glared at the woman who had never liked her. “I just returned from the doctor who told me I’m dying. And now you’re telling me it’s because I deserve it. Because I wasn’t meant to live in the first place.” It was difficult to breathe and took more strength than she had to raise her voice. “I know you don’t like me, but this? This is so mean.”
Her grandmother’s face softened. “You are strong, Tatiana. But you aren’t who you think you are.”
Babusya moved fast. Her arm made a graceful arc through the air as she flung a glass bottle toward her. Liquid splashed against Tatiana’s skin, burning her where it landed. She cried out, covering her eyes with both hands, but Babusya wasn’t finished. She pressed something, cold and metallic, against the back of her hand. It seared, burning through layers of skin. Tatiana jerked away, but the smell of burnt flesh lingered in the air.
The window behind her exploded in a shower of glass and wind. And a hand, cool and smooth, pushed Tatiana out of the way.
“I have treated your daughter kindly. This is what you do to mine?”
Tatiana stared at the woman who stood in front of her. She was naked, her lithe, pale body gleaming like she’d slipped from the water. And she was tall, so tall Tatiana couldn’t see over her shoulders to Babusya.
“Rusalka,” her grandmother breathed and crossed herself. Forehead, chest, right shoulder, left shoulder. “Demon.”
Before her, the woman shrunk, shoulders hunching forward. Her red hair, long and thick, lightened until it was white and hung in lank strands over her back and shoulders. The woman pointed a knobby finger at Babusya. “I exchanged the child, and she has lived many years. This is how you repay me for my gift? By dousing it in holy water and burning it with icons of saints?”
Tatiana’s gaze drifted from the woman to the back of her hand. A perfect oval was burned into her flesh, while along her arm and fingers, spots of red, angry and blistered, welled up.
“She is not my blood,” Babusya said. “You stole my real granddaughter.”
Someone pounded on the bathroom door, and her father yelled. “Tati! Are you okay?”
His voice jerked her out of her shock, and she pushed past the naked old woman toward Babusya. She was going crazy. That was what this had to be. She’d hallucinated all of this. Before she could get to the door, the woman grabbed her arm, holding her in place.
Tatiana tried to pull herself away, but the woman was deceptively strong. Babusya took a step away from them both. “Take her back. Take the changeling back and give us back our real Tatiana.”
Her father pounded on the door again. “Tatiana Elizabeth. Answer me!”
She opened her mouth to speak, but the old woman lifted her hand, and the words caught in her throat.
The wind stopped blowing.
Babusya didn’t blink. She didn’t breathe.
The woman gripped Tatiana’s shoulder, pushing her until they faced each other.
“I’m hallucinating.”
The woman shook her head. “No. That old woman—” She glared at Babusya, showed her teeth, and hissed, but her grandmother didn’t move. “That old woman forced me from my home to find you. I felt the tug of your pain.” In an animal-like gesture, she canted her head, studying Tatiana. “You have lived a long life. Sticks and stones and birch bark breathed to life. You should have rotted in days, but here you stand.”
“That’s crazy. This is my family.”
Yellowed teeth showed in the woman’s mouth as she threw her head back and laughed. “You have no family, unless you call the trees your mother and the earth your father. You are a replacement. An exchanged child.” She began to circle Tatiana. “This world. Look what it does to me.” She held out her hands, the swollen joints and knobby fingers looked painful. “You are stronger than I meant you to be to survive here. Surrounded by steel and death.”
Heat traveled up from the soles of Tatiana’s feet. It licked at her ankles and knees before racing along her torso and down her arms. She tried to move, to relieve the discomfort, but she couldn’t.
“And there I dreamed—ah, woe betide—the latest dream I ever dreamt.” What was she talking about? When the old woman reached for her with bony hands, every cell in Tatiana’s body arched away. But she was frozen.
“Do you wish to dream again, Exchanged Child? To live, oblivious and happy, the few days left to you? I could give you that kindness.”
Tatiana wanted to speak, but her body hurt too much. The blood rushed to her face. She felt it heating her cheeks as she tried to find her voice. The old woman waved her hand, and Tatiana fell to her knees, fingers curling into the bath mat. She stared at the dull blue and then lifted her gaze to the woman. “Why not let me live? If you made me, fix me. Make me better.”
Laughter tinkled out of her as she shook her head. “You are what you are. Sticks and stones and air. There is no better. You are what you are. Just as I am what I am.”
“Rusalka.” That was what Babusya called her.
The woman nodded and coughed suddenly. She gasped, turned her head toward her shoulder, and coughed again. Blood sprayed across her skin, and she wiped it with the back of her hand. “I’ve stayed too long. I must return to my daughter.”
“Their daughter.”
The old woman narrowed her eyes. “Mine. She was too perfect for these people. Now she’ll live forever. Beautiful forever. Worshipped forever. Young forever.” She touched Tatiana again, cupping her elbow to help her to stand. “You are strong. But you were only ever meant as a replacement.”
The wind blew through the broken window, and Tatiana shivered. She turned toward Babusya who blinked and looked around in confusion. The other woman was gone, like she’d never existed. “What am I doing here?”
“Tatiana!” Dad called again, pushing open the door. He stared at Babusya, and then toward the broken window. “What the hell happened in here? Mom? What are you doing?”
“I—” Her black hair skimmed along her chin as she shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“You flung holy water at me,” Tatiana said. She held out her hand accusingly to show her the burn. “You—”
But there was no burn. No splatters. Only pale, unmarred skin.
“Holy water? What the hell?”
Her grandmother drew her eyebrows together in confusion. “Of course I didn’t.” She stared at Tatiana as if she would back her up.
“I have no idea what you’re doing in here.”
“And how did the window break?” The wind blew so strong the broken glass skittered across the floor. “Let’s get out of here. Pavel! There still plywood in the garage?”
“How would I know?” her brother yelled from downstairs.
Mom stuck her head in the bathroom and gasped. “What the heck, Tati?”
“Looks like a branch knocked into it.” Dad wrestled with the curtains and finally got off the rod and fabric. “I told you that tree was growing too close to the house.”
“And I was supposed to take care of that when, Mike?”
“I could have cut it back,” Dad muttered. “I’ll get a broom, sweep this up, and then Pavel can help me nail a board over it. I’ll call the glass guys tomorrow.”
“I can call them.”
Tatiana had never felt more like a ghost. She stood there, observing her parents argue about replacing a window while Bing Crosby crooned in the living room.
Yet, it all seemed a million miles away.
She held her hand up to the light, studying it. Those were her bones. They weren’t sticks. This was skin that covered her bones, not bark.
S
he was real. Alive. A human.
The wind blew again, cold against the back of her neck, and she heard a whisper of song. “Rest thee, babe. I love thee dearly, and as thy mortal mother nearly.”
3
Tatiana
Dinner was as uncomfortable and awkward as Tatiana had expected it to be. Babusya sulked. Dad and Pavel tried to maintain polite, innocuous conversation, and her mother seethed.
Tatiana could see the steam coming out of her mother’s ears. It was only a matter of time before she—“Tell me again, Natasha, why you thought it was appropriate to douse my daughter in holy water?”—blew.
“I must have dropped it, Emily. I certainly didn’t douse her with it.”
Babusya seemed genuinely confused. She didn’t deny the icon and bottle were hers, but she did deny the rest.
“You’re not calling my daughter a liar.” Mom leaned forward, and Dad put his hand on her shoulder.
“Emily. No one believes Tatiana is lying.”
“Then Misha, that means I am lying. I certainly hope you’re not calling me a liar. There is nothing wrong with wanting my granddaughter to be protected by the holy saints.”
“Mike…” her mother warned.
Pavel slurped his spaghetti and wiped his face with his napkin. “So what’s the plan for Tati?”
Mom sobered quickly and from the corner of her eye, Tatiana caught her father grabbing her hand. “The doctor doesn’t believe she has much time left.”
“People have said that before,” Pavel interrupted.
“I’m more tired than usual,” Tatiana said. “But I’m not in pain. And I still have my appetite.”
“You certainly do,” Babusya muttered.
“You said he wanted to change her prescriptions,” Dad said. “But you didn’t say why.”
“To manage pain.” Tatiana took a sip of water. “But I told you. I don’t hurt. I’m just tired.”
“I don’t think this doctor has told you anything helpful,” her grandmother said. She waved her hand in the air. “Pray. That is what you can do.”
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