The Volk Advent

by Kristen Joy Wilks

  Soon opulent rugs covered ancient hardwood floors. Glowing lanterns spread their warm light against polished stone and beautiful benches lined the way for any weary partygoer who needed to sit in repose. Thankfully, the renovated portion of the castle even had working restrooms.

  Not bad. But I hoped Volkov’s niece and nephew planned to put up signs.

  Horrible Haunted Wreck: That Way

  Gorgeous Castle, Fancy Snacks, and Dancing: This Way

  I had just reached a massive, X-shaped stair when Chobo pricked her ears and froze. I paused beside her.

  Voices echoed through the vast hall.

  I ducked behind the highly decorated hand rail and held my breath. Dust from the more dilapidated sections of the castle tickled my nose and I smashed my mitten against my face. I would not let an errant sneeze be my downfall, not after surviving creepy tunnels, a Siberian snowstorm, and rampaging wolves.

  “No, I haven’t seen him since they argued.” A familiar female voice insisted.

  “You’re sure he didn’t—” A man’s low rumble replied.

  “Of course I am! He loved Uncle Kirill. It must have been that starving girl, though I suppose my uncle had his enemies as well as his hidden loves. Imagine, love letters and from Ms. Melora no less. He never got on well with the priest and you heard how he clashed with that crazy film maker, but no, it must have been the girl. She was in the wolf pen, next to his body.” The woman’s voice faded and the man’s reply was nothing more than a murmur in the long narrow hall. They must have walked into a distant room.

  I slipped out from behind the railing and padded down the giant stair. We were within sight of the entryway. Would it be too conspicuous if I used the front door? I might never find any of the smaller entrances. Perhaps an unexpected escape was best. They might miss us if I just marched right out.

  Surely, Rasia Volkova was concentrating her efforts on forgotten cellars and hidden garden tunnels and all of the smaller, sneakier ways of escape.

  Chobo and I did not march, but we certainly crept right out the main entrance. I cringed when the massive door boomed shut, but even so, our passage remained undetected.

  The Siberian night hit my face with a gust of wind and a thousand icy tingles. My chapped cheeks stung and my lungs ached with each new breath. But it was not the cold that sent shivers crawling across my skin.

  The wolves had begun to howl. Deep primal moans rose and fell in a savage song beneath the shadowed stars. It would have been beautiful to hear from inside, next to one of the massive marble fireplaces restored to its former splendor.

  I could appreciate the wild melody if only I’d been wrapped in a thick quilt and holding a hot cup of tea or a good book. But wolf song when one is shuffling across the cracked tiles of a dilapidated square, with the moon shadows stretched out in gloomy fingers across the ground, while the arctic wind blows dark clouds across the heavens and sends shudders of cold clean to your bones, it’s not so musical then.

  I wanted to go back. If I flung myself onto my knees before Rasia and Igor, would they let me tell my tale?

  Chobo wanted to go back too. Her ears were tipped at a worried angle and her tail dragged low.

  I tried to get her to do her new trick, whispering “Snack time!” and offering her another chunk of the dried fish. Instead of a fierce snarl or mighty bark, I received a whimper of distress and a slobbering kiss. As we slid forward through the shadows, Christmas music blared through my overstressed brain. “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” evolved into something more relevant to our present situation as my feeble nerves sought some kind of release.

  I’m beginning to look a lot like wolf chow

  No matter where I hide

  We tiptoe behind the stair

  All wrapped up in moldy hair

  But packs of hunting wolves just chase us down

  I’m beginning to look a lot like wolf chow

  Though I creep and cower

  I slink down the garden path

  Hoping the aftermath

  Won’t see me torn and bloody on the snow…on the snow

  Ack. The songs were not helping, no matter how pleased it made me to rhyme path and aftermath. I couldn’t help my racing heart when the “torn and bloody on the snow” bit rolled around. I squelched my musical inclinations and darted past the chapel and toward the wall.

  Chobo skittered behind me, looking less and less like the savage guard dog I longed for.

  I reached the tall, outer wall and pressed against the doorway to catch my breath. I heard the crunch of footsteps breaking through the icy crust that had formed on the deep drifts outside the castle. I crouched in the gateway.

  Someone was running away from the castle and into the darkened night. The figure paused when he reached the tree line. The moon was high overhead and the terrible storm had blown past. The man looked back over his shoulder and I stifled a gasp, pressing both mittens over my mouth.

  Vladim Volkov!

  He scanned the empty stretch of snow behind him, pressed his forehead against the trunk of a pine for a few breaths, and then hurried into the forest beyond.

  I wrapped my mittens around the thick iron ring in the door and heaved back. The heavy wood stuck for a moment, then groaned and eased shut, blocking out my view of Kirill Volkov’s missing nephew.

  9

  Chobo is Less Than Stealthy

  The wolves were contained. I had officially saved the day and trapped Chobo and myself inside the castle grounds with a pack of ill-mannered pets and an angry young woman who was convinced that I was a killer. Why hadn’t I slipped out the door and locked the wolves inside?

  My reasons were simple. I did not want to freeze to death. There was nowhere for me to take shelter except behind the tall rock walls surrounding the castle. At least I could duck into a tunnel if hypothermia really started to kick in.

  So why had Vladim Volkov run off into the woods? True, he was dressed for it and probably had the advantage of actual snacks which he could eat to keep his body from shivering itself to pieces. But even with the snacks, it didn’t seem like a smart move. Did he have a reason to flee?

  I looked toward the wolf pen. They had removed Kirill Volkov’s body, but there was still a bloody patch where I had found him.

  That thought stopped me. The tunnels…

  I needed to find the real killer. Rasia was certain I had murdered her uncle. I wouldn’t last long out in the woods and I needed shelter and work. I must prove my innocence. Although I supposed one might find shelter in prison. However, it was sure to be even worse than the orphanage and there would be no babies to rock, no purpose in life, only punishment and the passing of time.

  Yikes! I needed to get cracking and the only thing that even remotely resembled a clue had been down in those tunnels.

  Chobo sat in the snow at my feet and let out a happy “Wooo wooo woooo.”

  I ruffled her ears and was about to answer her (with words, not woo woos) when something else answered first. A long, low howl hung in the clean night air, followed by another and then another. The castle grounds rang with the cries of hunting wolves until I was sure all the wolves had joined the savage song.

  “Thanks a lot, Chobo,” I whispered as I took off for the dark stair that led down into the tunnels. Chobo gallumped after me. I slid into the stone alcove just as the darkest wolf trotted into the courtyard. He scented the ground, and then raised his pointed muzzle to the sky. His long, ghostly howl seemed part of the dark forest, the hungry wind, and the vast empty castle that sprawled across the hillside above.

  The hair on my arms and neck stood up and I bit my lip to keep silent. The whimper of fear that sat in my chest and pressed against my throat would only bring him running.

  Chobo whined.

  His dark head swung toward us. Yellow eyes locked with mine and the breath froze and stilled within my lungs.

  I turned and scrambled down the stairway, sprinting into the tunnels beyond.

&
nbsp; The good news, there were a lot of tunnels and the wolves seemed hesitant to delve too deeply into their depths. The bad news, there were a lot of tunnels and Chobo and I had fled with such alacrity that once we finally slowed, I had absolutely no idea where we were. I tried a few commands on Chobo, wondering if she would lead me to freedom once again. “To the top, Chobo!”

  She sat and wagged.

  “Escape, Chobo!”

  She rolled over.

  “Upstairs, Chobo!” She woo wooo woooed.

  I clamped my mittens around her muzzle and shut off the vintage flashlight for several minutes. I decided to work on one she knew. “Snack time!”

  She immediately stood up, bared her teeth, and snarled. I gave her a bit of the moldy fish. At least she had that one down and it wasn’t too loud. One more try.

  “Go home, Chobo!”

  She woo wooo woooed again, but before I could snap my mittens over her nose, the dog took off down a side tunnel. Maybe she did know what she was doing? If only the fuzzball could be quiet enough to get us topside without attracting the wolves.

  Silent Night started playing in my head...

  Silent doggy

  Soundless doggy

  Muzzle glued

  Noise eschewed

  Through the tunnels so icy and dark

  I’ll use you for BBQ if you bark

  Let’s not be wolf snacks tonight

  We both know how well you fight

  It seemed to help. Chobo trotted on without so much as the tiniest of woo wooos.

  At first the way seemed to grow colder and more narrow. But eventually our tunnel widened and the way seemed familiar. After some time we jogged past a small alcove and I stopped and shined my light inside. The WWII chest was still pushed up against the wall, undisturbed.

  I ducked inside and knelt to examine the shiny new padlock. I really should have picked up some tools before running down here hunting for my only clue. Although the wolves hadn’t given me much choice. Yep, the lock was just as solid as the last time I’d looked at it. Now what?

  Chobo had flopped down in the main tunnel to wait for me. She leapt to her feet and let out the loudest woo wooo woooo of the night. I scrambled to my feet and made a dive for her. We were close to the surface. The wolves were sure to hear. She was faster than her girth suggested, but I managed to snag her by the tail.

  However, this did nothing to stop the wooing. I yanked back on her tail. She hurtled forward, dragging me off balance. I stumbled and took a few wobbly steps to right myself. I reached out to catch myself on the tunnel wall. Instead of frozen earth, I touched someone’s hand. I couldn’t help it. I screamed.

  A mitten clamped over my mouth.

  “Hush now, Faina. It’s just me.”

  I stood clinging to Liev’s coat. How mortifying.

  He put both hands on my shoulders to steady me. Even under the huge fur coat, he was incredibly handsome. Of course he was.

  I took a step back.

  “No, Faina. Now look. We must talk. The Volkovs left something with my father. You ran off and I couldn’t get it to you.”

  I took another step back. Why wasn’t Liev at the All Night Vigil with his family? Was my capture so important that the Volkovs would pull the priest’s son out of church to trick me? I knew exactly what Rasia Volkova wanted me to have. A lifetime stay in a Siberian prison.

  Despite his snotty behavior as a boy, I hadn’t thought that the lice issues of my youth would have driven Liev to want the same. How could he? I mean, prison was a long time and I hadn’t even killed anyone. Didn’t he know I wouldn’t kill anyone?

  He reached out and grabbed my arm. “Faina, wait.”

  I flinched back but he had a good grip. I braced myself against the tunnel wall, sucked in a steadying breath, then kneed him in the stomach, hard. I turned and scrambled back down the tunnel into the depths from whence we’d come.

  10

  My Hallucinations Almost Make Sense

  My mortification was complete. I’d lost my best and only friend. He’d grown into a tall, handsome guy whose last childhood memory of me involved baldness and a plague of lice. I then crash into him several times while running for my life, and now he was suddenly allied with the Volkovs, who wished to detain me for arrest.

  This was by far the worst day of my life. That was saying something considering the long string of less-than-ideal events I had survived.

  Once again, I found myself sprinting down the dark, icy tunnels. I was pretty sure the frozen warren of passages hadn’t seen this much use since Volkov’s father first hauled in his castle.

  Getting hopelessly lost did not take long. I was becoming an expert. The running did warm me up, although the Christmas Eve fast and my jaunt into the snowstorm had left me deeply fatigued. When I jogged past the small room with the trunk, I ducked in again. The old chest was the only seat I’d seen in the maze of tunnels and I needed a rest.

  I plopped myself down on top of the trunk. My heavy breaths made puffs in front of my face. The cold closed in as soon as I was still. I pulled one mitten off and raked my fingernails through my hair, trying to rid myself of all the frost that had formed as my breath froze. Even my eyebrows and lashes were caked in frost. I rattled the shiny padlock with my boot.

  Locked, I think if it hadn’t been locked I wouldn’t have given the old trunk a second thought. But it was. Exhausted and trembling with cold, I couldn’t help but recall that the trunk was not the only thing locked to me.

  All I retained of my family were a few unlikely hallucinations and the knowledge that they were gone. Had my father been a trapper? Was my mother a baker or a fishmonger in the market? I would never know.

  Ms. Melora changed the story every time I asked. My past was locked to me. Though I might learn to crack the padlock on the trunk with books and computer searches and a bunch of pointy tools, the most important secrets, the ones within my own head, were forever out of reach.

  I sighed and slid my bare palm into the pocket of my mouse-eaten coat. My fingers touched something metal, and it stuck to the tender skin. Oh, great. The icy coating in my hair had melted on my fingertips.

  Touching metal with moist skin was a big no no in Siberia. An image flashed through my mind. A fanciful drawing of a little girl with her tongue stuck to an old-fashioned water pump. Was it from a book? Another familiar hallucination zipped through my mind. Sitting on a window-seat as a girl, wrapped up in a brown-and-pink quilt and reading a book of pioneer stories to the light of a small yellow lamp.

  One of the girls from the story had licked the water pump on a cold morning and gotten her tongue stuck to the frosty metal. The me from the hallucinations had certainly read a lot as a child. Odd. As far as I knew, I had never seen a window-seat in my life.

  I pulled my hand from my pocket, knowing what I would find. Yep, the key I’d discovered in the snow had latched itself right onto my skin. I held my fingers close to my mouth and tried to heat them with my warm breath. It took a long time to free the key. If my breath hit the frigid air it would freeze, but by cupping my palms close to my face, I could trap a little bit of heat. The key began to loosen. I gritted my teeth and shook my fingers hard. The key flew off and hit the trunk with a clink. I slipped my hands into my mittens before something else stuck to them and bent to retrieve the key. My gaze paused on the shiny new padlock.

  No, it was highly improbable.

  I scooped up the key in my mitten and tried it in the lock. Using a teeny-weeny key while wearing enormous furry mittens is a Herculean task. The mittens were so huge and floppy and the key was so delicate and cold. I didn’t dare remove my mittens lest the key freeze to my fingers once more. Still, I couldn’t help my curiosity. What if the key actually went to the trunk?

  It did.

  Many failed attempts later, I knelt on the cold stone floor and finally raised the leather-bound lid. The trunk did not groan on ancient hinges or release a cloud of dust motes. The interior was lined in faded v
elvet that had once been crimson, but it was surprisingly clean for a WWII relic. In fact, nothing inside matched my lovely antique flashlight.

  Instead, they matched my hallucinations.

  A shiny red purse with a brass kitten charm dangling from the zipper, a leather briefcase in a deep mahogany, a bright pink carrying case with a picture of a tall, leggy doll with over-large eyes, a flat black box bound in gold ribbon, a case for a five disc set of Christmas music classics, a plain black journal with a pen snapped to the cover with a rubber band, and a small plastic album full of Polaroid photos.

  I stood and walked away from the trunk. This was impossible. I had finally gone mad, just like Ms. Melora had warned I would. Although, this would explain where she’d gotten those ridiculous Christmas CDs.

  I paced the tunnel just outside the alcove.

  My breath rose in clouds around my face and my hands ached with cold. I slipped them into my pockets and paced some more. I remembered the pink bag and the red purse. I remembered the leather briefcase and the small book of photos. There would be three stiff, plastic dolls with enormous hair inside the bag. Two blondes, a brunette, and a whole mess of pointy plastic heels that fit their dainty little feet. There would be orange breath mints in the purse and pictures of a little girl, Hailey Ann Barnett, and her new puppy, Barbie, in the photo album. I had seen all of these things before. No, not all of them.

  I ran back to the trunk and snatched up the journal.

  A dark red ribbon marked a page near the end. I removed one mitten and slid the pages open with my finger. It was written in Russian, but I had learned to read using the cookbooks Ms. Melora kept in the back of the cramped, gray kitchen.

  January 6, 2007

  I have added my own shame to my grandfather’s legacy. All the Nazi treasures have been sold. Nothing remains to connect our family with the treasure troves of our enemies from that black time. But the store of rifles and explosives had to be dealt with.