“OK, I’ve had enough. I’m getting out of here.” Matt emerged, his hair turned gray by cobwebs. “Jesus!” he said as he levered himself down onto the chair. “I’d only do that for love.”
“Thanks, darling,” Grania said, turning her attention to the suitcase. As she rubbed the dust off the top of the worn leather, she could see a vague imprint of initials in the top. Matt knelt next to her.
“I think that’s an L and a K,” she said.
“Whose suitcase is this anyway?”
“If it’s the right one, it belonged to Aurora’s great-grandmother. Lawrence Lisle arrived home with a baby,” explained Grania, “telling his staff that the mother would arrive to collect Anna and the suitcase. She never did, so Anna never knew anything of her real mother.”
“Well now, those rusty locks are gonna take some opening. Let me have a try.”
Eventually, they took the suitcase down to the kitchen to find a suitable implement. Grania found a knife in the drawer and Matt eventually pried open the locks.
“OK, you ready to look inside?” asked Matt.
“I think it should be Aurora who does that. This is technically hers, after all.” Grania collected Aurora from the drawing room and brought her downstairs to the kitchen.
“What is that?” Aurora eyed the filthy leather suitcase with distaste.
“We think it was your great-grandmother’s, who never arrived to collect it. It was left here almost a hundred years ago,” explained Grania. “Would you like to open it?”
“No, you do it, there might be spiders inside.” Aurora wrinkled her nose.
Grania looked equally unenthusiastic.
“OK, ladies, guess it’s the man’s job.” Gingerly, Matt levered the top open, with a crackle of old leather, to reveal the suitcase’s contents.
All three of them peered inside.
“Pooh! It smells of old,” said Aurora. “There’s not much in here, is there?”
“No.” Grania felt disappointed. In the suitcase was a silk-covered bundle—nothing else.
Sensing his girls’ reticence, Matt put his hand around the bundle and drew it out, placing it on the table. “You want me to unwrap it?”
The girls nodded.
Tentatively, Matt unwrapped the contents from the thin, faded silk surrounding them.
Aurora and Grania gazed down at what Matt had revealed.
“It’s a pair of ballet shoes,” whispered Aurora in awe. She picked one up to inspect it. As she did so, a moldering envelope fluttered to the floor.
Grania bent down to retrieve it. “It’s a letter, and it’s addressed to . . .” Grania tried to decipher the faint ink.
“Looks like Anastasia to me,” said Matt, leaning over Grania’s shoulder.
“Anna . . . my grandmother’s name was Anna!” Aurora said excitedly.
“Yes, it was. Perhaps Lawrence Lisle shortened it,” suggested Grania.
“That’s a Russian name, isn’t it?” Aurora asked.
“It is. And Mary, who looked after Anna when she was a baby, always said she suspected Anna was brought by Lawrence Lisle from Russia.”
“Shall I open the letter?” said Aurora.
“Yes, but be very careful, it looks fragile,” cautioned Matt.
Aurora’s small fingers opened the envelope. She glanced down at the words and frowned. “I can’t understand what it says.”
“That’s because it’s written in Russian,” said Matt from behind them. “I took the language for three years in high school, but that was a long time ago, so I’m rusty. But I reckon, with the help of a dictionary, I could decipher it.”
“You’re full of hidden talents, sweetheart.” Grania turned around and placed a kiss on Matt’s cheek. “Why don’t we stop off at a bookshop on our way home?”
When they arrived in Kensington at Alexander’s pretty town house, where they would live while Cadogan House was renovated, there was another letter, addressed to Aurora, waiting for her on the mat.
“It’s from the Royal Ballet School!” Aurora picked it up and looked at Grania, hope and fear in her eyes. “Here.” She handed it to her. “Can you open it for me, Mummy? I’m too nervous.”
“Of course. Right.” Grania tore the envelope open, unfolded its contents and began to read.
“What does it say, Mummy?” Aurora’s hands were fisted with tension under her chin.
“It says . . .” Grania looked at Aurora and smiled. “It says you’d better start packing as soon as possible, because they have offered you a place at the school, starting in September.”
“Oh, Mummy!” Aurora threw herself into Grania’s arms. “I am so happy!”
“Well done, sweetheart,” said Matt, joining in the hug.
Once all three of them had calmed down, Matt took himself off upstairs with his newly purchased dictionary to try to translate the letter.
Aurora sat at the kitchen table, still clutching the ballet shoes and talking excitedly about the future as Grania prepared supper for the three of them. “I wish Matt would hurry up, I can’t wait to find out who my great-grandmother was. Especially today, when I know I’ll be following in her footsteps,” she added.
“Well, there’s a lot you don’t know about your history, Aurora. And, one day, I’ll sit down and tell you. And the really weird thing is that, for almost a hundred years, it seems to have been entwined with mine. Mary, my great-grandmother, eventually adopted Anna, your grandmother.”
“Gosh!” Aurora’s eyes were wide. “That’s a coincidence, isn’t it? Because you’ve done the same with me, Mummy.”
“Yes, I have.” Grania dropped a tender kiss on top of Aurora’s head.
Two hours later, Matt arrived downstairs and announced he’d managed to decipher most of the letter. He handed Aurora the typed translation.
“There you go, sweetheart. It’s not perfect, but I’ve done my best.”
“Thank you, Matt. Shall I read it out loud?” suggested Aurora.
“If you’d like to,” said Grania.
“All right.” Aurora cleared her throat. “Here goes.”
Paris
17th September 1918
My precious Anastasia,
If you are reading this, you will know that I am no longer on the earth. My kind friend, Lawrence, has been instructed to give this to you if I do not return to retrieve it, and when you are old enough to understand. I do not know what he will have told you about your mama, but the important thing for you to know is that I love you more than any mother could. And because of that, while our beloved Russia is in turmoil, I wanted to make sure that you were safe. My baby, it would have been easy for me to accompany Lawrence to England, leave behind the danger, as so many of my fellow Russians have done. But there is a reason I must return from Paris to our home country. The man who is your father is in great danger. In fact, I do not know whether he is still alive. So, I must go to him. I know I will risk immediate arrest, and perhaps death, but I can only pray that when you, my Anastasia, are older, you too will have the pleasure and pain of knowing what true love for a man is.
Your father is from the greatest family in Russia, but our love had to be hidden. It is with shame that I tell you that he was already married.
You were the result of our precious love.
From the shoes I have enclosed with this letter, you will guess that I am a ballerina. I danced with the Mariinsky Ballet and I’m famous in our home country. And that is how I met your father. He came to watch me perform The Dying Swan and, from then on, pursued me.
I am in Paris now, because I understand my connection to our Imperial Family has put you and me in grave danger. So, I took a contract with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes to give me the opportunity to leave Russia and bring you to a place of safety.
My friend Lawrence, my kind English gentleman (I think perhaps he is a little in love with me too!) acted as my savior and said he would bring you to London and take care of you for me.
My sweetest
child, it is my fervent hope that the madness in our country will end soon. And I will be free to come to you in London, then take you back to our beloved homeland and introduce you to your father. But, while all is in chaos, I know I must sacrifice my own feelings and send you away.
Godspeed, my precious little one. In a few hours’ time, Lawrence Lisle will arrive to take you on your journey to safety. It is only fate that can decide whether we will meet again, so I say good-bye, my Anastasia, and may fortune favor you.
Know always that you were born out of love.
Your loving Mama,
Leonora
Silence reigned in the kitchen.
Matt cleared his throat and surreptitiously wiped a tear from his eye. “Wow,” he whispered, not knowing what else to say.
Grania put her arms around Aurora as tears fell down her cheeks too.
“Isn’t it . . . beautiful, Grania?” Aurora whispered.
“Yes, it is,” she agreed.
“Leonora died when she went back to Russia, didn’t she?”
“Yes, I think she probably did. If she was famous, we may be able to find out what happened to her. And who Anastasia’s father was,” pondered Grania.
“If Anastasia’s father was a member of the Russian Imperial family, they were all shot very soon after Leonora wrote that letter,” put in Matt.
“Leonora could have escaped, left with her baby and Lawrence and come to England,” Aurora said. “But she didn’t, because she loved Anastasia’s daddy so much.” Aurora shook her head. “She had to make a terrible choice, giving her poor baby away to a stranger.”
“Yes,” Grania agreed, “but then, sweetheart, I’m sure Leonora didn’t believe she would die. We all make decisions as though we will live forever. She did the best thing she could at that moment, to make sure Anastasia was safe.”
“I don’t know whether I’d have been so brave,” sighed Aurora.
“Well, that’s because you haven’t learned yet what us humans will sacrifice for love.” Matt put an arm tightly around Grania’s shoulders and planted a kiss on top of Aurora’s head. “Isn’t that right, Grania?”
“Yes,” Grania smiled up at him, “it is.”
Aurora
Doesn’t that sound like the perfect ending?
The true Happily Ever After moment. The sort I love.
Grania and Matt reunited and starting on a new life together, financially secure for the rest of their lives. And me with them, pursuing my dream of becoming a great ballerina, launched from within the security of the loving family I’d always craved.
What could be more perfect?
I know! A baby for them, and a brother or sister for me?
And yes, a year later, that happened too.
Now, I’m pondering whether to end the story here, not destroy it with “After the Happily Ever . . .”
But, you see, that wouldn’t finish my story.
And, I confess, I may have deceived you.
I’m not really “old,” although my body feels as if it is.
At least a hundred years old.
But, unlike Aurora in the fairy tale, I will go to sleep for a hundred years—forever, actually—and no handsome prince will be there to wake me . . .
Not here on earth, anyway.
Dear Reader, I do not wish to depress you. Sixteen years of a life well lived is better than none at all.
But if you have felt at any point during my story that I have commented on my characters from a romantic and naive viewpoint, can you forgive me? I am sixteen years old. I am too young to have been tainted by love going wrong.
Well. I’m going to die. Before I’ve been tainted. And so I can still believe in the magic of love. I believe that our lives, just like fairy tales—the stories that have been written by us humans, through our own experiences of living—will always have a Hero and a Heroine, a Fairy Godmother and a Wicked Witch.
And that love and goodness and faith and hope will always win the day.
Of course, I’ve been thinking too that even the Wicked Witch is the “Heroine” of her own story, but that’s a different point altogether.
And there is always a positive side to everything, if you look for it. My illness has allowed me to document my family history. The writing of this story has been my friend and companion through some difficult, painful moments. It has also allowed me to learn about life. A sort of crash course in the short time I’ve been granted here.
Grania and Matt—that is, my mother and father here—find it far harder to accept the inevitable. I am calm, because I am lucky. I know I will not be alone when I cross through my gossamer curtain; I will find two pairs of loving arms waiting for me.
Spirits . . . Ghosts . . . Angels . . . whichever you wish to call them—Reader, they do exist. I’ve seen them all my life, but I’ve learned to say nothing.
And for all you cynics out there, just remember, there is no proof either way.
So I choose to believe. In my opinion, it’s much the best option.
As I said from the start, I didn’t write this to be published. My parents have seen me scribbling, asked what I am writing about, and I have declined to answer. It is mine, you see, until the end (or the beginning), which I think is very close.
So, Dear Reader, my story is almost finished.
Do not worry about me or feel sad. I’m simply on the next stage of my journey and I’m happy to undertake it. Who knows what magic I will discover on the other side of that curtain?
Please, if you will, remember me and my family’s story in a tiny corner of your mind. It is your story too, because it is about humanity.
And, above all, never lose faith in the beauty and goodness of human nature.
It’s always there; just, sometimes, you have to look a little harder for it.
It is now time to say good-bye.
Epilogue
Dunworley Bay, West Cork, Ireland, January
Grania stood at the top of the cliffs, the wind howling around her ears, just as it had on the afternoon she’d first met Aurora, eight years before.
Her shoulders heaved in tearless sobs as she remembered the little girl who had appeared so suddenly behind her, like a sprite, and changed her life irrevocably. Eight years ago, she’d been mourning the loss of her unborn baby. Now, she was lost in grief for another child.
“I don’t understand!” she screamed to the angry waves crashing below her. “I don’t understand.” She sank to her knees, her physical strength leaving her, and put her head in her hands.
Pictures of Aurora assailed her senses—in every image, her endless vitality. Aurora dancing, spinning, skipping along the cliff top, the beach . . . her energy, her positivity and her continuous zest for life were qualities that defined Aurora’s essence. In the eight years Grania had cared for her, she could scarcely remember Aurora negative or sad. Even during the past few months, when her physical strength had been drained from her, Aurora’s bright face would smile at her from her hospital bed, full of hope and laughter, even through the worst moments of her illness.
Grania took her head from her hands and remembered how brave Aurora had been in this very spot, when she’d had to tell her of her father’s death. Even then, Aurora had accepted and, through her sadness, found the positives.
Somehow, Grania knew she too must find the inner strength that Aurora had possessed to pull her through this. Aurora had never needed to search for reasons why, hadn’t torn herself apart at the injustice of life’s lottery. Perhaps it was because she had a certainty, an inner belief that a life ended on earth was not the end of life.
Aurora had left her a letter, but in the last terrible ten days since her death, she’d been unable to open it.
Grania stood up, moved back toward the grassy rock she’d so often used as a seat and pulled the letter out of her jacket pocket. Her fingers blue from the cold, she fumbled to open it.
Mummy,
I bet I know where you are when you read this. You
’ll be sitting on your favorite rock on the top of Dunworley cliffs, looking out to sea. And missing me and wondering why I’ve gone. Mummy, I know you will be sad. Losing anybody is always painful, but perhaps losing a child is the worst, because it isn’t in the proper order of nature. But, really, it’s us humans who have invented the calculation of time. I think it was the Romans who made the first modern calendar and gave us days, months and years. And honestly, Mummy, I feel as though I’ve been alive forever.
And perhaps I have.
I never felt I belonged completely to the earth anyway. And remember, darling Mummy, that we will all end up where I am now, and it’s only the skin and bones, our physical being, that makes us visible to each other. But our spirit never dies. Who’s to say, as you sit on your rock, that I am not next to you, dancing around you, loving you as I always have, just because you can’t actually see me?
Mummy, you mustn’t allow me leaving to make you so sad that you forget to love and care for Daddy and for Florian. Thank you for naming my little brother after the Prince in The Sleeping Beauty—and I hope one day he will find his Princess and wake her with a kiss. Please give a big hug to Granny and Grandpa and Shane. Tell him I’ll be watching to make sure he takes care of Lily. She’s getting older now and needs more attention.
Mummy, try to believe that nothing is ever ended, especially love.
You’ve probably spoken to Uncle Hans by now, and found out that I have left you both Dunworley House and Cadogan House. It seems right, somehow, that you should have them. They are part of our family’s joint history and I’d like to think of our line of strong women combining and continuing inside their walls. The rest of my money . . . well, Uncle Hans knows what I want to do with it and I trust him to establish my charity in his usual, careful way!
I’ve left you another present, by the way. It’s in the special drawer that Daddy always kept locked in his study—you know the one I mean. I wrote it for us, and for both of our families, as proof of the link that has joined you and me for over a hundred years.
Mummy, I know something you don’t—I would check next month if I were you, but the tiny spirit is already there, nestled deep inside you. And it will be a little girl.
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