Anastasia Romanov: The Last Grand Duchess #10

by Ann Hood

  “You don’t say,” Bruce Fishbaum said.

  Great-Uncle Thorne’s face lit with excitement. “Or the rock crystal egg. Inside the rock crystal egg is a gold support holding twelve miniature paintings of the various palaces and residences significant to the empress Alexandra. Each location holds a special memory for Nicholas and Alexandra in the early days of their courtship. They were newlyweds when the Tsar gave it to her in 1896, after all.

  “The large emerald on the apex can be depressed to engage a mechanism that rotates the miniatures inside the egg. Then a hook moves down and folds the framed pictures back, like the pages of a book, so two paintings can be fully seen at one time. Each miniature is framed in gold with an emerald on its apex.”

  He clapped his hands together in delight.

  “But the pièce de résistance—” Great-Uncle Thorne began.

  “You certainly know your Fabergé eggs,” Maisie and Felix’s mother said kindly. “But I came up searching for these two so Bruce and I could take them to his house for dinner.”

  “My kids are home from boarding school, so I thought, Hey! Let’s get them all together,” Bruce said.

  “He bought steaks to grill,” their mother said.

  “Most people believe Fabergé made fifty-eight eggs,” Great-Uncle Thorne continued, despite the looks their mother and Bruce shot each other.

  “Only fifty-eight,” Bruce said. “How about that.”

  “I said, most people believe there were fifty-eight,” Great-Uncle Thorne corrected.

  “Right-o,” Bruce said, shrugging.

  “But they would be wrong, those people,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, getting to his feet.

  “O-kay,” Bruce said slowly.

  “Bruce got that macaroni salad you like, Maisie,” her mother said. “The one from the Sunshine Deli.”

  Great-Uncle Thorne was struggling with the clasps on the valise he’d brought with him into the Map Room.

  “Let me give you a hand, there,” Bruce said, bending to help.

  But Great-Uncle Thorne shooed him away.

  Finally, the clasps popped open and Great-Uncle Thorne reached inside, removing something wrapped in pale pink tissue paper.

  He set the object on the desk, then carefully unwrapped the tissue from it.

  Their mother gasped.

  “Whoa,” Bruce Fishbaum said softly.

  “Here it is,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, his liver-spotted hand resting on the very tip of the lost egg. “The fifty-ninth Fabergé egg.”

  Chapter Four

  THE SURPRISE

  “Wh . . . where did you get that?” Maisie and Felix’s mother stammered.

  Great-Uncle Thorne placed the egg on his old desk so that everyone could get a good look at it.

  Larger than a baseball, beneath all of its ornamentation the egg was the purest white. Whiter than fresh snow. Whiter than clouds or angel hair. Four ribbons of gold radiated from its top, along the delicate curve of the egg, and all the way to the bottom. Each ribbon had a different motif carved into it. Cherubs. Roses. Wolves’ heads. And what appeared to be interlocking letter Rs.

  Then there were the jewels. Sapphires and diamonds bigger than marbles formed a cap at the top and covered the bottom. They sparkled as if they had just been polished, revealing every shade of blue imaginable. Cobalt and navy and midnight and sky. The diamonds, too, were different shades. Champagne and pink and yellow and eggshell.

  They all stood—Great-Uncle Thorne, Maisie, Felix, their mother, and Bruce Fishbaum—leaning forward, marveling at the egg, at how many diamonds and sapphires covered it. All of them a slightly different color, all of them so smooth.

  Bruce Fishbaum frowned.

  “There’s a flaw,” he announced.

  “Doubtful,” Great-Uncle Thorne said.

  “All these diamonds and sapphires are perfect and shiny,” Bruce said. “Except one.”

  Maisie and Felix looked at each other and then back at the egg.

  Bruce Fishbaum’s hand paused over a particularly deep blue sapphire. So dark, in fact, that it almost looked black.

  “This one,” he said. “It doesn’t shine like the others. In fact, it’s dull. And rougher cut.”

  Great-Uncle Thorne smiled that smile he gave Maisie and Felix when he was indulging their stupidity.

  “What did I tell you about Fabergé eggs?” he asked, not even trying to mask his condescension.

  Bruce shrugged. “They were made for the Tsars? Of Russia?”

  “Obviously,” Great-Uncle Thorne said.

  “They have surprises inside,” Maisie and Felix’s mother said.

  “Exactly, Jennifer,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “And one must be able to get inside to find the surprise.”

  “Ah!” Bruce Fishbaum said, nodding. “So that’s the way in. Open it up and let’s see if there’s a cuckoo or something inside.”

  “Unfortunately,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, “the mechanism on this particular egg is broken.”

  Maisie and Felix both looked up, surprised.

  “So the surprise will remain a mystery, I’m afraid.”

  “But—” Maisie began.

  Great-Uncle Thorne shot her a look as sharp as daggers.

  “What a shame,” Bruce Fishbaum said.

  He glanced down at his watch.

  “Hate to break up this little party,” he said, “but I’ve got two hungry kids at home waiting for a steak dinner.”

  “Uncle Thorne,” Maisie and Felix’s mother said, “this egg should go into a vault or something. Or a museum.”

  Great-Uncle Thorne nodded. “You’re absolutely right,” he said. “It needs to find a proper home.”

  “You mean that’s the object?” Maisie blurted.

  Immediately she clamped her hand over her mouth.

  “What object?” her mother asked.

  “Um . . . ,” Felix said. “The fifty-ninth Fabergé egg.”

  “Well, isn’t that what Uncle Thorne said?” his mother said.

  “Yes. Yes it is,” Felix agreed.

  Maisie nodded too enthusiastically.

  “Are you two up to something?” their mother asked, narrowing her eyes at them as if to see them better.

  “No,” Maisie said, as innocently as she could manage.

  Felix just smiled at their mother.

  “Let’s get going,” Bruce Fishbaum said.

  He touched Great-Uncle Thorne’s arm as he made his way out of the Map Room.

  “If you need some advice about where to put that egg, give me a call,” he said.

  All Maisie wanted to do was open that egg.

  Instead, she and Felix were trapped for hours at Bruce Fishbaum’s house with his kids, both of them decked out in athletic wear from head to toe: the boy, Todd, in shiny black pants with their boarding-school name climbing one leg in bloodred, a shirt announcing he was on the school hockey team, and a Patriots’ baseball hat; the girl, Cate, in a short lacrosse kilt, a polo shirt with the school name on it with crossed sticks beneath it, and a pink visor with the logo of a yacht club.

  Bruce Fishbaum grilled steaks while Maisie and Felix’s mother made a salad, and the four kids stood awkwardly in the backyard, trying to think of things to say to one another.

  Cate tried. “I really don’t like lacrosse,” she said, flipping her pale blond hair back. “Ice hockey’s my game.”

  “We’re an ice-hockey family,” Todd said smugly.

  “Then why do you play lacrosse if you don’t like it?” Felix asked her politely.

  Cate looked at him, confused. “You need a spring sport,” she said.

  Todd nodded in agreement. He was tall, well over six feet, and burly, with blond hair several shades darker than his sister’s and thick wide hands. His nose, Maisie thought, r
eminded her of a ski jump. Cate had a similar one, but smaller.

  Felix tried: “Maisie got the lead in the school play!”

  Cate and Todd stared back at him blankly.

  Maisie wondered if those steaks would ever get cooked so they could eat and go home and finally open the egg.

  “The Crucible,” Felix added.

  “We do this Follies show at school,” Todd said. “And all the hockey players dress like girls.”

  “It’s hilarious,” Cate said.

  They all shifted on their feet for a bit.

  Then Todd tried: “You guys moved here from New York, right?”

  “Yes,” Felix said, happy to find something to talk about. “We lived in Greenwich Village, on Bethune Street.”

  “My roommate lives on East Seventy-Seventh Street,” Todd said. “Matt Homes. You know him?”

  “No,” Felix said.

  Thankfully, Bruce Fishbaum called everyone to dinner. He and Maisie and Felix’s mother had a short discussion on whether or not it was too cold to eat outside, and finally they decided it was. So they all picked up a plate and a napkin and silverware from the teak table outside and rearranged themselves in a room that the Fishbaums called the sunroom. It reminded Maisie of a greenhouse, with glass slanted walls, a glass roof, a big ficus tree in one corner, and a tree with small oranges in another. The sunroom was hot as a greenhouse, too, and Maisie could smell Todd Fishbaum’s locker-room scent and Cate Fishbaum’s fruity shampoo.

  The steaks were enormous and bloody. Felix didn’t like bloody meat, and he grew pale just looking at the slab of beef on his plate. Unlike Maisie, Felix was in no hurry to get home and open the egg. Because once they did, they would have to go to Imperial Russia, where for all he knew the Bolsheviks were wreaking havoc and murdering people. He didn’t really like the awkwardness here at the Fishbaums’, and Cate and Todd seemed like creatures from another planet to Felix. But at least it was safe here. No Bolsheviks lurked around corners. No one was trying to massacre anyone else.

  “Bruce,” Felix’s mother was saying, her hand on Bruce’s thick forearm, “do you think you could throw Felix’s steak on the grill for a few more minutes? He doesn’t like it rare.”

  The Fishbaums turned their heads toward Felix in unison, their faces shocked.

  “You lose the nutrients that way,” Bruce said to Felix. “The iron and whatnot.”

  Felix looked down at the steak, which by now was sitting in a small bloody puddle.

  “It’s your call, buddy,” Bruce Fishbaum said, swiping up Felix’s plate and heading out of the sunroom.

  “Thank you,” Felix called after him, but Bruce was already lifting the hood of the grill and tossing the steak inside, shaking his head as he did.

  Todd and Cate chewed their steak, their eyes fixed on Felix. There was nothing else to eat, except the macaroni salad. But the blood from the steak had oozed across the plate, so Felix just sat, watching the Fishbaum kids chew.

  “Wasn’t that fun?” Maisie and Felix’s mother asked them as they drove, finally, back to Elm Medona.

  “Really fun,” Felix said, to be nice.

  “Todd Fishbaum is an oaf,” Maisie said, jiggling her leg as if that would help them get home faster.

  “Maisie!” her mother reprimanded. “He’s a star ice-hockey player, you know. And a very nice boy.”

  Usually, Maisie would argue her point. But tonight she chose to focus instead on what was inside that egg. Great-Uncle Thorne’s description of the other eggs and the surprises they held had captivated her imagination. But this egg was even more special, wasn’t it? And Amy Pickworth had spoken to them across time and ordered them to open it. Why? Maisie wondered. Why now?

  At last Elm Medona came into view.

  The tall black wrought-iron gates trimmed in gold leaf with the interlocking Ps in the center slowly swung open, and they made their way up the long winding road that led to Elm Medona.

  Maisie expected to find Great-Uncle Thorne anxiously waiting in the foyer. But inside the mansion was empty, the lights turned low.

  “Great-Uncle Thorne?” Maisie called out.

  “Shhh,” her mother hushed. “Let the poor man rest. He was at death’s door days ago. He needs to sleep and recover.”

  Maisie looked at Felix, who was acting like he was about to go up to bed himself.

  “Well, that was a great steak,” he said to his mother.

  He yawned and headed for the Grand Staircase.

  “I’m going to read a little and then go to sleep,” he added over his shoulder.

  Maisie stomped off after him.

  “Good night, Maisie,” her mother said in that tone that meant Maisie had misbehaved.

  “Good night,” Maisie muttered, hurrying to catch up with Felix.

  As she passed the photograph of Great-Aunt Maisie as a girl Maisie’s own age, she paused. Sometimes it seemed like Great-Aunt Maisie was smiling at her from that picture. Like now.

  “What do you know?” Maisie whispered, and waited as if the girl in the picture might actually answer her.

  Of course that didn’t happen, and Maisie continued on her way upstairs.

  Instead of going to the Princess Annabelle of Nanuh’s Room, though, she went straight to Samuel Dormatorio, where Felix was already in his pajamas, a book in his hand.

  “What are you doing?” Maisie asked him in frustration. “We have to open the egg!”

  “I figured if Great-Uncle Thorne wanted us to do it now, he would have been waiting for us. I guess it’s not as urgent as we thought?”

  Maisie studied her brother’s face carefully.

  “You’re scared,” she said finally.

  “Scared? Me?” Felix asked. “Of Bolsheviks and massacres? Not at all.”

  “We’ll be long gone before the Bolsheviks arrive,” Maisie said.

  Felix pointed a finger at her. “You don’t know that.”

  “I don’t know know it,” Maisie said.

  “Exactly,” Felix said, and he climbed into his big bed, the bull’s head staring down at him.

  Maisie tried a different tactic.

  “Do you really think Great-Uncle Thorne would put us in danger?” she asked.

  Felix lowered the book he’d stuck his face in.

  “Yes,” he answered and lifted the book again.

  Maisie tried to think of what else she could say to persuade her brother to go right now with her, find Great-Uncle Thorne, and open the egg.

  Felix kept reading, turning the page every now and then as if she wasn’t even standing there.

  Finally, exasperated, Maisie gave up.

  She left Samuel Dormatorio, being sure to pound her feet hard enough to make her point.

  Back in her own room, Maisie paced, trying to come up with a plan. But after a lot of pacing and thinking, she had not one single good idea.

  Why did Felix have to be so impossible sometimes?

  Maisie wished she could call Hadley Ziff and complain to her. Hadley would understand; Rayne drove her crazy in exactly the same way. But it was impossible to call someone in Buenos Aires, especially without any information on exactly where that someone was.

  Outside the two big windows, the moon was a perfect sliver in the inky sky. Maisie wandered over to one of the windows and gazed out. She couldn’t remember seeing quite this many stars before. Or such bright ones. They twinkled down at her as if they were lighting a path upward.

  When she was little, her mother always reminded her to make a wish on a star.

  Maisie chose one that seemed to be the twinkliest.

  Star light, star bright, she thought. First star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight.

  Out loud she said, “I wish Felix changes his mind and comes in here and helps me find Grea
t-Uncle Thorne and open the egg tonight.”

  She frowned.

  Would that count as four wishes?

  No, she decided. All those things together equaled her one wish.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, willing it to come true.

  A small explosion sounded from somewhere in the vicinity of her closet, followed by Great-Uncle Thorne booming: “It’s about time you rapscallions got home from that Fishbag’s house!”

  Startled and delighted at the same time, Maisie turned from the window just in time to see Great-Uncle Thorne emerge from . . . yes . . . her closet. In his arms he had a large pile of clothes. Dead animals appeared to be draped over his shoulder.

  “Fishbaum,” Maisie giggled.

  “Did you devour a big bloody American steak?” Great-Uncle Thorne said with disgust.

  Maisie giggled some more. “I did,” she admitted.

  “Disgusting,” Great-Uncle Thorne said as he dropped the clothes and dead animals on the bed.

  “But what can one expect from a grown man wearing a belt with tiny whales on it?” Great-Uncle Thorne continued, more to himself, it seemed, than to Maisie.

  Still, Maisie agreed. “Ridiculous,” she said.

  The dead animals, she realized, were not, in fact, dead animals but the fur of animals. Piles of white fur and piles of brown fur.

  “Have you been skinning animals in my closet?” she asked Great-Uncle Thorne.

  “I’ve been preparing items for your imminent departure,” he said.

  With that he disappeared back into the closet.

  Maisie heard him grunt, then the sounds of something being dragged across the floor in there.

  Great-Uncle Thorne came back out, walking backward and bent.

  “What’s that?” Maisie asked.

  Great-Uncle Thorne didn’t need to answer.

  By the time the question was asked, he had fully exited the closet, and Maisie saw that he had dragged out with him a large black trunk with gold corners.

  She frowned at it, confused.

  This was, after all, her closet. And Maisie knew for certain that there was no large black trunk with gold corners in there.

  There used to be the small chest of old clothes, the one where she’d found the costume for Bitsy Beal’s March Madness party. Maisie shuddered remembering that terrible night. It had been so terrible that she’d thrown the clothes back inside and put the chest itself in one of the guest-room closets so she’d never have to see it again.