by Jen Eastwood
Right when I thought I'd shut her up, she dropped a bomb that kept me up the rest of the night. “Alexei, I remembered something this morning. It is something I have not thought about since coming here.”
What? What the hell?
“It is a stuffed animal you would probably make fun of. It makes me think of my mother.” Her strokes along my body suddenly got slower. “The song I was singing, reminds me of her too.”
BIMBO ACADEMY 5:
FERTILITY FIELD TRIP
I stared at the gold-leafed trim lining the ceiling of my grandfather's office. No matter how long you absorbed the details of the Amber Room, there was always more nuance to pull out of it. The reconstruction of it had to take months, if not years. I hadn't quite wrapped my mind around the fact that one of the lost wonders of the world, would soon be nothing more than my office.
He's got five more minutes. After that, I'm outta here. I could only absorb so many details before even this got old. When my grandfather was late, it usually meant he'd simply forgotten about you.
Skipping a meeting was fine by me. I was still exhausted from dealing with Anya and Galina the day before, as well as making trip after trip around the castle. An easy day of catching up on routine paperwork sounded dandy for once.
As I took my first step to leave, the ivory and gold door started to open. “Alexei,” his voice was way too enthusiastic, “follow me.”
“Where are we going?” Any distance further than a few hundred feet seemed like miles.
He opened the door the rest of the way, dressed like he was about to play golf or hit up a yacht club. “I feel I have to reward you for resolving that situation yesterday,” he nodded down the hall, “and we have matters to discuss.”
“Can't we do it here?”
He shook his head. “I tire of this place at times. Let us go somewhere else.”
I'd never seen him outside the walls other than the day we met, and that was just feet in front of the main entry. “Like where?”
“You decide. I do not care.”
The waitress put a plate of pulled pork and a few buns as big as hubcaps in front of me. Sounding like she smoked her way through two lighters a day, she asked, “Anything else, hun?”
I stared down at the hulking thing in front of me. “I think I'm good.”
She walked off, leaving my grandfather and myself alone in the corner of the diner. “You can eat all of that by yourself?”
Hogging out at a greasy spoon was the main thing I missed about the outside world. “It's not like I did every day, but nothing beats barbecue every now and then.”
“If you did eat this every day, we would have to widen the doors at the academy. I never understood this about Americans.” He jabbed a spoon in his bowl of soup and took a sip. “It is too hot so that it masks how little flavor there is.”
“So what's this all about?” I had to unravel some part of this mind-fuck before I dug in. “You're not yourself today.”
What he had to say was more heart-stopping than the food. “Did Anya's past trouble you?”
“Excuse me?”
“When you stuck your nose in the archives yesterday,” he carried on like it was as hum-drum a topic as the weather, “did it answer your questions, or change how you felt about her?”
“How did you know?”
“Natalia does not know that I know, but I have certain means.”
I reached for the bottle of sauce with an 'H' on it, one of those plastic bottles you have to strangle to get anything out of it. “I agree that she should never remember her past, if that's what you're getting at.”
“Then you should have put everything in the incinerator.” He took another spoonful and then added, “That power only works until the subject is triggered to remember. I have already had a staff member dispose of the rest.”
“What's so bad about leaving the good parts for her to remember, if she ever gets curious?” I gave the bottle a hard squeeze, shooting so little out it was an insult. “She wasn't herself yesterday morning, so I knew I had to find out more about her to snap her out of it.”
“Anya got back to her normal self just fine, Alexei. Do not meddle with the block in her mind.”
I finally got enough of the red stuff out. “But when Anya, of all people, starts singing?”
“Was it in Russian?”
“Yeah, like a nursery rhyme.”
My grandfather let his spoon fall completely into the soup. “Fuck!”
I handed him the table knife that could cut a soggy bun, but not much else. “Fish it out with this.”
“No,” he reached across the table with his hand out. “I need your phone, Alexei.”
I dug it out of my pocket and pulled up the dial pad, knowing he'd have no clue how to get that far. “What's wrong?”
“Eat quickly. You will prove what kind of man you truly are today.”
Already nauseous from that act of culinary foolishness, I barely kept my stomach in check as my grandfather sped us back to the academy. As old and big as it was, his Packard Super Eight could scoot. With patches of snow and ice still on the road, you couldn't have driven a toothpick up my ass with a sledgehammer. Even worse, I started to realize why he was so worried after I told him about the singing.
“So what you're saying is, she could suddenly remember everything, at any time?”
“If she is remembering a song from her childhood, yes. The block begins to break down in fragments, but then it collapses with no warning.” He puffed away at his second cigarette in ten miles. “You should have come to me instead.”
“Then you should have told me about all this before now.”
He took a hard drag and sighed the smoke out of his lungs. “I should have.” Tires chirped as he took a sharp turn. “What I do not understand is what made this happen. Has she acted strange in other ways, Alexei?”
“No, that's it.” I jogged my memory for anything out of place. “She was just standing there, staring out the window, singing to herself.”
“If it were as simple as snow reminding her of home, this would have happened by now.”
“So what's your theory?”
“Fuck. Fuck!” He pounded on the steering wheel with one hand. “You will become the new Headmaster of the academy,” he swallowed a lump that had to be as big as a peach, “today.”
“You're shitting me.” I didn't even think I'd be ready with twice the time. “There's no way I can handle the whole place.”
“You can, Alexei, and you must.” It almost looked like he was going cry. “Even tomorrow may be too late.” As if it were possible for him to.
“Too late, for what?”
“For Anya.”
Natalia was already there with Anya when we rushed into the office. They were emotional wrecks, with each cheek dripping eyeliner. “It is too late, Mikhail.”
“How long ago did she turn?” My grandfather ran across the room faster than a man his age should. “We have to try.”
I stayed back at the entry. Whatever was going on, it was beyond my capability. I knew Anya didn't even recognize me when I walked in.
“Alexei!” My grandfather motioned for me hard enough to throw a rotator cuff. “We have to do this, now.”
Jogging over, I caught a better look at Anya. It was that same dead look in her eyes from her dark times. “What can I do?”
He took a pocket knife out and flipped open the pen blade. Holding his left arm out, he handed me the knife and then pointed halfway down the bottom of his forearm. “What marks me as Headmaster lies under my skin.”
I noticed a small lump with a blue shade to it. “I've got to cut that out of you?”
“And place it in yourself.”
Whoa! What the hell is this? “You're serious.”
“Deadly serious.” He pointed at the same spot. “Hurry, before it is too late to save her.”
I almost sunk the knife in a couple of times. Tempting as it was sometimes, I'd never stabbed a person before then. F
uck it.
“Chto bolit kak ublyudok!” My grandfather stood strong as I cut around what turned out to be a blue token carved with random lines under all the blood. “Now you must make it a part of you.”
It's one thing to slice into someone yelling at you. But when it's you? I don't even know what this fucking thing is.
I looked over at Anya. Her face was just as helplessly afraid as mine had to look. It was the last emotion I ever expected to see in her.
But she's not the Anya I know. I can tell she doesn't even want to exist. I gritted my teeth against a piece of rawhide I wish was actually there.
The biting sting gripped my forearm as I sliced a pocket into myself. Blood pooled in the void, paused for a brief second, and then slid down to my wrist.
The token slid right inside, burning like a little disk of fire under my skin. It was what I'd imagine getting shot feels like.
Natalia sounded like an actual grandmother for once. “Alexei, take this.” She held a thin scarf under my arm and wrapped.
I dropped the knife and held pressure over the searing pain. As I started to feel less of my blood pouring out of me, the circle glowed through my arm, the cloth, and the back of my hand. After that, it's all blank.
I woke up feeling like nothing had happened. In fact, it was like that morning hadn't happened at all. Anya towered over me, asking like she was her regular self, “Why must my husband be such a lay-about?”
I stared back, my face feeling as cold as her eyes. “You're back.”
“Where would I have gone?” She grabbed my left arm and pulled. “You are not glass. Get up.”
The shooting pain reminded me that it wasn't just a dream. Something had happened between when I had blacked out and then. Did he reverse the changes in her?
“Your arm, Alexei...” She looked at me like it was an accusation. “What happened to it?”
“Some blue bead or disk, or something,” I knew I was starting to trail off, “I had to take it out of my grandfather and put it inside me.”
Anya had some idea of what it was. “You performed the ceremony, and I was not present? Mikhail knew I wanted to be there!”
I didn't know if I had the nerve to tell her everything, but if I didn't give her something, she'd have torn the damn room apart. “But you were there.”
“You are a fool.” She held back a blush as only Anya could. “I woke late as well this morning.”
She really doesn't know what's going on. “You don't remember any of it?”
“I remember going to bed early after yesterday's,” she really did blush this time, “mistake.”
“That was your fuck-up, not mine.”
“As you have made abundantly clear.” She acted like she didn't dare push me, partially because of her punishment, and because I was now the actual Headmaster.
I rolled out of bed and looked at the spot on my forearm. The burn wasn't just in my head. It looked cauterized.
“Really, you don't remember anything at all about what happened this morning?”
“You ask of what you already know, Alexei.”
It was for the better, anyway. That girl who I saw in her eyes was still Anya, but broken beyond recognition. Perhaps there was no saving her original self.
She pushed her body against mine, breasts wrapping around my upper arm in her grey, long-sleeved turtleneck dress. “Mikhail told me to bring you to his office when I wake you.”
“Did he say what for?”
“No.” She patted the spot on my arm. “I suppose it is your office now.”
“Sounds like it.” I broke free of her attempt at getting me worked up over nothing. Reaching for the pant's I'd already had on that morning, I said, “Odd that he'd call both of us at the same time.”
“And Lara too.” Anya threw my button-up my way. “I do not like it when he summons me.”
Does anyone? “What about when I do?”
A brief hint of a smile drew across her lips. “Only sometimes it is for work. Mikhail calls only to bark orders.”
Anya sure was fired up. “You make him Headmaster, and then you make us leave? What game is this, Mikhail?”
“Anya, I told you and Lara to leave us.” My grandfather stared back at her, unfazed by her nut-shriveling gaze. “Now.”
She turned and left, bitching to herself the whole way out. The door slammed shut behind her.
“She can't stand being away from here for even a weekend?”
“It is all she knows now, Alexei.” His face darkened, making him look frail to me for the first time. “At least, until her old self flares up again.”
“Again?”
“I transferred my powers to you. Did you think whatever fix I did was more than a mere patch?”
It made sense, partially. “So it's up to me to fix her permanently.”
“Correct.” The down look on his face finally warmed up a bit.
“And I have to go back home to do this, why exactly?”
He leaned back, this time not grabbing a cigarette like he usually did. “You will not leave this academy often in the future, Alexei. Take this time to see your parents. They deserve to meet their daughter-in-law.”
“You still didn't explain why I have to fix her there.”
Now the cigarette came out of his pocket. “Your father received one gift from me after he left this academy as a young man. Ask him for the key.”
“That old place?” I knew it had to be the hunting cabin my dad had always claimed belonged to a friend. “Why didn't he tell me it was yours?”
“He had to promise to keep our family secret from you. Obviously, he did that very well.”
Damn right, he did. I was pretty pissed at both of them. “If I showed up for the weekend with their new daughter-in-law, and another blonde in tow, my Mom would flip her shit.”
He grinned and blew a jet of smoke upward. “I have not met Theresa, but I do not like her.”
“That's a little unfair.” Really, it wasn't.
“From what you have told me, she would never graduate from this academy.”
I imagined my mom in one of the uniforms, then moved on to what that would mean when she got to my office for an exam. That same fucking barbeque threatened to come up and say 'hello' again. “Anyway, when do we leave?”
“One of the maintenance men is jumping your battery now. Once that piece of shit is running again, off with the three of you until Sunday.”
By the number of bodies, it was three of us. Unfortunately, I knew our fourth person would make an appearance. “So what do I do with Anya when she relapses?”
My grandfather pointed at the bandaged spot on his own arm. “If you grab any copper bond with this hand, you will see.”
“I'll see, huh?”
“Yes, it is that simple.” He gave me a wink before waving me away with both hands. “Now go. You have a field trip to chaperone.”
I whipped my Toyota around the last turn. The cul-de-sac I'd grown up in made for fun driving when you're trying to fly, unless you're trying to make it home before my mom. Luckily I only saw my dad's truck in the driveway.
He saw us from the roof as I pulled in. A big wad of black leaves crashed to the ground. I'd forgotten he had always made me help with the fucking gutters this time of year. He waved with one gloved hand, confused as all hell.
“Wait in here.” I opened my door enough to shout, “Dad, get down here!”
“No, you get up here and help me with these cock-assed things.” He grinned, but more like Natalia than my grandfather. I hadn't noticed the similarities between them until then.
“I'm serious,” I got the rest of the way out and leaned against the open door, “before mom gets home and throws a fit.”
“What the hell did you do?”
“It wasn't my fault.” I nodded my head toward the car, realizing we sounded like I was a teenager again. “It's been a few months, hasn't it?”
“I expected to see my father again before I'd see you.�
�� He finally crawled toward the extension ladder. “Not carrying on the family tradition, I see.”
I didn't have the gall to tell him I'd married his adoptive sister, but it screamed to jump out of my mouth. So long as I got him off the roof and had the key before mom got home, I was golden. Now halfway down, I knew I could save that mind-bender for another day.
“You're not alone.” He trudged closer and stopped several feet away from me. “What's her name?”
“Anya.”
“And the other one behind her? I didn't know we allowed polygamy in the family.”
“It's not like that.” I shut the door behind me before either of them opened their mouths and made it worse. “Listen, I need the key to the cabin.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “That's a terrible place for a honeymoon. Wouldn't you rather stay in that damn castle for that?”
“Listen, I don't have time to fuck around.”
He closed the few paces between us and frogged me hard in the shoulder, like always. “I'll get it off my key chain,” he ratcheted the other brow, “so long as I get to see her better.”
I wiped bits of decayed leaves off my shirt. “I've had a long-ass day,” I huffed and then added, “fine.”
“Calm down,” he pulled the gloves off, “your mom's stuck late at work. You've got a good hour before she gets here.”
If I'd have known that, I wouldn't have tore ass to make it in time. “I guess I've got a lot I can catch you up on.” I started opening my door back up. “And you can stop dancing around the secret, finally.”
My dad really was the kind of man I'd have turned into, if I weren't the grandson of a copper mage. “You're right. I've got some crazy stories from growing up in that place I never could tell you, or anyone else.”
After hearing them, I could see how having free run of the place as a kid would send you a little off the vulgar, jaded end.
“So let me get this right,” my dad pointed at Lara, “you're just his intern.”
Lara's face turned red as my mom's KitchenAid pans hanging over the stove behind her. “That's what they call me.”
That impish look said it all. “And the students are just there to study. I gotcha.” He threw a hi-five up in my direction.