“I was there yesterday.”
“Perhaps we should visit her together.”
I hesitated, then thought,
I came here to help.
I made a “lead on” shoot with my forefinger, then followed Beka down the icy hallway and through the servants' door to the side of the palace, where there was a half-cleared parking lot. From the haphazard look of the clearance, it was evident they did not have any snow plows. The work was done by grunt force.
Last in a modest row of examples from over five decades of auto manufacture was a sporty French model. It felt unreal to climb into a car with the woman who had had Alec's arms around her.
It felt more unreal that Ruli was dead.
Beka negotiated slowly past the mounds of slush onto a slippery cobblestoned street that had been cleared, then asked polite questions about my journey. My replies were equally polite efforts, barren of content but crammed with phatic cooperation as the car slid on the icy street then caught, slid and caught.
She nosed down the boulevard leading to the huge traffic circle built around the statue of St. Xanpia, where the streetcar looped around. From there, we continued under the triumphal arch and on past nineteenth-century buildings with the ubiquitous tall windows, iron grating, and Palladian embellishments. Our struggle at conversation was drowned by the clatter of tires on cobblestones, and we abandoned talkâno doubt as big a relief to her as it was to me.
We reached the Khonzhinya District, where Nat lived. Most of the houses dated back to the eighteenth century, with a few newer. There were fewer cleared streets.
Beka parked around the corner from Nat's with the ease of habit, and we crunched into the crusty slush alongside the road, chins down into our coats. From the low sky, flakes of snow dropped. I wondered if it was still ninety degrees in LA.
An older woman was leaving. Nat looked past her at me and said, “Did you chicken out?” Then she saw Beka, and her brows shot up. “Dude!”
Beka said with a hint of irony, “You can offer us some of your vile coffee.”
“Get in here before all my warm air escapes,” Nat replied.
She shut the door, and we stood in the tiny vestibule, again in one another's personal space as we shed gloves and scarves and hats and coats, hanging them on the row of hooks Nat had bolted to the bare plaster wall. Beka's face was turned away, so all I saw was her profile, her expression closed.
Nat called, “I'm finishing a patient. Grab a sitz.”
Beka gestured for me to take the armchair. I did, then noticed that the other two would be sitting side by side on the couch, staring at me like a two woman jury.
I made a business of looking around so I wouldn't have to sit there staring, or not-staring, at the person Alec was going to meet later tonight.
From the back Nat yelled, “Kim! Tell her who attacked you in London.”
“Tony,” I said, and when Beka's lips parted, I added, “With a sword.”
Her eyes widened. “La la!”
Two sets of footsteps went down the outer hall. The second pair was Nat, who reappeared holding a tray, trailing the mixed aromas of astringent soap and fine black tea. “Water was already boiling for washing up my instruments.”
Beka put her chin on her hands and studied me, eyes narrowed.
“I gotta say, I thought nothing I ever heard about that guy would surprise me.” Nat flopped down next to Beka, then handed her a cup. “But that wins the coconut. Try this, Bek. It's concentrate from Hawaiian coffee.” She waved at me. “He attacked you. Like that. Out of the blue. Does he have swords all over the house?
Of course
he's got a stash of swords. Probably guns and grenades, too.”
“Maybe he's just nuts,” I said. “Like his insisting there's no magic, but vampires totally exist.”
“They do.” Beka sipped. “Ah. Much better.”
“Vampires?” I repeated, turning to Nat.
She shrugged, hands out. “News to me. I thought they were part of the hill myths.”
“I hope they remain unknown. I would love it if they faded to myth,” Beka said, and turned to me. “Did he say why he attacked you?”
“He said it was to make me tell the truth. I guess I earned that, lying like a rug to his family last summer. Though he knows why I did it.”
Beka and Nat each looked the other's way, just for a second. I couldn't read anything from that brief meeting of eyes, except that whatever I'd said carried some significance that they were not going to share, because then Nat chuckled, a pleasantly rusty sound. “They were being buttheads. Especially his mother. Geez, she tried to have you offed!”
“I have not forgotten,” I said, and was going to say that I hoped she was still in Paris, but of course she wouldn't be. Not after her daughter's accident. “Is the duchess in the country?” I asked.
Beka said, “Sisi von Mecklundburg? Alec told me this morning that they are . . . expected.” She glanced at her watch. “Within an hour.”
Nat hoisted her mug. “Usually this time of year there are parties, balls, concerts, right up until the twelfth day of Christmas, or what the Eastern Orthodox gang call Theophany. When there's a really snazzy ball, we minions gather along St. Mihal Bridge to watch the sleighs cruise by. People decorate 'em up.”
Beka uttered a soft laugh at the word “minions.” “We have canceled the parties, at least through the date of the funeral. We are waiting to see what the von Mecklundburgs will say about the New Year's Eve gala they were organizing in honor of the new opera house. Ruli was to host it. Her first formal gesture as Madam Statthalter.” Beka got up and said to Nat, “I did not have time to visit the ladies' at the palace. May I?”
Nat jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “You know where it is.”
When she was gone, I discovered Nat staring at me with a puzzled, wary expression. Nat said, “You tracked her like you're a bomb sniffer and she's about to plant a nuke.”
“I can't figure her out,” I said.
Natalie thumped her elbows on her knees. “Geez, you're not going to go all high school catfight on me, are ya?”
“Like I have any grounds,” I said. “And if you knew how I grew up . . . but you don't. I'm trying to understand where everyone is coming from.”
“Okay, that's cool. So how did it go with Alec?”
“It was horrible.” I told her what he'd said, then finished, “It was like it actually
hurt
him to see me. That's even worse than âI'm over you.' Something is really wrong.”
“Ya think?”
“I mean, besides the accident. Because I know that was an accident. I don't believe for a second it could have been anything else.” I shivered again, glanced at that empty spot on the couch and said, “So in the nature of figuring out what's going on in his life, are Alec and Beka close?”
“Close, yes. How close, no idea.” Nat started piling the dishes together. “Yeah, she's over here often, and yeah, we talk about him, but like I said, I haven't seen him but once, and she doesn't tell me everything.”
“Got it.”
“What was that about your growing up?” she asked.
“Mom was a hippie. Free love, drugs, rock and roll. Except she liked Wagner and Puccini.”
“Wow. Just your Mom?”
“Dad was too much of a geek,” I said. “Mom didn't settle down until she was forty. That is, she got married. Let's just say she was in love with being in love. But she always came home after her romances.”
Nat's brows rose. “Your mom was a player? Well, if she hit her twenties during the sixties, yeah, I guess that would make sense. I somehow didn't picture that, you know, with your grandmother added in. The princess thing and all.”
Her tone wasn't the least nasty. Natalie had told me during the summer that monogamy was not her style. So I said, “Dad once told me that people are going to do what they're going to do, and that jealousy means you've got some self-esteem issues of your own.”
“Heh.”
“As for Gran, I don't know how she felt, but she and Mom have always been tight in spite of being completely different in pretty much every way possible. There was no drama. Everything mellow. It took until pretty recently for me to see how hard everyone worked on their relationship. Including Mom.”
The distant door opened, loud enough that I wondered if Beka had done it on purpose, as a polite warning, in case we were dishing the dirt on her. I was feeling weirder by the second.
“I think I'd like to meet the 'rents,” Nat said.
“I can't picture them here,” I admitted. “I still have trouble believing
I'm
here.”
Beka reappeared. She sat down, her movements neat, even fluid. I wondered if she'd had ballet training. Like me.
Now I had the two woman jury looking at me expectantly. Waiting for testimony? “Okay, here's where I'm coming from,” I said. “You may not believe me. I sure can't prove it, because both times in the last week that I saw. . . someone not in their body, I was around other people, and nobody saw what I saw.”
I paused. Neither of them said anything.
“One of these apparitions was Ruli. Monday night, around midnight, Ruli appeared in a store window reflection and asked me to help her, and I'm wondering if maybe I should try to do that in spite of. . . her accident.
Because
of her accident. But I keep thinking, Why would she call to
me?
Where do I start?” I couldn't make myself look Beka's way.
“Is that question rhetorical, or is it âDear wise Nat, what do you suggest I do?'”
“Dear wise Nat, what do you suggest I do?”
“Oooh, say it again!” Nat crossed her arms across her chest and hugged herself, then she leaned forward, serious. “Aside from questions of apparitions, ghosts, and vampires, none of which I can help with, the problem seems to be that you don't know anybody but me and Alec, so doing a Sherlock Holmes is going to be tough.”
Nat and Beka both glanced at the clock ticking on a cluttered side table. It was a wind-up clock, because electricity was still unreliable in Dobrenica. Or people believed it was, though the hydroelectric dam that Alec and Milo had struggled to finance had been supplying the city for almost ten years.
Nat went on, “Seems to me that you'd have to start your investigating with her relatives.” She sat back, making the king's X with her fingers. “Better you than me.”
Beka said, “I was going to suggest that you come to my wreath party tonight. They will all be there.”
“The von Mecklundburgs or the vampires?” I asked.
Nat said wickedly, “Is there any difference?”
EIGHT
B
EKA GAVE NAT one of those looks that teachers give the kid who just threw a spitball as I asked, “What's a wreath party?”
“A mourning custom in our country.”
“Tell me about the mourning customs,” I said. “I don't want to do something wrong.”
More wrong than showing up in the first place?
They exchanged another of those quick glances, then Beka said in that neutral tone of a teacher, “The country people gather at dawn each day to sing laments for Madam Statthalter, until she is buried. The city people all have fir wreaths on the door, with a star.”
“I saw those,” I said. “I thought they were Christmas decorations.”
Beka said, “In this part of the world, there is an old belief that for every person there is a tree and a star. You put a replica on the door when someone in the family dies, or a friend. Or a leader.”
“Okay,” I said. “And tonight?”
“Traditionally, the others of the five families host a wreath-gathering for the bereaved family, and on the sixth day is the funeral. This custom dates back to . . .”
The five families
. Those were the highest ranking clans, the ones who'd been kicking the crown around between them for centuries. The highest number of kings came from Gran's family, the Dsarets. Second runner up was Alec's family, the Ysvorods. Tony and Ruli's gang, the von Mecklundburgs, had mostly hooked up with royal princes and princesses. Remaining were the Trasyemovas and Beka's family, the Ridotskis. I knew zip about either of these, having only met one Trasyemova, a teenager, at the masquerade ball last summer, before Tony abducted me right off the ballroom floor.
I shifted my attention back to Beka. “. . . disrupted by the war years, and the absence of the Dsarets. There are of course two bereaved families, but as Milo's health has kept him in London, Alec is alone of his, so there will be only one party. My grandfather is co-hosting tonight's event, with my mother.” She raised her perfectly groomed winged brows and tipped her head. “I invite you as my guest.”
“But won't they be talking about Ruli? Won't that be horrible if I'm there? They wouldn't expect me to give a testimonial, would they?”
“No, no,” Beka said. “Sometimes the person is remembered, but it is entirely informal. Wreath parties were meant as social cheering for the bereavedâa chance for the five families to be together. The formal testimonials, as you say, are done at the vigil, the night before the funeral.”
“I think it's a great idea!” Nat exclaimed, then gave me a scrutinizing glance. “Even though there won't be any dancing or whoopee, Beka's crowd isn't quite the thrift store types. You got any fancy clothes?”
“I bought two nice outfits in London. In case. That'll have to do,” I said quickly. “I'm not borrowing any more of Ruli's clothes. It's too creepy.”
Beka looked surprised. “We do have stores in Riev.” Then she made a slight grimace of regret. “Ah, I beg your pardon. I thought . . .”