Dreaming Anastasia
Read Dreaming Anastasia Online
Authors: Joy Preble
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by Joy Preble
Cover and internal design © 2009 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Cathleen Elliott/Fly Leaf Design
Cover images © Elisa Lazo de Valdez/Corbis, Jon Feingersh/Jupiter Images, Mordolff/iStockphoto.com
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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Preble, Joy.
Dreaming Anastasia / Joy Preble.
p. cm.
Summary: In alternating voices, sixteen-year-old Chicagoan Anne and handsome, magical Ethan tell of their fated quest to rescue Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia, who tells of her long captivity in the hut of legendary witch Baba Yaga.
1. Anastasiia Nikolaevna, Grand Duchess, daughter of Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, 1901-1918--Juvenile fiction. [1. Anastasia, Grand Duchess, daughter of Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, 1901-1918--Fiction. 2. Fate and fatalism--Fiction. 3. Dreams--Fiction. 4. Magic--Fiction. 5. Baba Yaga (Legendary character)--Fiction. 6. Witches--Fiction. 7. Russia--History--Nicholas II, 1894-1917--Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P90518Dre 2009
[Fic]--dc22
2009023659
You pulled me out of the slush pile
and allowed me to follow my dream.
I wouldn't be here if not for your wisdom and encouragement.
And for my mother, Rose Brownâ
Who believed I could do anything
if only I'd just shut up and get to work.
The Forest, Late Evening
Anastasia
I didn't always dream about my family. Still, they haunted me for the longest time. Their smiles. Their voices. How they looked when they died. But of all the things I remember, the strongest memory is a story.
Of the stories my mother told me, only one did I love hearing over and over. I had not known it would become my storyâthe one I would live day after day. Here in the small hut with its tiny windows and smooth, wooden floor. The small bed in which I sleep, its blue and red cotton quilt tucked neatly around me. My
matroyshka
nestled on the soft goose-down pillow. The
matroyshka
âthe doll my mother gave me near the end, the one she told me to hold tight, even though she knew I was seventeen and far, far too old for such things. A wooden nesting doll, its figure repeated itself smaller and smaller, each hidden inside the other, the last one so tiny it almost disappeared in the palm of my hand.
I understand now what it is to be hidden like thatâso tucked away that no one even knows I am here.
In the story, there was a girl. Her name was Vasilisa, and she was very beautiful. Her parents loved her. Her life was good. But things changed. Her mother died. Her father remarried. And the new wifeâwell, she wasn't so fond of Vasilisa. So she sent her to the hut of the fearsome witch Baba Yaga to fetch some light for their cabin. And that was supposed to be that. For no one returned from Baba Yaga's. But Vasilisa had the doll her dying mother gave her. And the dollâbecause this was a fairy tale and so dolls could talkâtold her what to do. Helped her get that light she came for and escape. And when Vasilisa returned home, that same light burned so brightly that it killed the wicked stepmother who sent Vasilisa to that horrible place. Vasilisa remained unharmed. She married a handsome prince. And lived happily ever after.
When I listened to my mother tell the story, I would pretend I was Vasilisa the Brave. In my imagination, I heeded the advice of the doll. I outwitted the evil Baba Yaga, the fearsome witch who kept her enemies' heads on pikes outside her hut. Who rode the skies in her mortar and howled to the heavens and skittered about on bony legs. Who ate up lost little girls with her iron teeth.
But the story was not as I imagined. Not as my mother told it. I am not particularly brave. And it was not an evil stepmother who sent me to this hut in the forest. I came because I believed
him
. The man I trusted with all my heart. The one who told me I was special. That I alone would save the Romanovs by letting him save me.
Oh, yes, I believed. Even as the Bolsheviks forced us to the house in Ekaterinburg. Even as I sewed jewels into my clothing so no one would find them. And even on that July day when we were all herded like cattle down into that basement.
Because that is what seventeen-year-old girls do. They believe.
But that was all so long ago. At least, I think it was. In the hut, it is hard to say. Time works differently here. We are always on the move. The two hen's legs that support the hut are always scrabbling for a new destination. Keeping us from whoever might be searching. If anyone still cares to search.
At first, I thought I'd go mad. And perhaps I have. But most days, I convince myself that I do not mind it so much. I sweep and sew and fill the kettle in the fireplace and bring sweet, hot tea to Auntie Yaga. Auntie, who rocks in her chair, her black cat settled in her lap, and smiles with those great iron teethâand sometimes, as my mother did, tells stories.
“They don't really know me,” Auntie says. She takes a long sip of tea and clasps the cup with two huge, brown, gnarled hands. It is those hands that scare me mostâthat have always scared meâand so my heart skitters in my chest. The fear is less now than it used to be, but its fingers still run along my belly until I want to scream and scream even though I know now that it will make no difference. That what I did, that what brought me here, made no difference. But that, of course, is yet another story.
“They say they know what evil is,” Auntie Yaga continues. “But they do not. They think it is all so very simple. That I am a witch, and that is that. But it is not as they tell it. I am not what they think I am.”
Listening to Auntie Yaga now, I really do understand. None of it is simple. It is not like the stories my mother told. Not like what
he
told me.
“You will save them, Anastasia,” he said. “You just need to be brave. I'll take care of the rest.”
Only that wasn't simple either. Or perhaps it was. A simple revolution. A simple set of murders. My family, destroyed one by one in front of my eyes. Their screams. Their cries for mercy. And a storm in a room where no storm could exist. A thick, black cloud that deepened and swirled and cracked open the ceiling. A giant pair of handsâthe same hands that now clutch a cup of sweet teaâthat closed about me and carried me here. And suddenly, I knew how not simple it all really was.
Downtown Chicago,
One Week Ago
Sunday, 1:40 pm
Anne
I don't notice him looking at me. Not right away. I mean, by the time Tess and I hike our way up to row 16, seats D and E, of the nosebleed section and squeeze past everyone else who's already seatedâbecause, obviously, they have their own transportation and don't have to wait for my father to get done with his Sunday morning golf game to drive them downtown for the matinee of
Swan Lake
âit's almost curtain time.
So we're already at our seats before I feel some sort of weird, prickly tingling on the back of my neck and turn around to find him standing there staring.
I elbow Tess. “Look behind us,” I whisper. “That guy. The tall one wearing the blazer. He's watching us.”
“Guy?” Tess is not whispering. Tess never whispers. I'm not sure she actually can. “Where?” She cranes her neck in the wrong direction.
Tess is many things. Subtle is not one of them.
“God, Tess. Lower your voice. About four rows behind us. To the left.”
“Not us,” she says when she finally figures out where to look. “You. He's staring at you, Anne. And he's wicked hot.”
I narrow my eyes at her as we plop down in our seats. “You promised,” I say. “I mean, seriously, Tess. No human being uses that word so much. Not to mention we're in Chicago, not Boston. So enough already.”
“Sorry,” she saysâalthough she's grinning, so I'm pretty sure she's not. Tess visited her Boston cousins this summer and has developed a single-minded devotion to the Bostonism
wicked
. As in, “That test was
wicked
hard.” “That pair of jeans is
wicked
cute.” “Heather Bartlett”âwho sleeps with any guy who can fog a mirrorâ“is
wicked
slutty.”
Or, “Using a word so much that you kill the effect is
wicked
annoying.”
Besides, I'm not sure I agree with her anyway. He's cute and all, and the blazer look works on him, but he's standing so still and looking at us so closely that I'm thinking
stalker
might be a better description than
hot
. And anyway, I'm surprised Tess thinks so. Tess is usually more about the piercings and the tattoosâthe whole bad boy thing.
I sneak another look.
Stalker guy's no bad boy. At least not the parts of him I can see. He's about my age, maybe a little older. And he's tall, a little over six feet or so, with this shaggy, brown hair that he really should brush off his forehead. He's wearing khaki pants and a white shirt topped with the brown corduroy blazer. Pretty normal, other than the fact that he's a guy and he's at a ballet and he's alone. Not that I'm judging or anything.
But the thing is, he's still watching me. Okay, make that openly staring. And even from here, I can see that his eyes are this fierce, startling blue.
I stare back. He's not flirting. But he's not dropping his gaze either. And for a second, it feels a little more dangerous than flirting. More like crazy reckless.
And then honestly, because I'm me and not my best friend, Tessâwho's blond and tall and has guys trailing after her like puppiesâI'm just sort of irritated. Why can't some normal guy find me attractive? Someone who just wants to go for coffee at Java Joe's and maybe to a movie or something and not stare at me until I can actually feel my face getting a little warm?
“Do we know him?” I ask Tess.
She shakes her head. “Don't think so,” she says as the lights dim, the music cues up, and
Swan Lake
begins.
I swivel in my seat to look at Mr. Blue Eyes again, but the auditorium is so dark that all I can see is his silhouette, which is pretty neutral on the hot or not scale.
On stage, handsome Prince Siegfried falls in love with the beautiful but doomed Odette. By intermission, they've danced their
pas de deux,
and old Sieg has promised to save Odette from her midnight-to-dawn swan enchantmentâeven though I seriously want to tell her to fly off and find some other guy who'll actually manage to help her. I've seen
Swan Lake
before. Twiceâbecause even though I hate the ending, there's just something about it that makes me want to see it again. So I know the evil Rothbart has enchanted Odette. And that all Siegfried has to do is vow eternal love for her to break the spell.
Only come the end of intermission, he'll screw it up, just like always. Rothbart will enchant his own daughter, Odile, to look like Odette, and stupid Siegfried is gonna fall for it. He'll pledge his love for the wrong girl, Odette will stay doomed, and the only way out of the whole mess will be for Siegfried to die for her.
I mean, come onâhow stupid is this guy that he can't tell a black swan costume from a white one?
The house lights flick on. Tess and I look behind us. Staring guy is gone.
“Too bad.” Tess rummages through the little plaid Burberry bag she'd recently snagged from her mother's closet. She fishes out bronze lip gloss and applies some to her already sufficiently glossed lips.
“His loss,” she says as we snake our way to the lobby so I can plunk down four dollars for a miniscule plastic cup of Diet Coke. “Mr. Stealthy just doesn't know what beautiful little birdies he's missing out on.” She flutters her wayâswan styleâto the concession stand.
I grin. Encouraged, she flutters some more.
“Enough,” I tell her. If I don't, the fluttering will go the same way as the whole
wicked
thing, and pretty soon, she'll be fluttering everywhere because she figures I think it's funny.
“Tight-ass.” Tess makes a face. “And ooh, that reminds me. I wonder if he has one.” She waggles her eyebrows at me. “You so want to know. Admit it.”
I just shake my head. I'm not admitting anything. Besides, he'd never turned around.
“You know you do.” Tess grabs my cup and helps herself to a few swallows. Translateâshe gulps down the rest of it.
“Whatever.” I hold out my hand for my empty cup, sigh, and toss it into the nearby trash can. “It's not like we're ever going to see him again.”
“You just never know,” Tess tells me as the house lights blink. “You just never know.”