Dreaming Anastasia (8 page)

“All right,” Coach Wicker says then. The fact that he's fallen for this little charade is not raising my opinion of his intellect. “All of you need to get to your next class. Now.”

We do as we're told. Or at least we move around the corner and out of sight.

“Okay,” Tess says to Ethan. Her voice is ice. “I saved your ass back there, but enough is enough. Now you really do need to shove off. She told you she didn't want to go with you.”

“Is that what you want?” Ethan reaches over and pushes my sweatshirt sleeve up, revealing the mark on my arm. “You really believe that this means nothing? That those dreams mean nothing? That none of this is happening? Are you really going to continue to delude yourself?”

“Okay, you've got five minutes to explain yourself,” I tell him, and Tess gasps. I point to the outdoor courtyard, now completely empty since everyone but us has made it to class. “We'll go out there where it's quiet, and you'll explain. And then we'll see.”

“You've got to be kidding, Anne,” Tess says. “He's crazy. What the hell are you doing?”

She's right, of course. He is crazy. But so, it seems, am I.

“I'll be fine, Tess. You go to class. I'll see you at lunch. Go on. What can happen in the courtyard in broad daylight?”

“I don't like this,” she says. But she doesn't stop me from following Ethan outside to the bench in the corner of the courtyard.

He'll explain himself,
I think.
This is all just some bizarre coincidence or something.
I mean, it's just like I told Tess. What could happen in a courtyard in the middle of campus?

Of course, it's then that a strange buzzing sound fills my ears. The wind whips up, a black cloud appears out of nowhere, and a giant, wrinkled pair of hands dips down and tries to grab me.

“Run!” Ethan shouts. He yanks my hand.

There's no time to think. I let him pull me across the courtyard, back through the front lobby, and out the door to the street.

Wednesday, 11:00 am

Ethan

Black clouds are swirling in a mass over the courtyard. I don't let go of Anne's hand as we keep running, putting distance between us and the school. Between us and Baba Yaga. Or rather, between us and her hands.

“Look!” Anne has turned her head, looking back at the school. “It's still there. Ethan, it's still there.”

“I know,” I tell her. “Just keep moving.” I point to a small park a block ahead of us. “Up there. Go there.”

She's still keeping up with me as we reach the edge of the park with its couple of swings and benches.

“Stop,” I say. “I need to—just stop. Here. It'll be okay.” I feel her hesitate, but we both stop running and turn around.

Above us, the black mass of cloud grows larger.

I fumble through my memory for a spell, a protection—something, anything—to keep this thing from us. I stretch my arms out and utter what I can remember, but even as I'm doing so—and certainly long before my absurdly feeble efforts at this moment can affect anything—we both watch as the hands float back up into the sky and slip back into the clouds. Then, with an audible blip, the sky seems to open and swallow the whole thing.

Just like that, it's gone.

“Did you do that?” Anne's voice is edged with what seems to be a potent mixture of fear, relief, and anger. The anger, I would presume is fully directed at me, the person who has gotten her into this whole mess.

“I—uh, I don't think so. I started to do something, but then it was just gone. I think we're okay for now.”

“Okay? You think we're
okay?
We are so far from okay, it's not freakin' funny!” She glares at me. “Is it going to come back? Are we safe? And was that what I think it was? The giant hands of a witch from some fairy tale? How is that possible? And once again, let me ask you, who the hell are you?”

Who am I? I'm the
zalupa
who thought he could handle all this. Who had been convinced up until this moment that he knew the exact sequence of events that was supposed to occur. Our magic had compelled Baba Yaga to take Anastasia and protect her. I'm one of the good guys. The one who, after all these years of searching, has found Anne so that we can finish this thing and free the grand duchess.

So why are we being attacked?

I look around us. The park is empty. “C'mon,” I say to Anne. “Let's sit, and I'll try to explain.” She nods and walks with me into the park, although I can see by her face that the last thing she'd like to do right now is sit and talk to me.

We settle ourselves on one of the wooden benches. For the moment, this park, with its swings and sandbox, its wide, wooden benches, seems safe.

“Look,” I tell her. I shrug off my jacket and roll up my shirtsleeve. Her eyes grow wide as she sees the mark on my arm that mirrors her own. She gasps, and then she reaches out to touch it.

“It sort of burns,” she says, pulling her hand away. She reaches out again and once more runs her fingers over the mark. “I—I still don't understand,” she says. “I need to get back to school. I can't just sit here in the park. I'm supposed to be in chemistry. I—”

“We're connected, you and me.” I reach over gently and remove her hand from my arm. “It's—well, it's a bit of a story. It may take a while for you to understand all of it.”

I'm feeling a little better about all this. She's calmer. I'm calmer. We're going to feel our way through this, and maybe everything will work out.

Then the expression on Anne's face shifts. “Understand what?” Her voice is pitched higher than I'd like it to be. And she's glaring again. “Why I dreamed that you were some turn-of-the-last-century guy with really bad hair who was there praying or something while the whole Romanov clan was getting murdered in a basement in Russia in 1918? That was just a dream right? Or do you want me to believe that you were really there when a giant pair of really ugly hands reached out the sky and took Anastasia away? The same hands which, let's not forget, just tried to kill us back there? Or maybe you want me to understand what my role in all this is? What are we now, two little supernatural mark-on-the-arm buddies who are supposed to spring Anastasia from Baba Yaga's hut?”

“Maybe,” I say, “the explanation won't take so long after all.”

She stands up from the bench, pulling on her backpack that she'd placed on the ground as we had sat down. “I'm right? I can't be right. I mean, if I'm right, then I shouldn't have just—You can't possibly have been there then and look exactly the same now. What would that make you, like a hundred years old or something?”

I smile at her. “Something like that. There's a bit more to it. If you'll sit back down, I'll—”

“You'll what? You know, I'm rethinking this. You just sit here and do whatever you need to, and I'm going to—”

“Shh.” I hold my hand up and look beyond her to the street behind the park. “Just a second.” A bad feeling washes over me. Really bad.

“What is it?”

I don't answer her. I'm too busy watching as a black limousine pulls up to the curb. One of its doors swings open, and it occurs to me that while I might be one of the good guys, I'm no longer sure about everyone else.

“Run!” I yell to Anne as she stares at me with a startled look on her face. I grab her hand and pull her behind me. “Run!”

She hesitates for only a second, then follows me. I can hear the thumping of her backpack as it slams into her while we sprint across the playground, leaving a wake of scattered gravel behind us.

I know I shouldn't slow down to look, but I can't help myself. Behind us, just as I'd expected, two men clad in black dusters are advancing on us at a swift pace.

We zigzag through the park, Anne's dancer's legs pumping to keep up with me, then sprint down the tree-lined street in the opposite direction of the school. I can see my car not too far down the block.

“Over there!” I shout as I half-guide, half-drag her the last few steps to the Mercedes. With my other hand, I search my jacket pocket for the remote. My fingers find it, and I press the top button. I yank open the passenger door and shove Anne inside. Then I race around the car to the other side.

One of the men is completely unfamiliar to me. But the other—the other is someone I haven't seen in a long while. And unfortunately, it doesn't look as if he's interested in having tea and getting reacquainted.

This time, when I reach my arms out, I don't fumble for the words. My brain clears of everything but the spell. I can feel the power surge through me as the magic does its work.

The air around me crackles, and I watch with a solid satisfaction as the thin blue flames fly from my fingertips and meet their mark. In front of me, the two men—the one I know and the one who is a stranger—kneel on the street, doubled over in pain. On the ground next to the stranger, a pistol lay, glowing a deep red.

I yank open the driver's door, climb in, turn the key in the ignition, and throw the car in gear.
This is not good,
I tell myself.
Not good at all.

Next to me, Anne inches up from where she's been crouched on the floor and settles herself into the passenger seat. She glances briefly behind us, then at me.

“Oh my God,” she says. “Oh my God. They were trying to kill us. Do you know them? Why were they—? And you? What did you just—I mean, are you—?”

“We need to get out of here first,” I say. “I need to keep you safe. And you're not safe until we put some distance between us and them.”

She nods and looks behind her another time.

As for me, I breathe in deeply, trying to slow my heart from slamming its way out of my chest. Then I steer the car around the corner and head west.

The Forest, Late Afternoon

Anastasia

The hands crawl swiftly and steadily across the shining wooden floor. Auntie Yaga sits in her rocker, waiting. She holds out her arms, the sleeves of her brown dress empty and limp. She gestures to the hands, the ends of her sleeves flopping up and down as she does so.

Obediently, as I have seen them do many times before, the hands continue their passage. Up, up Baba Yaga's skirt they climb, up her legs, over her lap, and then, with a twisting motion, back into her sleeves. She smiles her hideous, gleaming smile. Her eyes glow deep and black, like two coals.

The house settles around us, its two hen's legs shuffling for a foothold amid dead leaves and piles of twigs and branches, curved and knotted like so many broken fingers.

“I let them compel me,” Auntie Yaga says. “I let myself fall prey to their magic. Gave my power to men who dabbled in spells—men whose pride let them believe they could alter what no man should alter.”

She stands, and with an odd grace, drifts across the room to me. My pulse skips a beat as she rests one of her hands—the same hands which have just returned to her from wherever they have traveled—on my head.

“But how could I do otherwise?” she says as she gently strokes my hair. “You are safe here. You are alive. And they are coming for you now, Anastasia. I did not believe he would keep his part of the bargain. But he has done what he set out to do. Ethan, they call him now. The one with the blue eyes. He has found the young woman who can take you back. Her name is Anne. Not that different from your own.

“I have seen her. Spoken to her. Tried to bring her to us now. Save her as I've saved you. But they ran from me. They do not understand the truth of what is happening. They do not see the danger.”

We stand in silence for a moment. In the hearth, the fire crackles. I wait for Auntie to reach into her pocket. To remove the skull and bring forth the visions. But she does not.

“Look into my eyes, child,” Auntie tells me. I bristle at being called a child. But to Auntie, seventeen is just that: a handful of years, inconsequential as dust.

I do as she tells me. Stare into those glowing black coals. In each pupil, a tiny skull appears. It is as though I am falling into her eyes, falling and falling until there is nothing but darkness. Her gaze consumes me.

“Watch,” Baba Yaga tells me. “Learn.”

In Auntie's eyes, a man sits at a table in what must be a restaurant, for there are many tables, each with a snowy white table cloth. He reaches into his jacket and removes a small, black device. He opens it, jabs at it with his fingers, and waits, tapping his other hand against the table. An impatient sound—the sound of a man who is used to getting his way. Then he speaks.

“You will stop him,” he says. “Remember, he is holding something back. He has not told me everything. His betrayal is a surprise, Brother, but it is not something we—you—cannot handle. You are at an advantage. Ethan does not know I am here. He thinks I am still in St. Petersburg. Let us keep it that way.”

He closes the device and slips it back in his jacket.

A waiter approaches and sets a plate in front of him. On it rests a cut of meat so thick, so large, it fills half the plate. The waiter steps back. I have seen this behavior before—the deference of servants to my father. Waiting to see if his meal is well cooked, his wine of the correct vintage, his every need met. My father was like the man I am watching—a man who looks at the world as if it owes him its bidding; who likes his fine surroundings, his comforts.

In that instant, I know what Auntie meant when she said they do not understand. For who could understand that this man—this man who I think is determined to stop the one Auntie says is now called Ethan—is not who he appears to be. That while he may enjoy the world of luxuries, they are not what he was born to. Not exactly. But they are what he has wanted for as long as I have known him.

Another waiter appears with wine, pours a taste in a goblet. Viktor sniffs, approves, then drinks with pleasure.

Viktor: the man I called my secret brother. The man who told me my family would be safe. The man I trusted.

“Enough,” I say to Auntie. My voice breaks as I speak. It has been a very long time since I have cried.

But now I weep.