Against a Brightening Sky (28 page)

I opened my hand, knowing what I'd see inside the locket before I looked. On one side was a picture of Alina. She was a few years younger, her hair a bit longer, and she was dressed in the same white beaded gown and circlet as the princess ghost. If I'd any lingering doubts the ghost was made up of Alina's memories, they vanished.

The other picture brought tears to my eyes. Alina and her three sisters gazed back at me from that picture, smiling and happy. Content. I would have given much to have that be my last memory of them, to remember them full of life and hope for the future. But I had other memories of these young women, ones I couldn't dismiss. I passed the locket to Isadora and rushed out the back door, unwilling to make a spectacle of myself in front of Gabe's men by bursting into tears.

Sitting in Dora's car all alone was peaceful. Afternoon was moving toward evening, and the last warm rays of sunshine on my face burned away the urge to cry. Birds sang from the top of the bell tower, and children's laughter sounded from a yard nearby. The flowers were still beautiful, and color still gleamed in every stained glass window.

But now ghosts filled those windows, standing amongst the images of saints and angels. Among the faceless host of Alina's memories, three princesses in white beaded dresses peered at me from brightly colored panes.

All three waited, patient and serene, for me to save their sister.

*   *   *

Gabe arrived home hours after I did. He'd taken Jordan Lynch to stay with Katie Allen and stopped to see Jack on the way home. Filling Jack in on the case was just as important to Gabe as to Jack.

Dinner was quiet, both of us tired and lost in thought. I started to clear the table once we'd finished, but Gabe stopped me.

“Leave the dishes for now.” He pulled me into his arms and held tight. “I'll take care of them in the morning.”

I held him just as tight, his heartbeat fast and strong in my ear. “I'll consider that a promise, Gabe Ryan. Now, kiss me.”

We fell asleep in each other's arms, warm and safe. My last thought was a prayer it would always be like this; that we'd never be torn apart the way Alina and her family were.

Each night, the dreams drew closer to the end of the story, more harrowing and vivid. Knowing who I was dreaming of made it worse.

Knowing how it had to end was worst of all.

*   *   *

As large as the mountain house was, I couldn't imagine just the three of us would stay there until spring. Winter would close the passes in a few weeks and snow would make even the lower roads impossible to travel. Either the rest of the family would be moved and join us, or they'd take the four of us away.

I was wrong. More soldiers arrived each week to fill the house, new faces to scowl and refuse to answer questions. These men weren't members of the Red Army. They were rough men from small villages and towns, men with few manners and no discipline. By the time winter closed the roads, the lower floor of the house and the outbuildings were full of guards. A few showed us a little respect, but only Lieutenant Dmitri was passionate in insisting my sisters and I be treated better.

The captain in charge, a man with bad teeth and bits of food in his beard, will likely send him away once the snow melts.

There was little enough for my sisters and me to fill our days with aside from cards and wandering the upstairs hallways. We weren't allowed downstairs without an escort, and the walled garden was forbidden to us. Even cold as it was, we'd have relished the wind on our face and the open sky overhead.

Once a week, we were taken downstairs to wash bed linens in a deep tin tub and hang them to dry on an enclosed porch. Wind cried and wailed under the eaves, blew through cracks around the door and rattled the murky glass in two large windows. How hard the wind blew was all that ever changed. Still, we looked forward to seeing the sky.

Guards watched us through those windows no matter the weather, smoking and making crude jokes. Others stood just inside the door leading back into the house. Our hands were red and raw from the cold and harsh soap, and we'd grown thinner from lack of food. I overhead one guard saying it was less than we deserved, making the others laugh. When he saw me staring, the smile left his face and he walked away.

After the laundry was done we hauled water upstairs and scrubbed the floors of our room. Servants worked in the house, girls and older women from the neighboring village, but they cooked and cleaned for the commandant and his officers. My sisters and I took care of ourselves, hoarding our small ration of coal to make tea and cook our meals.

I saw Lieutenant Dmitri more and more often, watching us from a distance and always frowning. He rarely spoke to us, and when he did, it was to inquire about our health and if the room was warm enough. I always answered for the four of us, pride driving me to lie about how well we were doing.

Dmitri saw through my attempts to save face. Our ration of coal grew larger, and the packets of food set aside for us in the kitchen were packed fuller. Loafs of fresh bread and wedges of cheese appeared in our room on those rare occasions when all four of us were out at the same time. I'd grown to distrust generosity, but I wasn't a fool. We found ways to hide the extra food and make it last.

Not one of the soldiers had shown kindness before now. No one smiled or said a pleasant word, but these men weren't like my father's troops. They fancied themselves as revolutionaries, guardians of a grand new world and at the forefront of a new society. I heard them brag to each other about the part they played in bringing about a prosperous new age.

But no matter how they swaggered and tried to intimidate us, I saw the truth in their eyes. My sisters and I frightened them, and our very existence called into question their glorious new society. They hated us for that.

Dmitri looked at us without fear or hate, but he was one man among many.

Winter passed slowly. Our pile of letters for Mama and Papa, the sum of our days and dreams, grew larger.

One afternoon in February, the captain with bad teeth and the unwashed beard arrived with two guards to inspect our room. Snow pelted the windows, hard, icy pellets that pinged against the thin glass and mounded on the ledge outside. We stood meekly while the guards went through our things, tossing clothing onto the beds or the floor. I watched the snow, trying not to see these men walk on our books or shake out my older sister's nightdress.

The taller of the guards found our letters in a box under the bed and handed them to the captain.

He opened one of our letters and read it, stone-faced at first, but quickly growing angry. The captain shook the letter in my older sister's face and shouted, making her cry. “What is this? Who gave you permission to write these?”

“I did.” Dmitri stood in the doorway, watching my sister cry. The flash of anger in his eyes was stronger this time and not hidden as well. “I saw no harm in it, sir. No one will ever read the letters and writing kept them quiet.”

The captain glared, gaping like a fish and too furious to speak. He carried the box of letters to the fire, tossing them onto the glowing coals and stirring the embers with an iron poker until the paper caught. My youngest sister buried her face in my shoulder, unable to watch our messages to Mama and Papa turn to ash.

“No more letters!” The captain threw the empty box across the room. “You do what I say, no one else. If I catch you writing again, I'll have you shot.”

Dmitri shrank back out of the way as the captain stomped out of the room, the two guards trailing behind. He waited a few seconds before stepping into our room, careful not to walk on our belongings.

“I'm sorry, ladies. The captain means what he says.” Dmitri looked into my eyes, his feelings well hidden. “He won't think twice about having you shot.”

All the words I wanted to say would call more trouble down on my sisters. I swallowed them, trying not to choke. “We'll remember.”

He bowed before turning on his heel and striding from the room. I closed the white pine door gently, fighting the impulse to slam it shut, and slam it again and again until the door cracked into splinters.

Instead I helped my sisters gather our clothes and set the room to rights. None of us would be able to sleep until we erased all trace of the captain's visit.

Not long afterwards, the captain with bad teeth was gone. Rumors flew among the guards about his being called to Moscow, or mysterious meetings with Lenin. All my sisters and I knew from the guards' gossip was that he was gone. And with his leaving, Dmitri was in charge.

He couldn't lift all the restrictions or remove all the guards shadowing our footsteps, but he allowed us the run of the house. Food became more plentiful, and we no longer shivered in our beds. Lieutenant Dmitri did all he could to make our captivity bearable.

Twice a week, he conducted an inspection of our rooms. Dmitri came alone and stood in the center of our room, usually with a bundle of books tucked under his arm. He'd never touch our things or search through our valises, just look around and nod his approval before setting his bundle of books on our small table.

As the weeks passed, he often stayed to talk. We learned from Dmitri that there were men still loyal to my father struggling against the Red Army. He'd give us news from other parts of Russia, quoting speeches Lenin gave or telling about clashes between the Red and White Armies as they battled for control of the country. His news never mentioned my parents or the rest of the family. We were afraid to ask and hear bad news.

Dmitri spoke to me more often than to any of my sisters. My older sister insisted that he behaved more like a suitor than a jailer. I ignored her.

May brought melting snow, flowers in the yard, and a new commandant to the mountain house. He arrived in the middle of the night, rousting Dmitri out of his bed and demanding to meet my sisters and me immediately.

We were herded downstairs in our dressing gowns, barefoot and shivering, and taken to the parlor. The new commandant sat straight and rigid in a high-backed chair, gripping the knobs on the end of the arms. His hair was thinning and he wore it combed straight back, making his face appear rounder and his nose bigger. How cold his eyes were should have frightened me more than they did, but I'd grown used to fear.

Lieutenant Dmitri stood behind the new commandant, hands clasped behind his back, and studied the toes of his boots. He glanced up once, looking straight at me. Concern for my sisters and me filled his eyes, and barely contained fury. Dmitri's jaw clenched and he resumed studying his boots.

The new commandant stared and we shivered, all of us silent. Finally he leaned forward and motioned to the guards. “I've seen them now. Take them to their room.”

At the door, I glanced back. Lieutenant Dmitri watched us go, his expression unreadable.

That was the last time I saw him.

 

CHAPTER 14

Gabe

Gabe struggled awake, sweating and tangled in the bedclothes, fleeing another nightmare about the riot at Lotta's fountain. The dream was the same every night, full of screams and confusion, and dying children that he couldn't save. He lay there panting, the taste of charred timbers on his tongue, as if he'd really been running toward the pile of brick burying Jack.

Dawn was at least an hour away, and the moon had already set, but he still saw the cat sitting on the windowsill across the room. Mai's head was thrust between the chintz curtain panels and she stared into the backyard, tail thrashing and growling deep in her throat. Gabe slipped out of bed and eased his spare pistol out of the nightstand drawer, moving quietly so as not to wake Delia.

The wooden floor was cold under his bare feet, the air seeping in around the window frame colder still. He came at the window from the side, sidling along the wall and careful not to present a target to anyone watching from outside. That Mai kept growling, never shifting her gaze from the darkened yard, was more than enough to convince him that caution was warranted.

He lifted the curtain edge enough to view the yard. Predawn shadows filled Dee's flower beds and stretched long from the base of the trees, pools of darkness that looked deep enough to drown in. Movement caught his eye, and a long, thin inky shape detached itself from one dark pool and slithered along the fence, finally going up and over into the neighbor's yard.

A glance told him Dee was still sleeping. The faint murmur in his ear warned him to stay close. He'd learned to pay attention, and he wasn't about to abandon her to chase after a fence-climbing shadow. Gabe waited until Mai's ears came up and the thrashing of her tail quieted to occasional, annoyed flips before putting on his dressing gown and creeping into the hall.

He went from room to room, checking that all the windows were shut tight. The locks on the front and back doors were checked, and checked again to give him peace of mind.

Everything was as it should be. Gabe still couldn't relax.

He called the station and told them to send a car, issuing orders for men to watch his house round the clock. The desk sergeant reassured him no trouble had been reported from the settlement house and that Randy hadn't called anything in from Dora's. Gabe thanked him, grateful everything was quiet.

Everything but his nerves.

The big window in the parlor was covered with lace curtains that did little or nothing to block his view of the backyard. Gabe settled into the big armchair facing the window, a hand wrapped around the pistol resting in his lap. The chair was upholstered in black horsehair, allowing him to fade into the deeper darkness inside the house. No one would see him from the outside if he stayed still.

A few minutes later, Mai hopped onto the arm of the chair to face the window as well, ears up and swiveling to catch every sound. Anyone who saw them would think the small gray cat was only keeping him company, but Gabe knew better.