Anastasia Forever (15 page)

She picks up the coffee pitcher, tips it over her mug. Just one small drop falls into her cup. She shakes it. Empty. “Or maybe we can. Maybe Anne can find a way to hide us in this coffeepot. Then if Viktor or crazy witches or mermaids on a vengeance streak come looking, they'll never find us. 'Cause who would think four people could tuck themselves in a coffeepot? We can put it on the shelf in my parents' closet along with Grandpa Bernie's ashes.

“Did I ever tell you that's where Grandpa Bernie is spending eternity? It's totally gross. But the only thing in his will was that he wanted to be cremated. He never said what he wanted done with his ashes. So now he's sitting in between my dad's golf shoes and a jar of pennies. My dad thinks this is just fine. My mother keeps telling him that if she goes first, she wants us to sprinkle her remains in the fountains at the Bellagio in Vegas. She says that she's not sure where her soul is going to end up, but she'd rather it not be in a jar inside a box balanced on top of a box of old Christmas cards.”

“Oh,” I say.
Shit
.

Anne looks at me sharply. “What?”

“Koschei. I think maybe it does mean something.”

Anne angles her gaze. Her eyes flicker with a mixture of curiosity and worry. “So now we're not blowing off the story? What about him? And what does it have to do with Tess's grandpa's urn?”

“Can we go outside?” Tess pleads. “Please? He can tell the story while I breathe some fresh air. Viktor probably has better taste than to attack us at IHOP. The smell from all this syrup is making me want to vom.”

Ethan checks the parking lot and deems it safe for now.

“I will totally not be your friend unless you swear to tell me the stuff you left out,” Tess whispers in my ear as we exit IHOP. “You almost did it with him while stuck in his ex's bod! This is like the best story ever. I want every single detail.”

“Trust me when I say it was not as fun as you think.”

Outside, the sky's getting lighter, red streaks rising over Lake Michigan. There's a heaviness to the air. A storm is coming. Not now, but later. My chest tightens. I don't do well with storms anymore. I'd imagine it's the same for Ethan and Tess. Ben too. I scan the sky. Nothing but some wispy morning clouds, barely visible in the predawn light.

Tess and I perch on the hood of Ethan's car, Ben and Ethan facing us. I'm on alert but also so tired that I think I could curl up right here on top of the car and take a nap. I've got six missed calls from my mom. I haven't answered any of them. But eventually, I'll have to. And I'll go back home. I have no idea what will happen when I do.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Ben and Tess. He smiles at her, and she tucks a curl behind her ear. Tess and Ben. Definitely didn't see that coming. Maybe on some level it's a relief. Enough of a relief that I'm good with them breaking the time-honored rule of “Don't date someone your best friend has gone out with.”

Am I evolved enough to listen to any future love-life details? Maybe.

He rests a hand briefly on her thigh. Maybe not.

Tess flicks Ben's hand away and scoots closer to me. Whispers in my ear again. “Are you good with this? Because you know, if you're not, he'll just have to get over me.”

I squeeze her hand. “We're good,” I whisper back. “Golden. Really.”

Ben folds his arms across himself, his gaze scanning right, left, above us. Like a bodyguard watching for danger. Ben with his military-cut blond hair, wearing faded jeans and a black Smiths'
The World Won't Listen
tee that hugs his muscles in ways I probably shouldn't notice since we're not together anymore. But mostly what I think as I look at it is that when I first started going out with him, Ben had cheery, happy taste in music. A few months with me, and he's joined the angst train. Tess will be a good cure for this. Tess and Ben. Maybe I really am good with that.

Ben catches me checking him out. The slightest of smiles quirks his lips, then he's all business. “So this Koschei. How did he keep from dying? And why do you suddenly think it's so important?”

“It's a tale my mother told us,” Ethan says. “I'm going to tell it like she did. So you hear it exactly like I used to. When I'm done, I'll tell you what I'm thinking. And then you can judge.”

“Fair enough,” Ben says, and then Ethan begins.

“Once there was a powerful magician named Koschei. He was a great sorcerer. The clouds would move in the sky as he directed; the rains would fall where he desired. If he wanted wild mushrooms of a certain type, they would sprout in abundance where his gaze met the ground. If he desired a pretty young girl, he would take her and she would not resist. Just one glance and she was in his thrall. The snows would fall at his whim. The sun would bake the earth if he commanded it to. Grapes would cluster on vines for the fine wine that graced his dining table.

In
summer
he
would
ride
his
horse
through
the
Caucasus
Mountains, and his wild laughter would echo in the canyons. Koschei's legend was great. The villagers feared him. ‘Beware the sorcerer,' people said. ‘He is a tricky one, that Koschei. He can shift shapes and ride into the village in the guise of a wild black stallion or whirl through the air like a thunderstorm.'

If
a
mist
hovered
on
the
ground
or
a
fog
obscured
a
farmer's vision as he walked to his field before the sun was up, people warned that this might be Koschei, taking the shapes of nature. They were awed and afraid. Families would warn their daughters to beware. ‘Koschei might steal you,' they would say. ‘He loves beautiful women. Even your husbands cannot protect you if Koschei desires your company.'

But
there
was
one
thing
that
Koschei
wanted
that
he
could
not
have. Or rather, he could, but even his great powers could not promise it to him forever. Koschei wanted what many have desired but few have ever achieved. He wanted to live forever. And he had found a way, for one cannot die if one's life force is separated from one's body. If when Death comes searching, he finds only the outer shell and not the inner spirit.

Koschei
had
hidden
his
soul
inside
a
needle
in
a
duck's egg, hidden inside a hare, tucked away in a chest, buried under an oak tree that grows on an unknown island in the middle of an unknown ocean. He would remain unassailable and immortal until that egg was found. And if that egg was broken, his soul would return to his body and he could in turn be killed.”

Ethan pauses.

“You Russians are seriously disturbed,” Tess comments. “This was a fairy tale? About some lecherous dude that ended up inside an egg? How much therapy would I need if my mother read me crap like that? But whatever. That story is one of the ones Anne and I were researching before our whole whirlwind ride to Cossack land. In the version we found, someone smacks Koschei in the head with the egg, and Koschei dies. I guess I skimmed the rest of it so fast I missed the soul stuff. So he's not invincible, right? Is that the point? But seriously—what would a kid learn from this? ‘Hey, Ivan, don't shove your soul in an egg 'cause eventually someone will smack you between the eyes?' And what does this have to do with—oh.”

“Oh,” Ben echoes.

“You see what I'm thinking?” Ethan nods like we're all on the same wavelength. Ben nods too.

It takes me a few extra seconds. Possibly because watching Ben and Ethan nod their heads like they're two old friends throws my universe askew. Ben hates Ethan. Ethan isn't much fonder of Ben. And now Ben is going out with Tess, which is weird but okay. My brain is already so full it's no wonder I'm the last one to catch on.

“Viktor is Koschei,” Ethan says. “Or like Koschei. I don't think the distinction matters. My God, everything is finally making sense. When he walked out of Baba Yaga's hut and Lily shot him, he didn't die. And why didn't he die?”

“Because he'd hidden his soul.” My heart thunders in my ears, and my chest feels tight again, like my lungs have forgotten how to work. “Because he found a way to get back what I took away from him when we brought Anastasia out of the forest. He figured out another way to immortality.”

I breathe through my nose, attempting calm. Instead, I almost hyperventilate. “Why is it,” I squeeze the words out of my too-freaked-to-function lungs, “that every time you tell me some new fairy tale, it turns out to be real? You're serious, aren't you? My insane double-great-grandfather has actually found a way to hide his soul. Fabulous.”

Ben massages the side of his neck. I watch his fingers dig, hear his neck crack as he turns it. “Assuming of course, that I haven't joined you guys in some group hallucination—which is still entirely possible as far as I'm concerned—where does someone hide a soul?”

Silence.

“Inside something?” Tess is a fan of the obvious. “I mean that's why my grandpa's ashes in the closet story made you go all
CSI
on us, right? But it would have to be a lot of things, right? Each one hidden inside the other. So you're saying that while Baba Yaga was holding Viktor prisoner, he found this whole pile of things that he stuffed inside each other and she like totally didn't notice? Because I'm thinking that's kind of strange. That witch is wicked observant. I'm not buying that she'd just miss something like that. I mean, the comparison makes sense, but what? While she's got her back turned, he rips his soul out of his body and shoves it in a piece of bread and feeds it to the cat or something?”

Something tickles the back of my brain. I see myself standing in the pounding rain as Anastasia chose not to be saved. As she begged me to send her back to die with her family like she was supposed to. In my memory, we stand in the street as she pulls the doll apart, showing me the smaller dolls tucked inside.
My
mama
told
me
to
hold
on
to
her. No matter what. That if I did not let her go, she would keep me safe. And she has. She has kept all my secrets.
Even
as
I
was
hidden
away
like
this
, she says.

I gasp, a tiny sound in the back of my throat.

“Ethan. That day I had to send Anastasia back. Think. It was the doll that helped me do it, remember? Her matryoshka doll. Like the Vasilisa the Brave story—her mother had given her the doll to keep her safe. Only Anastasia's was one of those Russian nesting dolls.” I pantomime with my hands. “One doll inside the next doll inside the next. Like the Koschei story, see? Anastasia even compared it to herself when she showed it to me. She said it hid her secrets just like she was hidden away.

“And Lily—oh my God, Ethan—Lily mentioned it too. That first time she spoke to me at the pool the day you came back. Right after she told me that Anastasia might not be dead. Not that I believe that part of it, but she talked about the doll. That whole ‘stories within stories, secrets within secrets' thing. All this time, I just tossed it off as Lily nuttiness. But what if it's not? What if she was really giving us a clue?”

“Clue?” Tess chimes in. “I think it's more than a clue. The doll was in Baba Yaga's hut with Anastasia, right? And Viktor was in the same hut. So if he was looking for a place to hide something—spare crumbs, a button, his soul—and there's this doll that has a ready-made hiding place, then why not? I mean the guy's wacked, right? He thinks he's Koschei the Deathless. So if somehow he actually has figured out how to do a Lord Voldemort, Russian fairy tale style, then why not put his soul in the doll?”

“Slavic folklore predates Harry Potter by centuries,” Ben interjects. “Not that I'm an expert, obviously.”

I gape at him. I knew Ben was smart. But I had no idea that he really knew stuff. Lots of stuff. The next time I use someone as a make-out buddy so I can feel normal, I need to talk to him once in a while too.

Ethan's brows furrow. “It makes sense as a metaphor,” he says slowly, “but when Anastasia disappeared, when you sent her back, the doll went with her. So it would have been in the basement in Ekaterinburg with the Romanovs when they were murdered, this time with Anastasia present. Not exactly accessible.”

“This is making my head hurt,” Tess says. “Did he use the doll or didn't he? The doll can't be in two places at once. And neither can he.”

“But what if he could?” Ethan rubs the back of his neck. “Think about our two time-travel events. You and Tess were there watching what happened to my father, but he didn't see you. The Cossacks didn't see you. You say that I did, but it's not how I remember the event. So something changed. Your presence, maybe. The magic and how it works? Something allowed two versions of that reality to exist. Not different by much, not enough to make a difference down the line, but not the same.”

“Or us,” I add. “In London. Until the whole body-meld thing happened, there were basically two of you—the past you and the present you—existing together. If—and it's still a big
if
at this point—Viktor really has hidden his soul to become immortal again, then it's possible he did figure out how to be like Koschei—by somehow placing it in Anastasia's matryoshka doll.”

“So what you're saying is that this is hopeless.” Tess dips her hand in her pocket, extracts a small elastic, and pulls her blond hair into a loose tail. The sun is up now, and I can see purple blotches of exhaustion under her eyes.

She goes on. “Think about all the possible places that doll was over time. And the Tsarina gave it to Anastasia, right? So it existed before then too. So let's just say that somehow, on some bizarre level, you guys are right. Viktor managed to find a way to be with a doll that technically doesn't exist anymore, rip out his soul, and stuff it in there, all without Baba Yaga knowing he's done this. Not that I'm buying it, but let's just say you're right. How do we find that right moment in time? That doll could be anywhere. So now we have to find it, destroy it, free his soul, and make him mortal again. Plus, did you ever think that it might not be just the doll? Maybe the doll is hidden inside something else. Did that ever occur to any of you?”

“Not to mention,” Ben adds helpfully, “that even if by some miraculous turn of events, A: this is all true and B: you accomplish it, then what? It's not like this dude is stupid. Even if you destroy the doll and free his soul, all that means is that he's not invincible anymore. If this is a needle in a haystack, as you seem to think, then even if you succeed, Viktor could be anywhere by then.”

“But he's not,” I say. “Ben's right, Ethan. Viktor doesn't have to stay here. I know he's only been free for a few weeks. Who knows—maybe he's still planning what he wants to do. But he could go back to Russia, head to Europe, go anywhere he wants. Only here he is, stalking Tess and following us. Which makes me ask, ‘Why?'”