Dreaming Anastasia (4 page)

Tuesday, 11:55 am

Anne

What's with your sweater?” Tess asks me, then takes a swig of her bottle of green tea. “Do you know it's crooked?”

I just shake my head. “I so don't want to talk about it,” I say. “Although it's been a big conversation starter, let me tell you.”

Tess squinches up her forehead, shoves a stray strand of blond hair behind her ear, and, when I don't choose to say anything further about the sweater, grabs the plastic fork that's sitting next to her and digs into her salad.

She's got the fork to her mouth when she looks at me again.

“You okay?” she asks. “Honestly, Annie, you're kind of pale. You feeling sick or something? Maybe it's the smell of this cheese.” She pokes her fork at the hunks of feta she's extracted from her salad before my arrival. Tess loves to eat, but she's notoriously picky about what crosses her lips. “'Cause it is seriously stinky.”

“Not sure,” I tell her as I flop down into a chair, unzip my backpack, and pull out my lunch sack. “About me, I mean. Not the cheese.”

An hour of chemistry has come and gone, and now it's lunchtime. I've managed to make my way to the cafeteria, where everyone else seems to be ticking along just like always. Tess has picked all the feta cheese out of the Greek salad her mother has packed for her because it's Tuesday and Tess's mother—who lived in Athens her junior year at Brown because she was a Classics major—makes Greek salads on Tuesday. Our friend Sarah, who's sitting across from me, is alternately texting her boyfriend and sipping a strawberry smoothie.

I, on the other hand, am a mess.

My arm no longer aches, but I'm pretty sure the only other time I've ever felt a buzz like the one that shot up my arm when I bumped into Ethan occurred when I was three and David convinced me to stick a My Little Pony barrette into a light socket.

Only that time wasn't accompanied by a full Technicolor flashback of the girl and the creepy metal-teeth lady from my recurring dream. Or a feeling that everything was about to somehow shift in some way that I wasn't sure was good and I wasn't going to be able to stop it when it came.

Before my brother got sick, whenever something would go wrong, my mother would always tell us, “It will be okay.” No matter what the problem was—the time in Little League baseball that David struck out five games in a row; my unrequited crush on Jared Pierce in the fifth grade; the time I came down with the flu and couldn't go on the seventh-grade trip to Washington, D.C.—she'd smooth her hand over my hair or rub David's back and say, “It will be okay.”

And honestly, it seemed that it always was.

Until David got cancer, that is, and nothing was okay. Then I understood that she'd never really been sure—just hopeful—which is really not the same thing at all.

So now I don't know what to think about what I'm feeling, and I'm suddenly missing my brother with an intensity that actually has tears stinging the backs of my eyes, even though the last thing I plan on doing right now is crying. David, I figure, would know just what to do about this Ethan guy, because that's what older brothers are for. Like I'm certain he'd have pounded the crap out of Adam for plying me with three Jell-O shooters at Emma Hartwell's party last June and then hoping I'd let him take my shirt off which—vodka or no vodka—I
so
wasn't about to let happen.

Although I'm wondering if even David would know how to solve the mystery of a guy who keeps appearing and disappearing and whose touch seems to have the zapping equivalent of a stun gun or something.

“Feta?” Tess has forked up one of the hunks and is sort of waving it in front my nose and then in front of Sarah's.

“Gross,” I tell her, but Sarah grabs the hunk of cheese off the fork and tosses it in the garbage can a few feet away.

“Enough with the stupid cheese,” Sarah says. She flips her cell closed and stuffs it into the pocket of her jeans. “You are so freakin' compulsive sometimes.”

“I just like what I like,” Tess tells her, grinning, and all at once, everything feels normal again.

“You are
so
not going to believe who I saw before chemistry,” I say as I finally dig my turkey sandwich, apple slices, and bottle of water out of my lunch sack.

“Adam?” Sarah guesses. “'Cause actually, I saw you talking to him while I was headed to physics.”

“Well, yeah,” I tell them. “I did see him. But it's not him.”

“Then who?” Tess asks around a mouthful of salad. She pokes her fork into the plastic container, spears up another tiny crumb of feta, and holds it in front of my face.

“Do you have any attention span?” I swat her hand away. “He's here. Ballet guy. I bumped into him—literally, I might add—right there in front of Mrs. Spears's room. I mean like I crashed into him so hard that I dropped my backpack on my foot. And then we both bent down to pick it up and—”

“Stealthy hot guy?” Tess turns to Sarah. “Seriously hot. Wicked—oops, sorry, I know I promised—hot. He's got this hair and these blue eyes that—well, you just have to see him.” She flips back to me. “He's here? At Kennedy? Is he, like, a student? You'd think we'd have noticed or something. What did he say? Did he remember you?”

“What's his name?” Sarah manages to squeeze in the question before Tess can ramble on again.

“Ethan,” I say. “He said he was Ethan Kozninsky. But other than that, he didn't say anything. Which I guess is sort of weird, but I don't think I really gave him any time, because the bell was ringing, and besides, when he bumped into me, it was like—”

“Like what?” Tess interrupts again. “Like you leaped on him right there in the hallway and performed your own special little love ballet?” She grins her evil Tess grin and forks up another bite of salad.

“You are seriously so annoying.” I chug some of my water, then break off a bite of the turkey on whole wheat and pop it into my mouth.

“Oh that's right,” Tess says. “I forgot.” She turns back to Sarah. “Our friend Anne here thinks he's a loser because he has über good posture. So,” she directs this part to me, “was he standing up really straight today?”

“Ha, ha,” I say. I pick off another bite of sandwich—and realize as I chew that, posture aside, I have my own series of unanswered questions about Ethan.

Why was he suddenly here as though he'd dropped out of the sky? Why had he looked at me that way, as if I was the long-lost cousin he'd been looking for or I'd won some super-secret lottery or something? And why was he watching us at the ballet the other day?

Lots of questions, but no answers—especially regarding the electrical buzz, which, because it just sounds so ridiculous, I decide to keep to myself.

I chew another few bites of sandwich. Normally, I'm ravenous, but I guess today is anything but normal.

“I love this,” Sarah says. “I mean, when does something like this ever happen? You see a guy, and suddenly, poof! He's going to your school. It's like a fairy tale or something.”

And then, because I've gotten to lunch late and taken up most of it wondering about mystery-guy Ethan, the bell rings.

“I've gotta bolt.” Tess tosses the remains of her salad into the garbage. “I've been late to pre-calc five times already, and she is so going to write me up if I'm late again. So save it and tell me at dance this afternoon. And if there aren't enough good details, you can make some up before then.”

That said, Tess heads off toward the stairs and Sarah heads off to her sculpture class, because not only is she a dancer but she can create these amazing clay pieces that look like real people.

As for me, I pack up my stuff and start the trek to English class. Then just as I hit the hallway right outside the cafeteria, the buzzing tingle shoots back up my arm like a flame. My hands go icy, the world feels like it's spinning, and I think I might faint. For a few seconds, I have the unmistakable feeling that I'm being watched.

Find her,
says a small voice that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
Come for her.
In front of me, something flickers—a quick flash of light that's gone almost as it catches my eye.

The world stands still again. The warning bell rings, people zoom around me on their way to class, and life at Kennedy High trudges on as always.

This is becoming so weird it's not even funny. Not even a little.

But when I look around me—because some part of me that's not freaking out wonders if he has something to do with it—my new pal, Ethan, is nowhere to be found.

My dearest Olga, Tatiana, and of course, my roommate Maria—

I have begun this journal with our darling Alexei, but it is to you three sisters that I have always told the longings of my heart, and it is to you that I tell the next piece of my tale. For Alexei, my story was about blood, and although blood runs through everything I have to say, it is not that which I will share with you, my sweet, sweet sisters.

I think of you so often, and I wonder if you think of me. Do you remember how headstrong I was? How important it was that I win at card games or my tennis matches, and how we rode our bicycles and raced as fast as we could, daring each other to go faster but not to fall? How I painted silly portraits of each of you and told jokes to make you laugh?

Do you remember, sisters, the life we shared? Our rooms, so filled with color and pictures and all of our little treasures, like the beaded necklaces that Mr. Fabergé so kindly helped us create? Our routines and schedules that were so very important to Papa? Those cold baths we hated that he assured us would build our characters? The dances and the teas and the time when we played charades and I pretended to be Father Grigory, scandalizing the three of you and perhaps even myself, if I am to tell the truth, which I am desperately attempting to do?

But I need to tell you what you do not know. Yes, my darlings, your Anastasia has kept some things from you. I suppose all women have their secrets, and in that sense, I am no exception. Neither, I would imagine, is each of you. Or our dear mother, for that matter. But I have come to believe that some of my secrets are deeper than you might have suspected. And if the entry to Alexei began the tale of a boy who was the other son, then this entry to you continues with the story of that boy grown to manhood.

It is not a love story. Not exactly. Do you remember all the boys you said you loved, Maria? We were always teasing you about your many crushes, weren't we? But I think you might have been surprised to know that I had one of my own, although not in the romantic sense of the word.

So let me say this. He didn't visit often—not after that first time I met him when I was still too young to understand. And as this seems to be a tale within a tale within yet another story, let me tell you another secret first. One that he told me later and made me swear I would never divulge. As our secrets now are just dust, I suppose my promise is of little consequence.

Our father's father, who died the year before Olga was born, did not want Papa to marry Mama. Yes, it is very true. I swear it on my life, such as my life is these days—not what I was, but not what you are either, my dear sisters. To our grandfather, marriage was not something one did for love. Marriage was for power, for alliances, for politics. He wanted Papa to marry someone of French royalty so Russia could strengthen its alliances with France. He did not want Papa to love our mother.

But love, like life and destiny, is a funny thing. Papa loved Mama anyway. Even though she was a Protestant and not Orthodox, and even though she did not know much Russian. He wanted desperately to marry her. And, as you know, soon after our grandfather died, he did, and our family came into being.

But our papa was, I realize now, not always the strongest of men. Certainly, he did not anticipate what was to come in our beloved Russia. But he also did not believe that his father would give in. And so there was a time—before he married Mama—when our papa let himself love someone else. Now, there were rumors that Papa's girlfriend before Mama was a dancer in the Imperial Ballet named Mathilde. And indeed, I think he did court this woman for a time. Maybe he even loved her.

But there was another. I do not know her name or what she looked like, although I would imagine that she had the dark hair and even darker eyes of her son. Her son, who had Papa's chin and Papa's posture and even, I think now, Papa's faith in the impossible—but never Papa's heart.

I know it is not proper for young ladies to speak of such matters. But here is what I know. Unvarnished and plain as the wooden floor beneath me as I write this.

Although Papa waited and waited for a son through the births of each of his four daughters—you, Olga, and then Tatiana, and then Maria, and finally me—the truth is, he already had one. Two years before Papa married Mama, our secret brother was born. It is he I first saw that day in the park when I was five. And it was he who spoke to me again the year I turned ten.

I was walking by Papa's study that day, right after Easter, when I saw him. Right after the Fabergés had made that lovely, new decorative egg for us with all our pictures on it. Alexei was ill again, the three of you were at various lessons, and I was supposed to be practicing the piano, but I was restless that day, and so I had gone wandering.

At first, I thought he did not even see me, because the look on his face was so sad, so serious, that I remember wondering if he was seeing anything at all. But I knew him immediately, even though five years had passed. That handsome, angular face. Those dark eyes that seemed to hold so many secrets.

“Anastasia,” he said to me, just as I was certain we would pass without speaking. “You have become quite a young lady.”

I smiled at him, not sure of what—if anything—I should say next. And it was then that I noticed his clothing: his long brown robe, and the small, wooden cross that hung on a leather string around his neck.

“I am of the Brotherhood now,” he told me. He gestured to what he was wearing, and for the first time, he smiled.

“Like Father Grigory?” I asked him, assuming he would know I was referring to Rasputin.

He made a face at that, which surprised me, even though, as you know, I was never fond of Father Grigory and always felt uncomfortable when he was with us. Like the face you made, Tatiana, when my spaniel, Jimmy, did his business on the floor of your room.

“Not like that, exactly,” he told me. “What I am now is much, much more. That is why I have come back to see your father. That is what I have told him.”

“I am sure he was pleased for you,” I said.

I saw something angry glimmer in those dark, sad eyes of his. “Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps not. It is hard to say.” He thrust his hands into the pockets of his robe as though he wasn't sure what else to do with them. And then he smiled at me again.

“I know a young man whom you would like,” he said abruptly. “But he is not for you. And besides, he is a serious sort. And he is certainly not someone your father would approve of.” He smiled again, but the smile did not reach his eyes. “But then, Anastasia, your father does not approve of me either. If he did, perhaps a fine portrait of me would grace that lovely Fabergé egg sitting in his study.”

He said your and not our, but I think I understood anyway.

“I will tell Papa that he needs to do so,” I said, feeling suddenly very bold.

He laughed and said to me, “So. You are Anastasia the Brave, are you not?”

“Yes,” I told him, and I laughed too because I knew what he meant. It was, after all, one of our mother's favorite stories to read to us. “Yes,” I said again. “Like Vasilisa. I will go into the forest of my father's study and tell him that you are very nice. And if there are any witches in there like Baba Yaga, I will beat them over the head until they are gone.”

Oh, sisters, how clever I thought I was being. But he looked at me very oddly. Like he was seeing me, but also seeing something else. “Be careful, little girl,” he said. “I have met Baba Yaga. And she is not particularly nice. You would not want to get eaten. Although I do thank you for your kind wishes on my behalf.”

And then, sisters, he walked away without another word.

There is yet more to come in this tale, but as I have decided, each piece belongs to one of you, and I must tell it in the order in which it should be told.

Until then, be happy sisters, wherever you are. Remember that we are OTMA: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and your loving,

Anastasia