A Thousand Pieces of You
Page 47

“Get off my sister!” Katya literally jumps on the man’s back, pounding at him with both fists. It’s as stupid and reckless as anything I could imagine, and yet I’d do the same for Josie.
“Katya, no!” I try to pull her from him, to swing her free so she might escape even if I don’t. But another loyalist soldier catches up to us. His knife finds the traitor’s gut, and the loyalist grabs Katya in his arms as the dead man falls. He begins running with her back toward the train.
She’s safe—as safe as any of us can be right now. Time to run.
I continue in the direction my father ran. At least, I try. The snowfall is thickening moment by moment, obscuring my vision and the tracks of footprints. I’m no longer certain of the right way to go, but I continue on, knowing that even a moment’s hesitation might kill me. Every second, I imagine a bullet finding my head, blossoming red within my skull as I fall.
Distant gunfire pops behind me as I finally stagger into the forest. But the tree branches only block a little of the thick snowfall, and I see no one else—not my dad, not Peter, not any member of my family. And no soldiers at all. I am alone.
What do I do? Nothing in my experience, in any dimension, can guide me here. If I call for help, the wrong person may hear me. If I stay put, the soldiers loyal to Sergei might get to me. But if I run, I might get so lost that I can’t be found by anyone, not even Paul.
Finally I decide to believe that I’ve gone in the right direction. Dad and Peter are surely somewhere close by. If they went deeper into the woods, then that’s what I should do too.
I start walking, half in a daze. Thank God I have my coat; without it, I’d surely be hypothermic already. At home, I refuse to wear fur because I think it’s disgusting, but I’m grateful for its warmth now. Sorry, little sables. I swear this time you gave your life for a good cause.
However, this coat is more decorative than functional. The black toggle closures allow plenty of cold, wet wind to sweep through. I’m wearing slippers, not boots, and by now they’re soaked through; my ankles sting from the chill until they begin to go numb. My fur hat is back in the train car, so the snowflakes fall through the pines into my hair, dampening it.
My teeth start to chatter. My steps become clumsier, and my thinking more confused.
You have to keep going, I tell myself. You have to find Dad. Nothing else matters.
I stumble and catch myself against a tree. The bark crumbles against my palms, but I can hardly feel it. My hands are red and stiff. The gloves are back in the train car, too.
Keep going, I think, though by now I’m walking so slowly that it’s hard to believe I’m making any progress. Keep going.
No Dad. No Firebird. No Theo. No Paul. I don’t know where I am any longer. Who I am. I only know that I’m tired. At least I no longer feel so cold; there’s a strong, seductive warmth rising up within me, telling me that everything’s well, that I can stop now, stop and rest for as long as I want.
Keep going—
I sink to my knees beside one of the larger pines. As I lean my head against the trunk, I tell myself I’m not stopping, not sleeping, only taking a moment to get my strength back.
When I feel myself fall backward, the snow is as soft as a bed beneath me, and I’m not afraid.
I wake to the crackle of fire, cozy and comforting. I’m warm—not the deadly illusion from the forest, but real heat from a real stove.
I feel the softness of a mattress beneath, fur above, and next to me . . .
I open my eyes to see Paul lying by my side.
“My lady?” he whispers, his face alight with sudden hope.
“Where—where are we?”
“A dacha in the woods. A few supplies remained behind, enough for us to use.”
Many Russians keep dachas, small cabins in the countryside where they go in summertime to grow vegetables and swim in the lakes; these houses remain vacant throughout the winter, isolated as they are. As I look around, I can see the simple whitewashed walls, an icon of the Holy Mother, and a small woodstove glowing orange with heat. My wet dress, and Paul’s uniform, hang on hooks on the wall to dry.
Beneath my fur coat and some blankets, Paul and I lie together, wearing hardly more than our underclothes, in the dacha’s simple bed.
He stammers, “I—I meant only to revive you, my lady—”
“Of course.” This is what you’re supposed to do for people with hypothermia: warm them with another person’s body heat. Even if I didn’t know that, I’d understand Paul only wanted to help. I roll over to face him. “Where is my father? My brothers and my sister? The tsar?”
If Paul notices that I refer to the tsar and my father as two separate people, he writes it off as grogginess. “The tsar has survived, my lady, and the Tsarevich Vladimir. As for the others—I do not know. Our forces reclaimed the royal train, of that much I am certain. But I could not long remain, as it was my duty to find you.”
Have I come all this way only to endure my father’s death again? Is he doomed everywhere, a good man destined to be torn apart by the cruelty and greed of others?
If Dad was killed, he died trying to protect Peter. The thought of that little boy lying dead in the snow destroys me almost as much as my fear for my father. And Katya! My little sister turned prizefighter to try to rescue me. Did they cut her down? I can’t bear the idea of her dying for me, for an imposter.
And if my father was killed today—if he was lost in the snow, in the woods—the Firebird is probably gone, and I will never go home again.