As we streamed out of the cathedral some began to sing Christmas songs with unfamiliar rising and falling melodies. The singers’ breath clouded and froze in tiny sparkles. Gradually my headache lessened, leaving a profound exhaustion.
The return trip was not via streetcar. Tania and Theresa fell in on either side of me, each taking an arm to guide me to an enormous sleigh drawn by two heavy horses.
The ride wasn’t long. When we reached the inn, there was warmth and light and the delicious smell of the Christmas day meats slowbraising. The Waleska relatives gathered in the dining room, as Josip and Domnu Waleska brought out trays of wine and red-glowing mulling irons.
As soon as I got rid of my winter gear, I slipped between the chattering Waleska relatives and headed for the stairs, pausing when I sensed a quiet step dogging mine. It was Tania, her expression one of mute question.
I waved for her to join me and continued up to my room, which was blissfully warm and cozy. Tania refused to sit down, so I collapsed on the bed, as she said without preamble, “When I was little I talked to ghosts. Many ghosts. I see them all around, though most are silent and like fog. But my family, they thought I lied, to gain attention.”
I sat up again. “You talked to them?”
She brought her chin down in a single nod.
“But no one believed you?” I began to pull off my boots.
“No one but my sisters. Theresa because she loves the stories about ghosts. Anna because she knew I never lied.”
“But your mother didn’t believe you?”
Tania looked away, a thin shoulder rising. “Mother is very practical. And my aunt, well, she said I made up ghost friends to get attention. It brought shame to the family. So I lied, to make peace. I said that I did not see ghosts, and I was forgiven. This was many years ago, when I was seven or eight, so it is now forgotten, except sometimes in family jokes.”
I grimaced in sympathy. I knew how cruel some jokes could be, even if they were supposedly meant in fun.
“But I learned everything I could about Vrajhus,” Tania continued, “about the magic and the Nasdrafus.”
“Thank you for telling me.” I got up to put my boots away. “My mind is filling with a million questions, but I’ll limit myself to two, and if you don’t want to answer, that’s okay.”
“Ask.”
“First, how do you talk to them, and second, what made you decide to tell me these things?”
“I do not know how I speak to them,” she said, her slender hands open as I reached for the wardrobe door. “It happened more when I was small. Rarely since. No one else could hear them. It was not always about things that made sense to me. As for why I’m telling you this, it is partly because of what you said when you came to the lens maker’s, but also because of this man.” She pointed at the wardrobe.
“What?” I jumped back as if I’d been electrocuted, leaving the wardrobe door ajar. “What man?”
She pointed. “He stands there, with a cigarette.”
I whipped around, but all I saw was the wardrobe door, with its mirror on the outside, and inside the wardrobe my clothes hanging exactly as I’d left them.
“I’ve felt coldness in here,” I said, examining the outside of the wardrobe, then stood on tiptoe to peer upward, as if a ghost crouched like a vulture atop it. “I thought it might be caused by my cousin Ruli.”
“No, this is a man.” Tania’s eyes narrowed. “He wishes to speak to you. But I cannot hear him.”
The air now whiffed of refrigerator, but I could see nothing weird. “What do I do so he will let me see him? Or get him to talk?”
“I don’t know how to explain,” she said. “The Salfmattas have asked. It is the way I see, and hear. But it was easier when I was young. I am told that the young do not see what they expect to see, they can . . .” She made a gesture of sweeping something aside. “. . . make their minds ready.” She raised a hand to hide the tight jaw of a suppressed yawn, and her eyes watered.
I forced back the questions—I’d asked more than my two. Time to let the poor kid gets some rest. “Thank you, Tania. You’ve been a huge help.”
She looked doubtful at that but only wished me good night and left. I shut the door, and—it’s embarrassing to admit this, but I didn’t want to undress. Neither did I want to turn out the light, knowing that the ghost of some guy was hanging around. It was that cigarette. The first thing to mind was that horrible Reithermann, killed by Tony at the Eyrie last summer.
So I hopped into bed still wearing my good dress.
My eyes burned. My body was so tired I felt as if I had been turned to stone. I stared at that wardrobe until my eyelids drifted down, then jerked wide open. It felt like hours had passed, but when I checked my watch, it had been two minutes.
“Oh, to hell with it,” I said, and got out of bed to turn out the light. I saw nothing by the wardrobe—but when I reached to shut the door, which was still ajar, a flicker of movement in the mirror froze me.
There I stood in my good dress, my hair straggling down . . . and behind me, Tony leaned against the bedpost, smiling lazily.
ELEVEN
I WHIRLED AROUND.
No one was there.
So I whirled back and found him reflected in the mirror, but he wasn’t really leaning because I could see the bedpost through him. Also, he wasn’t Tony. His eyes were light brown, the blond hair straggling unkempt along his forehead was short and wavy, not long and curly like Tony’s. The scruffy tunic looked a lot like pictures I’d seen of the general issue field uniform of the German Army after 1915. The shoulder tabs were outlined in red, which indicated Lancers, and the two pips were the insignia of a captain. The uniform was frayed at the turned-back cuffs and much mended.
He held a cigarette. Smoke that I could not smell drifted up from its tip. He had the lazy, crooked smile that belonged to my mother and me, as well as to Tony and Ruli.
I was staring at the ghost of Grandfather Armandros.
I gazed in the mirror at him, trying to meet his eyes, but his face blurred . . . and he was gone. I peered in the mirror then examined the room, rinse and repeat. No sign of him.
“You’re not going to make it easy, are you?” I asked the air.
No answer.
I hung up my good dress, changed into my nightgown, hit the light, and fell into bed.
This time I didn’t waken until the weak winter light filtered through the curtains. It had to be late morning. I’d missed breakfast—but then it was Christmas day.
My first thought was of Grandfather Armandros’s ghost. I glanced into the wardrobe mirror, but he wasn’t there. “Ruli?” I asked, without much hope.
Zip.
“Hey. Anyone on the GhostNet? What’s the deal?”
No answer.
So I thought about that horrible wreath party and, once again, dread tightened my middle. Here I’d come back to Dobrenica, this time not pretending to be anyone. Determined to tell the truth. And what happens? The same crowd who thought I was some kind of con woman seemed to have leaped straight to the assumption that I was part of some murder conspiracy.
Had I just made things worse for Alec?
I had to see him. But how? If all my movements were gossiped about over the entire country . . . and there I was yesterday, knocking at the palace gate in front of God and everybody. He’d said, There’s going to be trouble.
I groaned and threw back the covers.
As soon as I got out of bed, my gaze fell on an envelope that had been slipped below the door, with my name neatly printed on the outside, and the inn’s name and street below. Mail delivery on Christmas? No, there was no stamp.
I tore it open. On a single sheet of heavy paper was written in fountain pen, Meet me at Zorfal at three? A.
Happiness and relief flooded through me.
What time was it? As if in answer, the distant church bells began ringing: noon.
I forced myself through a full set of warm-ups, my muscles twangin
g in mild protest. Overall it felt good, though my mind was well aware that I was going to get trounced if that prospective fencing practice really happened, but . . . oh, well.
The downstairs was full of Waleska relatives, local and visitors, sitting down to the big midday meal. From the loud, cheerful conversation it was apparent that half of them had recently returned from church.
Madam’s voice boomed out, “Mam’zelle! Come, here is a place for you!”
She was beaming with welcome as she ushered me to a place right by the window. Everyone else smiled cheerfully, even proudly. Surely they didn’t think I conspired to murder! I breathed in the heady fumes of mulled wine as Anna, with a triumphant air, brought in pork stew, rolled breads filled with cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground nuts, along with peppered vegetables, and a cake layered with custard.
I could no more refuse any of it than I could reverse the weather. Hoping that this mysterious Zorfal (which sounded like the word for ‘hedge’ in Dobreni) wasn’t a restaurant, I dug in.
Talk flowed around me, people at first self-conscious, sending me looks as if to gauge my reactions. Gradually they forgot about me as I ate and gazed out the window into the snowy street. Like generations of ancestors, I listened for the cathedral bells for the time. At two, I rose to go.
Madam appeared out of nowhere, and said, “You will stay for the tantzias? The dancing?”
“Dancing?”
“We clear the tables at three. We have music and dancing. We thought you might—”
Anna appeared at her mother’s shoulder, her arms laden with a tray full of dirty dishes. “If you would like to join us,” she said, then glanced at her mother.
Madam beamed at me. “Yes! If you will join our dance, and give us more French ballet?”
Anna flushed, looking apologetic.
It would be stupid to get mad at Madam’s efforts to turn me into a show pony. My background might be responsible in part, but the rest was my having danced at Anna’s wedding. “If I get back in time, I will,” I said. “But I have somewhere to be at three.”
“Oh yes. We saw the messenger.” Madam put her forefinger to her chin, and winked at me. “When you return from your important business.”
Anna grimaced slightly, and my ready ire died down. Weird how sharing your irritation makes it bearable.
I went upstairs and got ready, putting on my secondary nice outfit. It was a plain but well cut wool dress of periwinkle blue. Was the color too loud for mourning? I looked at it doubtfully, turning this way and that, trying to see the blue as subdued, then gave up and put the forest green one back on. When I got outside, braced for the ultra-deep freeze, I found a relatively mild day, with feathery high clouds in the sky.
“Zorfal,” I said when I found an inkri.
The streets were largely empty. I hoped my driver, a young guy, was not missing his family or holiday as we jingled and slid across town and over the bridge into the Beverly Hills section of town, where I’d been the night before. Instead of turning left down one of the three or four grand streets lined with linden trees, the inkri kept on going past the fine houses and started downhill to a part of the city I’d never seen.
The houses gave way after one of the many pocket gardens to an older neighborhood of smaller, steep-roofed houses along a street below a spectacular cliff. The street ended in a cul-de-sac on its own cliff. Most of the buildings had shops on the ground floor, judging from the broad windows and the swinging signs outside.
He pulled into a narrow driveway beside a rambling half-timbered, half-stone building with every window lit. People stood outside chatting, or walking to and fro, and I saw a lot of Vigilzhi uniforms. In the back there were cars from six different decades, a bunch of unhooked sleighs, and a hay wagon with a huge shaggy horse munching in a feedbag, apparently oblivious to the cold.
My driver nosed between the wagon and what looked like a leftover World War II German field vehicle of some sort, with additional siding that made it look like a giant, weird kind of camper. The broad stone steps leading down from a door were worn into ovals: this building was old, whatever it was.
I gave the driver a double tip for having to work on a holiday and made my way over the slippery slate stones. To my right several young guys, two of of them in the blue Vigilzhi uniforms, were flirting with some young women. One of the guys slipped and fell on his butt, cussing a blue streak in Russian. The others laughed and made sympathetic noises as I passed.
An enormous shape loomed on the porch, then faded back. Kilber? It was hard to be sure with all that hat and scarf camouflage. Judging by his size, it could be Kilber.
A guy barely out of his teens leaped down the stairs and blushingly approached me. “Will you come this way Mam’zelle?” he asked in terrible French. His shapeless dun coat flapped open, revealing a Vigilzhi uniform beneath.
Inside, the building was timbered and had plaster walls, decorated with very old shop signs. I wondered if the place had been an enormous barn back in the days when everyone drove carriages. There was a central stage, and tiers of tables built along the four walls, clear up under the roof.
The place was hopping with business, but no one disturbed my guide as he led me up some narrow stone stairs to the second level, which was railed in rustic wood carved in knotwork patterns.
He showed me to a little alcove fenced off by old-fashioned screens, a hanging plant overhead obscuring the table from the gallery opposite. It was completely secluded though, from it, we could see the stage below.
Alec rose politely. He wore a dark suit, his handsome face subtly marked with exhaustion. “Merry Christmas,” he said.
“Same to you.” My entire body flashed with warmth, but I took my cue from him and sat down without making any demonstration. “You didn’t send Emilio or a minion to pick me up,” I said.
Alec flicked me a slight smile. “Gave you the chance to refuse. And to avoid public notice.”
True. If I’d gone to Ysvorod House, or to the palace . . . um, like I had yesterday. “Nothing as private as a public spot, eh?” I asked. “Are you able to get around without being noticed?”
“I can. If necessary. But it’s difficult.” Once again I felt the fuel-injected, super-powered chemistry, but with it came tension. I could see it in the taut skin of his forehead, in the line of his shoulder beneath the fine suit coat, in his hands. Though he didn’t make a fist or tap or twitch, light winked, a tiny blue pinpoint, in the cobalt stone of his signet ring. His heartbeat.
On his other hand, the wedding band gleamed in the golden light.
“What is this place?”
“Do you remember the night after the concert in the cathedral, the music we heard?”
“Yes.”
“It was coming from here. In the summer, the car park is a terrace. They hold open air concerts. Ysvorod House is up on the cliff above us.” He jerked his thumb behind him. “Zorfal is usually booked months in advance. But on Christmas Day, any group who wants to play can take the stage, first come first served.”
The young Vigilzhi had reappeared.
“I hope you haven’t eaten yet,” Alec said. “They make an excellent paprika stew.”
“I did eat at the inn, but I’ll have dessert if they’ve got a good one. And I’ll take some of that mulled wine I smell, if you’re having some.”
Alec ordered and the fellow vanished, leaving the tension to close right back in.
When I set out, I couldn’t wait to get right down to important matters, but now that I was face to face with Alec, it was unexpectedly difficult. How about something easy, then? “Outside the door as I arrived, some guy slipped. He was cussing in Russian, but his friends spoke Dobreni, which he switched back to when he got up. I remember you doing that. Cussing in Russian, I mean.” As well as Tony, but let’s leave him out, shall we? “I thought it was an idiosyncrasy.”
“You have to remember that Stalin required that only Russian be spoken in the schools in this part of the world.
Speaking Dobreni was punished. Children were to grow up as happy Soviets. Not to be a happy Soviet was to commit treason.”
“Oh, yes. I’ve read about that.”
“They gave it up by the nineties, but people still have a habit of reserving Russian for invective.”
“Not whimsy, but intent. Okay, I completely missed that.”
Alec gestured in apology. “For the sake of our Russian population, I’ve tried to cure myself of the habit. Most of the time I remember.”
The food and drink appeared then: paprika stew with dumplings, cabbage rolls over hot fisherman’s soup, and rice with ewe-cheese for him. An apple-cinnamon tart kind of thing for me, with a buttery hard sauce over it. Two mugs of mulled wine were also set down, aromatic with spice.
“The duchess last night,” I began. “After she grilled me, I mean. All I heard her talking about was how tough life was without a chef. She didn’t sound like any grieving mother to me.”
Alec closed his hands around his mug. “She’d consider a display of grief vulgar. Unless. . . .” He loosened his grip on the mug and picked up his fork.
Last summer, perhaps because we’d behaved so decorously during my masquerade as Ruli—around everyone except Ruli’s family—we’d gotten into the habit of talking. We’d fallen into a natural rhythm that had become as precious as life to me.
“Unless it suited her purposes?” I said, striving to recover the rhythm. Take it easy, no demands. Didn’t take mysterious powers to see how much stress he was under. “How much contact have you had with the duchess since the accident?”
“None until yesterday.”
“How about the rest of them?”
“Very little. Robert was the first, the day after the accident. He said he’d been at the Eyrie. The staff told me that Magda Stos, Ruli’s personal assistant, had called the von Mecklundburgs’ family doctor to deal with removing Ruli from the wreckage. I endorsed that as soon as I was conscious enough to understand what was going on. When Robert called, he corroborated that decision as well.” Alec paused, his face tight, then said, “Robert didn’t want to try identifying her any more than I did.”