Help me, said Ruli’s image.
I looked up at my parents. “Mom. Dad. I think I need to go back.”
“To Los Angeles?” Dad asked.
“To Dobrenica.”
“Whoa.” Mom set her laptop on the coffee table. “Whoa-ho.”
“Look. I’m beginning to wonder if Ruli got into some kind of trouble, and Tony’s family thinks I’m to blame. Then there was that . . . vision? Apparition? Hallucination? Anyway, she begged me to help her.”
Mom tipped her head to one side. “Hey, maybe all that astral plane stuff we talked about in the seventies is true. Ruli sure doesn’t sound like she’s got much in the way of support from that family of hers.”
“Astral planes make as much sense as ghosts.” I sighed, wishing I didn’t have to deal with this stuff while under the influence of megajetlag. “Then there was something Tony said: ‘The cock-up you left behind.’ You guys know I thought I was doing the right thing, for all the right reasons. But if he’s telling the truth, nothing worked out like it was supposed to. So maybe, somehow, my leaving is mixed up with politics, and Ruli’s caught there in the middle.”
Dad grimaced, then coughed, trying to hide it.
“Spit it out, Dad.”
“What if it’s not politics, but personal, Rapunzel? If it’s something like her having had a royal fight with Alec, what if she wants you to trade places with her, like she suggested before you left Dobrenica? Without the hassle of divorce and remarriage?”
That gave me a sickening jolt, especially when I had to admit to myself that deep down (or maybe not all that far down) I wanted just that.
But daydreams and reality seldom match up. When Mom was a baby, Gran broke up with Armandros partly on ideological grounds but partly because she had found out their marriage was fake. Though Gran and I are at either end of Mom’s generation, we are a lot alike. And my mom is more like her dad. I looked at my parents sitting side by side, representing yin-yang perspectives on how relationships worked.
If Alec wanted a divorce, who’s going to stop the acting head of state? Also, it’s not like he doesn’t know where my parents live. If he’d wanted to find me, he could have.
But he hadn’t, because he’s a married man.
“If she wants me to be a stunt double or something, then I come right back here.” I paused, because thinking about Alec always required me to stop and get a grip. “Anyway, this whole vision thing . . . like I said. She asked for my help. Twice. I think I need to go there, find out what trouble she’s in and, if it’s connected to me in any way, I have to fix it.”
Nobody had any argument to make with that. I could see that the apparition thing unsettled the parents nearly as much as it did me.
“Okay,” Mom said finally. “So when do you want to go?”
“Right away. If I can get tickets, first thing in the morning.”
“Do you want to talk to Milo about this?” Mom asked.
I thought about what Dad had said and made a face. “What if Ruli’s thing is personal? No, I really don’t. She came to me on the GhostNet. Let me scope it out myself. Sooner the better.”
“Christmas is four days away.”
“Do you have plans I’d screw up? You couldn’t, since you didn’t even know I was coming.”
“No plans that you’d screw up. Hon, I’m not standing in your way, I’m trying to get my head around it. Okay.” I caught a whiff of Mom’s familiar, comforting patchouli as she reached forward to grab her laptop, her lopsided grin flashing. “One thing I’m real good at now is tickets. I don’t think you know that Milo and I went to Paris in October? I can tell you all about it tomorrow morning. Before I put you on any plane, boat, or train, we’re getting you some winter clothes. I don’t know how successful I’ll be in finding flights what with the snowpocalypse and the holidays, but one way or another you should be out of London by afternoon.”
“You two do that,” Dad said, “and I will heroically postpone my personal geek-fest at the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers and hold the fort here.”
FIVE
MILO DID NOT JOIN US the next morning.
Emilio was also absent. Either he was still asleep, or the poor old guy had been sent on errands, because it was us alone at the magnificent breakfast table, with formal apologies offered by the staff.
“Right. We’re out of here,” Dad said, and as Gran put down her cup, looking worried, he said, “I’ll go scout out a hotel.” He picked up a piece of toast and vanished, leaving Mom and me to bring Gran up to date using our typical mix of French and English.
At the end, Gran said only, “Aurelia Kim, you must remember that in Dobrenica, personal is political.”
“Are you saying I shouldn’t go?”
She gave her head a definite shake, the morning light turning her silver hair to pewter. “Au contraire. I think you should keep your covenant with your cousin Ruli.”
This was my grandmother, who had firmly denied there was any such thing as ghosts. Or visions. Or magic. Until I came back and told her that I’d personally encountered two out of three.
She paused, then patted my hand as she said gently, “You ran away to Oklahoma in part because you could not bear how politics and the personal are inextricably intertwined. You will probably have to address that if you go back to Dobrenica.”
Mom said, “Let’s beat feet.”
Mom had the use of a car, and she’d gotten accustomed to the left-hand driving situation. We crammed in a fast morning of shopping and talking a mile a minute. Too soon it was time to get on the boat to Ostend, as the planes were all booked and overbooked.
At last we stood above the briny-smelling dock and stared at the round-bowed boat riding at anchor in the choppy gray seas under a cloud of mewling gulls. Mom said, “Shall I get you a European prepaid?”
“Cell phones don’t work in Dobrenica, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” Her brow cleared. “But they do have land lines. When I got this English cell phone, I picked an easy number.” She touched her purse. “Remember Dad’s birthday and the license number on your old junkmobile, if you need to call.”
“Got it.”
Mom searched my eyes. “I’m glad you’re trying to do the right thing. But sweetie, if it’s going to hurt you to see Alec, don’t.”
“I don’t plan to go anywhere near him. It’s Ruli who tweeted me on the woo-woo net. Once I know what’s up with her, I’m turning right around and coming back. In and out. See you in a couple days.”
Mom and I hugged, and she took off.
Because of the holidays and the heavy weather, my trip back to Dobrenica turned out to be a lot like my exit, only in reverse, switching between a bunch of different types of conveyance.
I spent most of that journey trying to catch up on the sleep deficit caused by jetlag and my drive from Oklahoma. I was only moderately successful, and it wasn’t until the train began its slow, creaking climb into the mountains that I began to feel human again. As it squeaked and screeched around a tight bend below an ancient crag topped with a mossy ruined fortress, a line from Wordsworth came to mind: The immeasurable height/Of woods decaying, never to be decayed—
Wordsworth. I’d probably read more poetry in the past three months than I had in the previous three years. Alec loved poetry. He’d memorized yards of it. I knew that by following his steps through his favorites I was trying to find him, which is always a danger. Natalie Miller, Alec’s American-born doctor friend, had insisted that Milton’s poem “Lycidas,” Alec’s favorite, held the key to understanding him. I had that poem memorized by now, I had studied it so closely. Yet I could not grasp that key.
Was it because I didn’t understand Dobreni politics? He wasn’t always the elegantly dressed Alec I’d seen everyday as we drove along the Adriatic, or attended Tony’s mother’s high-toned parties while pretending to be Ruli. Late one night, just when I’d finished reading Milo’s WW II journals, we had an unexpected encounter. Alec was dressed i
n jeans and a black sweater, grinning like a boy as he admitted he’d returned from the mountains after “poking around where he had no business being.” He had to have been trying to get near Tony’s castle, to figure out Tony’s plot. That was Dobreni politics—all in the families.
The train climbed above a lacy waterfall, foaming and splashing in terraced ledges. The stationary blasts of waterfalls/And in the narrow rent, at every turn. . . . It seemed a thousand years ago that I’d dived off a bridge into a rushing river, leaving Tony leaning on that bridge and laughing, surrounded by milling sheep. He’d tried to kidnap me as a move in the chess game he was playing with Alec.
Personal and political. Got it, Gran.
When we reached the last little station before the border, the three people left in the train car put away their electronic stuff like it was old habit. A couple hours later, I spotted the Eyrie, Tony’s enormous castle, high on a mountain peak, briefly lit by a slanting ray of bluish-white light until the slow tumble of clouds closed it into sinister silhouette again.
. . .Winds thwarting winds bewildered and forlorn,
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,
Black drizzling crags that spake by the wayside
As if a voice were in them. . . .
I pressed my face to the window, watching the castle slide out of view.
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light . . .
Tumult and darkness. I remembered Ruli mentioning off-handedly that “some say Tony knows the wild folk.” I’d have to ask her what she meant by that, but in the meantime, at least, he was safely in Paris. He and his dueling swords.
A few hours later the train pulled into the Riev station with a screech and great goutings of steam. I gripped my suitcase in one gloved hand and pulled my collar up around my ears. I could see that the air was freezing; clouds of breath came from the people on the narrow concourse.
And I felt self-conscious. Normally, it would seem egomaniacal to worry that I’d be recognized and that word would spread of my arrival. But to the Dobreni I was a granddaughter of the Dsaret princess. I’d paid little attention to this paradigm when I was first here, and with disastrous results. So this time, I’d thought out my approach more carefully.
As the train slowed to a stop, I wrapped my new scarf around the lower half of my face, pulled my new wool cap down to my eyebrows, and hunched into my new coat. I followed the other three people off the train and shouldered through the bitter wind to the cab station, where I was startled to discover, next to the single ancient car, three sleighs pulled by honest-to-Santa, shaggy gray and brown reindeer. Alone of all the beings there, the reindeer seemed to be impervious to the cold. They stood placidly enough, older males tossing heads that looked oddly bald, having recently shed their antlers.
“Waleskas’ inn, please,” I said to the first driver in line.
This was the second thing I’d thought out. I was making a low key, anonymous approach. No driving straight to the palace and asking for an interview. I would scout the territory first and discover the rules for citizens who wanted to talk to Madam Statthalter.
The one hitch in the low key, incognito aspect of my plan was staying at the Waleskas’ inn. There had to be other hostelries, but I resisted the idea of trying to find them. My reasoning was that either I go back to lying about who I am or else risk my name being recognized. The Waleskas would recognize me, but I planned to make that work for me by asking them to keep my presence a secret.
The sleigh hissed and jiggled over the hard-packed snowy streets. Now I understood why the houses all had front doors that were up a few steps, off tiny porches. In winter, there was a whole lot of snow, and it came right up to the doorway.
The inn was exactly as I remembered it, minus the flowering window boxes, and with a blanket of blue-white snow on the slanted roof. The triangular terrace was obscured by heaps of slush piled alongside the steep corner where two streets met, one high, one lower.
The downstairs windows of the inn glowed a warm gold, throwing me back in memory to the wedding of Anna, the oldest of the Waleska girls, when I was last here. Inside, the restaurant was packed. There was a gasp when I entered, and a thin girl with dark braids bustled forward.
It wasn’t high-school-aged Theresa, who’d helped me a lot during the summer, but the middle Waleska sister, Tania, a tall, twig-thin girl. Maybe not a girl anymore, as she must be nineteen or twenty. I was surprised to see Tania in a white apron; when I knew her, she worked for a lens maker.
She halted when she saw me, and stepped back, her face lengthening, almost in horror.
“Tania?” I asked. “Is something wrong?” I looked behind me, to make certain there was no monster ghost, or creepy guy with a gun.
No one.
When I looked back she was breathing easily again, her face flooding with color. Relief.
“Mademoiselle,” she said in her careful French, “it is you. What can we do for you?”
“I’d like to get a room. If you’re not full up.”
Madam appeared, wiping her hands on her apron. She stared at me, took a step back, then smiled broadly.
“Welcome.” No French for her! In Dobreni, she said loudly, “For you, we always have a room. You shall have your old chamber, yes? We make sure it is fresh. And you have the bathroom at the end of the hall, yes?”
I stepped close, turning my back to the busy room. They were quite a contrast—the short, round mother with her triumphant smile, and the tall, thin daughter with the serious face. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m here,” I said. My visit will probably be short.”
Madam pleated her apron, her honest expression going from delight to puzzlement. Tania sent a quick look at her mother, then said, “Of course.”
Madam jerked her head toward the stairs, and Tania fled.
I couldn’t imagine them having to clean the room. The inn was always spotless. I hoped Tania wasn’t throwing some hapless guest out.
As I tried to find some diplomatic way of finding out, Madam chattered away. I learned that the place filled up for Christmas, which fell on a different date from the Russian Orthodox Christmas. Many mountain families came to the city for the holidays as well as for great events.
Madam offered me tea, but I did not want to sit alone and face that crowded room. In any case, there was no use in postponing what I had come all this way to do, and not if I wanted to be gone again before gossip could start a Princess Aurelia’s Granddaughter: the Sequel.
Tania reappeared and took me upstairs to the room I’d had before, at the end of the hall, with windows overlooking the snow-covered terrace. The slanted roofs of the houses on the street below the terrace, last summer slate-colored, were now smoothly blanketed with white.
Tania brought up my suitcase, giving me another of those worried glances. Wary. Then she closed the door, leaving me alone, except for the quiet hiss of a very old radiator below the window.
I took in the familiar room. So weird, how much had changed since I first stayed here.
Traveling light meant it took about two minutes to unpack. In the wardrobe I hung up my carefully chosen clothes—all new, bought at Harrods—and stashed the rest in the two big drawers below. Then I looked around again, feeling this sense of weirdness. I couldn’t tell if it was just being here, or something more dire.
“Stick to the plan, Murray,” I muttered and kicked my empty suitcase next to the wardrobe.
The third stage of my plan, the scouting-the-territory part, meant going to the person I was sure could be trusted not only to fill me in on the latest news and local custom, but also to keep quiet about my presence: Alec’s doctor-midwife friend, Natalie Miller, who had repaired my shoulder when I was shot. She had also filled me in on things.
I wintered up and went downstairs to the street. The late afternoon sun barely cleared the mountain tops, its light weak and watery and gray-blue. Warm golden glows li
t the windows of the well-remembered buildings, so old and charming and distinctively Dobreni. The hot California sun seemed impossibly distant, especially when I slid on mushy snow that was humped over the sidewalks to the edge of the street. Sleigh cabs hissed and jingled down the middle. There were very few wheeled vehicles.
I hadn’t expected the commercial look of American Christmas, but the decorations here seemed exceptionally discreet, in the form of fir wreaths on doors, with a tiny silver or glass star hanging in the center; I remembered that the customs centering around fir trees at Christmas and New Year’s actually came from this part of the world.
It was a relief to know my way around somewhat. It had taken me some time to discover that Riev had a single streetcar line, running up and down Prinz Karl-Rafael Street, the longest and broadest east-west street in the city, starting where the Friday market met from spring through fall, and ending at the top of the mountain, at the traffic circle below the triumphal arch.
Before I entered the post office, I yanked my hat down to my eyebrows and pulled my scarf up to my nose. Then I walked in, changed euros for Dobreni currency, and asked for a few streetcar tokens.
“They are cheaper if you buy them in lots of twenty,” the old woman behind the counter explained.
“Won’t be here that long,” I muttered, hoping the scarf muffled any accent I had.
“You can also use them with the inkri.” She pointed at the window.
It took me a moment to understand the word for the sleigh cab whizzing by, its runners hissing over the snow. Remembering the moment of juggling money with the inkri driver, I nodded, and bought a pack of twenty.
Then I walked one street over and caught the streetcar going past piles and piles of slushy snow. People seemed dour, not surprising considering the weather. Mindful of my wish to stay unnoticed, when Mom took me out to buy winter things, I’d picked out a sturdy coat, hat, and scarf of dull charcoal. They fit right in with all the black hats and scarves I saw around me.
I rode the streetcar all the way to the big traffic circle. When I climbed off, I looked around, a surge of pleasure warming me. This city was as beautiful in winter as it was in summer.