Candle in the Attic Window(40)
Love,
Olga
From: Olga Feodorovna, Novoarkhangelsk, Alaska
To: Iryna Dvorkin, Saint Petersburg, Russia
March 18, 1844
Dear Iryna,
I am a married woman. What choice did I have? I do so wish you could have come, but I would not wish that terrible voyage on anyone.
Uncle Adolf is happy. He gave an immense banquet afterward. Everywhere I looked, his friends and associates indulged their appetites, both for free victuals and for lewd conversation. Vladimir ignored me save for the occasional leer, though I sat at his right hand.
As the desserts were brought out, Yevgenia crept in and whispered to me that Pavel’s ship had been observed entering our harbour. Curiously, it was not flying the colours of the Empire, but rather, displayed a standard of brilliant blue. Pavel has returned for me.
I have dispatched Yevgenia to locate Pavel and tell him all that has transpired, including the sore truth that that he is mere hours too late. If he will still see me, she will bring him to my rooms. We have much to discuss, certainly.
I am in my rooms now, Iryna, finishing this letter to you, so that I can entrust it to Yevgenia when she comes. It is hard to say when I might be able to write again and so, I had to inform you of all that has happened today. You have always been so kind and understanding.
Now I hear two sets of footsteps in the corridor outside. My Pavel is coming. I believe I know what I must do.
Love,
Olga
From: Adolf Karlovich Etolin, Governor, Russian American Company
To: Count Sergey Petrovich Volkov, Saint Petersburg, Russia
March 21, 1844
My dearest Count Volkov,
How is life in the State Council? I surely envy you the excitement and intrigue of life at Emperor Nicholas’ court!
I had happily anticipated reporting to you the joyous occasion of my niece Olga’s marriage to the gentleman Vladimir Titov, whom I believe you know. I am afraid that, instead, I must relay a great tragedy.
Though Olga and Vladimir did indeed wed three days ago, misfortune reared its head on their very wedding night. While Vladimir and the rest of our guests celebrated in my great hall, Olga was in her chambers, consorting with a sailor of her acquaintance; the maid admitted to arranging this shameful tryst and it was she who interrupted the serving of the wine with a hysterical account of her discovery.
Both were dead, you see. My little Olga had wrested the sailor’s sabre from him, thrust it through his heart, and then done likewise to herself. It was a horrid scene that chills me yet; Olga was slumped across the mariner’s body with the sabre protruding from her chest. I have no idea of the nature of the dispute between them, though he cannot have reacted well to the news of her marriage. Her motive, regrettably, must remain a mystery, though she had previously harboured an infatuation with the man. It could be said that they finished their lives together after a fashion, as she once wished, but obviously, humour, even black humour, has no place in these circumstances.
As for my own duties, you may report to the Emperor, with all confidence, that his interests in Alaska are being well attended to. We have been living in peace alongside the Koloshi for some time, and that cooperation has led to an unprecedented harvest of seal and otter pelts, whose shipment to Russia is being expedited even as I write this. Though I know I risk my good name by speaking with such optimism, I daresay it will not be long before the Russian American Company shows an actual profit!
Yours,
Adolf Etolin
Desmond Warzel’s curiosity about the Blue Lady of Baranof Castle was stymied by the near-absence of concrete details concerning her legend; he has now graciously rectified this historical oversight. In the past year, his stories have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Redstone Science Fiction and Shelter of Daylight, and more tales are forthcoming in several anthologies. He lives in northwestern Pennsylvania.
The Snow Man
By E. Catherine Tobler
I loved – but those I love are gone;
Had friends – my early friends are fled:
How cheerless feels the heart alone,
When all its former hopes are dead!
Though gay companions o’er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill’
Though pleasure stirs the maddening soul,
The heart – the heart – is lonely still.
— “I Would I Were a Careless Child”, Lord Byron
The dream was always the same, except when it wasn’t.
The season was cold, fog stretching low across every hill and meadow, tucked into the valleys and over the rooftops, and no wind did rise to stir it. Even the sails of the old windmill stood still. Should something move in the gloaming, it would seem odd indeed, for no one ventured out into such weather and the air was, all about us, still.
He would take me by the hand – his own not gloved, fingers twining warm and firm about mine – and lead me through the fog, up the hillock with its dew-wet grasses (faded to amber with the coming of autumn), and into the meadow beyond. The gate would unlatch, the sheep unseen, and we would make our slow and steady way toward the windmill, which rose in dark relief within the clouded air. The bare oak and apple trees made a fringe behind the old mill, only half there in the gloom; he pulled me through thorn bushes which caught at my skirts and tried to hold me back.