Romanov(6)

I would not.

We would be together again.

I snapped the poetry book closed and strode to the case that held Pushkin’s works. My fingers tingled, though I let them hang by my side while I searched with my eyes first. Nothing appeared different about the set of spines, but the bookshelves were deep.

I slipped one book from the shelf, glancing into the dark space behind it. Red and gold paint resisted the shadow. A shimmer of secrets. Of hope. Of adventure.

The Matryoshka doll.

I dipped my fingertips into the shadow.

“You should not be in here unattended.”

My nerves scraped against my skull at the sudden voice, but my body did not react—trained to resist reflexive surprise. Everything within me wanted to snatch my inquiring hand back and pretend I’d seen nothing. Instead, I lifted my head and slipped on a smile. “Is reading so dangerous?” I almost choked on the last word when my gaze landed on the source of the voice.

Soldier.

Stranger.

Bolshevik.

He wasn’t one of the kind guards. This was a man who didn’t know us, didn’t know Papa. He stood stiff in his Bolshevik uniform, sporting the red star badge with a hammer-and-plough emblem in the center. He appeared hardly older than me, though I couldn’t quite make out all his features beneath his budenovka felt cap. The elegant shape of his eyes told me he came from Eastern Russia. Somewhere local, maybe? Old eyes in a young face.

“You must be new.” I tried to sound friendly. Every new soldier—or Bolshevik—was a new mission to show them us and not the revolution’s portrayal of us. But with the departure of half my family, I wasn’t sure I could manage it today.

His gaze went to the shelf. “Find anything interesting?”

I had a feeling he wasn’t talking about books. “I find every book interesting.” I slid the Pushkin volume from the shelf, subtly scooting the Matryoshka doll deeper into the shadows with the tips of my fingers. The Bolshevik didn’t smile, but that wasn’t unusual. Emotions were private—even the fake ones. We Russians weren’t required to share any amount of emotion we didn’t want to.

The Bolshevik passed through the doorway and approached me, stepping into the dim light.

“What’s your name?” I asked to contrast the tense silence.

He stopped a few feet away and held out his hand for the book. I swallowed hard. Had he overheard Papa’s instructions?

I handed him the volume. “Pushkin.”

“Everyone likes Pushkin.” He said it in a way that made me feel as though I was shallow. Average. Common.

We couldn’t have that. “Allow me to make a different recommendation.” I placed a children’s book of fairy tales in his hand. I meant it as a joke, but he glanced at the cover with the same indifference he’d maintained since he stepped into the library.

That was the last of my cordial energy. This Bolshevik might take some time to soften, but I would get through to him. After all, what else was there to do in Tobolsk?

I snatched Pushkin back from him and plopped onto a sofa to read. Hopefully he’d go away, or at least be satisfied that I wasn’t doing anything dangerous. But he stood there, flipping through the book of Russian fairy tales.

“My name is Zash.” He shut the book and returned it to its place on the shelf.

There. Was that so hard? “I’m Nastya.” I knew he knew my name. Up until a year ago, he would have bowed to me. Still, I wanted him to understand I expected no formalities. The first step of getting through to a soldier was to show them I was human and that I did not expect grand duchess treatment.

“I know who you are. I know what your family has done. Do not expect that I will fall for the cheap friendliness with which your father has brainwashed the other soldiers.” He finally left.

I pretended to read. My eyes moved back and forth and I turned pages at a rate equal to my average reading speed, but my mind processed only the terrible itch to retrieve the doll. I focused on that and not the burn beneath my skin that lingered after Zash’s insult to my character—to Papa’s character. That bothered me most.

Zash believed the propaganda about Papa—that Papa was a weak ruler, that he cared not for the people, that he threw parties while peasants starved, that his wife ruled over him. I couldn’t blame Zash—how could he know any different? But it made me that much more desperate to set him and the other Bolsheviks right.

Eventually the candles burned to stubs. I finally returned the Pushkin book to its spot on the shelf. Then I glanced around the room . . . and slipped the Matryoshka doll into my sleeve.





2


A grenade would be safer in the palm of my hand than the Matryoshka doll.

I sat on my bed in my room, staring at the small wooden toy. A regular Matryoshka doll typically held layer upon layer of miniature dolls inside it. Did that mean this doll held layers of spells?

I turned it round and round in my hand, running a thumb over every inch of wood. No seam. Was there no way to open it to inspect the spells inside? Maybe it was filled with spell ink instead. I shook it and the inner layers rattled against each other. I tried to twist it open, but it didn’t give.

This doll was made by Dochkin. Papa instructed me to protect it. He must know what was inside. So I let it be. Despite my nickname of imp, I respected Papa too much to toy with something he claimed might be our family’s salvation. I placed the doll on the shelf across the room that held a display of candles, music boxes, and trinkets.