The guards meet us in the road. We’re still thirty feet from the gates, and these guys are excited. I guess they don’t see a lot of action. Today is special, I can tell. They’re going to replay this interaction for years, or so it seems, as Alexei slowly cranks down the dirty window on the driver’s side of the car.
“Zdravstvujtye,” Alexei says.
The guards rattle off something in Russian, the words like a blur I can’t even start to understand, but I nod and smile and try to act like it’s also my mother tongue.
Alexei makes a terse reply, but I tell myself that doesn’t mean much. Everything sounds terse in Russian.
Then one of the guards snaps something, hand outstretched, and I know he’s asking for our papers, our IDs. I know this is the point of no return. I could tell Alexei to turn around. We can still pretend we’re just a couple of kids out for a drive, lost and looking for a thrill.
We can still turn back.
Alexei looks at me, our gazes lock, and I know what this is costing him. I also know he’s not here for himself or his mother. He’s here for me.
The guard grunts something and holds his hand out again, so I nod at Alexei.
Alexei hands him his passport. It’s a black one, but these guys don’t know the significance of that, that Alexei is important, protected. They just look at each other as if they’re not quite sure what to do.
They stop arguing after a minute and just stare at us.
Alexei rattles something off—I’m pretty sure it’s the Russian equivalent of Well, what are you waiting for? But the guards just snicker. One of them leans down, rests an elbow in the open window, and eyes the two of us. When he speaks again, I don’t have to be fluent in Russian to know what he’s saying.
I know exactly what I’m doing as I pull a wad of cash out of my pocket and shove it in the guard’s direction.
He straightens and counts it, smiles as he hands Alexei back his passport, then waves at his friends to let us in.
“Do I want to know how much that just cost us?” Alexei asks under his breath as we drive through the gates.
He doesn’t know that there is no price I wouldn’t pay for answers.
“Did he believe who you were?” I ask.
“He didn’t care.”
Alexei parks, and we start toward the doors. The steps are cold and hard—just like the building. Just like the sky. I don’t even know that this place needs walls. Anyone who lives here probably gave up the will to fight ages ago.
“Gracie?”
It’s only when Alexei speaks that I realize how long I’ve been standing on the threshold. Alexei’s holding the door open, but I haven’t moved a muscle.
“I can go alone,” he tells me. He knows.
“No.” I shake my head. My hands tremble. Then my hands are caught by Alexei. He holds them tight, sandwiching them between both of his, warming my fingers, then bringing them to his lips.
“I have you,” he says.
He should be the one who is shaking. I should be telling him that he doesn’t have to do this. I shouldn’t make him go. Through these doors waits the mother he hasn’t seen in ages. I can’t quite blame him for not wanting to face her. Some things are better left as secrets. Some people are better off as ghosts.
But I smile up and step inside, wait for the slamming of the door, the ominous click.
“Alexei?” I ask.
“Yes?”
“What did they tell you? When your mother went away.”
Alexei puts his hand at my back, urges me forward. “They told me men don’t cry.”
I stop and spin on him. “You were just a kid.”
Blue eyes find mine. “I am Russian.”
When Alexei starts down the hall, I’m by his side. There is no sense in arguing, in telling him that it’s okay to cry. It’s not okay sometimes—I know that. After all, one time I cried so hard and for so long that I ended up in a place like this.
I’m trying not to think about that when a man appears in the doorway in front of us, a smirk across his face.
He wears a gray suit and has a very thin mustache and looks like the villain in an Agatha Christie novel. I half expect him to swing a greatcoat around his shoulders and try to kill us both with a sword he keeps hidden in an umbrella.
I ease closer to Alexei.
“I was told that we had guests,” the man says. I don’t know how he knows that we speak English, and I don’t ask.
Or care.
“We are here to see Karina Volkov,” Alexei says. He doesn’t say my mother.
The man with the mustache looks like he finds this amusing. “I am Viktor Krupin. Welcome to Binevale. I am the director of this facility. It is not often that people drive willingly through our gates.”
“We would not have come were it not important. My mother is Karina Volkov. I need to see her. Please.”
“Oh, I’m afraid we have no patients by that name.” He eyes us skeptically. “And we have no patients who receive guests.”
“I’m her son,” Alexei says. It feels like this admission costs him, like it’s something he’s spent years hiding, even from himself.
Viktor shakes his head. “You will not find your mother here.”
When I look up at Alexei, I can see the truth of those words reflected in his eyes.
Alexei’s mother isn’t here. She is a dream of his that has been dead for a very long time. But the Karina who lives here has answers. It’s that Karina I’m desperate to see.
“This woman.” Alexei takes out a phone and shows Viktor the picture Megan took. It’s cropped, and even through the fence the woman’s face is clear.
“We need to see her,” Alexei says.
But Viktor shakes his head. He lets his gaze slide onto me.
“That is impossible.”
I don’t miss a beat. I just ask, “How much?”
“Excuse me?” Viktor almost succeeds in acting confused.
“How much to speak to the woman in that picture?”
“There is no amount of money that would make such a thing possible.” He sounds smug and indignant, but it’s an act. I can tell.
Alexei must think so, too, because he rattles off a string of Russian that I can’t hope to understand.
Viktor’s gaze narrows. He practically glares. “Nyet.”
Alexei is just opening his mouth to reply when I step forward. “Who is she?” I ask.
Viktor seems confused by the question. “Excuse me?”
“If that woman isn’t Karina Volkov, then who is she?”
There’s a glimmer in Viktor’s eye, as if one of us has finally stumbled upon the right question.
I watch him weigh it, considering. I have no idea what he wants to say, because at just that moment, a woman’s voice asks, “Viktor?” Her accent is thick.
“If you will excuse me,” Viktor says, then turns and goes to her. They whisper low and close. I look at Alexei, but even he can’t understand what’s going on.
I don’t recognize the look on Viktor’s face as he turns back to us. “It seems I was mistaken. If you will come this way …”
I can imagine Megan sitting behind a laptop somewhere, easing her way into whatever ancient system keeps this place running, telling them to let us in.
Alexei must be imagining it, too, because he whispers, “Megan?”
“That’s my bet,” I say as we climb the stairs.
When we reach the second floor, the lights are harsher, the smell of chemicals stronger. The floor beneath us is white-tiled and ancient, and our footsteps echo down the long, cold hall.
When Viktor reaches a pair of heavy doors, we pause. Thick, filthy windows show a blurry outline of life on the other side. Viktor looks through a slot beside the doors and says something in Russian. A few seconds later, they open with an ominous creak. I don’t jump until we’re on the other side and the doors slam shut.
I already know what life is like on this side.
Megan was rig
ht. This place was built like a fortress, but everywhere I look there are signs of decay. Floor tiles are missing and water stains cover the ceiling like a dingy patchwork quilt. There’s cardboard duct-taped over a part of one grimy window.
Somewhere, someone sings a song in Russian. It sounds sad and off-key. Water drips from a pipe, an ominous, rhythmic tick that feels almost like a bomb.
But the thing I notice most—the thing that makes me tremble—is the screaming.
“Gracie?” Alexei asks.
“I’m okay,” I tell him.
He turns, and I know he’s hearing what I’m hearing. I’m pretty sure he’s thinking what I’m thinking.
“I would not blame you if you left. I can ask your questions.”
“No,” I say, and walk on, following Viktor past an empty room. The door is open and the sheets are mussed. Restraints dangle empty from the headboard, waiting for someone to return.
“You are not okay,” Alexei says, taking my shoulders and turning me from the room.
“I am,” I say. “I will be.”
“You don’t have to be strong for me,” he says, and he’s sweet to think it. But he’s wrong. I have to be strong for me. It’s a lesson I learned three years ago. It’s a lesson that someday—just for an hour or two—I’d love to be able to forget.
He takes my hand. “I have you,” he says again.
I look up. Smile.
We have each other.
As we start down the hall again, I admit, “It wasn’t like this. I mean, it was. But nicer. Cleaner,” I say as, in the distance, someone screams.
“It wasn’t like this,” I say, and I know it’s not a lie.
There, I was the one who was screaming.
When we reach the end of the hall, Viktor pauses beside a door, takes a key from his pocket, and turns the lock. He gestures us inside.
There’s no bed in this room. No dresser. Just a table and a few chairs.
“You may wait here,” he says. “I’ll go see that she is escorted to this room.”
He closes the door behind him but doesn’t lock it.
I’m not sure how long we wait. There’s no clock in the room, and the sky is so gray there’s no use tracking the sun.
“Maybe she’s sleeping,” I say. “Or having therapy or something.”
“Do you honestly think this place offers therapy?” he asks.
I don’t, but still I shrug and say, “Well, maybe—”
Alexei gets up so quickly his metal chair crashes to the floor. “We should go.”
“We just got here,” I say.
“We’ve been here for more than an hour. Something isn’t right. We should leave. Now.”
In my mind I know he’s right, but in my heart I can’t bring myself to move.
“Something is wrong, Gracie. This feels wrong. My gut is telling me … Jamie says to trust your gut.”
Mentioning Jamie is a low blow, but it works. I’m turning toward the door when I hear …
“Hello, there.”
There’s a woman in the doorway. I know her from Megan’s photo, but I would never have recognized her as my mother’s old friend. She wears a dirty, threadbare robe over some kind of nightgown. On her feet are army boots. Her hair is dirty and pulled back in a pink plastic headband. But the most surreal thing is the expression on her face. She is smiling, bright and wild. She’s like a child on Christmas morning, getting her first look under the tree.
“They said that I had visitors.” She brings her hands together. “I love visitors!”
Her voice is high, with a singsong lilt. I doubt she’s had a visitor in years, but now isn’t the time to say so, because she’s rushing forward, exclaiming, “I never dreamed it would be you!”
I expect her to hurl herself across the room and into Alexei’s strong arms. I think she’s going to cry big fat tears of joy to finally be back with her only child. But Karina rushes right at me instead.
“I thought I’d never see you again. I …” She eases closer, looks at my face like I’m a painting in a gallery, as if every brushstroke matters. “It’s really you.”
I look at Alexei. Worry grows inside of me but turns to panic when his mother dips into a clumsy curtsy and says, “I am beyond honored, Your Highness.”
I know I’m not crazy. Not really. Dr. Rainier says that I was traumatized, confused. I was hurt in both body and soul by what happened three years ago. And I’ll be better someday. Maybe. I spent years not knowing what was real and what was imagined. Truth and fiction are a spectrum, you see. And I am slowly, surely, trying to crawl back to the other side.
But that’s not true for Karina.
It’s not just the glossy look in her eyes, the vacant smile and messy hair. She’s entrenched on the wrong side of reality. She’s been too deep for too long, and I don’t know that there is any way to get her out.
She’s rising from her shaky curtsy, her smile too bright as she exclaims, “The heir is here! The heir lives!”
“I’m … no!” I exclaim, partly because it isn’t something I like being reminded of. Partly because the last thing I need is for the rest of the world to hear her.
“Amelia—”
“No!” I snap, and grasp her by the arms. “I’m not the heir. Mrs. Volkov—Karina—I am Grace. Grace Blakely. Do you know who I am?”
Alexei’s mother goes silent and still. It’s scary how drastically she changes. She tilts her head, as if studying me. It’s like I’m a noise in a distant room, trying to pull her from a dream.
For a second, she sees me. I can tell by the tilt of her head, the look in her eye. Then her gaze shifts onto Alexei, and the curtain falls again.
“Karina,” I try, but she reaches out for both of my hands, makes me twirl around like we’re a pair of girls playing outside on the first pretty day of the year. But we’re not outside. We’re surrounded by four dirty cinder-block walls and there are bars on the windows. The sky outside is dull and gray.
But Karina doesn’t notice, doesn’t care. She just starts to sing.
“‘Hush, little princess, dead and gone. No one’s gonna know you’re coming home.’”
“Karina, please. I need to ask you about Caroline.”
“‘Hush, little princess, wait and see. No one’s gonna know that you are me!’”
“Karina!” I yell, but it’s like she doesn’t hear me. I risk looking at Alexei. I expect disappointment, maybe fear. But his face is frozen, like he’s incapable of feeling anything anymore as his mother keeps dancing.
“Karina, I need to talk to you, please. We came a long way to talk to you.”
She leans close, as if to share a secret, then sings, “‘Hush, little princess, it’s too late. The truth is locked behind the gates.’”
This stops me. I know this song. My mother used to sing it when I was a little girl. It’s the “Ring-Around-the-Rosy” of Adria—everyone knows it; all the children sing it. It is the chorus of my childhood.
There are lots of different versions with minor changes—different words used here or there. But I have never in my life heard this verse.
I stop and look at Alexei.
“‘Hush, little princess, pretty babe. The sunlight shines where the truth is laid! Hush, little—’”
“Shut up!” Alexei’s shout fills the room, and Karina stops singing. Slowly, she turns to her son, almost like she’s just now realized that he’s here.
She stands up a little taller, smiles a little brighter. “You are very handsome,” she says. Then she turns to me, whispers, “Isn’t he handsome?”
I glance at her son. There’s no denying the truth. “Yes. He is.”
“Is he yours?” Karina asks, and I can’t help myself. I look at Alexei, not quite certain of the answer. I almost miss the tear that falls from the corner of her eye as she says, “I used to have a boy who was handsome.”
Is she thinking about Alexei? About Alexei’s father? There are so many things I want to know, but I feel like a
nswers are precious and Karina will only grant a few.
I’m just getting ready to ask about Alexei when he says, “Do you know her?” and points to me.
The dreamy smile is back. Karina starts to curtsy. “The heir has risen. The heir has returned.”
But before she dips down again, Alexei grabs her arms.
He’s being too rough, and she’s too fragile. Her mind and her body. Alexei has never really known his own strength.
“Do you know her?” he demands. “Did you talk to her mother?”
“Alexei.” I reach for his hands, try to pull his fingers free of his mother’s arms.
“Do you know her?” he asks, and Karina smiles up at him, at me.
“Of course.” She stumbles back as he lets her go. “It’s so good to see you again, Caroline. I have missed you so.”
I didn’t realize that she could move so fast, that she might be so strong. But before I can really process what she’s said, she lunges toward me, pulls me into the world’s most awkward hug.
And somehow I know it’s the first touch of kindness that she’s felt in years. I let myself sink into the hug, trying not to think about how rare they are in a place like this.
“I missed you,” Karina whispers.
“I …” I pull back and glance at Alexei. “I missed you, too. You know, I was trying to remember—when was the last time I saw you?”
Gently, Karina pulls away, like a child trying to keep from having to admit she hasn’t cleaned their room. She goes to one of the grimy windows, looks out at the gray sky and barren land.
Softly, she sings, “‘Hush, little princess …’”
I don’t want to look at Alexei. I don’t want to take the chance that seeing this might break him, too.
“Karina, I need to talk to you about the last time I was here,” I say, but she doesn’t turn.
“‘Hush, little princess …’”
“Karina!” I say, louder, sharper. I need her to turn, to focus, to think. “Karina, do you—”
“That’s peculiar,” she says when she stops singing.
Her gaze is locked on the filthy window, but I’m pretty sure Karina’s looking into the past.
“Posmotri na menya!” Alexei blurts.
His mother turns. Her words are so fast and so frantic that I can’t hope to follow.