the dead machinery scattered about the room.
A favorite rock she had collected once, as a child.
Her first diary entry, written in Novosibirsk.
Her last publication in Letters from Novosibirsk.
A bright morning being used for nothing but a walk with Kolya.
A summer evening being used for self-pity.
A ring she wore for no reason at all.
A diamond freshly dug from Earth’s deepest grave: uncut, unrubbed, unsold, unknown to economies.
Her mother’s cabbage soup.
Her Aunt Brigitte’s methodical and tasteless Christmas dinners.
Yin and yang.
The moment between dream and forgetfulness, night and dawn.
That moment burning now, irretrievably, inside her.
The hologram light slowly dimming and Omar coming back into the room.
“Elsa?”
“Yes?”
“What are you doing, love?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Yes. Nothing. It’s quite wonderful. You should try it sometime.”
“I think I have a lead on where to find K—”
“I’m not finished just yet. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
“I see.”
“And by the way,” she never looked at him, “Kolya is safe.”
26.
“How did you know?” asked Omar.
“What?” she answered, looking up at him with that new innocence.
“That Kolya was safe. Why did you tell me that?”
She maintained her walking pace, allowing for a breath or two, and said:
“I read it in the hologram. And I believed it then.”
“Now?”
“Now—I’m not sure. I—” She couldn’t finish. There was nothing more she could say.
The air of formality Todd wore clued in the others that they could not just drop by (a rare occurrence in Novosibirsk anyway) but must heed an invitation from him, preferably with some lead time.
Walidah, being new to the village and somewhat forward anyway, found herself entranced before Todd’s painted doorway. She had to get to know the artist better. She knocked ten times, loudly and rapidly:
“Is anyone in there? Hello!”
Todd was busy sipping a currant brandy and nibbling on chocolate truffles.
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. KNOCK.
The magical door opened. A spot of chocolate marked Todd’s chin. He was not what she expected to see.
They exchanged surprised looks and Walidah coddled her way in, carefully noting every detail of Todd’s cottage house, and trying to connect them with his lineage (Scotch-Dutch, she suspected).
“What a place. And you’re alone?”
“Usually.” He raised his brow. She didn’t take her eyes off him.
“What do you mean?”
“Well…”
Her brow topped his. But they neither waited nor played games any longer: Kolya introduced his airship imitation from the next room. Walidah jumped—
“Who—aha!” She was quick. “I think I know your little room mate.” A little shiver ran through her. “I hope you’re not—would you?” The glare in her eyes intensified.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Todd stated. “But I will tell you this: that boy has royal blood in him. He is the first king of the Age, and he begins his rule right here in Novosibirsk.” He paused, neither waiting for nor eliciting a response from her. “I am his guardian and benefactor, self-appointed by necessity, until he is able to assume his full duties and responsibilities.”
“What kind of responsibilities? Where are you from, anyway?”
“That is no longer important. However, the king’s responsibilities will be, of course, to reintroduce the natural order of beauty to human society.”
The key phrase, “natural order,” struck a deep note in Walidah. Todd sensed her impending approval, and led her into Kolya’s room.
Alexei rarely used his power to devious, or unnatural, ends; he would rather let the living find their own way than guide them through their folly. But sensing Kolya’s unmitigated future in Todd’s hands, he felt he must act. Whether or not Alexei agreed with Todd’s plan, he would rather not see little king Kolya being used as a pawn .
And so, asking the forgiveness of all his ancestors, Alexei inflicted little Kolya with such a mean-spirited virus that when Todd and Walidah found him he was curled up on his throne, burning like the sun.
Todd immediately sensed his dilemma: whether or not to get help. His concern was first of all for their mission, for Kolya the emblem and not Kolya the child. Walidah, on the other hand, wondered whether or not the boy’s genetic constitution would pull him through. She would wait to see how far the illness progressed before deciding how to find him assistance.
The inklings Alexei was getting from these two were enough for him to deem them ethical morons. At the least they made him speed up his mission. As they postured in the drawing room he began opening the lines of communication to the deep-dreaming Kolya.
“It’s the old man, little one. You’ve been looking and waiting for me again, but you haven’t found me. I won’t be coming to your Novosibirsk. I am staying in Vydrino, the place where I was born—and died. Look hard into your little soul, dear Kolya, and you will see Vydrino. It has been there all along. Do you see it? If you can see Vydrino, then you will find me…”
Kolya awoke from his dream-delirium and walked to Todd’s room. He deposited his crown at the foot of Todd’s bed, climbed through a window to the spring-scented air, and was never seen again.
27.
Elsa sat before her dresser mirror and squinted to see whether her new haircut suited her.
It had been seven years since Kolya left her. She and Omar were married now, with two other children, whom they call Fatima and Søren. Several other children had also appeared in Novosibirsk, as well as a playground and day school: they had become a regular part of life in that town.
Elsa loved her children, but secretly she still coveted those moments when that young, timeless angel would come to visit her dresser mirror or teacup. That child’s face was more beautiful to her than the most perfect day, more meaningful than heaven, more soothing to her than Omar’s hand. She remembered the child: he had been there before Kolya, and he was Kolya. And now the child would return to her, as though nothing had happened. Elsa understood this now; it was a beautiful secret she kept locked in her heart.
Todd and Walidah had also married, joining royal lineages from two of the primary races; for Walidah, having picked around the geneology charts long enough, had found ample concrete blood in both of them to support the idea of their union, and eventual procreation. (This “eventual,” however, stuck like a bone in her throat, for they had still not conceived after six years together.) In the meantime, they were never without redecorating projects and dinner parties, held to foster royal etiquette.
An open market now flourished in Novosibirsk, and Karyne could be seen there twice weekly chatting vociferously with newcomers about the flow that should be achieved in their dress. She had become a dressmaker, though Nura and Zofiya often walked by her stall and referred to her as “the spinster” among themselves.
Yes—Nura, Zofiya, Alexei and all the ghosts of Vydrino now roamed freely among the current inhabitants of Novosibirsk, for no one would recognize them anyway, the town having swelled to a population of nearly seven hundred. The revitalized atmosphere of the town allowed them to move comfortably among the living again:
“Listen, Nura, I’ve been composing a letter of my own for that old scrapbook, Letters from Novosibirsk.”
“But, Zofiya, they aren’t publishing it any longer. Have you lost your old sense of Earth-time to such an extent that—”
“They, they, they. What on Earth are we, we, we then, my dear Nura? We are they. And so I will broadcast my letter, just as I intend. It should begin
falling sometime within the next Earth-hour.”
“I see. An original idea, Zofiya.”
“You aren’t the only inhabitant, alive or dead, with originality, Nura.”
“I never said—”
“Hush, girlfriend. Look thoroughly contemporary and stupid.”
Long laughter trailed from their path.
Long letters came falling from the sky in Novosibirsk, and nobody bothered to read them. They were white letters, curled white papers like bleached wood shavings, falling in long arcs, back and forth, back and forth.
Karyne pushed them off her boxes of neatly folded suits; Elsa felt them crunch underfoot as evenly as snow. Omar brushed one off his coat. Orlin swept them into little piles and incinerated their tiny words, along with other bits of street trash.
Did this mean they’d all gone illiterate? Not really. But few of the town’s inhabitants felt the need to grab at floating pieces of literature, especially those falling into their faces and obstructing their lives. The new citizens of Novosibirsk read, yes, but only on their own terms, when the world was quiet, commerce had ended, loved ones were asleep, and the words of the past rose like phantoms before them, instead of annoying little pinpricks. And when they read, they read great volumes of poetry, fiction, essays that took a stand and followed it through. There were no periodicals to be found. Funny, it just turned out that way. When newcomers brought along a newspaper or picture magazine, the residents watched it fade under the Siberian sun, or kept it by the door as a mat for their boots.
And the very last issue of Letters from Novosibirsk sat on the bookshelves of thousands around the globe, like an ancient beacon run out of lamp oil, its messages nearly