I Was Anastasia

by Ariel Lawhon

If I tell you what happened that night in Ekaterinburg I will have to unwind my memory—all the twisted coils—and lay it in your palm.

So when Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov the Second, tsar of all Russia, is brought back to the Alexander Palace unshaven, in a common carriage, under armed guard, we are nowhere to be seen.

Seven Romanovs. Seven captives.

“Nicholas,” he says, finally, with a curt nod toward my father. Not Tsar. Not Your Majesty. Not even Nikolai. But Nicholas, the barbaric English version of his name. Nicholas the citizen. Nicholas the prisoner.

“You are in a palace that belongs to the Russian people. As of today you and your family are prisoners. You may not leave and you may not speak to anyone from the outside.”

Any who stay longer will be under house arrest with you and your family. They will share whatever fate awaits you.”

“As of three days ago, you are no longer the royal family of Russia. Your only title is that of prisoner.”

She does not care to think what they would do with a woman who claims to be Grand Duchess Anastasia.

Anna is certain, now more than ever, that she cannot stay in Winterstein. Not with the lingering Soviet occupation and the constant threat of discovery and repatriation. It is time to go.

It is time to send word to Prince Frederick. He’s been in Altenburg for several years, waiting out the war like everyone else. He has done so much to help, and she hates to disturb him again, but Anna must find a place where she can disappear forever.

Then she dumps the contents of the dresser drawer into it as well. A photo album. An icon. A chess set. A paper knife. Keepsakes from a former life that she will not leave behind, cards she might yet need to play.

Her meaning is clear so we pick up our needles and get to work. Anyone listening at the door would simply hear Father reading and Mother commending our sewing. They would never guess the truth—that we sit before a warm fire sewing jewels into our corsets as the snow begins to come down in earnest beyond the walls of our little prison.

I won’t look. I can’t look. Because when Alexey starts to bleed he doesn’t stop.

a bold

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. —JOHN F. KENNEDY

Darkness swallows me immediately. And I am glad because it blunts the rise and fall of that bayonet, sparing me every brutal slash of Yakov’s blade. But I am not dead. Not yet. And I do not stay unconscious for long.