Romanov

by Nadine Brandes

I watched my diaries burn. Pages curled in on themselves, like spider legs accepting death. My past—my stories—turned to ash and tendrils of smoke. But I would not weep for them. The Bolsheviks could take far more precious things from me. I would not give them my tears.

This first paragraph gives a sense that this person is not going to live for much longer.

I’ve come to really love this name. It’s all my mom’s fault🙈

We understood that being left in the dark was far more despairing than dealing with the weight of dark news.

“The Bolshevik commandant thinks you’ll die. Survive so you can spit in his face.”

Like me, she had been the second youngest. Her own brother had suffered from hemophilia. But hers had died. Mine would not.

The best place to hide an item was on your person. But when you couldn’t manage that, the next best place was to hide it in plain view. People searched there last.

“The bond of our hearts—” she whispered. “—spans miles, memory, and time,” I finished.

Impatience was the grim reaper of all true victories.

We inched away from the station. I could barely breathe. Yurovsky stood on the platform, arms folded, watching our departure. He would notice the lightness of his satchel soon enough. And he would know it was me when he saw his ransacked room. So when the train picked up speed and my window passed him by and his eyes met mine . . . I winked.

We entered through a sentry of guards and then the door. Despite the chill outside, the house brought an immediate stuffiness. It seemed too dark, and I couldn’t place the reason until I passed a window. I couldn’t see out—the glass had been whitewashed.

He didn’t give it to me right away. “You don’t need this, you know.” I never knew how to take compliments, but my face warmed. I slid the fabric from his fingers, our skin brushing briefly. Then I jammed the scarf back onto my head and tried to resurrect my dignity. “I do if I don’t want my head to turn into a sunburned tomato!”

I cleared my throat and stopped the lazy sway of the swing by grabbing the rope. “Thank you . . . Zash.” Then, before he thought I was thanking him for the compliment, I added, “For catching me.” He winked. In that moment I saw nothing else but his wink. Again and again and again, and with each mental repeat my stomach lurched as it had when I fell from the swing.

As we passed through the gates, I caught one soldier muttering to the other, “So this is the end of the Romanov dynasty.” Alexei and I sat like two defiant ghosts, determined to live and prove them wrong.

“Make a spell for the White Army. Join them. Help them . . . fight.” His voice grew weaker, but his gaze remained fixed on hers. She took a deep breath and I feared she would abandon helping him at all. “Tsarevich, if you come back to me healthy and ready to lead . . . then I will fight for you.”

“Let no one ever call you tame!”