Anastasia Forever (7 page)

“Anne,” Ethan says. He sits down on the side of my bed. I shove him off and he hits the floor with a thud.

“Don't say a word,” I tell him from under the covers while the Ethan in my head strokes the girl's hair. “Unless it's a suggestion about how we get this to stop. Because I am completely grossed out right now.”

“Tasha,” he says. And then I remember. Tasha. The girl he told me about. The one he'd loved. The Russian girl living in London who he left when she realized that he wasn't aging. That month after month while she got older, he was staying the same.

I peek out from under the comforter. The Ethan in my head kisses Tasha again. “
I
love
you
,” he tells her.

Three words that neither of us has spoken to the other. Will we? Do we? Hard to say when I'm stuck in a brain loop watching him make out with someone else.

“Am I causing this?” I ask him, trying to look just at him and not at the images in my head but failing miserably. “Is it us together? Something else?”

Ethan's forehead wrinkles. Maybe that's why we're together—both clueless. Things finally get romantic between us, and suddenly he's sucking face with another girl in my head—and neither of us can figure out why.

“
I
have
a
surprise
,” Head Ethan tells Tasha. Her eyes widen and she smiles at him
.
“
I'm taking you to the ballet. A friend of mine gave me the tickets.
”

“
Friend?
” She smiles again, but I see true curiosity in her eyes
. “You've never introduced me to your friends. I'd love to meet them.
”

“
Not
them
,” he tells her. “
Just
one. His name is Viktor.
”

“
Is
this
Viktor
as
mysterious
as
you?
” Dark-haired Tasha laughs. “
Because
you
are
still
quite
the
mystery, my darling.
”

“Darling? She called you darling?” Comforter wrapped around me, I slide out of bed again. I step to face Ethan as if somehow closing the distance will stop the vision. It doesn't. Even in the darkened room, I can see him blush, a hint of red that spreads up his neck to his jaw.

“We were in love.”

I nod like I get it, which basically I do. In my head, after all, it's still the Jazz Age. It's not like he was cheating on me with her.

“
You'll have to judge for yourself
,” Head Ethan tells Tasha. “
At the ballet.
”

“
I will indeed
,” Tasha tells him. “
But I'm certain I'll adore him. He's a chum of yours. I trust he'll be quite wonderful.
”

Wow. She is
so
going to be disappointed.

My Ethan places a hand on my arm. His eyes are distant, like he's trying to remember something. “Is that how it was?”

“I don't know,” I snark. “You were there, not me.”

The Ethan in my head smiles at Tasha. But I can see that he looks a little uncertain. So possibly he wasn't totally in the dark about Viktor. Or maybe that Ethan wanted to keep the Tasha thing a secret. I look over at him to confirm any of these ideas, but he's still lost in what we're seeing.

“
It's
Giselle,” past Ethan says. “
Not
as
good
as
the
Bolshoi
version, I suppose, but I think you will enjoy it.
”

Tasha laughs. “
We're in London, Ethan. Not Moscow. This is why we talk in English, no? To, what is the word? Adjust. We'll have to manage. I like it here. The English are not Russians. They take their tea with milk, and their language—it doesn't have quite the passion we are used to, yes? But I can play Rachmaninoff and Liszt and Chopin, and I can teach. It is not so good in Russia anymore. Not since the Revolution. You know it. I know it. And I would imagine your friend Viktor knows it too. He is Russian too, yes? You have not said. But he must be, if he wants to join us.
Giselle
is
so
delightfully
tragic.
”

“Da.
Yes. He is one of us. An acquaintance.
” He kisses her on the forehead again, and it feels weird to watch them together like it's real time even though it's totally in the past. His lips press against her skin, and my own forehead tingles in response. Is that even possible? How can I feel what she's feeling when she's not exactly real?

Tasha smiles at her version of Ethan. “
This
is
what
you
always
do, dearest, isn't it? You distract me with kisses when I want to get serious. But you—you are always serious underneath, yes? Something sad, I think. Something you want to say but never do. So this Viktor—did you know him back home?
”

Tasha waits for her Ethan to answer the question while my Ethan and I stand eyeball to eyeball, linked to this memory or vision or whatever it is of the past. His past. Tasha's past. A past that I'm suddenly feeling like it's my own.

Tasha's Ethan nods and looks sort of miserable, which makes total sense since he's explained to me that he never did tell her. He had this huge secret—about being immortal and having pledged to save Anastasia and being part of Viktor's secret Brotherhood—that he didn't ever share with her. How would I feel about that, I wonder? I think I know Ethan. But do I? Has he changed since then? If he had that moment to do over, would he react the same way? Or would he still keep his secrets?

“
A
family
friend
,” Tasha's Ethan says. “
I've known him since I was a boy.
”

“
Ah
,” Tasha says. “
Well, then. I know I will adore him. And he can tell me stories about you.
” She laughs again and smiles broadly. Her teeth are straight and even. She looks stunning and perfect in a way that I've never been and probably never will be. “
I
would
imagine
that
you
were
a
lovely
little
boy. So serious and earnest.
”

She grins when Ethan in the past looks sort of embarrassed. “
See? I am right, am I not? My earnest young man
.”

Both Ethans—the one in my room and the one in my head—look uncomfortable.

“Is this how you remember it?” I ask my Ethan as I try to get the vision to go away. It's like whispering to someone at the movies. The images and sounds keep playing in the background.

Ethan shrugs. “Maybe. I don't know. It was a long time ago.”

That's not enough of an answer, and I think we both know it. Ethan in my head hooks his arm with Tasha's, and like when he'd kissed her, my own arm feels the pressure of his muscles—a phantom arm pressed against mine.

And as he moves with her, the shift happens. Not quick and dizzying like what happened when Tess and I were sucked into the Russian past. This time the change is more gradual.

“Do you feel that,” I begin. “Ethan. Do you—”

“Yes. Are you—”

This is all we manage. Two half-completed sentences. Two half-completed thoughts.

One final thought comes to me: if I'm going somewhere, I'm not going in my bare feet.

“Shoes!” I say and shove my feet into the only thing available—a pair of rhinestone-studded flip-flops that Tess gave me for my birthday.

Ethan stumbles into his sandals and grips me tightly. I link my arms around his neck.

We're pulled half in and half out of both worlds. For a few strange moments it's like standing on the Continental Divide—one foot in my room, the other in London in Ethan's past. We waver there, and the room shimmers and bends. There's an Ethan holding me and an Ethan in front of me, and I wonder for one brief hysterical second if maybe they'll multiply and there'll be thousands of Ethans in thousands of moments, like one of those fun-house sets of mirrors you see in scary movies.

I try to stop it, and I think Ethan tries to stop it too, but it's like trying to get the wind to stop blowing. I have powerful magic inside me, but still I'm dragged backward. And there's a flash of understanding that maybe I have to do this. That whatever is about to happen in the past with Ethan and his friend Tasha is something I—we—need to witness.

Like before, the world bends and contracts and folds. Nausea rises in my throat. Even this slower pull makes me dizzy, anxious. My room tilts. Or maybe it's me and Ethan tilting.

I blow out a steadying breath. And let what's happening happen.

My science education has been mostly self-taught. I have little knowledge of the time-space continuum. But I know magic when I see it. Even with that, I'm not prepared for how strange it feels to stand here—not in a dream, but in what can only be described as real time—watching myself with Tasha.

Can they see us? They don't seem to. I clear my throat loudly. Next to me, Anne startles. But Tasha and my past self don't react.

“Well, that's good,” Anne whispers. “I mean, I guess so. It's like with me and Tess. All those crazy Cossacks just rode right by us like we weren't even—Wait. That's not exactly right. The Cossacks didn't see us. And your father didn't see us. But for one second, you saw me. I know you did.”

“Well, let's hope that this version of me isn't that observant,” I say.

Anne grins. “Chances are good.”

I frown at her. And decide she's probably right.

“
Come, dearest
,” Tasha says. “
We
don't want to be late. Wouldn't want your friend Viktor thinking ill of us, would we?
”

I watch myself press a kiss to Tasha's forehead, then take her hand. The room is suddenly familiar with its burnished wood floor and shining grand piano in one corner. We're in Tasha's music studio—the small but thriving business that was sustaining her. It sat on the first floor of a building near Trafalgar Square, right below the tiny flat she rented. The room smells exactly as I remember—a heady combination of paper and furniture polish and the cut flowers she insisted on keeping in a crystal vase on the small table near the window. It was her one consistent luxury.

She smiles, then traces one long, graceful finger over his-my lower lip. My own lip feels the touch of her fingertip. Like the room itself, the gesture is familiar. So much comes flooding back that I feel almost paralyzed with it. We had been lovers, Tasha and I. I had slept with women before her, although not many. My Brotherhood vows had slipped away slowly, then quicker as the years began to turn and the Revolution seemed farther away. Always there was my search for Anastasia. But then there had been Tasha. And something inside me had changed.

“Ethan.” Anne's voice pulls me from my thoughts. I focus on her—those luminous brown eyes, auburn hair pulled back, tiny sprinkling of freckles over her nose.
How
long
have
I
been
standing
here, pondering the past?

Anne gestures toward the door. “We need to follow them, right? I mean that's got to be the whole point of this. That and figuring out how to get back to my house before my parents realize I'm gone. Although I guess the other alternative is that they realize you're spending the night. I'm not really sure which would freak them out more.”

With a jolt, I realize that Tasha and the other me have left the studio. Anne and I stand alone in the room, the perfume of the stalks of forsythia in the cut-glass vase filling the air with their scent.

Anne squeezes my hand. “You loved her. It's okay.” But there's wariness in her eyes that I'd rather not be there.

I wrap my free hand over our clasped palms. “I know this is strange. I—”

“Ethan. It's your past. And it might not even be the way it was. We need to remember that, right? Like what Tess and I saw. Maybe we're seeing what was. Maybe we're not. We don't even know why this is happening exactly. So no worries. You loved her. She was your girlfriend. I get it. Lots of people have exes. Except I guess normally the new girlfriend doesn't get quite so up close and personal with the past. Lucky me, huh?”

I let Anne pull me to the door, then stop at the threshold and look back. Memories flood through me. Me leaning over Tasha as she sat at the keyboard. Kissing the back of her neck. Caressing her long hair. Drinking tea with her in the late afternoon. Making love to her as the last of the sun filtered in thin shafts through her bedroom window. And later, leaving her with only a note of apology. But never, ever the truth about who and what I was then.

Love requires truth. Did I love Tasha? I think I did. But not enough. Not in the right ways.

Outside, there's a noise—a car horn and the sound of horse hooves clipping against the pavement. Like me, I think suddenly. Old and new colliding for dominance, both existing in the same space. Even when I'm not magically transported to the past, I'm there anyway, just through my existence.

“Hey,” Anne says quietly. Her cheeks look slightly flushed and it takes a few seconds before she meets my gaze. “Ethan. I know you're thinking about her. But you need to think and walk. We don't want to lose them, right?”

She looks down at herself. “Terrific. My first time in London, and I'm wearing old shorts and tacky flip-flops. Let's hope we stay invisible.”

She rolls her eyes, and in that moment it's Anne who's familiar again and Tasha who's the distant memory. What
was
is not important. Only what is. We need the past to explain the present, to understand how Viktor is once again immortal. And I need to figure out how to save Anne from a fate with Baba Yaga that she absolutely does not deserve. Anne to whom I always owe the truth. Anne who I love in a way that transcends past, present, and future.

•••

We head out. The noise and bustle of London envelops us. Tasha and my past self are still visible about half a block from us, walking at a brisk clip.

We follow them, dodging a family pushing a baby carriage and a cluster of uniformed schoolboys laughing and jostling each other. If they see us, they make no show of it. We seem to be as invisible to them as we were to Tasha and my past self.

Anne points ahead of us. “Look. They're turning.”

We do the same, and as we round the corner, I get my bearings.

“We're not far from the theater,” I tell Anne. “The one where the Royal Ballet performed back then. Assuming that the details of what we're experiencing are accurate to what actually occurred. Actually I don't think it was even called the Royal Ballet then. I think—”

“Doesn't matter, Ethan. Whatever it was, it's where we're going. You guys were meeting Viktor, right? That's the important thing. It's got to be.”

She's right, of course. And once again I'm painfully conscious that many things in my past meant more than I ever understood.

The other Ethan and Tasha step from the crooked sidewalk to cross the crowded boulevard to the other side. My gaze stays on them as I take Anne's hand and we step off the curb. Then she's yanking me back as a carriage pulled by two black horses comes inches from colliding with us. The side of the carriage scrapes against my arm as we scramble out of reach.

Anne huffs out a breath. “Can we try not to get killed?”

We dash the rest of the way without incident. At the opposite curb, Anne comes to a sudden halt, a curious look in her brown eyes.

“If I hadn't pulled you back, would that carriage have hit you? The Cossacks didn't seem to be able to touch Tess and me, but is that really how this works? What if it doesn't? When Tess fell, she hurt herself. What if colliding with the carriage is like that?”

I rub my arm. There's a definite abrasion. And thus a clear risk. I work to keep my tone light. “Don't know,” I say. “So how about I just watch where I'm going? That should work for now.”

Anne narrows her eyes at me, and I know my attempt at humor has fallen flat, but we leave it at that and continue walking.

Is she right? Could I—could she—have been hurt? Somehow we always circle back to the same issue. I can love Anne all I want, but I can't promise to keep her safe. And I despise how that makes me feel. Just as I despised myself for leaving Tasha without ever telling her the truth.

Tasha, who now walks into the theater with me, even as I follow behind her with Anne. Already I can make out the posters advertising the evening's performance of
Giselle
. The ballet troupe was new then, just starting out. But there's a buzz of excitement in the air from the entering patrons—all of whom seem wholly unaware of our presence.

In front of the doors, Anne turns to me, her voice low. “So does any of this feel familiar? Do you remember going with Tasha to meet Viktor? I know it was a long time ago, but you have to remember something. Don't you?”

“Yes and no. It's not as easy you think. Time is a funny thing, Anne. We don't always know that big moments are big. Certain things—like when Anastasia was taken, when her family was murdered—they're unforgettable. But a random moment of a random day that you had no idea wasn't necessarily random? So much else goes on. So many other memories fill the space.”

“Well, start thinking.” She flashes a brief smile. “We're here for a reason, right? But it's your past, Ethan, not mine. I may be sneaking peeks into your head, but you're still the one who knows what's real and what's not.”

We stand at the wooden doors, ballet-goers angling around us and into the theater. Anne's tone hints at an annoyance I haven't felt until now. Something sparks inside me—rises quickly and with a dark intensity I don't consciously summon. Without meaning to, I read her emotions. They rush into my head, a tangle of fear and confusion and, yes, anger. The ease with which her thoughts meld with mine shocks me.

Anne looks at me sharply. Presses a hand to her forehead.

“Hey,” she says, and now it's more than annoyance that I hear. “Don't do that. You're poking around in my head again, aren't you? That is so not fair. Let me make it easy for you. I don't want to be here, but I am. And in case you're wondering, yes, it's totally weird to watch you making out with your old girlfriend. So there it is, okay? You can stop trying to pick it out of my brain.”

“I wasn't—”

“And don't bother apologizing,” Anne says. “If I wasn't in your head too, I probably wouldn't be so pissed right now.”

Oh
.

“Let's do this,” she says.

I open the door. We step inside.