Not seeing her host, but knowing that he had intended to retire for the night, she wandered around the flat until she saw the corner of Jerry’s bed not hidden by the screen. She hesitantly poked her head through the privacy screen, saw by the rhythm of his breathing that he slept soundly, then withdrew, and turned back to the wonderful flat around her.
She floated up in the air, moving around the loft, then caught herself. This will not do at all! She shook her head, closed her eyes, and imagined herself on the floor, walking across the room and not floating all willy-nilly through the air. When her feet touched down once again, she smiled, quite pleased with herself. Much better! Where to now? That’s when she saw a foot-tall, electrically-lit jar on Jerry’s desk containing a slowly undulating green liquid. A soundless giggle escaped her lips as she skipped over to examine the strangeness.
Carefully slipping her diaphanous hand through the glass of the jar, Ana slid her fingertips into the heart of the illuminated green fluid. She focused and imagined just her fingertips being a bit more solid and then suddenly there was less light visible through them. She concentrated a bit harder and the slowly rising ooze deflected around the new obstacles, like green magma around rocks. A silent giggle shook her ghostly form, and she willed her fingertips to be transparent, once again. She pulled her hand back, slowly, not wanting to break the odd little lamp.
Another movement on the desk caught her eye. I’m not alone! She turned to examine the one-gallon fish tank and once again saw the beautiful, long-finned, red and purple fish, swimming alone, nibbling at something on the blue gravel that covered the bottom of the little enclosure. A quick glance in Jerry’s direction assured her that he still slept, and a silly, impish grin spread across her face as she closed her eyes and pushed her face through the glass, into the water beyond. When she opened her eyes, the little fish peered out at her from behind his miniature Greek ruins.
She stared back at the little creature, then with a quick flick of his tail, he was out from behind the ruins with his fins flared, ready for a fight. She tried to blow bubbles at him but with no air to blow or solid body to do the blowing, she ended up just making a face at him. Nonplussed at the odd threat, the majestic little fighter swam in her nose and out through her left cheek, quite effectively calling her bluff. She blew him a kiss and left him to his meal.
As she withdrew her face from the tank, a faint reflection of twinkling white lights caught her eye. She spun to find a Christmas tree standing tall in the corner of the flat. The beauty and care in its decoration were quickly apparent. As she walked over to it, she felt more and more solid with each step. And then she could hear her own footsteps. By the time she bent over to peer at her own distorted reflection in a giant red glass ball, Ana was as solid as the world around her.
A gentle poke with her finger sent the ball swinging slowly on its metal hook and she smiled, delighted. She moved from one ornament to another, admiring the delicate glass balls and bells, what appeared to be slender crystal icicles, and tin ornaments similar in style and workmanship to those on her own simple trees over the years. These miniature train engines, soldiers, and sewing machines looked to be antiques, though, not new, like her own.
“Curiouser and curiouser.” Ana’s voice, unheard for so long, was magnified in the darkness of the loft. She spun a pirouette of joy, muffled a giggle with her hand, tossed a wiggle and a wave at the privacy screen, and stopped suddenly. How she had missed it up to now she had no idea, but in one corner was an enormous, black mirror on a stand at waist level. Thinking it extremely odd and highly impractical, she moved around directly in front of it to see what kind of reflection she got in the silly thing.
No! Her dress was riddled with holes and covered in blood! It was all true! In the darkness she thought she was having nightmares, but here was proof that they were memories. She had been murdered. She collapsed into a ball on the floor, her arms wrapped tight around herself, and for the first time since the killing ground of the basement of the cursed Ipatiev House, Anastasia Romanova wept tears of both heartache and fury.
There were no gunshots or bayonet stabs or screams of her family and servants to deafen her here. There wasn’t even Jimmy, her beloved spaniel, his whimpers of confusion and fear cut short by a bullet as the hot, choking gunpowder smoke filled the tiny basement room. True loss finally came home to the young Grand Duchess, and her tears flowed in a torrent, only to fade to nothing as they ran off her face.
Ana let the emotion rip through her and she faded, nearly slipping back into the book, but she held on. Although she drew no air, she took a deep breath and straightened. I am already dead, am I not? Which means that it cannot get any worse. And, if I must be somewhere other than with my family, this place is good. She squinted and dared to look again at her horrific reflection in the strange black mirror. She concentrated on the damage to her dress and imagined the holes being stitched up and the blood blown away by the wind. At first nothing happened, but after a moment she could see a slight change. She concentrated harder, and the holes slowly closed up and the blood stains faded.
With that simple, monumental task achieved, Ana half-smiled, and returned to exploring the flat, though with a bit less bounce in her ghostly step.
JERRY’S MIND FELT like it was wrapped in a huge woolen blanket. Everything was dull and fuzzy as the effects of the painkillers faded and soft morning light begged to be noticed. Between the wine, the scotch, and the meds, his memory of the previous evening was spotty at best. Then a soft female voice in his semi-dream gave him something to focus on. It was a sweet voice, with a British accent and a hint of something else, something Eastern European, maybe. He couldn’t remember any of the station’s staff having such a unique blend of voice so he tried to drift back toward deep slumber to find out who the dream girl was.
“How are we feeling this morning, good sir?”
Jerry’s eyes snapped open. He clumsily blinked off the sleep and found a young woman perched politely on the foot of his bed. He struggled to sit upright, the sheets and blanket confounding him for a moment.
“What the hell?”
She smiled politely, almost regally. “And a pleasant good morning to you, fine sir.”
He blinked, shook his head free of a headache that wasn’t there, and then the memory found him. She was the ghost. “But last night, you couldn’t… you were… but…”
“Now I can. Quite stránno, strange. Anastasia Romanova, at your service.” She made a little curtsy.
Anastasia Romanova? There was a Russian princess in his apartment? Jerry reached for his dark green, terry robe draped over the chair beside the bed. The young Royal turned her head away out of politeness. Although he was wearing pajamas, Jerry still threw on the robe after tossing the covers aside and standing up.