When I opened my eyes, I could tell from the weak light slanting through the window that I had in fact not been sleeping for hours and hours. Maybe three at the most. I closed them again.
I felt Nika move closer, and then she used her fingers to pry open one of my eyelids. “I know you are in there,” she said. “Don’t go back to sleep. Did you meet a husband last night?” I opened the other eye. She was inches from my face. If Nika was in my room, then her twin, Sophie, had to be there as well, and sure enough, when I looked at the end of the bed, I saw her.
“Polina says she has a potion you can use if you find one you want to catch,” Sophie said. “You sneak it into his tea. Her babushka makes it out of boiled frog legs. She’s going to teach me how to make it next time we go to the country. We’ll get you a husband in no time. And maybe if he likes cats, he’ll give you a kitten and we’ll take care of it for you.”
I ignored the part about the kitten. The twins were always begging for one, but Papa didn’t like cats. No, it was more than that. He had a strange horror of them. No cats for us. I reached out and tickled Nika. “Why do I want a husband?” I said over her laughter.
“So you’ll have someone to give you presents. Like kittens. Polina says that’s what husbands do. And they kiss your hands all the time.” Nika looked down at her own hands. “I don’t know why girls like that, though.”
“Why are your hands orange?” I asked her.
Nika giggled and covered her mouth. I knew that gesture. It boded no good and made me realize something else was not right about her.
The early morning sunlight seemed to have added an odd orangish tint to both girls’ blond curls. But it was an unnatural shade of orange, more like the color of the fruit.
I sat up, trying to keep my wits about me. If I made too much of a fuss about what they had done, they were sure to do it again. They delighted in being naughty.
Reaching out, I touched one of Nika’s curls. “What a lovely shade! It looks like the orange from the paint box.”
She nodded her head, grinning. “Sophie helped me dip my hair in orange paint water, and I dipped hers.”
Of course they had. “Oh, I see. Where was Polina when this was happening?” Polina was their nursemaid. I didn’t know why the poor girl hadn’t quit long ago, but I was happy she had stuck it out so far. I’d have been pulling my hair out without her.
Nika wrapped a curl around her finger. “She was very tired last night, so we said we were tired too, but we really weren’t.”
“So after she fell asleep, you did this?” At least the paint was from a watercolor set. I assumed it would wash out. I didn’t know how they’d managed to get the color so vivid. I probably didn’t want to know.
They both nodded. An orange feather fell out of Sophie’s hair. I noticed two more at the end of the bed. I picked up one of them. “Feathers, too?”
“Yes!” Nika jumped off the bed and ran around the room flapping her arms. “We’re firebirds, but we need you to help us stick the feathers to us. Polina says we can’t use paste unless she’s there too.”
I got out of bed and put on a wrap. “I suppose she didn’t say the same about the paints.”
They both shook their heads. “She never said anything about paints.”
I sighed. No one could think of everything to tell the twins not to do.
Sophie climbed onto the bed and jumped up and down. “Once we have all the feathers stuck on, we’ll be able to fly too!”
My heart skipped a beat. “No, no. That’s not the way it works. People can’t fly, even with feathers. Promise me you won’t try. Promise!” I had a horrid vision of them leaping out a window without a second thought. Neither of the twins had any concept of second thoughts.
Nika gave a very loud sigh.
“Promise,” I said again.
I saw Sophie give a slight nod of her head to Nika. “We promise,” Nika said. “At least will you paste the feathers on us? We have a lot of them.”
A lot. That could mean anything from ten to a thousand. How many pillows had given up their innards? “Show me.”
It turned out there were less than a thousand but still a considerable number of feathers drying in the schoolroom. Polina was both mortified and angry the twins had tricked her. I left her to scold them about wasting good feather pillows.
Before I went downstairs, I checked to see if I had enough money to pay for the supplies coming in from the country. The hospital was very low on food, so I hoped Ivan, the man making the delivery, wouldn’t be delayed or his sleigh stopped and searched.
I grabbed my Latin book and went downstairs, intending to get in a little studying while I waited for Ivan. Archer, Papa’s English butler, was consulting with Osip, the footman, in the hallway.
“How is my stepfather this morning?” I asked Archer.
Archer gave me his usual look of disapproval, which on his skull-like features was not all that much different from his normal appearance, except for a tightening of his mouth and a furrowing of his almost nonexistent eyebrows. “He’s fine, Miss Charlotte. He’s already breakfasted and is working in the library on the memoir.”
The memoir took up a large part of Papa’s day, given that he intended to record every detail of every day of his military career. I was glad he had something to occupy him. If he ever finished the book, I had no idea how he’d spend his time.
I went into the breakfast room to get some tea, settling down in a spot where I could look out the window at the frozen Neva and the sky above the broad river. I never grew tired of the view; it was like my own ever-changing watercolor.
The street along the quay was crowded with sleighs, their bells jingling so loudly I could hear them through the window as I opened the textbook. When we’d first arrived in the city, back when it was still called St. Petersburg, I’d loved the sound of all the bells, and it made me believe my mother’s words about our new home. She had tried hard to convince us we would be as happy there as we had been in Paris, where we’d lived after my father died and during my mother’s disastrous second marriage.
It’s like something out of a storybook, she’d told us. Built by giants who wanted a beautiful city with buildings that looked like a pastry chef made them. And in the winter, it’s a wonder of glittering snow and gold domes and air so crisp, you’ll feel the most alive you’ve ever felt.
She’d been right. I couldn’t imagine living in any other city. I never wanted to live anywhere else. And once I became a doctor and opened a practice, other people would realize I meant to stay.
I opened my book and started memorizing verbs. I hadn’t been at it for very long when I noticed the room getting darker. I looked out to see the sky turning to the color of an opal as the sun disappeared and snow began to fall. It fell heavier and heavier, floating down in big flakes. It reminded me of the times we had spent at Papa’s dacha in the country, riding the horses, hiking through the birch woods, building fires to roast potatoes, and no matter what we did, we laughed, so much laughing.
I told myself we’d do that again, as soon as the war was over. I wasn’t going to let it be just a memory. When the war was over, we could go back to the way things were before. Raisa’s push for me to leave still stung. A person didn’t have to be born in a place to make that place their home.