Authors: Amber Belldene
In places, the city looked fresher, full of sparkling windows in bright buildings that had once been dingy and sooty. In other places, Kiev looked worse than ever.
“Is it better now, do you think?” she asked.
His puzzled glance told her she’d been unclear.
“Ukraine. Life here.”
“I don’t know. We’re a country divided. Some people wish to draw close to Russia again, and others lean toward Europe. Too often, they disagree violently.”
“Which side are you on?”
“I try to stay off any side, keep my head down, do my job.”
Of course he did. He would be a fence sitter.
“What about Lisko?”
“Oh, he’s a smooth operator. He’s on both sides at once, though neither knows it. He’s loyal to profits and his own power, and his only ideology is his family name.”
“Whereas, I suppose a guy like you actually believes in justice. You were probably destined for this work--wanted to become an investigator ever since you were a kid, playing cops and robbers, or pretending to solve mysteries.”
“Pretty much.” He leveled a good-natured and gorgeous smile at her. Fortunately, she didn’t go for golden guys like him. Otherwise, the electric hum he stirred inside her could be dangerous.
“My turn?”
She shrugged. “If you want.”
“I’m guessing a girl like you just had to become a dancer. To push yourself to the physical limit, to defy gravity and physiology to be, what, the best? Or maybe because it was the only arena where you were encouraged to hone your sharp edges, rather than blunt them.”
Regular seams in the asphalt of the highway caused the tire wheels to thump, thump, thump, like a slow and thunderous heartbeat, each one emphasizing the failure of her repartee. She wracked her brain but could not compose an appropriately sharp reply.
“How’d I do?” he asked.
You cut way too close to home
,
you presumptuous puppy,
was on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it to say, “What makes you think that?”
“Your nasty slipper, your battered feet, and your perfect thighs.” He didn’t glance away from the road.
That hot, electric energy wafted through her again. “Oh.”
“Also, my mom was a dancer. I understand what goes into that life, and you have it written all over you. Or am I wrong?”
“You know you’re not, but guessing I was a dancer when you’re carrying around my shoe hardly makes you Sherlock Holmes.”
“Guess not.” He chuckled again in that annoyingly self-effacing way. “So why dance?”
“I was better at it than Sonya.”
“Huh.” He nodded as if he were trying not say what a terrible reason that was.
“I know it sounds petty, and it was. Completely. She was older, smart, and sweet, could sew, draw, and paint. She even knit tiny caps for newborns. My fingers were clumsy. I didn’t like to read much…”
It had been so painful to grow up in her shadow, to sense how everyone at school and in the neighborhood had measured her according to Sonya and found her short. How their parents, with the same kindly temperaments as her sister, winced when Anya’s prickly side appeared, liked they’d been sent home from the hospital with the wrong child.
“But dance, it was the one thing I could do better than her.”
“Yeah. Maybe just a little petty.” He held up his finger and thumb as if he pressed a die between them.
She laughed. “Let me finish. It became more than that. It became everything, and for a time, I had a chance at becoming a prima ballerina. But even then my parents always thought it was only about my rivalry with Sonya.”
They hadn’t understood obsession any more than they’d comprehended her tendency to sarcasm, her acerbic comments--all had been labeled flaws with a cluck or a hush or a raised eyebrow. Mama and Papa had never been cruel. They’d simply treated her like an odd and alien creature in their home, keeping her at a slight distance from the intimacy the rest of them shared.
“I’d think you would have had to fall in love with it to get so far. What was your favorite role?”
If he’d expressed sympathy or judgment, she’d have shut down. But the question sounded so casual, almost careless. Just making conversation on a long drive. So she considered it.
She’d been Clara in the Nutcracker, an understudy to Odette in Swan Lake, but Demyan had groomed her to be Giselle. The role had been the most coveted by all the dancers, the part she’d truly craved. This universe, with its fixation on justice and vengeance, also seemed to have a sense of humor, making her a
vila
, just like Giselle. Irony? Fate? Who could say? But she did prefer wind to water, so this role she’d been cast in was far better than being a
rusalka
.
“Odette was my favorite,” she lied. “I was the understudy. I performed in the prima’s place for two matinees. The two best days of my life.”
“So you were a junkie for the applause?”
“Jun-key?”
“Oh, sorry. It’s a bit of English that snuck into usage at the station. A junkie’s a drug addict.”
She’d been deaf to the applause of anyone but Stas, could hear his palms slap together over the sounds of the whole house bursting into cheers.
“Something like that.”
A crisp memory of his darkly sensual smile came to her. He’d been standing in the wings, his gaze piercing, always evaluating her. His black dance shirt open wide and low to reveal the smattering of hair on his lean, muscular chest. He’d been everything a young ballerina could want--an older, experienced man, a skilled dancer whose touch activated all her instincts so that her movements flowed from pure emotion.
And now, also straight from her emotions--the hate and anger building inside--wind like the fiercest storm churned inside her. Fog appeared on the car windows, and Yuchenko flipped on the defroster. By sheer force of will, she kept the energy inside her, ordered it to still, but it fought for freedom like it never had on her riverbank. It was possible, as the chance of finding Stas became real, that she wasn’t in quite as much control of her powers as she’d thought.
* * * *
Sergey couldn’t resist watching her whenever she angled away from him. Even in profile, the lines of her features were dramatic and elegant, and they came alive when she spoke, even in anger, turning her outright beautiful.
She was fascinating, captivating, even when not a drop of that potent siren song sounded in her voice. Those powers of seduction were wasted on him. He’d have found her just as attractive without them.
It would have been amazing to see her on stage. A dancer like that, such a force of personality, her intensity--she would stand out from the other ballerinas even from the highest balconies. All eyes would fixate on her like he was now. She would steal the show.
She fiddled with Gregor’s ring, her ghostly fingers somehow able to hold it, twist and spin it. And maybe it was his stirred-up, freaked-out imagination, but emotions seemed to radiate off her, turning the air inside Lisko’s car cold, then hot, then sultry.
All down the side of his body facing her, he tingled seconds before she actually turned to look at him. The perusal lasted long enough that she must have thought he hadn’t noticed.
“You’re an athlete?” she finally asked.
“Not really, not anymore. Now I just keep fit.”
“But you don’t compete?”
“No.”
“Then why bother? Oh, never mind. I should have known right off. Vanity.”
She’d meant to insult him again, but he only laughed. Vanity had very little to do with it. “I’m a little compulsive. The first time I smoked a cigarette, I knew I was in trouble. If I’d had another, I’d never have been able to quit. Same with alcohol, coffee. Anything habit forming.”
“Except training, which is highly addictive.”
“It is. All those neurotransmitters that bliss you out--the endorphins and stuff.”
“What on earth are neurotransmitters?” Her eyes went wide with wonder. “Do you have a radio in your brain? Is that how those portable telephones work?”
He chuckled. “No. Neurotransmitters are natural chemicals in the brain. As potent as other drugs, but healthy. So that’s the high I allow myself.”
“I see. So you’re an endorphin junkie. And are you addicted to your green juice too?”
“Maybe a little.” He’d actually considered bringing his juicer along on this trip. He was very attached to his beet and carrot concoction in the morning. It was the best thing after a long run, full of iron and antioxidants and complex carbs, if you could get over the whole piss-red-as-blood thing. “You should try it. The chlorophyll has all sorts of health benefits.”
“How delightful. I don’t suppose it can bring a ghost back to life?”
He went tense, furious with the sheer stupidity of his comment. Had he completely forgotten she was dead? “I’m really sorry.”
She leveled a scathing look at him. “That I’m dead? Don’t bother. I quite prefer it. Or did you mean sorry for being such an idiot? I just assumed you can’t help it.”
He would have laughed off the barb, but he was too hung up on what she’d admitted. “You prefer being dead?
“You wouldn’t understand, puppy.”
“But Gregor and Sonya--they all want you to forgive him and live again. Are you telling me you don’t want that?”
How was it possible that such a lively woman as her wouldn’t want to be alive?
“What I want is to find Stas Demyan. Now, would you mind turning on the radio. I tire of your company.”
She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to talk. Not that he could blame her. He gave up trying to be friendly and found a station that played classical music. She closed her eyes and appeared to relax.
It seemed staying close and shutting up was the best he could do for her.
Music. Other than the haunting siren songs of her sister
vilas
, Anya hadn’t heard any since she’d died. The melodies soothed her, carried her mind away on endless dances--soft and graceful ones, not the frenzied adagios of her isolation.
But sleep still evaded her, and after a while, she opened her eyes to take in the scenery.
They drove through verdant pasture after pasture full of Ukrainian gray cattle. What a joy simply to see a new creature after years of observing only deer, rabbits, and squirrels. Then they crested a hill, and a blanket of yellow covered the rolling terrain to the horizon where it met cloudless blue sky. Possibly the most brilliant colors she had ever seen side by side.
“Ah.” The strangled sound escaped her, half sigh, and half exclamation of awe.
“Permission to speak?” Sergey asked, one corner of his mouth lifted in what might have been a mocking smile.
“Fine. If you must.”
“Sunflowers.”
“I can see that for myself.”
“But not how lucky you are that they’re in full bloom. In another few days, they’ll begin to bow their giant heads, going to seed.” He shook his own head, grinning at the fields of flowers. “We’re here at just the right moment. I’ve only seen it like this once before myself.”
She couldn’t help it. Not even she could scowl at acres of sunflowers. A smile stole over her face. He chose just that moment to look at her, and his expression changed to surprise, as if he was seeing her for the first time, which plastered her scowl right back onto her face. Couldn’t have him thinking she was the smiley type.
He shook his head, a wistful grin on his lips. “What happened to you, Anya Truss, to turn you so bitter?”
“I’ve been dead for fifty years and all alone with a river for company. Anyone would go bitter.” Though, she’d been that way before Gregor had unwittingly chased her into the freezing water of a nameless tributary of the Dnieper River.
“I don’t like to be alone,” Yuchenko said. Such a simple confession, made unselfconsciously, like a puppy. Hi there. Pet me. Scratch my neck. Rub my belly.
He was pathetic and needy and juvenile and possibly even more annoyingly earnest than Sonya. But Anya didn’t want to be alone anymore either, ever again.
“Who keeps you company?” she asked, since she had no intention of admitting that.
“My partner. The other detectives, the beat cops.”
“What about family?”
“Just my mom. She lives outside Odessa. I visit when I can. She can be tough to be around, but a guy only has one mom, so I’ll sneak in a visit with her, after we’ve found Demyan.”
“What about a girlfriend?”
“There’s no one special.” Which meant there were a lot of different women keeping him company. And who could blame them? Not that he was her type. He was a little like that happy-go-lucky grocer’s boy who’d adored Sonya, until Anya had come on harder and stronger, had let him put his hands up her shirt, his fingers inside her panties. And then Stas had taken over directing the company, and all other men had disappeared from her awareness like someone had wiped them away with a gum eraser.
“I’m low on petrol.” Yuchenko broke the spell of her memory. “We’re almost to Lyubashivka. I’ll fill the tank there.”
The blue rectangular sign announced the town was just ahead in white block letters,
Любашівка
. The sight of the word, not Yuchenko’s saying it, threw her back into the memory. Stas had never said the name of the place, only chosen it to end the test he’d devised for her. The road looked different, and on that long-ago trip, it had taken many more hours to come so far, but the sign proved it had been Lyubashivka where she’d nearly humiliated herself.
Shame and anger fell upon her like a hailstorm, the memories pelting her with blow after blow of icy impact.
“Whoa,” Yuchenko said, the car seeming to swerve out his control. But he corrected the course and stayed in his lane.
She tried to contain the fury, to bear down on it and hold the pulsing, angry energy at bay. At the river, it had been easy to control--or perhaps there had been no need. No cars with drivers, no interrogation rooms where her unfurled fury could wreak havoc. With all her strength, she managed to hold it firm, like a beast tightly reined.
As Yuchenko pulled up to the pump and slid out of the car, she stared across the street at an empty field. The very same one.