Chapter 10
Zina
I tried not to think about the snooping, admittedly attractive inspector, or the vengeful French ladies, who had threatened to tell all their friends about the incident so that no one ever came to Samovar again.
Still, it was easy enough to dismiss the day’s events as unfortunate luck finding even the poshest establishment.
But then a batch of tea cakes burned in the oven, which never happened to Baba Valya; several samovars stayed stubbornly, mystifyingly cold despite the boiling water; and the Ouvert/Fermé sign went missing.
It grew worse after that. Katya slipped on a mysterious puddle on her way to the tearoom.
Zefir scratched up one window’s drapery, so it alarmingly started to resemble streaks of blood.
And I was driven nearly mad by a strange knocking I thought I heard all the way from my loft.
I imagined that dagger animating and flying at me.
By evening, when the tally of the day’s invoices came up woefully short, Baba Valya had had enough.
She closed the tearoom, even to her fortune-telling clients, and established herself at our large wooden kitchen table to sort her coffee beans.
This was usually my job. But when my grandmother was stressed, aside from indulging in the unsavory methods of divination, she sorted the coffee beans herself.
I walked into the kitchen, inhaling their rich aroma beneath the tearoom’s thick non-smell. It emboldened me for the conversation ahead.
As though she knew it, Baba Valya met my gaze and slid a cup toward me with already poured and steaming coffee.
I muttered, “Thank you,” and took a long gulp.
The coffee was surprisingly more burnt than usual, but it gave me a welcome jolt from the dark feeling weighing on me.
I watched Baba Valya’s thin, birdlike fingers deftly sort the beans.
She placed the well-shaped, promising ones into a clay bowl at her side; the small, scrawny ones she tossed into the sack at her feet to give away to friends and neighbors at some convenient moment. They adored her free coffee.
I would ask about the tearoom first, I decided. All I knew was that she and Mama had moved into the building shortly before Mama’s death. “Can I ask you a question, Babushka?” I started, respectful yet determined.
“Yes,” she said, surprising me. She didn’t always like or tolerate questions.
“How did you come by the tearoom?”
Again, she surprised me. “Olga’s father gave it to me and your mother. Why?”
Why, indeed. Why would a grand duke give a building to a pair of fortune tellers and claim it was taken from him? “An inspector was asking questions about it earlier.”
“What was his name?” Her voice was now as sharp as her gaze.
“Inspector Gabriel Allard.” The name felt strangely itchy on my tongue.
An unknown knot of tension loosened in Baba Valya’s face. “And his age?”
“Probably several years older than me.”
Baba Valya gave a curt nod and went back to sorting her coffee beans. But her movements were not as precise or focused. The policeman’s visit had clearly rattled her.
“Did the Grand Duke own the tearoom before you?” I probed.
“Yes. But it wasn’t a tearoom then. It was his town house, a second home he owned in Paris, especially when his wife would return to Russia. He gave it to us as, well, compensation, and I decided to open a tearoom.”
This was more insight into her and Mama’s lives than she had ever let me in on. But it wasn’t consistent with the spirit’s claims. Perhaps the tearoom was born of blood because of Mama’s death. “Compensation for what? Some fortune you read? Is it formal? Do we have documents?”
“Of course.” Baba Valya was now prickly, peevish. “What is with all the questions, child?”
“I…” It was now or never.
“Is it because he is back?” My grandmother beat me to it.
“Who is back?” I asked dumbly.
“You have summoned the Grand Duke, no?”
I exhaled a relieved breath and spilled the whole story.
Except for my attempt to summon Mama and the screams. I didn’t wish to upset my grandmother even more.
She had gone back to sorting her coffee beans.
But one ear was cocked toward me, and her gaze kept snagging on my face, her silence active, on alert.
When I was done, I sat back, realizing my coffee had gone cold.
I was afraid Baba Valya would rage, dispense her warnings.
Instead: “I thought I asked you not to take Olga on as a client.” Low. Simmering.
“You asked me to reconsider. I did and decided against it.”
“I believed you smarter than that.”
My chest heated. “Mon Dieu, Baba Valya! I don’t have to agree with you about Olga. She told me you never liked her. Now, what is happening?”
“And I told you nothing good can come from those people. In fact, that woman is likely the one who went to the police.” She was right; I was about to argue anyway, when she went on. “This is a spiritual infestation, a vengeful spirit refusing to leave.”
“How…do we get rid of it?”
Baba Valya rasped out a mirthless laugh. “We will do nothing. You will not dabble in séances again. You will drop Olga as a client and stay away from her. And I will take care of the spirit.” Did she know how?
I thought of the Grand Duke’s spirit, the wrongness in the tearoom. I felt the prickle of guilt. It was my fault. “W-what happened to him, Baba Valya?”
She looked away. “I do not know, Zinaida. He disappeared long ago. Now we know he is dead.”
That dagger flashed into my head. “But why is he vengeful? Why is he haunting the tearoom, us?”
“Because he used to own it. And he, like his daughter, is a bad apple, as vengeful in death as he was in life.”
“Was he my father?” I blurted out.
“No,” Baba Valya said, too quickly, and continued her barrage. “This is why I have always warned you to stay away from the nechistaya sila. Once a spiritual infestation makes a home inside, it is a difficult thing to undo.”
“Did you know it was part of my affinity?” I whispered.
A tired breath out. “I suspected. But I hoped it wasn’t. Even if it is—”
“It is, Babushka. I can feel it.”
“Even if it is,” she continued sternly, “it is best not to indulge it.”
“It is too late! I have done a real séance and summoned a real spirit. What’s more, I communicated with him like a real medium!
I should be the one to get rid of it—to learn how to do it properly.
Besides, I am…afraid. For Mama. Where is she?
Do we even know if she is in the beyond? Is she all right? Maybe if I—”
Baba Valya’s gaze shone like a pale blue diamond, hard and very cold, like Inspector Allard’s eyes.
“Hear me, Zinaida,” she said, no longer the grannie inviting questions.
“Your mother is dead. As for you, I will clean up this mess, and you will be thankful. But you will listen, and you will obey. You will drop this séance business as you will drop Olga, affinity or no. It is too dangerous. Is that clear?” I opened my mouth, but Baba Valya held up one trembling hand.
“While I determine what to do about the spirit—”
“You don’t know.”
“—I will teach you to protect yourself. Katya also.”
Merde. I let out a frustrated breath. But it was pointless to argue. What my grandmother decided went. I would learn about séances and the past myself. For now, I would be subservient. “So teach me.” My voice was soft, that of the child she wanted.
“We must ward against the spirit with a talisman—”
“The needle cross.” I recalled how the buzz and swarm had returned when the cross had fallen. “Sorry.”
Baba Valya tutted impatiently. “You need to hang it back up above the entrance. And make more for all the doorways. I will teach you the incantation. The tearoom needs to be fully protected, the wards kept airtight. This will keep the spirit at bay.” She stared at me.
“Why aren’t you writing any of this down? ”
After transcribing my grandmother’s instructions, I thought long and hard, and I penned a note to Olga.
I didn’t believe in willful ignorance. Holding another séance would allow me to learn more about my affinity, about Olga and Alec and their connection to our family, about the past and Mama.
These were all things Baba Valya either didn’t know or didn’t want me to know. Her lilac aura was murky, evasive.
Instead of inviting Olga to the tearoom, watched like a hawk except on Sundays by Baba Valya, or else inviting myself to Olga’s rue Daru flat, I suggested we meet at a café and properly get to know one another.
If I were to keep Olga and Alec close, I needed to become their friend—whether they were my siblings or not, whether their father was my father.
Baba Valya’s denial seemed too quick to have been the truth.
And the idea of a larger family drew me in.
Though I wasn’t sure what kind of family I would ultimately be getting with them.