Chapter 35
Zina
My grandmother finished her story, starting with when she had met my grandfather in Moscow and ending with the truth about the Grand Duke’s death here in Paris and Mama’s reburial.
But all I could think about was that vision of Mama and the then-unknown man at Closerie des Lilas, her smile for once real and bright.
Lucian’s guilt made sense now. I had a fleeting thought of Gabriel, how similar they were in their regret, but I squashed it.
“A chief inspector is my father—and you lied to me?”
Baba Valya chuckled, remorseless. “I thought I would live forever.”
“You will live forever,” I said, all else forgotten.
A shadow crossed her withered, too-pale face. Her usually bright lilac energy was faded to the color and smell of dried motherwort, grayish and very feeble. “A father, even estranged, is better than no one at all.”
“Oh, hush, Baba Valya. You haven’t left me yet.” I smoothed her coverlet, fussed over her sheets, earning a disapproving scowl from Zefir, the dramatic thing. “I made you speak too much today is all.” I refused to think about her words, their implication.
“It needed to be said.” Baba Valya’s gaze shifted behind me.
I sensed the Grand Duke’s spirit, a wall of putrid, frigid darkness at my back.
Zefir’s eyes fixed on the spot. She swiped a paw at the air, at the spirit I knew was there.
Baba Valya’s story was more proof the Grand Duke had killed Mama. I suppressed my chill, especially at the thought of his dagger lying hidden beneath Samovar’s floorboards. Who killed him remained a mystery.
“To this day, I do not know,” Baba Valya mused when I had said something to that effect.
“You don’t think it was any of Mama’s friends?” I recalled her story, how Sergei said people like us have little choice, how fiercely protective Mama’s friends were of her. But why would they pin the murder on Baba Valya?
“I wouldn’t know, nor would I want to. I was desperate to leave them in the past, along with the entire mess.
And I still am. Besides, murder is not the way I do things.
I wanted to avenge your grandfather, to take revenge on the Grand Duke’s family and him for what he had done to your mother.
I wanted them to suffer, to feel the loss I had.
But I eventually grew tired of it. I realized all I wanted was my business, my clients. A new life, with you.”
“You have it, Baba Valya.” I reached over and gave her thin hand a squeeze.
She gave me an answering squeeze. “You see why I never told you about this sordid past. Not only is it damning that man died here, from an herb I grow here, and that I concealed it, but my story is one of revenge, the destruction of a family, deception. Where else could Sveta have learned to be the con woman and thief she became?”
I reddened, looked down. Her fake séances, her bending morality for business, her artifice and tricks, had led me to become a student of deception as well.
But I didn’t blame her, or my mother. We were immigrants in a foreign land, often desperate, sometimes hungry.
We needed to survive, and there was no honesty in survival, not in modern Paris, not in any time or place.
Survival was a fight to the death. And if my grandmother had told me she had killed the Grand Duke, I would have made my peace with it.
Maybe even shaken her hand and thanked her.
Yet something still niggled at me. “The spirit told me the tearoom was born of blood, which makes sense, given all that happened here, but he also said it was taken from him and that a treasure is buried here. And…well, he said you and Mama killed him.” I watched my grandmother carefully. “I may have even believed it.”
Baba Valya only gave a shrug. “I don’t blame you, Zinachka,” she said with a poorly hidden wince.
“The Grand Duke was filled with rage. He wanted to take it all back. Men like him believe they own everything, everyone, that they can give and take at will. But the truth is, the tearoom was compensation and nothing men like him haven’t done for centuries.
Now he is filled with rage in death, believing I poisoned him. ”
“But you didn’t?”
“Of course not.” A raspy laugh. “Though I sometimes wished I had the appetite for murder.”
Zefir gave a screech. Again, she swiped at the air.
“What about the treasure? I think it’s the main reason Olga targeted us, me.”
“The treasure isn’t here. As I told you, it is buried with the Grand Duke.”
“In Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois?”
“Yes. If the treasure hunters haven’t dug it up. If they have, that is all the better.”
I felt an irrational flare of anger. All those times I couldn’t afford to take the cab or even the bus, or have a meal. “We could have used the money, Babushka.”
“Nonsense, Zina. It is cursed.”
“Not if it’s put to good use…”
“Perhaps.” A tiny, reluctant nod. “Now, how is your training progressing? Were you able to find Sergei? Henriette?”
“Yes, but we didn’t get very far. It’s when I…found you.”
“Ah.” Baba Valya shifted under the covers, a tremor of white-hot pain shooting across her features. “That was incredibly inconvenient of me.”
“Not at all, Baba Valya. Your health is most important now. I won’t leave you.”
“Well, my darling, that would be incredibly silly and shortsighted of you.”
Zefir gave a funny little vibrating purr. I scratched behind her ears, the spot she loved best.
“How is Sergei? Is he willing to teach you?”
“He said he was.”
“Good, and I have something that might help.” Baba Valya motioned to her nightstand. “Would you grab that book for me?”
I did as she wished, swiping an old, frail-looking volume from the little table. The title on the black leather cover read, in expansive gold lettering, Spirit Mediumship: A Guide to the Intuitive Séance. From Baba Valya’s story, I knew this was my grandfather’s favorite book on spiritualism.
“Now, this book didn’t do much for me, as I have no affinity for séances, but it might help you. Maybe comfort you.”
I wondered what my grandfather had been like; from Baba Valya’s stories of Ivan Morozov, I thought I would have liked him very much.
I clasped his book to me, holding it close, knowing that no matter how my training went, it would reassure me.
“So that is how you met Sergei.” The secret he said was up to Baba Valya to divulge.
“Yes. And it is why I refused to consider your affinity for spirit mediumship. I was too burned by it.”
“And they killed Grandfather, the Grand Duke’s family?”
“They did. Now, Zina, you must listen to Sergei, learn well from him. He is a very powerful medium.”
“If he is so powerful, why can’t he do a spiritual expulsion? He said I might also have power, that I was born of death. Does that mean—?”
“Oh, Zina.” Baba Valya chuckled, not unkindly.
“Power isn’t just about how much death you carry or how well you are able to summon the dead.
Power comes from within you. And from the desire to help somebody, not just yourself.
You wish to find your mother, to make sure she is all right.
Isn’t that true?” I nodded, and she went on.
“Power is desire. And your unique strength, which is loud and insistent and very, very rare. You will see.”
“What about Olga and Alec?”
Zefir arched her back and gave a growl, eyes flashing ultrabright in loathing.
“We will deal with them after we expel the demon.”
We. Finally, I had not only my grandmother’s support and guidance but also her honesty, her truth, the full story of my family’s past. Yet the hairs on the back of my neck rose. I felt the spirit behind me, listening, watching.
“Oh, one more thing.” Baba Valya reached into her nightstand drawer, achingly slow, and brought out a roll of parchment. “This is for you, when I am gone.”
“Baba Valya!” But I unrolled the piece of parchment and gasped.
It was the deed to Samovar. I released a breath I hadn’t known I was holding in.
What was more, a plain gold ring rolled out and into my palm.
“What’s this?” But I knew. It was Mama’s ring.
The one Lucian had given her. “I thought you gave it away?”
“I did, but one day, I found an envelope under Samovar’s door with the ring inside, along with a note from Lucian.
He asked me to give it to you when the time was right.
” Baba Valya pressed my hand, the gold cold but oddly familiar against my skin.
“I think now is right. Keep the ring with you whenever you hold a séance. It will serve as a good luck charm and as a talisman to ward off dark spirits and other nechistaya sila.”
I nodded, my throat thick with emotion. “Do you have a charm, Baba Valya?” I asked, once I could speak.
“Of course.” Tugging on a gold chain around her neck, she held up an amulet inset with a striking sphere of clear rock crystal.
“Your grandfather gave this to me. I put it on every morning, and it protects me.” She leaned back, panting a little from the exertion.
Or maybe from the act of speaking. “Well, most of the time.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. “And I would never think worse of you. I am proud of you, for becoming the woman I know. Not only my grandmother, but my mother, my father, my only family and home. You are my all, Baba Valya.” I went to sit by my grandmother then, Zefir stretching out beside us with a fond purr as I threw my arms around my grandmother’s frighteningly bird-thin shoulders. I felt her tears wet against my cheek.
We were both crying. Both of us knew our love was the most powerful connection either of us had ever experienced.
Or likely would experience. Even with our disagreements the last few months, the distance and secrets that had eaten into our bond, our love for each other had never diminished.
In fact, it was made everlasting. And now, as we were closer than ever, death threatened to tear us apart.
I tightened my hold on her. I didn’t need anyone when I had Baba Valya.
Not any man, certainly not Gabriel. I would not give her up. Never, ever.
But sadly, it wasn’t up to me. The symbols in the coffee that Katya and I had shared flashed into my mind.
No, it was up to fate, the shadows of the future I had always been so poor at divining.