Winter Garden

At her answer, he takes her papers and reads them. Abruptly, he gets up from his chair and leaves. Down the hall, in a great glassed chamber, she can see him talking to other goblins and then to a man in long black robes.

Finally, the goblin returns, takes his seat, and pushes the papers back to her. “There is no one of that name in our kingdom. You are mistaken. Next. ”

“But you do have him, my lord. I have been coming here for more than a year. Please check again. ”

“No one of that name is known here. ”

“But—”

“He’s not here,” the goblin says, sneering. “Gone. Get it? Now move on. ” He cranes his head to look around her. “Next. ”

Vera wants to sink to her knees and cry out, but it is not good to draw attention to oneself, so she wipes the tears from her eyes and straightens her shoulders and heads for work.

Her father is gone.

There one moment and disappeared the next. The truth is that he is dead, that they have killed him; whoever they are. The trolls in their shiny black carriages and the Black Knight, for whom they work. Questions cannot be asked, though, not even the ordinary questions of a grieving family. They cannot beg to bury him or visit his grave site or dress his body for burial. All of that would draw attention to them and to this execution that the Black Knight wants to deny. In the library, she goes about her work and says nothing about her father.

On her walk home—no trolleys for her today; she wants this journey to last—it seems as if winter is rising from the ground itself. Brittle black leaves fall from the trees and hang suspended in the chilly air. From a distance, there are so many of them it looks like a flock of crows flying too low. Beneath a leaden sky, buildings look drab and hunkered down. Even the mint-green castle looks forlorn in this weather.

By the time she gets home, the snow is accumulating on the cobblestoned street and on the bare tree limbs.

At her door, she pauses just long enough to catch her breath. In that instant, she imagines the conversation she will have and exhaustion presses down on her. Still, she straightens her spine and walks inside.

The room is crowded with furniture from their old life. Her grandmother’s bed is pushed up to the wall and stacked with quilts. Their own narrower bed abuts the closet. When they want to open the closet door, they must move the bed. A bureau that her mother has hand-painted and a pair of lamps line the wall beneath the window that won’t open. The only beautiful piece of furniture in the apartment—a gorgeous mahogany writing desk that was her father’s—is covered with jars of pickles and onions.

She finds her mother at the stove. Olga is at the table, peeling potatoes.

Her mother takes one look at her and moves the pot off the stove, then wipes her hands on the apron tied about her waist. Although her dress is baggy and old, and her hair is unkempt after a day at the food storehouse, her eyes are keen and the look in them is knowing. “It is Friday,” she says at last.

Olga rises from her chair. In a dress that is too tight, she looks like a flower sprouting from a seed shell. Vera can’t help thinking that her sister is a child at fifteen, and yet she remembers it as the age when she met Sasha. She had thought she was full-grown then. A woman standing on a bridge with the man she intended to love.

“Did you learn something?” Olga asks.

Vera can feel the color draining from her face.

“Come, Olga,” Mama says briskly. “Put on your coat and your valenki. We are going for a walk. ”

“But my boots are too small for me,” Olga whines. “And it is snowing. ”

“No argument,” her mother says, walking over to the big rounded wood and leather chest by their bed. “Your grandmother will be home soon from work. ”

Vera stands back, saying nothing while her mother and sister dress for the cold. When everyone is ready, they go outside, into the blurry white world. The hush of the falling flakes mutes everything around them. Even the whine and clatter of the trolley sounds distant. In this whispered world, they seem isolated, separate. They are even more alone as they enter the Grand Park. By the time they arrive, streetlamps are lit throughout the square. There are no people out here on this cold early evening, only the gilded row of noble houses in the distance.

They come to the centerpiece of the park: the giant bronze statue of a winged horse. It rises up from the snow in defiance, dwarfing everyone who looks upon it.

“These are dangerous times,” Mama says when they are in front of the statue. “There are things . . . people that cannot be spoken of in the closeness of an apartment or the confines even of a friendship. We will speak of it . . . ” She pauses, draws in a breath, and softens her voice. “Him . . . now and not again. Yes?”

Olga stamps her foot in the snow. “What is going on?”

Mama looks to Vera for the answer.

“I went to the Great Hall today, to ask about Papa,” she says, feeling tears sting her eyes. “He is gone. ”

“What does that mean?” Olga says. “Gone? Do you think he escaped?”

It is Mama who has the strength to shake her head. “No, he has not escaped. ” She glances around again and moves closer, so that the three of them are touching each other, huddled together in the shadow of the statue. “They have killed him. ”

Olga makes a terrible sound like she is choking, and Vera and Mama hug her tightly. When they draw back, all are crying.