Could she perhaps have another, different sort of life?
She blinked back tears and turned to her friends. This was going to be hard. But not as hard as doing the wrong thing. She realized, as she stood on the edge of the woods of the Volkonsky estate, that she was more than one person. She was Sophie, yes, but she was her father, too. She was Xenia, Sofya, Vladimir, a collection of all these people. As she looked at her hands in their sealskin gloves, moved her feet in hervalenki, and breathed a cloud of misty breath into the clear, northern air, she was any number of lost Volkonskys, their portraits all waiting to be discovered in the gallery.
Sophie took a breath of the cold forest air that had enchanted her in her dreams. She looked at the puzzled faces of Marianne and Delphine. She smiled. Yes. Now she felt properly happy in a way she had never felt before. Because she understood something about herself. And she knew, with a certainty that knocked in her chest, what she would do.
“You were right, Marianne,” she said, her voice light. “You and your theories …”
“What do you mean?” Marianne’s glasses had fogged up, which gave her a bemused look.
“That theory you told us about. The day we found out we were coming to Russia. About everything in the universe leading to one place, and that we can only be in that one place because it’s the right place for us.”
“I don’t think that Dicke put it quite like that.” Marianne frowned. “He was talking about weak nuclear forces …”
Delphine nudged Marianne. “Let’s talk about it on the train, shall we?” she said. “For once, I’d be happy to discuss nuclear forces with you … once we’re safely on our journey!”
Sophie didn’t move. Marianne took her glasses off to clean them on hershuba, and Sophie felt her stomach turn with affection for her friend.
She smiled as confidently as she could. “Well,” she said. “I am here. And everything has been leading to this moment. And, when you think about it, Marianne, if I go back to London with you … I’ll be breaking some scientific law, because this is where I am supposed to be.”
Marianne’s eyes were round as she pushed her glasses back on. She gave a low whistle. “That,” she said, “is quite masterful! I mean, I see how you did that … it’s good.” She hugged her friend. “I don’t know how we’re going to explain this to Rosemary, though, Sophie. And I don’t know how we will manage at school without you. But perhaps youshouldstay here … for a while.”
“You’ve changed, Sophie.” Delphine looked serious. “Dmitri and his family need you.” She leaned closer. “We’ll miss you.”
Sophie’s throat was so tight she didn’t dare risk swallowing.
“Ivan, would you mind?” She looked up at the man, who had become very still as he watched her. “I won’t get in the way …”
He nodded. “We will speak to your guardian,” he said. “Perhaps she will allow you to stay for a while if we promise to look after you …”
Marianne and Delphine both hugged her at once, then scrambled up onto the train. Ivan shut the carriage door, and climbed into the driver’s cabin.
“We will see each other soon,” Sophie called up, but theshushof steam blew her words away. The wheels screeched as they started to move on the icy tracks. Suddenly, Sophie wanted to be with them, in the carriage. She ran along the short platform, but the train picked up speed and the trees swallowed it up until the only thing she could hear was the rhythm of the engine as it pulled the carriage away.
She walked slowly back to thevozok.
Dmitri leaped down. His face was shining with happiness. “You are sure?” he said.
“Yes!” she laughed.
“Woooooooo!”he cried as he took off his hat and threw it up in the air. He ran to pick it up, laughing, then held out his arm to help her. She climbed up and sat beside him in thevozok.
“I amsosure,” Sophie said again. “I know I can’t leave the palace right now, even if I can’t stay here forever.”
She wouldn’t cry. She would be happy. If she wasn’t going to be allowed to stay here for the rest of her life — if, in fact, she might only have a few more days before she was yanked back to her life in London — she wouldn’t waste it being sad. She would devote herself to study … to finding out as much as she could about this family she was part of. She would set herself the task of uncovering the Volkonskys.
The wolves were in the woods, yelping to each other. The afternoon starlight fell down on her. Out of a clearing, the pack came, tongues lolling, running with their loose-shouldered lope. They trotted alongside Viflyanka, who took no notice of them, sensing that the well-fed wolves had no interest in him.
“They’ve been hunting!” Sophie called to Dmitri. She looked for the old, wounded wolf. Where was he?
Dmitri kept Viflyanka trotting smartly on toward the portico. Only days before, Ivan had brought them here, innocent of Anna Feodorovna’s plans. And now Sophie was defying sense, defying everyone, to stay in a place she hardly knew. But Ivan had said that home was the place that was hard to leave. And the place that, having left, you searched for throughout your life. She had never known a home in that way. And she wanted to.
At the door, Dmitri jumped down and walked around to help Sophie out of thevozok. The door shuddered and opened.
Masha stepped out and gave a cry of surprise. She clutched at her chest as if she couldn’t speak, but then, her face lit with a broad smile, she held out her arms. Sophie jumped down. They stared at each other for a while before Sophie hugged her.
And as they entered, Masha’s mother stepped forward with candles and laughter and bread and salt. “Come, children,” she whispered. “We bless … we bless our princess …”
“You knew!” Sophie was laughing and crying at the same time. “You knew I couldn’t leave you!” She took a piece of bread and dipped it in the pyramid of salt. “I bless you.” She bowed her head.
And then, seeing Masha’s concerned gaze, she turned to see the old wolf padding toward her. He had something in his mouth that hung down and trailed along behind him. Sophie was apprehensive; she didn’t think she would care for the sort of present a white wolf might bring her from the woods.
But Masha was laughing.
The wolf came right up to Sophie; she wasn’t sure what was hanging from his mouth, didn’t want to believe what he had found. He opened his mouth and she heard a softchinkat her feet. The wolf made a satisfied yelp at the back of his throat and licked her hand as if he expected her approval. She looked down at the wolf’s gift.
A rope of fat, gray, candlelight-cut diamonds, long enough to hang a man, winked lazily in the shadows of the Volkonsky Winter Palace.
The End
