Over the next few days,Yulia and I settle into a rhythm. One that, surprisingly, feels like it’s always been meant to be.
Our mornings begin with warm sunlight streaming in through the tall windows of our makeshift classroom. We work surrounded by surfaces lined with English literature and language books. I read sentences aloud and she repeats them, stumbling sometimes, but always with a glint in her eye like she’s challenging herself to get it right.
She’s sharp, her curiosity outpaces her age, and her sense of humor makes our lessons more like conversations than drills. Sometimes, I have to rein her in when she gets too excited, going off on a tangent about a new word or phrase, and it’s in those moments that I see just how much she craves connection.
She doesn’t just want to learn English. She wants someone to share it with. To talk to, to laugh with.
It makes me a little sad, honestly. How long has it been since she’s had someone other than her father’s staff around?
Afternoons, if the weather permits, we take our lessons out in the enclosed patio, watching the snow drift down from the sky in between worksheets. On more mellow days, we lay on a blanket next to the fireplace and read to each other.
She takes great pride in reading aloud now, often choosing books that are a little beyond her level just so she can prove to me, and maybe to herself too, that she’s capable.
She’s wonderful. A little lonely, and maybe a little too grown up for her age in some ways, but bright and full of light.
Which is what makes everything else around her feel so strange.
There’s still no sign of her mother. Not even a photo. I’ve checked the halls, the rooms I’ve walked past. There’s nothing. No portraits, no framed memories, no trace she ever existed. When I ask Yulia about her, she just shrugs and says her mama is “not here anymore” and leaves it at that.
Her father is even more of a ghost.
After that first encounter, I haven’t seen him once. Not in the mornings, not at dinner, not even in passing.
It's like he evaporated.
I try not to overthink it, but it’s impossible not to. Especially because it’s clear that, for the most part, I’m the only person Yulia really spends time with. When I asked if she goes to school, she tells me she used to, but not anymore. Now, her teachers come to her.
Two days later, I see it for myself. Two instructors in tidy clothes arrive mid-morning, spending a few hours in the makeshift classroom with Yulia while I wait upstairs and then disappearing as quickly as they came.
I can’t help but feel like something about this isn’t normal.
I’m not a parent, but I know enough to know that isolation, even in gilded cages, is still isolation. And no amount of staff, private chefs, or luxury goods can make up for what Yulia’s missing, which is real, genuine connection.
She doesn’t say it outright, but I see it in the way she clings to me. In how excited she gets just to read aloud. How she invents little stories and asks for my opinion like she’s starved for feedback.
I don’t mind exactly since she’s a good kid, but it does worry me that she’s being intentionally isolated from the rest of the world.
What kind of life is it for a kid to have no friends her own age? Or experience in the outside world in any capacity? What happens when she finally grows up and wants to know what it’s like outside the wrought-iron gates that have kept her sealed inside her whole life?
This all comes to a head one morning when I come down to find her already dressed, practically vibrating with energy.
She tugs on my arm before I’ve even had breakfast. “Come outside with me? We play? Please?”
I laugh even though I’m still trying to shake off sleep. “Yulia, you haven’t even had your lessons yet.”
She pouts, arms crossing over her little chest. “We do them later. I need sun. You need sun. I want to play.”
I open my mouth to protest but stop myself. She’s not wrong. It’s a beautiful day out despite the snow still coating the ground. God knows, she deserves to let loose for a little while and just be a kid. Even if it’s only for an hour.
I send Yulia scampering outside with her arms flung wide like wings, boots crunching across the snow-covered stones of the back patio. She twirls dramatically as the first flurries start to fall, her delighted laughter floating through the air pleasantly.
The sound makes me smile, even as I tuck my coat tighter around me and step back into the mansion’s warm interior.
“I’ll be right back!” I call, and she throws a quick wave over her shoulder in acknowledgment, already halfway to the snow-covered garden.
I head toward the kitchen to grab us something light for lunch—something warm, maybe tea and sandwiches. But as I round the corner, my pace slows automatically. I’m drawing near Sergei’s office again, and just like last time, voices spill into the corridor ahead of me.
This time though, there is no scolding. The conversation still sounds serious, but it’s more firm than anything.
