Anastasia

Two Years Later…

The prize lay right in front of me, but it was just out of my reach. I was well concealed, eyeing the thing that I wanted the most. Next to it stood a large monster, guarding it from anyone who might want to steal it. I bit down on my lip and devised a way to distract the monster long enough to get what I wanted. I picked up a small object nearby and threw it away from the monster and away from me.

It worked! The beast turned and walked over towards where the noise came from. As it bent over to pick it up I snuck over and grabbed my trophy. Success at last! I smiled as I turned and saw the monster closely inspecting the item, looking at it in confusion. I should get out of here before it spots me! Just as I turned to go the creature stood up with the object in it’s hand and caught sight of me. Oh no, run!

“Fredrik! Put that cupcake down!” Carola shouted at me, dropping the button as she chased me through the kitchen.

“Never!” I yelled, running out of the kitchen and into the living room. Carola was close behind me, too close. I stopped suddenly, turning around and running right past her. What I didn’t expect was for Carola to slip as she tried to turn and grab me. She slammed onto the ground and grabbed onto my ankle, causing me to fall. The cupcake flew from my hand and landed on the floor a few feet in front of me. It landed on the side with icing on it…of course.

“Look what you did! You ruined one of my cupcakes!” cried Carola.

“I wouldn’t have ruined it if you had just let me have one!” I countered.

“I said I would give you one at the party!”

“But that’s five hours away! I want one now!” I whined. “besides, it’s my birthday party, don’t you think I should get one before everyone else?”

“No.”

I untangled my ankle from her hands and stood up, offering her my hand. As soon as she was on her feet I grabbed her from behind and locked my arms around her.

“I got you now!”

“Hey, let me go!” she laughed, struggling to get free.

“No, not until I get a kiss!” I declared. “I need compensation for the cupcake!”

“No!” she cried out. I leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek before letting her go.

“Ew!” she cried, running back into the kitchen. I laughed as I watched her rub her hand against her cheek. I wasn’t interested in Carola like that, but it was fun to mess around with her. We had a brother/sister relationship and we loved to tease each other, just like I used to love to tease my other sisters.

Suddenly there was a knocking on the door. I looked at the cupcake and shrugged before heading to the door. I could clean it up later. I opened the door to find Mark, a boy from my school standing there, neatly dressed and holding flowers in his hands. He smiled when he saw me.

“Hey, Fredrik,” he greeted me, but I couldn’t hold back the frown that was forming. Lately guys had been coming to our house, asking for Carola. They all wanted to court her, but I knew most of them only wanted one thing, or wouldn’t be able to take care of Carola should they decide to get married in the future. Whatever the reason, none of them were good enough for her. She was like a little sister to me, even though we were only two months apart, but I still felt protective of her. And just like all the others boys, I was just going to turn Mark away.

“Carola isn’t interested in courting anyone right now,” I said blatantly. Mark’s smile turned sad, and he shuffled his feet awkwardly as he looked down at his shoes.

“Oh, well…can you still give her these flowers?” he asked, looking back up at me and holding out the bundle of flowers.

“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled, taking the flowers before closing the door. I locked it behind me and walked into the main room to see Carola cleaning up the mess I made with the cupcake.

“Who was at the door?” she asked without looking up.

“Oh, no one important,” I said with a shrug. “I was going to clean that up…”

Carola looked up and gave me a frown. “Well I already got it, so don’t bother yourself. Hey, where did you get those flowers?”

“They’re for you to make up for the cupcake I stole…and then dropped on the floor,” I lied. Carola smiled as she took the flowers from me.

“Well thank you. I’ll go put them in a vase,” she said, walking into the kitchen with her gift.

Five hours later (but what seemed like centuries to me) Carola, Kirsti, and I were sitting around the kitchen table, eating the dinner Carola had prepared for my sixteenth birthday. I’d been living with the Lahtela’s for a little over two years now, and they’d adopted me after only a couple weeks. They bought me clothes, fed me, and even sent me to school, something I never got to do when I was living with my family. I always had a tutor come and teach me, and I quickly found out regular school was much different. I couldn’t just get up and run around anytime I pleased. It took a while to get adjusted to something so vastly different than what I was used to, but I eventually did. I almost felt like I belonged here, but I knew I never could. Part of my heart was left with my family when I escaped.

After we ate dinner, and I had my fill of cupcakes we all gathered around the radio in the living room, staying up to listen to the music that played late at night. We had just tuned in, when a news interrupted the music that had just started playing.

“We have breaking news folks. I’m sure everyone remembers the day the Romanov family died nearly two years ago…” My heartbeat quickened and I felt sick to my stomach. It had been the two year anniversary of my family’s death a little under four weeks ago.

“We told you when they dug up their shallow graves in a pit and found the bodies of what we assumed to be Alexei, and either his sister Maria or Anastasia, missing. Well, we’ve heard of a girl around the age of Anastasia claiming to be her.” I felt like I couldn’t breath. I raised a hand to my chest, as if to keep my heart from beating right out of it. It’s not possible. I saw Anastasia’s body. She wasn’t alive, she couldn’t have been. She would have responded or she would have been breathing. There’s no way she survived, no matter how much I wished everyday that at least one of my family had survived.

“She’s been living in Germany for the past year, but we can’t get any information on her before that. And to back up her claim, she looks exactly like Anastasia. She had all the same scars and features as the princess, but no one can say for certain as of now if she’s the lost princess Anastasia. She claims that on the night she supposedly died she pretended to be dead before she was dragged out and before she lost consciousness. She then goes on to say that she awoke and found herself in a shallow pit. Bleeding heavily, she pulled herself out of the pit and stumbled to a nearby house, where she received help. She was then smuggled out of the war-torn Russia and brought to Germany by a relative of the lady who helped her. She’s been living there for about a year now and is just stepping up to claim she’s Anastasia. No one can say for certain who she is exactly, as of right now, but we’ll keep you posted.” The reporters voice was replaced with the soft sounds of music once again.

The music was soothing and calm, but I felt like I’d just had the air knocked out of me. Was it possible that Anastasia had survived? No, I would have known if she had, right? I sat there, tuning out the music as I replayed that night in my head. It all seemed like a distant dream, and I struggled to remember it clearly.

All I can remember is that there was a burning pain in my side and my head was spinning as I shook Anastasia, trying to get her to answer me. Was it possible that I was in so much pain and shock that I overlooked the fact that she might still be alive? I could remember that I wasn’t thinking clearly from the blood loss, but was it enough to make me overlook the fact that my sister might still be alive?

“Fredrik?” Carola’s voice rang out, breaking through my thoughts.

“Yes?”

“Mom just said she’s going to bed now. Do you want to stay up and listen to the music?” she asked. I shook my head and said goodnight to them before heading to my room. I decided that this woman was probably just looking for her few minutes of fame. She must have heard that one of the graves was found empty and figured that she could pass for Anastasia. I would never have overlooked the fact that my sister had survived if she had.

But one question still stuck in the back of my mind: when I left the grave Anastasia body had been there. If it wasn’t found there, what happened to her body?

Two Weeks Later…

I walked into the living room in the morning to see Kirsti sitting at the table, reading the weekly newspaper. I got a cup of hot tea from the pot on the stove before sitting down next to her. I turned and the front page of the paper caught my eye.

Is This Mystery Woman Anastasia?

Under the headline there was a somewhat blurry photograph of a girl. A girl who looked exactly like my sister Anastasia. Those eyes, that face…they were all exactly like my sister’s. It was like a ghost coming back from my past to haunt me as memories of that terrible night ran through my mind. I jumped up from my chair, taking a step back.

“It’s not possible…” I mumbled under my breath. Kirsti looked up from her newspaper in confusion.

“Fredrik? Are you Ok?” she asked uncertainly, putting the newspaper down. I shook my head before running to my room and shutting the door behind me. I took deep breathes as I took a few steps before sinking to the floor.

That couldn’t be Anastasia, could it? She looked enough like her, but there must be at least one person out there who looks exactly like another, right? After two years my past was finally catching up with me, and it was driving me insane. I brought my knees up to my chin and buried my face in my hands. I felt tears welling up in my eyes when I remembered turning Anya over to see her blood-streaked face.

I heard a knocking on my door, but I made no move to get up and answer it. A few seconds later I heard it creak open and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Carola staring at me with concern plain in her eyes.

“Fredrik, what’s wrong? Mom said you just ran out of the room like you'd seen a ghost,” she asked softly. I raised my head.

“My past has caught up with me…” I whispered. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

“I don’t understand, what past? What are you keeping from us?” she asked.

“My parents didn’t really die during a robbery, and my name isn’t Fredrik,” I confessed. It was time they know the truth. I was foolish to think I could keep something like this a secret from them forever.

“What really happened then? And who are you?” she asked, looking almost scared.

“My name is Alexei Romanov and my whole family was executed by those traitors in Russia.”