The Unfailing Light

Chapter Five

It was Aunt Zina who insisted we put on our Greek play at the dacha. We decided to perform in the garden room on a hot August afternoon. Maman and Aunt Zina had topiary columns and large potted palms moved to create a stage for us. Maman would not let us use the good sheets as togas, but she did give us an old length of gauze to cut up. Dariya made wreaths of ivy and laurel for our heads. We thought we looked like nymphs.
Dariya's father, Uncle Evgene, said we resembled patients who had escaped the lunatic asylum. He wisely decided to forgo the afternoon's entertainment and went riding with his friends.
We planned to perform one scene: Iphigenia's nightmare, the dream that leads her to believe that her brother Orestes is dead. I stood on a footstool in the middle of the garden, rehearsing my lines.
What notes, save notes of grief, can flow,
A harsh and unmelodious strain?
My soul domestic ills oppress with dread,
And bid me mourn a brother dead.
What visions did my sleeping sense appall
In the past dark and midnight hour!
'Tis ruin, ruin all.
Dariya, in her gauze toga, practiced her pity-filled gaze in the role of the chorus.
Turning pale, Anya whispered, "I think it is bad luck to speak of your brother's death, Duchess."
"It's not my own brother, but Orestes," I told her. "Iphigenia's brother. And he doesn't really die."
"Still," Anya said. "You shouldn't be speaking of such things."
Dariya shrugged. "The play really has a happy ending, despite the bloodstained altar and ghastly sacrifices."
I could not help shuddering. Perhaps this was not the best piece of Greek drama for two young ladies to perform. But before I could say anything, Maman called to us. Her guests had filled the garden room, taking their seats on the sofa and chairs in front of our stage.
Anya jumped up and darted off, too shy to be in front of so many people. I noticed Grand Duchess Miechen and Maman sitting down beside Aunt Zina. An older woman with white hair and enormous green eyes leaned forward to whisper in Maman's ear. She looked up at me and nodded. Surely they couldn't have been talking about me. I had never seen the woman before in my life.
"Katiya!" my cousin whispered. "Are you ready?" She held her harp out, eager to begin.
"Of course," I said, tearing my gaze away from my mother and the stranger. As Dariya plucked her harp, I began to recite my lines. Iphigenia was a Greek princess whose father, Agamemnon, had been told to sacrifice her in order for the Greeks to win the Trojan War. But the goddess Artemis rescued Iphigenia at the very last moment and hid her away in Tauris, the land now called the Crimea.
Iphigenia became the priestess in charge of ritually sacrificing to the bloodthirsty Artemis any foreigners who landed on the shores of Tauris. Then fate caused her brother Orestes to shipwreck at Tauris. Iphigenia was unknowingly about to sacrifice her last remaining sibling on the bloody altar. The Greeks loved irony in their plays.
The garden room was crowded and there was little breeze. I soon felt myself growing warm and faint. I heard a soft buzzing in my ears, but I couldn't let it distract me from my lines.
But the strange visions which the night now past
Brought with it, to the air, if that may soothe
My troubled thought, I will relate.
I cast a quick glance at the small audience and saw them bathed in a faint light, but it wasn't cold, as it should have been. It seemed to be radiating white-hot. I tried to take a deep breath, praying for a soothing breeze. I felt a tightness in my chest. What had happened to everyone's cold light?
With relief, I finished the scene of Iphigenia's gloomy dream and curtsied to the crowd. Dariya ended her song on the harp with a flourish and joined me. Everyone stood up and clapped, but I only wanted to get out of the room. No one seemed to be in distress besides me. Grand Duchess Miechen fanned herself lazily with a delicate ivory fan, but did not seem to notice anything unusual happening. I half suspected her of being the cause.
"Katiya, what's wrong with you?" Dariya hissed in my ear. "You've gone completely pale."
"I need some fresh air," I said. After one last curtsy, I grabbed my cousin's hand and led her away from our makeshift stage and through the glass doors into the courtyard.
It was still hot under the late August sun, but at least there was a sea breeze outside. I closed my eyes and began to feel better immediately.
"What is it?" Dariya asked. "What's happening? Did the grand duchess do something?"
"And just what do you think I would be doing?" Miechen's voice startled both of us. The dark faerie had slipped out onto the terrace behind us without making a sound. Dariya sank into a brief but perfectly executed curtsy before escaping back inside. The coward.
My heart was pounding in my throat. "Your Imperial Highness, did you not feel the change in the air in the garden room?"
The grand duchess shrugged elegantly. "Such things happen when you invite a striga to your villa. Her name is Madame Elektra. She is a local witch, of sorts."
"A striga? And Maman invited her here?" I asked.
"Your mother and Madame Elektra have been friends for many years, Katiya. It is strange that you two have never met."
"I think I would remember meeting her," I said, frowning. "She seems to suck the cold out of the room."
"Strigas are blood drinkers. More powerful than any veshtiza or upyr. But no danger to you."
"Does Maman know?" I asked, growing indignant. "She has told me repeatedly that vampires no longer exist!"
Miechen shook her head, smiling. "Elektra is not a vampire. She is much older and more powerful than Princess Cantacuzene ever was. If she truly wanted it, she could take the vampire seat of power away from Militza of Montenegro." The grand duchess flashed her fan and sighed. "It is a pity Elektra hates St. Petersburg."
"But what she did in that room," I said. "Surely she's causing harm to everyone in there."
"The heat was caused by the reaction of the cold light itself with her own powers. She does not steal cold light. It shrinks away from her."
"Where does it go?" I asked.
"It will come back, when she is gone. Most of the people in your mother's garden room did not even notice the change. They only felt a slight discomfort. And perhaps they will blame that on your cousin's atrocious harp playing."
I ignored the dark faerie's catty remark. "Does the empress know about the striga?"
"It's one of the reasons your mother and the empress are no longer as close as they used to be. Marie Feodorovna can be terribly narrow-minded sometimes."
I shuddered. "Why is my mother friends with such a creature?"
"Madame Elektra saved your mother's life many years ago. But perhaps this is a discussion you should have with your mother." Miechen continued fanning herself and turned to go back inside. "I can tell you this, Katerina Alexandrovna. You have nothing to fear from Madame Elektra."