The Secret Language of Stones (23 page)

Chapter 24

Planning for a channel crossing during a time of war proved complicated. Grigori found us passage on a barge taking medical supplies and personnel across to Portsmouth. It was usually a journey of less than half a day, but he warned me that, depending on war games, traffic, and the weather, it might take as long as eight hours. But first we needed to motor from Paris to Le Havre.

The morning we were to leave, we ate breakfast with Anna and Monsieur Orloff. When we were done, Anna handed me a basket.

“Here are apples and ham-and-cheese sandwiches, a bottle of wine, and two canteens of water.” I took it from her. “And here is a blanket, since it might get cold on the water.” She draped it around my shoulders.

Grigori took our suitcases down to the car he'd hired. Each was as small as we could manage, though mine contained more equipment to make jewelry than clothes. Anna's silk pouch hadn't worked. I remained unable to message without encasing personal effects in the stones and engraving the runes. I was a lithomancer, after all, not a psychic.

Grigori came back. “We're all packed.”

Monsieur held his hand up. “There's still a bit of time before you need to take off, Grigori. Come with me, Opaline. I have a gift I want you to give the empress.”

I followed Monsieur Orloff out of the kitchen.

“Why do you want
me
to give it to the empress and not Grigori?” I asked, knowing this would sting his son anew.

Monsieur, as was his habit, didn't answer when he wasn't so inclined. In silence, he led me down the hall of their apartment and into the library.

Unlike the vault below the shop, which shone with so much gold and silver that I never knew where to focus my eyes, the library glowed more deeply with a green shimmer that made me suck in my breath. This was not the shine of stones, but the magick I remembered seeing in my own home. The books were glowing. I walked over to a shelf and scanned a row of leather-bound volumes. The letters were all Cyrillic. I couldn't read any of them.

“What is it?” Monsieur Orloff asked. “You seem surprised.”

“The books . . .”

“Yes?”

“They are . . .” I struggled, looking for the word. “Are these your books?”

“Yes. Why?”

“What kind of books are they?”

He came over to the shelf where I stood. “Those are all about the history of emeralds.”

“And the rest?” I gestured.

“All about jewelry and jewelry making.”

That explained the glow. They were speaking to me. Calling out. These books held secrets about gems and metals.

“I wish they weren't all in Russian. I'd like to study them.”

“Enough about my books, Opaline.” He stood beside his desk. “Come here.”

As I strode toward him, I saw him pull out a drawer and extract one of the shop's embossed-leather boxes. When I reached his side, he opened the box. Inside were two gold necklaces. At least twenty-five emerald enamel miniature Easter eggs hung from one. Ruby enamel eggs hung from the other necklace.

First he took the green one and lowered it around my neck.

“It is not about the value of this piece, you understand?” His eyes were boring into mine, his voice a low, harsh whisper.

I nodded.

“It is precious because I've been waiting to give it to a member of the Romanov family for a long, long time.”

“Were these eggs on
The Tree of Life
in the cabinet downstairs?” I was sure of it. I'd studied those eggs for years.

He didn't answer, instead continued giving me directions. “Put it inside your dress, hide it under your chemise. Please, do it now.”

He turned away so I could partially unbutton my chemise and hide the necklace.

“It's done.”

He turned back. Still sotto voce, he whispered: “Give it only to the Dowager Empress and only when you're alone, yes?”

I nodded.

“When you bathe, hide it. When you sleep, leave it on under your nightgown. Yes?”

I nodded again.

He lifted out the red enamel necklace.

“This is for her also. Look here.”

Carefully, he showed me a little key hanging at the back of the chain. He detached it and used it to open the center egg, the one with the insignia of the double eagle on it.

Inside was a small scroll of paper. He unfurled it to show me how it was covered with Cyrillic letters. And in its center lay another tiny gold key.

“The note explains who I am and what this gift means to me. That it's just a sentimental gift, you understand? I only mention the red one in the note. The green one is a secret.”

He rerolled the paper around the key and replaced it inside the egg.

“And the key?”

He ignored yet another of my questions. “Everything I am telling you is just between us, yes?”

Did he mean for me to keep it from his son? And why hadn't he answered me about the second key?

He lowered the necklace of red over my neck. “This is the one I want people to see. The one I want them to think you are giving to the Dowager. The one I even want Grigori to believe you are giving to the Dowager. Do you understand?”

“No. Why are you keeping this from Grigori?”

“I don't want to frighten you, little one, but there are spies everywhere. Bolshevik spies who watch us, waiting for us to do anything out of the ordinary. We've taken extreme measures so this trip will remain secret. There are only four people in Paris who know you are going to visit the Dowager. But we can never be too careful. If the wrong people discover who you are going to see, they will be looking for a treasure. There have always been rumors I am one of those who was sent out of Russia with some of the tsar's fortune. That, anticipating the revolution, he stashed away riches in other countries. The Bolsheviks are poor. They foolishly believe those stories and are searching for those caches of riches.”

“But these are just our eggs, they aren't expensive.”

“You know that, and I know that, but the Bolsheviks are suspicious. They might not believe it. If, by some terrible chance, they find out about this journey, if they find you and Grigori, I want you to give them this red necklace. It's not as special as the green one I need you to protect.”

“But I still don't know why you don't want Grigori to know.” It pained me that Monsieur was hiding this from his son.

“Grigori is a terrible liar under pressure. I've tested him. His eyes give him away. His glance always goes to the right. I want him to believe these red eggs are the ones for the empress so if you are accosted, neither of you puts your life in danger. Just give the thugs the red eggs. Continue on your way. The real gift—the gift of my heart, the gift that will make the Dowager remember Mother Russia and for a little while remember the glory of her homeland—will remain safe under your clothes.”

Were there tears in his eyes?

“You understand?” he asked.

I did. Not just his feelings for the country he loved and had needed to leave, but Grigori's sadness too. Monsieur didn't trust his own son the way a father should.

“This necklace you are wearing underneath also has an egg that opens up near the clasp. You will show that to the Dowager.”

“That's what the key is in the red egg?”

He nodded.

“But what if the red necklace is taken?”

“That's why I'm explaining it all to you. If the red necklace is taken, the Dowager will be able to find a way to open the green eggs on her own once you've explained how it works. Now, let us go outside and show Anna and Grigori the lovely red enamel gift I've prepared for the mother of the tsar and the grandmother of his heirs.”

Seeing the necklace, Grigori's rage turned his cheeks as red as the enamel. The private conversation had angered him. Anna did her best to make small talk and calm him, but it didn't help.

“We have a long drive ahead of us,” Grigori said to me. And then, with the most meager of good-byes to Anna and his father, he walked out the door. Before I could follow, Anna grabbed me to her and whispered a last bit of advice. When she let me go, Monsieur said, “Bon voyage.” But the words were incongruous with his grave expression of concern.

Every stage of the voyage was difficult. The car Grigori hired was old and the roof leaked in the rain. The roads were rutted and we bumped our way to Le Havre, both of us worried we'd lose a wheel or two.

By the time we arrived, the rain had become a relentless storm that kept the boat in the dock, with all of us on it, for more than four hours before the captain decided it was safe to set sail.

Once we were on the channel, the wind picked up again and
Grigori and I huddled in our seats, both of us violently ill. Peppermints or ginger would have helped, but Anna hadn't packed those. The food she'd prepared went uneaten.

Twice I noticed a businessman, an attaché case in his lap, watching us. The third time, my heart accelerated, and without thinking, I put my hand up to the red egg necklace, fingering one of Monsieur Orloff's trinkets.

“What's wrong?” Grigori asked.

I turned to him, faced him completely, so if the man was indeed watching us, he wouldn't be able to read my lips.

“Don't look over there. I don't want him to think I'm talking about him. But there is a man five rows in front of us with his case in his lap. He keeps turning around to watch us.”

“My father has scared you. There's no one on the boat and no one in Paris who has any idea of what we are doing.”

I knew he was as nervous as I was and just trying to calm me, for all his actions belied his words. He had been inspecting the other passengers when he thought I wasn't watching. And when he wasn't scrutinizing people, he was staring out at the channel, worrying the gold signet ring on his left hand. As he continued, I wondered if he was trying to assuage my fears or his own.

“And if anyone did know what we were doing, they wouldn't care. I know Papa might not think so, but the Bolsheviks have more important things to do than follow a witch and an antiques dealer to a castle on the English coast. They don't need the Dowager. She's useless to their cause. If she wasn't, she would be dead like the rest of them.”

Grigori's words surprised me. I'd never heard Monsieur or Anna talk with such assuredness about the fate of the tsar's wife and children.

“So you do believe everyone in the family is dead?”

He looked away from my face, his eyes traveling to the red eggs around my neck. Reaching out, he fingered one and then dropped it, almost reluctantly.

“No, no, I'm not sure,” he said, and looked off to the right, out into the distance.

Grigori's tell, just as Monsieur had described it. Before, I'd considered this a sign that Grigori was easily distracted. Now I wondered if he'd often been lying.

“But you must have some reason for what you said. What is it?” I asked.

“It makes sense to me, that's all. Why would the Bolsheviks keep them alive? What better to do with symbols of a corrupt system, as they say.” Grigori spat out the words. Hatred hardening the syllables.

No, his loathing for the revolutionaries ran as deep as his father's did.

“Enough of this talk now,” he said. “No one is following us. No one is watching us.”

The boat rocked as it hit a swell. We swayed one way and the next. I tried not to but moaned out loud.

Grigori put his arm around me. Cold and scared, I welcomed the comfort. His fingers found the necklace, and he toyed with one of the ruby eggs for a few moments, then let go.

“I'm going to try to sleep.” He closed his arms over his chest. “You should too. You'll feel less ill with your eyes shut.”

Following his advice, I closed my eyes, but the boat rocked too intensely. That, plus my fears about the man five rows in front of us, kept me awake. Through almost closed lids, I continued to watch him turn to look at us several times more.

Ravaging waves kept tossing the boat as if it were a plaything. My stomach couldn't take it anymore. I needed to get up; I was going to be sick. I just managed to get to the railing in time. Leaned over. Beneath me the murky green water churned. I gagged. Once. Twice.

And then the boat pitched so far to one side water sprayed on my face. Righting itself, it held steady for a moment and then went down again, sharply, quickly, and I lost my balance. I didn't care—so sick, the idea of the icy water seemed almost a relief. Falling forward,
I watched the waves come closer until arms pulled me back. Away from the inviting sea. I fell backward onto Grigori. When I turned and saw his face, it was etched with worry.

“Thank God,” he said. “I thought . . .” He broke off, wrapped his arms around me, and held me tight to his chest. “Thank God.”

He'd flirted with me. Befriended me. Shared confidences with me, but until that moment, I hadn't guessed at the depth of his feelings for me. And it surprised me.