The Ice Swan by J’nell Ciesielski

Svetlana stared at the man seated across from her in the carriage. A face familiar to her yet the man within utterly unknown.

“How could you do this? How could you turn traitor and become a Bolshevik? I thought I knew you better.”

“I am not one of them. Whatever foul thoughts you may have for me at present, at least know that truth.” Sweat dotted Sergey’s pale brow. Gripping a gun in one hand until his knuckles whitened, he withdrew a soiled handkerchief from his pocket with his other equally strained hand and swiped his face. Never in her life had she seen him without a clean linen or with frayed cuffs. He had been living rough since he’d fled Thornhill, and the loss did not agree with him.

Quaking inside, she refused to let him see her fear. “Then it is well you cannot read my mind, for it is black enough to blot out all manner of niceties. How dare you turn a gun on me? Stop this carriage at once.”

“There will be no stopping, at least not until we reach our destination. And do not think to take your leave early. The doors are locked.”

The secured shades closed off all recognition of the passing landmarks Svetlana could use to determine their route. Any clue along the way for a means of escape. Without visual aid, she tried following the map of Glasgow in her mind, but as the carriage veered around corner after corner the map tangled into confusion. “Where might our destination be?”

“You are going home. To Russia.”

“To be executed.”

A sob escaped from Svetlana’s mother who cowered against her daughter’s side. Dressed in a fine traveling ensemble of black and gray, she clearly had not been kidnapped. Her face had registered absolute shock when Svetlana was unceremoniously stuffed inside the waiting carriage.

Svetlana put her arm around her shaking mother. Whatever tension existed between them no longer mattered. “What did he tell you, Mama?”

“He told me you were in grave danger. That the Bolsheviks had found us and were lying in wait for you as you chased after Wynn. Little did I know it was he who was the Bolshevik.”

“Do not call me one of them again!” The gun shook in Sergey’s hand.

Mama bawled into her handkerchief before looking back to Svetlana. “I thought we were waiting in the carriage to whisk you safely back to Scotland.”

“Where is Marina?” Svetlana demanded. “And how did you get to Thornhill? Wynn banished you.”

“Your sister was in the village with that peasant woman you keep on a leash. I did not have time to wait for her to return, so you two will have to suffice. As far as that so-called husband of yours, he may be lord of the manor, but I’m cunning enough to slip past any arrogant roadblocks he set up. Particularly that watchdog butler.”

Mama clutched at Svetlana’s sleeve. Great fat tears rolled off her cheeks and plopped onto the material. “He told me Bolsheviks were watching the house and we had to slip off quietly. I didn’t know, Svetka. I swear I didn’t. I never would have gone with him if I’d known.”

“It’s all right, Mama. He might have tied you up and carried you out if he’d been forced to. Much easier to have a willing yet clueless victim.” Svetlana leveled a cold stare at him. “Why? What have we done for you to turn on us, your dearest friends? Why go through the lies of trying to reunite with us in Paris?”

He shifted restlessly on the seat, squeezing the gun’s handle again and again. The white of his knuckles pulsed like a heartbeat. “Because I was trying to reunite with you after fleeing Russia. When I arrived in Paris I had nothing. I was desperate, searching for you everywhere. One day I learned of the name Sheremetev and how he knew every Russian in the city, so I went to him begging for information about you. Your name sparked no delight for him, only cold-blooded hatred. He informed me that you had recently been married and no longer patronized his club with your dancing. I always adored your dancing, you know that, right?” His tone softened at the end. The tip of his gun wavered.

If he hoped to kindle good memories within her, he’d failed. “Sheremetev wants revenge for when I would no longer dance for him. He wants to murder me, Sergey, and all you care to do is spin compliments. How did you become tangled in his web?”

“He sold me to the Bolsheviks because of my connection to you. The Bolsheviks wanted to use my connection to seize you.”

“So you have become the worker for their dirty deeds. But why? If we are indeed such friends, how could you turn on us?”

The carriage picked up speed as the scent of brine and seaweed dampened the air. They must be near the River Clyde that flowed through the city center. A good ten blocks from Glasgow’s Medical Hall. And Wynn.

“Because if I do not bring you back to Russia they will kill my sister and mother.” A knot bobbed in his throat. “They have already killed my father. I cannot allow the rest of my family to die. I am sorry, Svetka.”

“Do not call me that. You do not have the right anymore. A true friend would never make a deal with the devil at the expense of those he claims to care for.”

The panic of desperation cried in his eyes. “I tried to find other ways to save you! To run away together. To bribe Sheremetev to save my family and get them to Paris. Handing you over was never what I wanted.”

Rage hissed in Svetlana’s blood. Violent and hot, it screamed for release. The gun beckoned from Sergey’s hand, taunting her to give in to the viciousness, but she remained still. Not from fear for herself but for her mother. She would wait until the opportune moment.

“You’re nothing more than a pathetic rat. The honorable Sergey Kravchenko I know would never betray us.”

“One does what one must for their family. Doing things they never dreamed possible for the sake of survival. You should know that yourself. Such as marrying a stranger.” The desolation in his eyes receded to ice, a blackness set to swallow her whole. “But then I saw you with him. You had given your heart to him, and I knew it could never be mine again, that you would never run away with me to save yourself. I knew then that you were not the price for my family’s lives.”

In all his dealings, had Sergey not considered the most likely outcome? “How can you be certain the Bolsheviks will not kill you and your family anyway?”

The blackness in his eyes courted death. “Because if I do not turn you over, we are as good as dead. I have no option but to trust the devil.”

“You low-lying snake! Fork-tongued, weasel, pathetic excuse for a man!” Claws out, Mama lunged across the carriage and raked her nails down Sergey’s face. Ribbons of scarlet tore his cheeks.

Cursing, Sergey smacked her hard, knocking her back against the seat. Blood welled from her split lip. “Sit there and don’t move or you’ll get much worse.” He pointed the gun at her leg. “The firing squad won’t care if you stand or not.”

Mama spit at him. Bloody spittle sprayed his white necktie.

Sergey flashed the gun to Svetlana’s knee. “Last warning.”

Grabbing her mother’s hand, Svetlana fought against the rising tide of panic. Calm resourcefulness was their best chance for survival. As they’d had when escaping the threat of Russia once before.

The carriage wheels clattered over cobblestones, jostling the occupants like marbles in a box until they rumbled to a stop. Train horns whistled in the distance.

The door jerked open and there stood the rat man, his nose and mouth jutted out to a near direct point. His round eyes settled over Svetlana and Ana, but he said nothing as he blocked their escape to the busy sidewalk.

“Do not think to try anything. You will immediately regret it.” Flashing his gun as a cautionary reminder, Sergey handed Ana out first to his accomplice, then Svetlana, keeping a tight hold on her arm. Blotting the blood from his face with a handkerchief, he placed a homburg hat atop his head. Made for a slightly larger crown, the hat slipped over his ears, shadowing the scratches on his cheeks. “Now, come along, ladies. We’ve a train to catch.”

Glasgow Central Train Station. With its skeletal ironworks arching over the platforms, dark wood information desks, flashing indicator boards, and large hanging clocks overseeing the bustling schedule, the station chugged a chaotically precise rhythm familiar to anyone whirling from one place to another. A mere two hours before Svetlana had stepped off platform six with nothing more than Mrs. Roscoe’s letter in her pocket and a winged prayer. By the end of the day she and Wynn should have started a new chapter in their life. A chapter full of promise that would begin with her confession of love.

With a cruel twist of fate, that chapter was ripped from her hands, its pages stained with the forthcoming blood spilled on Russian soil. Her blood.

She had to do something before that awful fate became her own.

People dressed in somber tones of black and gray that matched the outside dreariness bustled by with their eyes fixed on a destination far beyond the walls and steel tracks that had brought them here. Svetlana tried to catch the eye of more than one of the station’s uniformed workers in hopes they would recognize her, but none seemed to take much interest in a lady on the arm of a well-dressed gentleman. They might have cared more if they’d seen the gun hidden inside his coat.

“Don’t think of signaling to one of them,” Sergey whispered in her ear. The tip of his gun pressed into her side.

“Or you’ll shoot me? That would cause a scene I’m certain you’re wishing to avoid.”

They descended to a lower level where the crowds thinned and the air thickened with grease and coal smoke. Belching steel trains screeched along tracks and ground to a stop at the platforms where passengers crawled out like ants to scurry up the stairs or onto another platform. Shoulders and briefcases knocked against her, propelling her farther and farther into the belly of no escape. There, among the sea of unflinching black, a flash of red. Svetlana swallowed a cry of panic as she waited for the hands to grab her and yank her into the thrashing chaos of revolution. Mama cried behind her, Sergey’s hand tight on her arm as they raced for the last train.

The red floated by. A man’s scarf. Time snapped forward and out of the past.

“Brings back that last night in Petrograd.” Sergey remembered too.

“It was the last night I thought you had a heart.”

“Only to have wasted it on you, but unlike that night, I’ll be going with you this time. A touch of sentiment in that, I think.” He stopped to face her, and nothing existed in his expression to remind her of that awful night. Gone was the man who had kissed her cheek and thrown her onto the train to save her. In his place stood an unrecognizable man who chilled her to the core. “When I handed you onto that train in Petrograd, I knew it was the end of our beginning. A romance withered before it could bloom. This, however, truly will be the beginning of our end.”

Her life had come to revolve around train stations as significant markers in time. Traveling on holiday to the Black Sea beaches with her family. Saying goodbye to Father as the army went to battle once more. That night of revolution. Sitting next to Wynn as they discussed his soon-to-be position at the hospital. Sitting next to Wynn in silence after the position had been snatched from his hands. That very morning’s ride when the wheels could not roll fast enough to bring her to him. Now her last ride was to take her away from him. Perhaps there was poignancy to these bookending markers. A tragedy fit for Tolstoy.

At the far end near the very last platform was a bank of waiting rooms built for ladies to escape the ghastly smoke-soaked air. With the more fashionable platforms located upstairs to attract lady passengers, these waiting rooms appeared to be used more for storage. Finding an empty one, Sergey stuffed Svetlana and her mother inside. A single lamp hung from the low ceiling and rattled with each passing train.

“Find the conductor. Tell him we’re here and give him this.” Snatching off his oversize hat, Sergey tossed the rat man a bag that clinked with coin. “He’ll get the rest when we change trains in London. Should be enough to keep his mouth shut.”

The man shoved the coin bag into his pocket and scampered off, shutting the door behind him.

Nudging a crate out of the way, Svetlana helped her mother sit on a dusty leather bench. Leached of color and droopy, Mama moved like a brittle leaf blown far from its strength of branch and tree. She’d been the same when they fled Petrograd. She wouldn’t survive another trip.

“Bribery and betrayal. How you’ve sunk in the world. The Bolsheviks must be proud,” Svetlana said.

Sergey’s mouth twisted into a cruel line. “I told you never to associate me with them.”

“Then don’t associate yourself! Don’t do this, Sergey. I know you think there is no choice left, but there is still time to find another way. I can help you.” If she could somehow reach the man she’d once known deep inside him, the man too fearful to come out on his own, then she would stop at no length to sway him.

“I understand feeling alone with all burdens weighted on your shoulders and only wanting to keep your loved ones safe. I have lived this horror for a year. Looking back, my actions make me weep for what I was forced to endure, but no matter how dark our circumstances, we cannot allow ourselves to give in to desperation when innocent lives hang in the balance. Please, if it is a Dalsky you require, allow my mother to go free while you take me on.”

“It is too late for negotiation.”

“It is never too late to do the right thing. We can save your family. We can make them safe far from Russia. Wynn has great power as—”

“Do not speak his name to me! This is how it will be. You and your mother will die for my family to live.”

“How do you know your family hasn’t been killed already? How do you know the Bolsheviks will honor their word?”

“Do you not understand? I have no choice but to trust them. If I don’t do this, my family will die for certain.”

Seeing nothing small enough to use as a club, she wielded venom as her weapon. “Then you are no different from these murderous Bolsheviks you claim to hate.”

His eyes darkened to the fury of a winter storm thundering across the frozen tundra. He backhanded her across the face. The blow stung, juddering along her cheek bone and jaw.

The door squeaked open and the rat man slipped inside. He spoke in uneducated Russian. A village mongrel begging for scraps at the table of power. “We go in the fourth carriage. Other boxes filled with coal. Wait for the last call.”

On the platform outside a man’s voice carried over the hissing steam and shuffling feet. “Train six forty-two to London. All aboard!”

“If one of you so much as twitches in attempt to escape, I will not hesitate to kill both of you.” Sergey touched the gleaming handle of his gun. “If your own death lacks incentive, know that I will personally return to finish off the last remaining Dalsky princess. Do I make myself clear?”

Svetlana stood erect, not bothering to comfort the pain throbbing the left side of her face. She had to remain strong for Marina’s sake. Svetlana gripped her mother’s hand and nodded. They couldn’t simply jump from the train. They would have to take care of Sergey first. Terror pounded in her heart as her gaze slipped to the gun. She would take care of him, whatever it came to.

“Last call! All aboard!”

Sergey yanked the veil down over Svetlana’s face. “Can’t have someone recognizing you.” Pushing open the door, he swept his hand with grand invitation. “Onward to destiny.”