The sound of the hotel room door opening gives me a chill, like when I was a little girl and I would hide from Gabriel around the clothing racks in a store. In that moment when he would look for me and couldn't find me – in that moment when it was just the two of us, before Boris had even been born – I'd feel this chill, as if the world weren't right because I was missing my other half. I was in the wrong place. I was alone. And when he saw me – right when he saw me – the world would come rushing back in again, sweeping me up and putting me right back where I was supposed to be, where I was with my family, where everything was in color, where I was safe.
But Uncle Mike doesn't walk through the door, and I shrink back, pressing my back flat against the pillows behind me. The pillows are gray, and the walls are beige, and nothing here is really in color – not even me. A man walks in, but he's not in color either. He's like a charcoal drawing – chiaroscuro – the way it looks when I sketch an outline, the way it looked when I drew that boot for Boris, that boot with its lone yellow stripe.
I don't realize that I'm pulling back, using my feet to push myself as far back into the pillows as I'll go, my sneakers scuffing on the not-brown nap of the carpet. I don't realize it until the man stops a few feet in front of me. He holds his hand out and almost smiles. His eyes are ice gray, like the charcoal of his suit, like the underside-of-a-dove's-wing-gray on his tie.
"It's alright," he says to me, and there's that same small smile, like he's about to share the punch line of a joke or insult me.
I stop pushing myself back into the pillows. He steps forward and kneels down in front of me. He puts his hand out toward me and gestures at the same time to a man behind him to stay back. I hadn't even noticed because the other man blends perfectly into the wall behind him. I stare at this man kneeling in front of me – somehow moving even though he is staying still, somehow in color even though he is gray. And the other part of me, the artist part of me starts drawing him in my mind even though I know I have to pay attention to this moment, even though I know he might be here to hurt me.
"I know your mother," the man says. And he waits to let his words sink in.
I sit up – fast. "Is she here?" I ask, even though I know she isn't. If she were, she'd be crouching in front of me now instead of this man. My question comes out squeaky – it's the desperate hope of a child that I know I no longer am – that I haven't been since my father died.
"No," the man says. He presses his lips together. It is almost a smile, and it makes dimples appear around his mouth. My fingers twitch to draw them. "But I'll take you to her later. Right now, you need to come with me."
The man's words are impeccably pronounced around an accent that rounds his o's when he says "now" and "come". It isn't like dedushka's accent or even like the hint of mom's, so I know he isn't bratva – isn't family. It's funny how quickly that word settles onto my tongue in my mind, as if I knew all along who dedushka was – who we are – without ever really knowing it until now.
The man holds out his hand behind him and slightly to the right, and the other man magically appears again at his side. He places a knife into the man's hand, and somehow I know that he isn't about to cut me. I lean forward a little and let my arms come toward him. He looks at me with those gray eyes for a second before he lowers the knife to cut off the plastic zip ties. He leans down to look at the knife, to steady the blade tip as it reaches the black plastic. I tilt my head as I watch him.
"Who are you?" I say. It comes out softly.
He glances up at me and gives me the tiniest half smile. "My name is Mr. Schiller," he says.
The plastic of the zip tie pops as he cuts me loose, and I snap my arms back against my chest as if he has just burned me. I recoil. I pull away. I press myself back into the pillows behind me as far as I will go.
She's tiny, even though she isn't a child. And it's not her size, but her face that makes her that way. She's like her mother but a miniature version – again, not in size but in her openness. She has the rounded features of a child still, and her cheeks look liquid soft – like surface tension across milk.
She closes and opens visibly, like a book. When she hears the hotel room door open – she closes. When she hears I know her mother – open. And when she hears me say my name – close.
It's rage, terror and revulsion all at once. They're shoving each other out of the way inside my brain. Is this what my father felt?
"I'm not going anywhere with you," I say, and the sound of it leaks out through my words.
The man tilts his head and quirks his lips into that same half-smile. Hatred elbows out all the rest.
"You know who I am," the man says, and he looks at me eagerly, almost like a child.
"I know who you are," I say, and I don't have to draw courage for the venom to be there.
The man tilts his head and waits for me to go on, but I don't say anything and so we just stare at each other. He doesn't move, and even though I want to, I can't hold his gaze. I sit clutching at my wrist, the last place he came close to touching me, and hold it like if I don't, it'll fly out and smack him across the face. When I look back up at him, I feel like I'm shaking, but he sits perfectly still – still smiling at me without smiling, still moving without moving at all.
"Tell me," the man says, with the slightest dip of his chin to the left.
At least I made him talk first.
I narrow my eyes, feeling rather than just looking the way my father did the only time I can remember when I could have imagined him being the things that Uncle Mike had said. The way he'd looked at Uncle Mike the night they fought outside Aunt Kat's wedding – the way that I look at Mr. Schiller now.
The calm, almost placid expression on Mr. Schiller's face slowly hardens without moving even a muscle. But his eyes, so patient a moment ago, seem to come alive – seem to spark at what he sees in mine. And I feel it come up inside me – the Petrov part of me. I am dedushka's granddaughter. I am my mother's daughter. And I draw myself up so that he has to sit up to keep looking me in the eye.
"You killed my father," I say, and my voice doesn't waver an ounce.
Mr. Schiller's face doesn't change expression, but he tilts his head to the side, as if considering it.
"Who was it that told you that?" he asks. His eyes shift, and they catch the light, like the surface of the water on a rainy day when we used to take the boats out into the harbor.
I shake my head. "What difference does it make?" I ask. I tilt my head the same way, and I can feel dedushka's eyes shining out through mine.
Mr. Schiller rubs his fingers against his palm, as if he's brushing a fine layer of dust off it onto the floor. "It makes a great deal of difference," he says, raising his eyes from his hand to meet mine. "Who you trust – who you – believe." Mr. Schiller drops his hand and looks at me full on. "Tell me, Natalie, please," he says. He says it so softly it sounds like it's coming from inside my own head, and he stresses the last syllable of my name instead of the first, the same way dedushka does.
I'm not telling you anything, I want to say. But I think it instead of saying it, and instead I just shake my head.
"Was it your mother?" Mr. Schiller asks.
I'm surprised. He really does know my mother? I thought he was lying about that. I thought he was lying to get me to go with him.
"You don't really know my mother, do you?" I say.
"I do," he says. "You don't believe me?"
"No, I don't," I say.
"And why not?" he asks.
"Because she wouldn't know a man like you," I say. I want to spit the words out – to cut him, but he only smiles.
"Would you like to talk to her?" he asks. He's acting patient, and I hate him for it. But when he pulls out his cell phone, my heart drops into the floor.
My mother. My mother! MY MOTHER!
I want to call my mother so badly it takes everything I have not to rip the phone out of his hands. I don't realize I've started crying until the first tears hit my cheeks.
Mr. Schiller looks away. He pretends to be fidgeting with his phone, scrolling through the contacts, so that he won't have to look into my face.
Dial, I think. It's a command so loud I think they can hear it across the street. Dial the phone.
Mr. Schiller finds the name he wants and swipes his finger across the touch screen. I'm waiting for him to hand it to me, but instead, he holds it up to his own ear. Will this be one of those proof of life calls, like they do on t.v.? Will he tell my mother that to get me back she has to give him $100,000? Will he hit me or make me scream so that my mother will come running? What is he going to do to us now?
"Mrs. Walraven?" Mr. Schiller says.
I can barely hear him, my heart is pounding so hard.
"Yes, I have her here with me now. But she'd like," Mr. Schiller says.
"Let me talk to her," my mother says. I can hear it through the phone.
When Mr. Schiller hands his phone to me, my hands are shaking so hard I almost drop it.
"Mom?" I say. It's the only word I can get out before I start sobbing.
"Natalie," my mother says. And I can tell that she's crying too. "Oh, my love. My beautiful girl."
Mr. Schiller moves back a little, and his eyes roam the rest of the musty little hotel room. I clutch the phone to my face, my tears soaking the front of the view screen.
"Where are you? Please, come get me," I say. I know I shouldn't. What if Mr. Schiller is here to kill us all – me and Mom and Gabriel and Boris? But I can't stop my mouth from working. All I want in this world is my mom.
"I can't, sweetheart. You don't know how much I want to, but I can't right now. Mr. Schiller is there," my mother says, and I hear a sound like an engine roaring. It's followed by the sound of a hard slap of water against a windscreen, and the rest of my mother's sentence is lost. "That's why Mr. Schiller is there, baby. He's going to get you out of there. He's going to keep you safe until I get back."
"But, mom," I say. I struggle to keep breathing. "You don't know what he did. Uncle Mike told me. He told me what Mr. Schiller did to dad."
"Uncle Mike?" my mother says. "Is he there? Is he with you?"
"No," I say. I shake my head and drag the sleeve of my sweater across my face to dry my tears. The wool bites into my cheek, and it burns. "No, he went out. But he told me – before he left, he told me." I look up, and I see Mr. Schiller watching me. But he doesn't look angry. He's just looking at me. I turn away and lower my mouth closer to the phone.
"Listen, baby," my mother says. "Uncle Mike – you shouldn't listen to him. He's – he doesn't know what he's saying."
I look up and see Mr. Schiller still watching me. He reaches into the pocket of his suit jacket and takes out a handkerchief – a real linen one. It has his initials on it and everything. He hands it to me, and I dry my face.
"I wouldn't let you go with him if I didn't know I could trust him with you," my mother says. "I know he'll keep you safe. I'll come get you as soon as I can."
"But, mom," I say again. And I look up at Mr. Schiller. "I can't go with him. I can't trust him."
Mr. Schiller presses his lips together. He raises his eyebrows, folding deep creases into his forehead.
"Trust me, baby," my mother says. "Trust me."
I take a deep breath. "Okay," I whisper. The last thing in the world I want to do is end the call, but with a shaking finger, I do.
I don't know what Mrs. Walraven says to her daughter, but when she hangs up the phone and hands it back to me, her eyes are settled. She brushes her cheek against her shoulder to dry an errant tear, even though she's still holding my handkerchief in her hand. She wipes the view screen of my phone against the leg of her jeans and then hands it slowly back to me. I give a fleeting smile and resist the urge to dry the screen further. I hold my hand out to her, and she places her tiny hand inside of mine. I pull her to her feet. She's so light it only takes one hand.
"Right, then. Shall we go?" Vincent says. He is smiles all around, and I close my eyes in a slow blink.
Natalie steps away from him and toward me. She gives a nearly imperceptible grimace.
I lay my hand on the girl's back, and I expect her to resist or to step away, but instead she falls into step beside me. We walk together until we reach the door to the hotel room. Then she stops and looks up at me. Her eyes are huge inside her face, like a small child's, and they are chocolate brown instead of blue like her mother's.
"What's going to happen to my Uncle Mike?" she asks.
I grimace. I take a breath before I speak. "He is – your mother's to deal with," I say. And I stretch my neck as if I can already smell the stale blood.