"Mommy, Uncle George is coming, and there's a lady with him," Elizabeth announced from her perch beside the window.

Anne had just finished nursing Jonathan and put him on her shoulder to burp him. She glanced out the window at the teenage girl in the oversized t-shirt and baggy jeans who accompanied George. Had her brother taken pity on a transient? Likely she was a runaway; if so, her parents were probably worried sick about her.

"Anne, this is Anastasia Romanova," George said. "I found her on a bridge yesterday. She had...just crossed over."

Anne immediately felt ashamed about her earlier assumptions. "I'm so glad that you're all right, dear. I hope that it was relatively fast and painless for you, as it was for me."

"It wasn't that at all. There were jewels sewn into my gown and the bullets bounced right off. I was the last one to die and I saw all the others die. Someone saw me move and stabbed me with a bayonet. Right here." Anastasia showed Anne the place behind her ear where the bayonet had gone in.

"Oh, you poor dear!" Anne exclaimed.

"I told Anastasia that you would come shopping with us," George said.

"Why, of course! That wouldn't be a problem at all. It sounds like fun, doesn't it?"

Anastasia beamed. "He's adorable! May I please hold him?"

"Certainly." Anne handed Jonathan to Anastasia, who made cute noises at him. Jonathan gurgled up at her.

"You have such beautiful red hair," Anastasia told Elizabeth. "How old are you?"

Elizabeth held up three fingers.

"What a big girl you are!" Anastasia said.

Elizabeth beamed. "How old are you?" she asked.

"Seventeen."

"Show me with fingers."

Anastasia laughed. "I don't have that many fingers."

In the car on the way to the mall, George asked Anastasia whether or not she knew how to drive.

"There was never any need to learn, as there were always servants to take us where we needed to go," she told him.

"Most people these days consider being able to drive a necessity," George said.

"In that case I am willing to learn. Are there schools for it, then?"

"There are classes, sure, but I could teach you myself in my car, if you like."

"That might be fun," Anastasia conceded, although the sight of the vehicles whizzing by her window made her feel a bit intimidated.

When they finally arrived at the mall, Anastasia was amazed at its size. "Why, it's like a small city inside one big building," she said.

"Just wait until you see what's inside," Anne told her with a smile.

"The largest department store in Moscow doesn't have nearly as much," Anastasia said when they were all inside. George and Anne laughed.

"There's another mall only a fifteen-minute drive from here," Anne said. "I'll take you there sometime, if you like."

"Oh yes, please do!"

For Anastasia, the next several hours were sheer ecstacy as she looked over and tried on many different articles of clothing, marvelling at how different they were from the fashions of nineteen eighteen. They ate lunch at the mall, and then it was time for Elizabeth and Jonathan to take a nap, so George took them and their mother back home and returned to his apartment with Anastasia.

"We'll have to get documentation for you soon, a birth certificate and such. Henry can help with that. We'll have to falsify the birth year, of course. No one's going to believe you're really a hundred and eleven years old."

Anastasia giggled. It occurred to George that in the time period into which he had been born, she would have been considered to be well within marriageable age. Just as quickly he put the thought from his mind. He was well aware of the modern-day laws concerning such matters.

"School starts back up in a few weeks. You'll definitely need it then."

"We never went to regular school. We had our own private tutor, and it was just the five of us in one classroom. It was very important for us girls to learn languages as we were all supposed to marry foreign princes, as our mother had done. I had a bit of a crush on the Prince of Wales."

George laughed. "He abdicated the throne and married an American divorcee named Wallis Simpson."

"Maria was jealous because I was better at math than she was even though she was older. Olga and Tatiana treated me like a baby sometimes. They would get tired of me tagging along behind them and tell me to go play with Alexei. It hurt my feelings and I would get even. I used to trip them up and throw things at them."

George laughed and ruffled her hair. "I'll bet that showed them."

"I did the same thing to the servants. A few of them almost quit because of me."

"You naughty girl."

As George's apartment had only one bedroom, he knew that Anastasia couldn't stay there for very long. Henry and Anne had an extra bedroom, and George decided to ask them if Anastasia could stay with them, at least for the time being.

"Want to see something really neat?" George turned his computer on and showed her how to look up music videos on youtube. She was delighted.

"These little movies have not only color, but sound as well!"

George laughed. "Of course they have sound. That's why they're called 'music' videos."

Thinking that youtube would easily keep her occupied for awhile, George went to phone Henry and Anne with his requests.

"Of course she can stay with us, for as long as she needs to. That would be fine," Anne told him.

He returned to the living room to find Anastasia giggling hysterically.

"Can you believe there was this woman named Anna Anderson who claimed to be me? But she couldn't have been me, because I'm me!"

Of course. Wikipedia was but a short jump from youtube, especially for someone who was as bright as Anastasia obviously was.

"Anastasia, perhaps another time would be better..."

He saw the look of abject horror on her face and realized that it was too late.

"They found us buried in a forest in Siberia in nineteen ninety-one. They poured acid over us to hide who we were. Alexei and I were hacked into pieces and burned. The others were thrown down a mine shaft." She began to sob quietly.

That's the part I didn't want you to see...As her chest heaved with sobs, George gathered her into his arms and held her tightly.

"Can you imagine all the blood? He could never play rough like other boys...if he ever got hurt he couldn't stop bleeding...he was supposed to be the next tsar after our father..."

"I'm so sorry, so very sorry," George whispered over and over again as he rocked her as if she were a small child. After awhile she quieted and he thought she was asleep. He looked and saw that her eyes were still open.

"That wasn't really you that they found, sweetheart. That was only what was left of what used to be you. The real you is right here, right now, healthy and whole. And the same is true of the others, wherever they are."

She gave a small smile.

"I want you to hear something, Anastasia. It's a lovely song I heard earlier today. It made me think of you right away." George went back to youtube and typed in the song's title. Anastasia listened, fascinated.

Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance...
I hope you dance...

George held his arms out to Anastasia and she went into them right away. Together they spun around and around in his living room.

"I remember dancing with my father in the palace in St. Petersburg on the three hundredth anniversary of Romanov rule. He was a bit taller than you. I only came up to here on him. But of course I was younger then as well."

George smiled, thinking about how beautiful she was, how fresh, sweet, and innocent. It was almost as if they had gone back in time and it was St. Petersburg in nineteen sixteen once again, before all the horror and tragedy had happened.

The song ended but they kept dancing.