DEAR PEARL !

The Bolsheviks had risen, and their world had crumbled around them.

They lived in a cramped little house, now, with armed guards who watched their every move. They were no longer royalty, but only a family kept under house arrest, under suspicion by the new regime. 

Her brother’s words made her chest ache – That her sweet brother, the family’s precious baby, once the future tsar of Russia, should be reduced to such rude treatment, and as fragile as he was! 

It pained Maria to see the paleness of Alexei’s skin, the darkness of his eyes that spoke of things a young boy should not have seen. With a soft hum of comfort, she forced a practiced smile onto her lips and brushed his hair back from his forehead.

❝ Hush now, Alyosha, darling. We are very fortunate to be so well-treated by our good comrades. ❞ 

❝ Anya… ❞

Anya, now, not Anastasia or Nastya, because whomever they now are, they spent ten years as Anya and Masha, two orphan girls with none but each other.

How her sister has changed, and yet, remains the same. Masha – Maria, Masha, who is she, now, with two lives in her head? – has only ever wanted for belonging, just as she knew Anya did. For her to have found it with Dmitri, of all men, is at once unexpected and natural.

She vaguely remembers giggling over handsome young soldiers, daydreaming of a simple life with a good, comely soldier for a husband – and she remembers Anastasia’s playful teasing over it.