So this is a super random story that has been stuck in my mind!

Hopefully it's not too confusing? It's also not finished, I'm trying to decide where, exactly, to go with it. I am also working on a novella that is too large to fit here (it's like 70 ish pages so far), so if anyone would be willing to take a look at that sometime, please let me know via email! camccartney@gmail.com. Or in the comments I guess. Okay, yay writing blog! Also, my whitespace seems weird on this. If there's a subject change, please feel free to add whitespace in your mind because it's probably there!!!

:) Caitlin

On a balmy night in mid-July, Anastasia Romanov, once a Grand Duchess of Russia, would ascend into her afterlife.

The room was already occupied by three women.

An air of indifference was general that evening. The women were busy. Writing, one of them. One of them sewed. Another gazed into a large cylindrical kaleidoscope. “A viewing,” she called it; for when she looked she did not see strange shapes and colors, but rather a random assortment scenes from her life. Her life?

The other women thought Anne B. quite vain, and Anne B. knew it. But she maintained that she could not help herself. She could not stop.

Two of the room’s occupants were busy on the night of Anastasia’s ascension. But one woman waited for the girl.

“So young!” Anne H. had remarked upon receiving the message. “Younger than you,” she’d continued, directing her statement toward Anne B. “Seventeen. A child still!”

“A child!” Anne B. had exclaimed. “Why, at seventeen, I had already—”

“Been married?” asked Anne Bronte, a smile forming on her lips.

“You’re wicked,” said Anne B. A tilt of the head that shifted her long black hair.

No, Anne B. had not been married. She had not yet been married at seventeen. Now she could see the benefit of this. Her marriage had been the death of her.

Nobody returned to Anne H.’s earlier comment. A child. The women did not care, not really. Another occupant! That was what they were thinking. It had been years since Anne Bronte had arrived.

“I can’t be certain of her situation,” Anne H. continued, peering into the sphere that hung suspended in the middle of the room. “The family appears poor by modern standards. But death by execution. How horrible!”

“And why execute a family of peasants?” A nasty question from Anne B.

“Why—I’ve no idea.”

When it was time for the death, all of them decided to watch.

“I thought neither of you cared,” said Anne H.

Anne B. rolled her eyes.

“I was at a good stopping point,” said Anne Bronte, glancing at her journal, which hovered in the far right corner of the room above a nineteenth-century desk.

“That’s good. She’ll need us here to take care of her,” said Anne H.

No one rejoined this time. They watched, and they remembered. Each alone, they remembered their dreams, their breaths, their deaths.

The death was gruesome, the most gruesome Anne B. had seen since her own, which she, blindfolded, had not seen in the first place. Anne Bronte had experienced an easy death. Uninteresting, at least. But Anne B. had had her head severed with a blade. And history had remembered her, too. Upon her arrival, Anne Bronte had been pleased to meet Anne B. but had not known of Anne H. Poor Anne B. had been all alone for years. Even when Anne H. arrived, Anne B. had been without respectable company. At first Anne B. had thought Anne H. a servant sent to her, bearing some tiding or apology. Anne H. had interesting stories about the new religion, and the new world, and the new colonies, but she became boring.

Anne B. knew true suffering.

She had heard terrible things about Anne H.’s death, of course, but Anne H. did not like to speak of it. She’d seen her children killed. Well, at least Anne H. had seen her children grow up. Anne B. shut her eyes and tried to conjure the image of her daughter. Her little daughter, the very picture of the king. What was her name? Her daughter, who had become a Queen. Dead by now, of course.

The words began to surface but then the winds began to blow and Anne B. looked up.

“She’s coming!” said Anne H.

And then she was there. The girl. Out of nowhere, physically present. This was what it had been like with Anne Bronte, too.

This girl was covered in blood. Gasping, sputtering. Dramatic. Anne B. raised her eyebrows. Her dress had been cut open; bright jewels spilled out of it.

Jewels!

“This is no peasant!” exclaimed Anne B. She bent down and crawled toward the girl.

“Anne B.! Would you give her a bit of space?” said Anne Bronte.

Anne B. did not answer; the girl was sitting up.

Anne H. held both of the girl’s shoulders.

“Where am I?” asked the girl.

“What is your name?” asked Anne B.

“—Anastasia.”

“Anastasia what?”

The girl coughed. “I—”

“Don’t be afraid, dear,” said Anne H.

“Am I dead?”

Dead! Of course she was dead. Of course all of them were dead. Anne B. wanted to be the one to answer the usual questions: dead! Alone! Heaven! You believed in—!

Anastasia was a useful addition. Young. Lively. She knew all about—

“Elizabeth. Elizabeth was the name of your daughter. Queen Elizabeth. I know all about her.”

Anne B. would have cried, had it been possible.

Time passed, moved like raindrops on the windshield of a car.

All of them were interested in cars. They all spent a bit more time looking into their glass jars, their cylindrical kaleidescopes. Crystal.

One day Anne Bronte had interesting news: “Anastasia,” she called. “There’s a girl down there who’s pretending to be you. She’s telling people she’s a Grand Duchess. I saw her in a newspaper article. Pretending she’s you! Can you imagine?”

“How can this be?” asked Anastasia.

Across the room, Anne B. crossed her arms, jealous.

They all missed someone more than they missed anybody else. The trouble was, it was difficult to remember people. People and their images fled from memory. It was as though heaven’s pockets were forever separating. Losing was easy. Natural.

For Anastasia it was Alexei, her brother. Who was protecting him now?

Anne Bronte missed her Emily, with whom she had hoped to reunite, after her death; Anne B. wished more than anything to see Elizabeth again—and Anne H. also missed her daughter, her littlest girl, her sweet girl whose hair was the color of—the color of—

“What was that color called?” she asked Anastasia. She reached out to her, she touched her arm. “What was that color? The color of—” But she could not articulate it.

“Red,” called Anne Bronte, her voice soft (softer than any earthly voice) from across the room. Anne H. asked about red often.

They kept watching Anastasia’s imposter. A slight woman.

“There’s a resemblance, you must admit,” said Anne Bronte.

“How curious!” exclaimed Anne H.

Anastasia resented the agreement and refused to look at the other woman.

“I’m here,” Anastasia maintained. “I’m here and I’m damned bored of this place.”

Anne B. fanned herself in the mirror. “Can’t you see why they all remembered me?” she gloated.

“But you’re not famous for your beauty, Anne B.,” said Anne Bronte.

“Oh?” A glance full of jewels, full of poison.

“You’re famous because they held you prisoner.” Anne Bronte snapped shut her book.

It was a loud fight.

“I’m famous because I’ve been held prisoner,” said Anastasia, trying to relate. “And that explains my imposter.”

“No,” said Anne B. “No, Anastasia, you’ve got it all wrong. You’re famous because you were murdered. We—” (Anne B. gestured) “—will always be more famous than any of them—” (another gesture) “—because we were murdered. Brutally,” she added. “You, too, I suppose,” she said to Anne F. in afterthought.

They sat there, trying to remember what it had been like.

“I wasn’t famous,” said Anne F. The newest addition.

But the others remembered, better, the things that had gone on (with regard to Anne F.), and they could do nothing more than exchange looks.

“Perhaps you will be, dear,” said Anne H.

“I never dreamed that history would remember me,” said Anne Bronte.

“You dreamed, all right,” cackled Anne B. “Who doesn’t? Who of us didn’t?”

Anastasia opened her mouth thoughtfully, as if to speak, but Anne B. interrupted her.

“Although I suppose Anne Bronte has a point. We all could not have known what our legacies would be. Different circumstances. You just wait,” continued Anne B. to Anne F., “And try to remember. Ask yourself these questions: did you know anybody important in your life? Did you do anything meaningful?”

“Leave the girl alone,” said Anne H. “Anne F., Anastasia, why don’t you two search for a nice book?”

“Look for one about—” began Anne B.

“Nothing historical,” snapped Anne H. “I want no more fighting, for the moment. We need our space. Let’s all take some space.”

They wanted to give Anastasia her space.

Space from the imposter, space from the new addition. (It wasn’t easy, being old news, and all of them but Anne F. understood how Anastasia felt. Although none of them had ever dealt with an imposter. So they tried to give her space.)

But nobody could leave the room.

Anna was an old woman when she arrived. She followed not only Anne F., but also Annie O. and Annie S.

Anna was an old woman who’d experienced a quiet death. Peaceful, by some standards. Who else had had such peace? It was unimaginable.

Anna preferred the company of Annie S., who was blind and also patient.

Anna still believed she would be seeing her husband in “heaven.”

Sometimes Anne H. would cry out. “Susanna,” she would say, “They did not kill—”

They told tales of obliterated families. Families obliterated.

They were united by their traumas, their naming.

Anastasia would mention, “I remember a mauve room in the palace—”

Across the room, Anna: “—my mother’s room, a mauve room, a mauve room in the palace—the palace—”

Anne F. and Anastasia were competitors and best friends. When Anne F. was alive, she’d followed Anastasia’s story. Or was it Anna’s story?

“A lost princess!”

Anne F. never knew that Anna was an imposter; DNA tests had not been invented until—DNA tests have not yet been invented.

This was all before she received the diary—

She used to argue about it with her—

“—sisters,” moaned Anna, “my sisters are—”

“My sisters!”

All of them looked up. Anne H., Anne B., Anne Bronte and Anne Bonny. Annie S. Annie O. Anne F.

What would happen?

“And what is your name, then?” asked Anna of Anastasia. A hint of a smile on her face. Anna was an old woman who only liked the company of Annie S. or Anne H.

“I’m—” Anastasia began.

Something occurred to her. She wanted to grin. She remembered her Shura, her beloved nanny, and what was it Shura used to call her? Something about an imp. You imp, she would say, you—

Anastasia grinned.

“Why I’m hurt,” Anastasia said to Anna. “Don’t you know your own sister?”

Anna did not blink.

“Why—it cannot be—it has been so long—oh!”

Anna paused. Anna paused.

“Oh!”

Anna paused.

“Maria!” she said finally, “Maria, my, my—”

“Maria!” exclaimed Anastasia. “Then you do not recognize me at all. I am—” Anastasia hesitated, deciding—“I am Tatiana.”

“Tatiana,” said Anna, “Tatiana, my sister.” She stepped forward and took Anastasia’s hand.

An old woman.

A mean trick.

Anastasia pulled away.

“I’m not your damn sister,” said Anastasia. She had missed cursing.

“Tatiana! How can you say such a thing?”

“Damn you,” said Anastasia. “Damn, damn—”

“That is enough!”

A long pause, a soft—

“Anne H.?”

How strange it had been to hear Anne H. raise her voice.

“I’ve been held prisoner,” said Anastasia.

“And I escaped,” mused Anna.

“We’ve all been held prisoner.” Anne H.

“None of us escaped,” said Annie S. Was it an epiphany?

“We’re women.”

(A low voice from the room’s far corner. Process of Elimination. Why, Anne B.! How unlike you, you thought you could hide—)

“She is not in her right mind,” whispered Annie S.

Anne H. was sewing. The two of them watched Anna A., who was rifling through the crown jewels. Anastasia’s? Anne B.’s? Who gave a damn?

“No. No, she is not quite—how did you phrase it? In her right mind. But we must take care of her. Why, we’re all she has. Perhaps we can help her.”

“Help her find her true identity?” asked Annie S.

“Her true identity, yes! How fun it will be!”

Anne H. smiled at Annie S., but when she looked away she was not smiling; for a moment she could not remember how to smile.

Across the room, Annie O. was teaching something to Anastasia and Anne F.

“That’s it, lift—you aim with—ah! Perfect form, Anastasia! That’s my girl!”

“If only we could really shoot! Anything! A bird, a squirrel, a crazy imposter—Papa’s guards used to carry huge—”

Anne H. did not smile, across the room.

“What are they doing over there?” asked Annie O.

“Shotguns. Shotguns, even—even here.”

“And how did you die, then, Anne H.?”

The longing never ended.

“What color—?”

Her voice sounded very frail.