Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble Read Free Book Online Page B

We’re going to set up a display of them in the front window, I think. Here, I’ll show you.”
    My mother flits into the back room and emerges about thirty seconds later with a small box. “It’s Russian folk art,” she says and slips the small, rectangular, black box into my hand. “Usually they depict fairy tales or folktales. Isn’t it beautiful?”
    Unlike the rhinestone bracelet, it really is. It’s a little bigger than my palm and very smooth. On the cover, there’s a painting. The colors are vivid—all bright reds, greens, and golds. A young girl in a long dress stands in the middle of a thick forest. She’s got long, black hair wrapped in a scarf she’s got tied under her chin. In one hand, she’s carrying a torch of some sort. In the other, she’s holding a tiny doll dressed in a similar outfit. Behind her ride three horsemen. The horses’ legs are painted to give the impression that they’re in motion, moving swiftly through the forest. Each one is a different color, both horse and horseman matching—one white, one red, one black.
    â€œSo which story is this?” I ask her. “Do you know?”
    She nods. “It’s called ‘Vasilisa the Brave,’” she tells me. “About a young girl whose wicked stepmother sends her through the forest to get light from a witch. The horsemen are the witch’s servants, I think. Each one is a color of a different time of day—red for sunrise, white for morning, black for night.”
    Gooseflesh prickles my arms at the word witch . In my head, I see the old woman with the metal teeth. That jaw unhinging to swallow me whole.
    I shake off the image. “Wicked stepmother, huh? Kind of like Cinderella?” I think of Tess for a second because of the word wicked while I peer again at the pretty girl on the box. Then I notice something else.
    â€œWhat’s that?” I point to the small hut behind some of the trees.
    Mom shrugs. “I never noticed it before. I guess it must be the witch’s house.” She reaches out to take the box from me. Then, as almost an afterthought, she says, “It opens, you know. The inside is pretty too.”
    I place my thumb on the front of the box and push, but the lid stays firmly closed. I push again. Clearly, this is the piece that’s supposed to lift up, but it doesn’t. From the back of the store, I hear the faint sound of a Caribbean-sounding ringtone.
    â€œYou know,” I say to my mother. “If you keep your cell phone in your pocket, you don’t have to run to your purse every time it rings.”
    â€œJust watch the front for me.”
    â€œWill do,” I tell her. “If someone comes in, I’m going to pawn off that god-awful bracelet on her.”
    My mother makes a face, then hustles to the back to answer her cell.
    I poke the box one more time with my thumb. The lid gives a sucking sound, as though it’s been glued shut or something. I push again. The top lifts up, revealing a glossy, red interior. Painted in the center is a tiny gold key. I trace it with my finger, feel how it’s raised slightly from the rest of the box.
    I glance at the wall clock. It’s almost five. I really need to dash.
    â€œI’ve got to run,” I say loudly enough that Mom can hear me. I close the lid and plop the box onto the counter.
    And then my breath catches in my throat.
    Because the hut on the box’s front cover—the one I swear had been barely visible behind the thick grove of trees in the painting—is now resting in the clearing.
    Even for the weirdness of today, this is absolutely impossible. I blink and rub my eyes, afraid to look down. But I can’t help myself. I look again. The hut is back behind the trees, just where it had started.
    â€œAre you okay?” Mom walks back to me. She’s looking at me closely, which is never a good thing.
    â€œFine,” I