Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko Read Free Book Online Page A

princess?”
    He babbled nervously, smirking a little, afraid of appearing ridiculous. He himself was a closed book, a boy geared towards success. A winner of competitions and glutton of science fiction, with high cheekbones and dark curls, dressed in shirts always neatly ironed by mom or sister, a dandy who at sixteen knew three different tie knots.
    Sasha watched him and thought of one thing: right now she had to go into the bushes. Immediately. Otherwise the ritual would be broken; plus, to be honest, she wasn’t going to make it home anyway.
    “Kon, wait for me at the entrance.”
    He did not understand. He kept talking, smiling coyly in the half-light, kept sputtering nonsense about an encrypted princess, and how she must be deciphered.
    “Kon, go and wait for me! I’ll be right there!”
    He did not get it. Idiot. Conceited chatter-box. Time was running out, the run was completed, but the ritual was not.
    “I have to pee!” Sasha snapped. “Do you get it?”
    When she left the park, the entrance was deserted. No old man with a dog, no Ivan Konev. Only a chain of footsteps stretched over frosted grass.
    ***
    Valentin left. Sasha hoped for good, but it was not to be. The three of them celebrated New Year’s Eve together—like a family, with champagne and a little fir tree that Mom decorated herself, rejecting Sasha’s help.
    All night fireworks rumbled outside. At half past four, when Mom and Valentin were still watching The Irony of Fate on one of the local channels, Sasha pulled on her boots (she did not dare run over the snow in sneakers) and wound a scarf around her neck.
    “Are you actually going for a run?” Valentin asked. “That’s some willpower you have, Alexandra. I envy you…”
    Sasha left without replying. The snow in front of the building was covered with confetti, here and there the stubs of sparklers poked out of the melting piles. Sasha started jogging.
    The windows were lit. Groups of happy drunks lingered on street corners. Empty champagne bottles lay on the snow. Sasha ran, listening to the crunch of the snow, feeling the bite of the frost on her moist nostrils, watching the cloud of her breath dissolve in the air. “That’s some willpower you have, Alexandra. I envy you…” Anybody would toughen up under these circumstances. And although the connection between Sasha’s twilight nightmare and a pre-coronary condition in a stranger was not obvious and could never be proven… But no, not really a stranger at that point. Something’s happened to Mom, something has changed, she’s still young, but she won’t always be…
    So that’s that. While the connection cannot be proven, it exists. Sasha knows that for sure, and she is not allowed to make any mistakes. That’s how the first circle locks onto itself.
    Sasha ran over her own footsteps. She aimed carefully, foot into each footstep, first subconsciously, then with interest. Circle after circle, step after step. She hasn’t seen Ivan’s grandfather with his mutt in a long time; cured of his insomnia? Or sick, and not allowed outside? Since their romantic morning rendezvous ended in such a cringingly vulgar manner, Sasha and Kon almost never spoke. They were civil to each other, reserved, indifferent. As if nothing had ever happened. The princess remained un-deciphered.
    Sasha came to. Which circle was it, eighth, tenth? Her footsteps, repeated endlessly in the white powder, became large and deep, as if the Abominable Snowman ran by, wearing enormous boots.
    The dark sky released a multitude of snowflakes. An ambulance drove by, sirens wailing. Not for us, Sasha thought with gloomy satisfaction. No need. Nothing can happen to us.
    Relieving oneself in the freezing cold is a dubious pleasure. Sasha crept out of the bushes, buttoning her clothes, patting off the snow that fell from the branches. It would be so nice if no one else ever saw the goddamn coins. But it can’t be helped. The day before yesterday Mom saw that day’s