Perfect Place

Summer 2013

Mister Holt had been watching the boy for a while. He curled his fist and covered his mouth with it. The boy’s first English test. Mister Holt had arranged it himself.

“I never thought it would be so hard to murder someone who has killed over a thousand people in a blink of an eye.”

Nolan scribbled on his little piece of paper and smiled at one of his classmates. Holt looked at his watch. Twenty-four hours left before he returned to 2045. The year Nolan went by the name Cassius the Great. His hand dove into a pocket. The knife was still there. Fingers curled around it. Nolan would die at the break.

HAH-choo

I turned around. A woman stood in an apron, pink and green in patches, like a plate of holubtsi. I went back to the notebook. The knife in Mister Holt’s hand looked a bit too curvy. That’s what happens when you’ve got barely any space left. I pressed the pencil harder and drew the boundaries around the panel, to separate Holt’s eyes from Nolan. I put the pencil down and dragged the chair closer to the table – the legs let out a dry scrape. I reached for the cup of vanilla ice cream, and I grabbed a full spoon of it. The little bits of ice melted at once inside my mouth.

‘Sunflower’ was my favourite café in Luhansk. The whole feud between Nolan and Mister Holt started here. Pharaoh’s rebirth too. The fight between Perun and Zeus. All of it. If not for the maths mark on my last report card, I wouldn’t have found this place. So, all in all, I should be grateful for the strap that I got later that day.

HAH-CHOO

My shoulders hitched up. The cashier blew her nose into her apron.

“Lena, are you sick?” Someone from the back yelled.

“No.” She yelled back.

I looked back at my story. Mister Holt is a hero. My mother said that he looks like a beggar. Pointy chin, slender arms, but he’s actually a very nice person. He wouldn’t kill Nolan. He would try to understand why Nolan could have become Cassius. On the last page in the leftmost panel, Nolan had a sixth finger. Stupid. The eraser went across Nolan’s hands and caught his face. Now it was a grey smear. Nolan had no mouth, and no fingers. Stupid, stupid. I tapped my palm against my forehead, harder than I meant to. I picked the pencil back up and tried to fix it.

TING.TING.

I turned towards the door. A girl. She had a black T-shirt on with the word ‘COOL’ spelt out in rhinestones. Each letter had a different colour: C was yellow, O was pink, the second O was green, and L was purple. Every couple of steps in her flip-flops, the shorts slid down her hips. The shoelace around her waist wasn’t doing much. She stepped towards the cashier.

“Hi! Can I ask for one chocolate in a cup?”

The woman nodded, scooped it, and set the cup on the glass.

I looked at her over my shoulder. She half-turned and caught me looking. My shoulders snapped upright, spine straightened before I told it to. I slowly turned away, while heat started to climb across my neck. I raised both of my elbows, so my armpits didn’t stick to the insides of my shirt.

“Twelve hryvnias, please.”

Coins went down on the glass, one after another. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six hryvnias. The coins stopped hitting the table. I turned. Her palm was still open, and I saw the rest of them sitting in it. Even if every one of them was a fifty, she wouldn’t get past eight-fifty.

“I’m very sorry. But can I ask for the vanilla one instead?”

“What?”

“I just changed my mind.”

“You asked for chocolate.” She tapped her nail on the glass. “Twelve.”

The girl frowned. She gathered her red-haired strands into a tail and pulled her shorts back up. Just a bit below the centred ‘COOL’ logo. Now the girl was standing on the counter.

“Come on. It’s right here, just swap it. Please?” She pressed her hands together. The woman was almost laughing, with no sound coming out of her mouth.

“Tolik?” she screamed, not breaking eye contact with the girl. “Someone doesn’t want to pay in here.”

“What?”

A sound of glass breaking came from the storage room. I gripped the metallic edge of the table as a slender figure came out of the dark room. He wore a white, striped tank-top with rusty stains in the middle. From a distance, he looked bald, but the back of his head was full of singular pointy strands.

“This one doesn’t want to pay?”

The girl jumped off the counter, grabbed the chocolate cup, a handful of napkins, and ran for the door.

“Aye, I remember your face,” the woman said. “If I see you on the street, run.”

A slap landed across the man’s head.

“You let her run away. Go back, dumbass.” She yawned. “How did you get so hammered last night?”

“Eh.” The man paused, slowly blinking. “What?”

“Go away, bio-waste.”

I packed my stuff into my sling bag and threw it over my shoulder. The cup was cold against my left hand. The lights started to go off one after another; the humming of the fridges stopped. I flipped over the chair onto the table.

“Thanks, Aunt Lena.” I raised my hand and waved.

She ran a cloth over the glass in circles. The circle from the chocolate cup was still on the counter. I left Sunflower and walked towards the playground. We had only one in the district. It got busier closer to the evening. Maybe I could think of what happens next to Mister Holt.

Ten minutes later, I was there. On the curb, right before the turn to the playground, the same girl from the café was sitting. She was playing with the spoon inside the chocolate pool. What was in my cup was hard to call ice cream anymore. Sweet, thick water wasn’t quite right, but it was the first thing that came to mind. Maybe she’d want it anyway.

“Hey.”

She looked up.

“Do I know you?”

I shook my head and held out the cup.

“It’s not much, but it’s vanilla. I was there. At the café.”

“You were there? Sorry you had to see it. It was embarrassing.”

I shrugged.

“I thought it was brave. Anyway, you want it?”

“I don’t have any money to pay you, though.”

“It’s free.”

She looked at me, then to the cup, back at me and back to the cup. Before I realised it, the cup was in both of her hands.

I looked away and walked to the bench. My feet slid under me, one ankle crossed over the other, and I let my weight press down on them. I always thought better this way, even if my mother told me it’s not a ladylike pose. I opened my notebook.

What would Mr Holt say to Nolan during the break?

“Nolan, I know sometimes life might feel like too much, and it seems that everybody is against you, but it’s not true, buddy. There’s always an exit. To everything, always.”

No. Why would an English teacher say that?

Nolan was an orphan. Would Mr Holt try to talk to his supervisor?

No. Also not.

I buried my hands in my hair.

“Thank you.”

The girl stood to my left. Hands on her waist.

“No problem.”

I turned away, but my peripheral caught her sitting on the bench with me.

“What are you doing?”

“Can’t you see?”

“Barely.”

I handed her the notebook. She took it and turned back to the first chapter. Her legs folded the same way mine did. She read the first three pages with a grin on her face. The moments of Mr Holt with his family and his daughter. Her eyebrows frowned. A murder of a thousand people in a blink of an eye. She licked her finger, and pages started turning faster. Frowning brows, widened eyes, lips twitching between flat and half-smile. Mr Holt abandoning his family. Mr Holt time travelling. Mr Holt arriving at school to Nolan. Mr Holt giving a lesson. Her breathing went heavy but quiet.

“So, what’s going to be next?”

I opened my eyes. I hadn’t known they were shut.

“Did you like it?”

“Pfff, of course. How did you come up with all of that?” She shuffled closer to me on the bench. “You wrote it yourself, right?”

I nodded, fast, like the minigun Cassius carried.

“Do you think Cassius wouldn’t notice Mister Holt left somewhere?”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay.” She turned to me fully. “Imagine this: you have practically somebody who’s obsessed. OBSESSED with stopping you, right?”

I blinked.

“So now for the past one week or so, this guy disappears, and being the tech genius Cassius is, don’t you think he would also travel to the past with Holt to stop him?”

“I never thought about it.”

“Do you have a pen?”

I pulled a pen out of my backpack and handed it over to the redhead. She pulled a wrinkled napkin out of her pocket. She began drawing the figure of Cassius, right outside the class where Mr Holt was standing. Cassius looked as if he overate, Mr Holt looked as if he stopped eating at all, and Nolan was the same height as his older self.

“So this is how it would sound.”

Cassius has discovered Holt has left. The distortions, the electric overload the other night. He has tracked where the power went. Time travelling. He has found Holt’s machine and followed him into the past, to right now, while the younger one is taking an English test. He is loading a gun with a poisoned bullet, aimed to go between Holt’s eyes.

“Wow.” The word just leapt out of my mouth.

She giggled and started curling a hair strand around her finger.

“You inspired me.”

I extended my hand towards her.

“I’m Yana.”

She extended hers to me.

“I’m Kira.”

She paused.

“So, when are we drawing it?”

“We?” My voice came out higher.

“Well, it’s our idea,” she smiled.

“Hm. Fine. Well…I think closer to the New Year.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“That’s like in half a year.” She tilted her head. “Why?”

“That’s when I will get a new notebook.”

“You don’t have any spare ones?”

“That’s the last one, and for a new one I don’t have any money.”

She chuckled.

“No problem. We will get you one by the end of this week.”

“Sorry, but–”

“Kira.”

I clicked my tongue. “I wasn’t blanking on your name…I just…Kira, I don’t have any. And I mean any money. I don’t want you to pay for me.”

The corner of her mouth went up.

“Who says we have to buy it?”

I placed my hand against my mouth and spoke against it.

“We can’t do that.”

“You can’t do that. But I can.”

She stood up and offered her hand.

“I’m not going to steal anything,” I said.

“I will. You don’t have to do anything. I promise.”

She offered me her pinkie.

“Yana, I’m not the type of person to lie.”

I looked at her hand. Her pinkie pointed at my face.

“Okay.” My finger curled around hers.

The warmth climbed up my neck again. I lifted my elbows in the same way I did in the café, but my armpits were glued to the insides of my cotton shirt.

“Follow me.” She looked at her Hello Kitty watch on her wrist. “I have to be home in three hours, though.”

“No problem. Lead the way.”

Fall 2013

Today, getting onto the roof wasn’t a break-in like it usually was. The lady who held the door for me was nice about it; I even carried her bags up to her flat. She poured me a bowl of strawberries and rinsed them – the very same strawberries I was now eating on the roof. I left a couple for Kira. Nobody locked the door today, so no standing on the handrail, no hauling myself through the gap above it either. Thank God. Last time, when Kira squeezed through it and was waiting for me on the other side, I misjudged the drop, so I twisted my ankle. We wrapped her sweaty sports towel around it. It hurt for over two weeks – Kira even brought me her mom’s painkillers. Only then did it go away.

I sat with my back to the wind that kept moving my markers and aggressively flipping the pages of my notebook. I didn’t come home after school, so I brought two with me today. One had a smooth cover on it. It was the story of Mr Holt. The other one was ribbed. It was something different.

Ariana was a mighty warrior who had survived three decades of war and had been in exile ever since she buried over five hundred of her allies. King Julius was the one who cast away Ariana, despite many civilians calling her their only hero, and the only warrior who had stopped the ferocious anger of Orcs ten years back. Ariana had left the West. She believed this was her end. Peace had returned between the tribes, and the world had found a stability it hadn’t known in years. But Scarlet, the witch of the west, had a different claim. Her prophecy had shocked the city, proclaiming that the Orcs of the East were ready to strike again. The warriors of the West just laughed at her. The chubby, lazy soldiers who hadn’t held a sword in years were no match for the cold-bloodedness of the East. So, she took her horse and went South to find Ariana.

The witch’s intervention didn’t come unprompted. Ariana’s peaceful days, if they could be called that, had turned into nightmares. Visions that chased her sober mind, and at the end of each one, a witch whispering into her ear.

“Come, Ariana. You’re our only hope. Save us.”

“Ariana. HELP US.”

The scars that had been lingering started to pulse. Fear that had never run through Ariana’s blood before made her move from the South to the North-West. But the visions didn’t vanish. They became only stronger. She began losing her sleep and appetite. Her skin became sticky, pale, like an old woman’s. Sleep became a curse; she refused to rest at all throughout her path – but her body took over eventually. And there she was. A witch. The tall and beautiful woman stood in front of her:

“I was waiting for you. We need you.”

“I’m an old dog. I’m the last thing that you need.”

“The Orcs are planning another attack. Ariana, we need a leader.”

Scarlet took control of Ariana’s mind again and showed her the images of the once-powerful West that had gone soft. Warriors that couldn’t hold a sword. Soldiers that used their helmets as pints for beer. That’s what it had turned into. Ariana opened her eyes. A woman was there. The real one. She extended her hand and whispered through the little gap between her teeth.

“I need you. They need you.”

Each night she told Scarlet no. Each night Scarlet came back.

Days passed. Weeks passed. The Orcs of the East had just left their kingdom.

BANG

The roof door opened. I closed the notebook and slid it inside my bag.

“Yana, hi!”

“Kira.” I stood up, grabbed the bowl of strawberries and walked over to her. Today she wore black jeans that had rhinestones on her knees, and a grey sweatshirt with ‘NIEK’ on it. “We’ve got some strawberries.”

Her tongue ran over her upper lip. “Nom.”

My hair kept getting into my mouth. Grey residential blocks stretched out, balconies cluttered with bicycles, kick scooters, and faded skirts. All sorts of mess.

“Wanna go sit over there?” I pointed to the edge of the roof.

“Okay, but no legs hanging this time. That really creeps me out.”

She’d clenched onto my T-shirt that time, even though I was just sitting.

“Wait, actually.” I dropped my bag in between us. “Why are we even on roofs if you’re so scared of heights?”

“Because you can do this.” She pursed her lips, hawked and spat somewhere so far down my eyes didn’t catch it.

“Seriously?” My eyebrows dropped.

“Well.” She chuckled. “That’s part of it. I also just really like the view.” She looked away from me, somewhere out towards the coal tips.

“You call this a view?”

“I don’t know, Yana. It’s just looking down there. Cars are honking, everybody’s rushing somewhere, even the pedestrians. Come on, look.” She pointed at the man on the sidewalk who was yelling at the woman pushing a child in a stroller. “Like what’s your problem, man? Can’t you just wait?”

“So, you like seeing people struggle?”

“What?” Her head turned to me. “How did you even get that? No.”

“What then?”

“I like to feel that I’m not part of this. That I’m above it. That I’m not the person who would yell at the mother with a kid just to save fifteen seconds of my time. And this place gives me that.”

I looked down. Cars kept on cutting each other off before making even a half-turn. The smell of gasoline reached us all the way up here. I looked at the woman who wore something my mom called a triangle dress. Two-point shoulder pads, some synthetic fabric. She held some sort of bat in her hands and was beating a carpet. On and on and on.

“See that woman in the triangle dress?” I said.

“What’s a triangle dress?”

“There, on the right of the road, closer to the apartments.”

“Yana, I don’t see.”

“You’re looking left.”

“Oh. Sorry.” She briefly smiled and looked away towards the right. “Yeah, what about her?”

“How old do you think she is?” I grabbed a strawberry and pulled the leaf off it. I threw the leaf inside the bowl.

“Hm.” Kira plucked the leaf off hers and flicked it off the roof, the same way as the spit. “Thirty-ish?”

“What do you think she does? I think she’s an accountant.”

“No, no. Look at her, she’s clearly a botanist.”

I laughed. “What? How did you even get to that?”

She pointed towards the woman.

“Look at these strong forearms. She’s clearly throwing something out of one pot into another.”

“Could be a school cafeteria lady?” She had the same red hair as a dinner lady at my school.

Kira hummed. “Yeah, you might be right.”

I grabbed another strawberry, but it slipped out of my fingers.

“Shit.”

“How did you manage to do that?”

I shushed her. My hands had red watery stains on them.

“Do you have water?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’m not letting you touch my notebook and leave stains on it.”

She pulled back from me and barely opened her mouth.

“Your notebook? Should I remind you what I did to get that one?”

“Okay, fine. Fine. Our notebook.”

She unzipped her bag and poured water on our palms.

“Dry them off first, though,” I said.

“Fine, fine.” She turned to my bag. “By the way, I keep forgetting to ask. Do you still have that second one I got you? Is it in here?”

She reached into the bag. The ribbed cover came out on top.

“No!”

It came out louder than I expected. Her hand pulled back at once.

“Sorry.” I laughed without a sound. “I just don’t like it when someone gets into my backpack without permission. Sorry.”

“Didn’t know you were that paranoid about it.”

“Sorry.”

“Just because I’m a thief doesn’t mean I’m going to rob my best friend.”

She looked down. I placed my hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. Nothing came to mind. I reached into the bag. I grabbed the smooth one and handed it to Kira.

“There you go.”

“Can I take it, or will you yell again?”

I clicked my tongue, and my eyebrows dropped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“Mhm.”

She opened the notebook and started looking through the pages where Cassius captures Mr Holt.

“Even though I’m still mad at you.” She turned to me. “I really like how you drew this.”

I smiled.

“So, the plan is: Cassius takes Holt back with him and executes him.” I paused. “Wouldn’t Cassius just kill him there? Why so much hassle?”

“I mean.” She hesitated for a second, looking from the gun that Cassius held against Holt’s head to me. “They’re your characters, but I would say Cassius would want to establish his power, you know? He wouldn’t want this to happen again. Killing one of the biggest rebels, and doing that publicly?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a dream scenario for him.”

“Right?”

Cassius has brought Mister Holt back to 2045. The city is way too different from the way it used to be before Holt’s departure.

“How long was I gone for?”

He asked the guards who kept him inside the cell. The banners that used to feature the advertisements had been replaced with Cassius’s recruitment posters.

STRONG CITIZEN, WE’RE LOOKING FOR YOUR HELP!

The rural areas were on fire. The riots had stopped. Corpses were just lying in the street. Uncollected.

“Kira.”

“Fine, fine. No bodies on the floor. Should we make it winter for the drama of it?”

“Sure.”

Snow around the buildings. Windows either gone or taped over. Open gas pipes that were facing the streets. Guards beat the ones who slept on the concrete, or threw them into a truck and dropped them by the nearest construction site. Factories. The only thing that kept on growing out here.

“Walk out, Holt. Execution time.”

The fat, moustached guard walked Holt out of the cell and dropped him onto his knees. He was the same man who spoke into the microphone.

“This moustache guy really reminds me of my math teacher,” Kira said.

“Does he piss you off that much?”

“Oh, you can’t imagine.”

Today, we honour our loyalty to Cassius by killing one of the greatest rebels of this war. His head will be sliced at a measured and neat ninety-degree angle, as per King Cassius’ request. His head will be placed among many in the museum of the failed insurgents. Holt raised his head, facing the crowd. After all this time – that was where it ended. He saw the faces. Those who cried into their scarves. Those who cheered. And his wife in the centre. She silently nodded.

“Kira, at least make her arms the same length.” I grabbed the pencil, placed my elbow at her thigh and started sketching the shadow. Kira’s breathing stopped for a second as my hand stayed pressed against her thigh. Did my hair look okay? I pulled back.

“Like that.”

She nodded quickly. Up and down.

Holt hadn’t taken his eyes off his wife. This was the last thing he wanted to see before his head got sliced. The time of the execution had come. The clock tower hit twelve – but the executioner still wasn’t here. Holt looked at the clock tower that kept on ringing. His eyes returned to the crowd, but his wife wasn’t in there. He felt his ropes loosening at the ankles. Now at the wrists. Something long and sharp was now in his hands. Holt stood up, threw his weight at the moustached man, and buried his knife deep into his neck in front of the hundreds.

“Kira. That’s not how Holt solves things.”

“Fine, fine. Got carried away.”

“Make your own characters violent psychopaths. Let me take it from here.”

I grabbed the pencil and began working around the shadows. One of the only parts she hadn’t got the hang of yet.

“So, we meet up again on Sunday?”

“I can’t on Sunday.”

I tilted my head.

“Why?”

“Church with the family, remember?”

“You skipped before; can’t you now?”

She shook her head. She looked down at her watch.

19:07

“Shit. Yana, I have to run.”

She grabbed her bag and bolted for the roof door. She waved back at me, grinning.

A little gap between her teeth showed.

I waved back. My hand reached into my bag for the ribbed notebook.

Winter 2013

My phone rang, and I picked it up immediately. It was Kira.

“Allo,” I whispered.

“Hey, Yana. How are you?”

“Hey, I’m great. How’s Kharkiv?”

“Why are you whispering, sis? What’s up?”

“No, no. Everything’s okay.” I pulled the phone closer to my mouth, and turned the screen away. It kept straining my eyes. “I just promised my mother to be in bed already.”

The door to my room stayed open. Mom was watching TV. News? Or one of those documentary series. Something about Kyiv, and the main square, Maidan Nezalezhnosti. She turned it up.

“Oh okay. We can call tomorrow, if you want.”

“No, it’s perfect now.”

She giggled. “Fine.”

“Soooo, busy gal, how’s Kharkiv?”

“Well, sis. It’s…. It’s….” She drew it out. “Boring. Genuinely dying out of boredom here.”

“Remind me why you’re even there?” I swallowed the laugh into a cough.

“My parents are meeting up with some friends. We’re going to Bukovel in a couple of days. That should be fun.”

She paused. My mom’s TV got louder.

The elderly, university students, people coming back from work. The number of people on the square only keeps on growing. Festive songs and shared food only show how united the Ukrainians are.

“Yan?”

“Huh?”

“Are you sleeping already?”

“No, no. It’s okay, just.” I paused, trying to pick the voices apart on the TV, but they had all merged into one. “I just got distracted.”

“Happens. Did you find the money for tomorrow?”

“You’re not going to believe it.” The microphone must have caught the rustling of the sheets. “I asked my grandmother for money as a gift for New Year’s. And guess what? I’m going to the cinema tomorrow!”

“YAY!!!!” Kira shrieked. I cupped my hand over the phone’s speaker. I could hear her grinning. I brought the phone close to my ear again. “YANA, IT’S AMAZING. MY GOSH.” She paused. “Sorry, Dad.”

Kira’s voice dropped to the same whisper as mine. “It’s amazing,” she said.

“Yes. So tomorrow at 14:00, and we call right after it’s over, right?”

“Yes. Write down all the moments you’re going to like, Yana. So you don’t forget.”

“I won’t,” I sniffed. Damn immune system.

“Yes, you will. You’re a creative. You guys don’t keep anything in your mind unless you write it down.”

She was probably right.

“Fine, I will.”

“Goodnight, then?”

“Goodnight, Kira.”

I hung up the phone.

My popcorn bucket was still half-full. I sat down on one of the couches outside the cinema and started a list for Kira on a sheet of paper I kept in my pocket.

- Death of Cinna - Does Katniss actually love Peeta - What the hell is that ending?

I called Kira. She picked up after four seconds.

“Are you done?”

“YES!” She gasped. “Yana, what the hell was that ending?”

“Kira, don’t swear.” A heavier, older voice came through the phone.

“Sorry, Dad.”

My nails dug into my skin. Every time she said something, she was the one in the wrong.

“So, tell me, what did you like the most?”

“Well, I didn’t want this whole thing to end at all. I was so into it. Did you watch in 3D?”

“No.”

It was thirty hryvnias more.

“Eh, you didn’t miss out much. What did you like?”

“I will tell you what I didn’t like, Gale.”

“Had to see that coming from you, huh?”

“Katniss loves Peeta.”

“Yeah, maybe. Imagine, though, if she’d had a little fling with Finnick. Gosh, I need that next part as soon as possible. I need to see Katniss’s vengeance asap. And of course, more of Finnick on the screen.”

“Hm.” I reached into the bucket and let the pieces run through my fingers.

“No? You didn’t like him?”

“I did, but maybe not as much as you. Not enough to have a crush on him or something.”

She giggled.

“Nah, Yana.” Her voice became quiet. “He’s abnormally hot.”

I hummed.

“Okay, Kira. I’m going to go.”

“Already? We didn’t even–”

“Yes, I have to go.”

I hung up. If this Finnick is so cool, why doesn’t he become the one who listens to her all the time? I didn’t want to go home, nor talk to Kira anymore. I opened my notebook. The ribbed one.

Scarlet was stubborn. She didn’t leave after a week. Not after the second one either. Not even a month. Every night Ariana came back from the hunt to her cold tent, Scarlet was there, staring at her like Medusa. The longer she looked, the more the visions blurred into reality. Orcs crossing the border. The first village fallen. Children’s heads rolling in the road.

“STOP.”

“Not until you help.”

Ariana looked at her.

“Give me a horse.”

On the ninety-first night, they left the North-West and began heading West.

“We have missed you.”

“I bring destruction.”

“You bring hope,” Scarlet said.

Ariana was surprised at how fast they reached Scarlet’s castle. A curse, Ariana thought. Scarlet had cast it on her so she wouldn’t run again. The witch’s methods were immoral and unethical, but extremely effective.

“You need to rest. You’re tired.”

Scarlet guided her to her chambers.

Ariana just looked at the bed in the centre of the room, linen in golden accents. Real gold. The bed was high enough that she would have to climb into it. For Ariana, who had slept on the grass for a hundred days, even a wooden bench would suffice.

“Do you want me to make the bed larger?”

“No. Thank you.”

The bathroom was at the top of the castle. Ariana soaked herself in the warm water and let her head go back against the stone. She pressed her hands against her thighs. The scars didn’t hurt – they were beginning to heal. She had forgotten that water could be warm. She shut her eyes. Scarlet’s laugh came off the castle walls. Ariana grabbed a towel and covered her naked body. She approached the balustrade and looked down. Below her was an ordinary farm man. His hands were on Scarlet’s waist and Scarlet’s head rested on his shoulder, on a shirt covered in dirt. Scarlet didn’t mind. Ariana left. She closed the door to her chambers and began sharpening her blade.

Winter 2014

I rang the bell at Kira’s apartment.

BRNG – BRNG

I pressed my finger against it one more time. The door opened. A tall redhead woman stood in the doorway. Kira’s mother wore a dense pink robe with little crimson squares on it. Her hair was tied into a bun, and the sleeves of the robe were pushed up to the elbows. Under the robe, a white tank top was peeking out.

“Hi! Is Kira home?”

The woman stepped out of the doorframe and pulled me into a hug, landing two brief kisses on both of my cheeks.

“Hi, sweetie. Of course, come in.”

I stepped into the apartment, or rather, right into the flip-flops that appeared out of nowhere. The woman placed her hand on my shoulder.

“Are you hungry, sweetie?”

The words hadn’t left my mouth, but my coat had already been hung on one of the hangers. Above them, three icons hung in a row. Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, and somebody else.

“If it won’t be of any complication for you, I could–“ I answered, while untying my shoes, making sure my bitter breath didn’t hit her.

“No problem, honey. We’re all going to eat in twenty minutes, right when Kira’s father comes. You could wait twenty minutes, sweetie?”

“Of course, miss–”

“No, miss, honey, just call me Oksana.”

I smiled.

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Second room on the left is Kira’s. Have fun!”

I watched Oksana go through to the kitchen. A cucumber was sticking out of her robe pocket. In the living room, a Turkish carpet, green with brown inserts. I’d seen a similar one at the bazaar in the autumn, when my mom and I were choosing a gift for my grandmother. Hers was red with green inserts. The seller called that one a classic.

Kira’s door was half-open. I nudged it further open with my hand. Kira was working on something in the smooth notebook, the Mr Holt one.

“Hi, Kira! Your mom’s so nice.”

“Yeah, yeah, come in here, look.” She waved me over.

Four months had passed since Cassius captured Mr Holt and threw him onto the execution block, only for Holt to be freed by his wife. But the world was no longer the same. Poor ecology, shortage of products, and innocent lives were lost before anyone could blink an eye. Holt’s time machine and remaining technology were confiscated by Cassius’s henchmen and scientists who developed 24/7 surveillance across every inch of the world. Every major city was now just a click away from blaring sirens and branding you the nation’s most wanted fugitive.

For months, Holt has been hiding in his underground shelter with forty people who have stayed loyal to his alliance. But his wife, Margo, has turned deathly pale. To save her, Holt must venture to the upper ground and infiltrate Cassius Tower – the only place where leftover medications are still stored. Holt’s daughter begs him not to go, and Holt himself turns down every assistant who offers to join his nighttime mission. Holt leaves the camp. Alone. But will he succeed and save his wife?

“And what I want to do next is make his daughter the main character.” She paused. “If you’re okay with it, of course. Holt’s your character at the end of the day.”

Our shoulders and thighs were touching once she’d put the notebook between us. Her hair covered her face as she kept on turning the pen over between her fingers.

“Kira, I would have never thought of any of that without you. Since we ended the previous one on his escape, I was really blanking.”

She looked up and grinned.

“For real?”

I nodded. “Nobody ever cared about this stupid hobby of mine as much as you.”

“It’s not stupid. It’s–“ She paused. “It’s what makes you – you. I never met anybody like you in that sense.”

I watched her face, and the words leaving her barely open lips. She looked down. I pressed my thighs closer to hers, and pulled my head down, as she sketched out Mr Holt’s daughter, Anya, carrying a bow.

“You really mean it?” I whispered.

“I do.”

Our foreheads touched. Both of us looked at Anya, nocking an arrow on her bow.

“Thank you, Kira.”

She took my hand and gave me a pencil.

“Draw something for me.”

“Wait, can I wash my hands first?”

“Sure.” She lifted her head away from mine. “You turn right, and straight.”

I nodded. The bathroom could barely fit one person. But there was something convenient about it. I could sit on the stool and reach the sink without standing up. Though then I’d have to wash my hands again. I tilted my head and placed it under the tap. The water stayed in my mouth as I pushed it through different bits of my teeth until I spat it out. I cupped my hands and breathed into them. Tolerable.

Kira was sitting on the bed with the ribbed notebook in her hands.

“You still have it.”

“Did you read it?”

I stood in the doorway. My feet wouldn’t cross it.

“No, Miss ‘I-don’t-like-it-when-someone-looks-into-my-stuff’.”

She stood up and pressed the notebook flat against my chest. My heartbeat would get me busted now.

“Right?” Kira asked.

“Hey, Kira! Food’s ready!”

“Yes. Thanks, Dad.”

Kira jumped forward and left the room. I turned around. Her father was in the doorway. The smile on his face vanished when his eyes found me.

“Come eat.”

I sat opposite Kira’s father, whose look shifted from the TV to me.

“Would you like some potatoes with that chicken breast, sweetie?”

“Yeah, thank you.”

Oksana had put a yellowish mountain of mashed potatoes on top of the pulled chicken breast.

“Thanks a lot!”

She smiled, walked towards her husband, and sat next to him. His shirt had been ironed at some point that morning. The hair that used to be up didn’t shine anymore. Every time he moved his head, a piece of hair came over his forehead. And as soon as it did, he put it back.

“Another office got robbed just today. The guard of the neighbouring firm called me. Nobody described anything, just guys in masks,” he said, staring at the TV, which was showing tents in the centre of Kyiv. “Everything was so perfect, why now?”

Down on the forehead, back again.

“My god,” Oksana replied. “Who’s the one doing this?”

He shrugged.

“Turn off the TV, Zhenya. Let’s eat now.” She pulled the remote from the centre of the table and handed it to him. His eyes shifted back at me as he began slicing off bits of his chicken.

“So, tell us about yourself. Kira never says anything about you.”

Back on the forehead.

“My name’s Yana. I’ve known Kira since last summer.”

“School friend?”

“No, no. We met just outside.”

He nodded.

“What do you like to do? What are your hobbies?”

“I like to draw mostly, also really like watching movies. And you know I–”

“Sorry for interrupting you.” He threw a sliced piece of chicken into his mouth. “But what language do you speak at home? Ukrainian?”

Still on the forehead. Some strands even dropped to his nose.

“Uhm, yeah, sometimes. Why?”

“Hm, nothing, just you have an interesting accent.” He threw another piece of chicken. “And what do your parents do?”

I swallowed.

“Dad, stop. Let her just eat in peace.”

“Yeah, Zhenya, let the kid be. Look at her, she’s gone all red already.”

Am I red?

I grinned awkwardly without showing any teeth.

“Would you like maybe a bit more food? Or a cake? We have Kyiv cake in the fridge?”

“No, no, Mom. Yana doesn’t want it. We’re already full.” She looked at me. “Right, Yan?”

I could have eaten a piece of cake, to be honest. But Kira wanted to go. She always did it like that whenever she wanted to leave.

“Yeah, I’m full. Thanks.”

“Okay, kiddos. Have fun.”

I pushed my chair and stood up.

Kira’s father started whispering something in the ear of his wife, as his eyes rested on me. Hair back on the top. Oksana looked up from her plate, held her look on me, and then returned to eating. His blinking slowed. Lips stayed flat. He kept pushing chicken in between his lips without his mouth opening. I swallowed again.

We lay together on the bed. The TV just went off, and the final light in the apartment went with it. Kira turned to the left, staring at the wall. I faced the ceiling.

“Kira. Kira?”

“Whaa?”

“I hope this upcoming summer will be our best yet.”

“It’s way too long for that yet; go to sleep.” She snorted into a pillow.

“Yeah, but you know summer is always fun.”

She didn’t reply.

“Kira?”

Did she actually open the notebook?

“Good night.”

Spring 2014

“Hi, Aunt Lena.”

She was at the till, pressing buttons on her cellphone. When she did that, her tongue always stuck out to the left.

“Aunt Lena?” I knocked with my fingers against the glass.

“Oh sorry, darling. Still getting the hang of it. My son got it for me, and I can’t even reach him now.” The phone slid into her apron pocket. “How can I help?”

“One vanilla, please.”

“Just one?”

“For now.”

I hoped Kira had brought some money with her this time. We had to pay Aunt Lena thirty hryvnias for that stolen ice cream. She called this redemption money. We called it an investment in her new phone.

I sat by the window and put the notebook on the table. We’d already started drawing parts of Anya leaving the camp to go looking for her father. Anya was Kira’s, so I left that part to her. I tried to write three lines of her monologue, but almost immediately rubbed them out. She felt Anya far more than I ever did.

“Aunt Lena, what’s the time right now?”

“14:20, sweetheart. Why? Waiting for someone?”

“Yeah.”

She walked out from behind the counter and began wiping tables. First the ones to the left. Then the ones in the middle. Then the ones on the right.

“I close at three, you remember, darling?”

I nodded. I took one lick of the ice cream for every minute that passed. By 14:40, there was nothing left. I don’t get it. Church was yesterday. She said see you Monday. I said see you Monday. Maybe she was angry with me. It couldn’t be because I said pink didn’t suit her.

“Sweetie, could you help me put the chairs on the tables?”

“Sure.”

“I’m sorry that somebody didn’t come.”

I looked at the clock that hung above the cooler.

15:10.

“Was it a boy?” Aunt Lena asked.

“Worse.”

I threw the notebook into my bag and went home.

***

The line cut out. I called again.

It rang for two seconds and cut off. Again. Kira had stopped picking up. Could she really be that mad at me? I went to the window. The queue to our local grocery store stretched to the next apartment block. The honking of the cars had started in the morning and hadn’t stopped since. I shut the window. The TV in the living room was still running, but Mom had muted it.

“Mom.” I knocked on the bathroom door. “You have the number of Kira’s parents, right? She doesn’t pick up. Something must have happened.”

I looked at the door. It hadn’t been locked. I pulled.

My mother stood, staring into the mirror. She was stretching the skin under one eye with her fingers and brushing her teeth with the other hand.

“Mom. Can you call Kira’s parents? Please?”

My mother’s head turned. Her lips stayed flat. The toothbrush was just squeezed in between her lips without her mouth even opening. She reached for the door handle and closed it.

“Mom?”

Summer 2015

I’d never thought I could have such a mess on my shelves. No wonder my mom asked me to clean up. I was filling up a second trash bag already. I reached into the shelf and pulled out the ribbed notebook. The one where I. The smooth one was underneath it. I put the ribbed one back on top and grabbed the bags.

The bins had been moved to the middle of the yard. There were three collection points left in the city now. North, centre, east. To my right, closer to the playground, workmen were hammering the sign down and repainting the street name. I looked over at the playground. I’d never noticed it only had two swings now. A third one, the far-left one, dangled empty with the rubber seat gone.

“Kolya?” A single long, thin whistle. “Be home no later than eight.”

A woman called from the apartment block that stood right next to ours. I walked past it towards the bins. On my left stood the glass box of the café, windowed on the front and both sides.

“Daisies.”

I walked over to the containers, threw the bags in, and entered the café.

A woman stood at the till without lifting her eyes. Metal bowls clanked under the shout of the mixer. The chairs were bolted down in rows around the tables.

“Hi. Two vanilla cups, please.”

“Forty rubles.”

I pulled out the bill.

“There you go.”

“Vanilla, right?”

I nodded.

She grabbed a spoon and dove into the vanilla.

“Where are you from? You’ve got an accent.”

A roar from outside. The engines of a column of black trucks followed one after another. An hour before curfew.

“I’m from here,” I said, flattening my tongue towards my lower jaw.

“Hm,” she said, handing me the cups.

I walked over to the table and put one cup opposite me. I grabbed a full spoon of it. The little bits of ice melted at once inside my mouth.