Inventing Wonders

Chapter 5: I Prefer Not to Speak

Lara stood in the hallway in a blue dress. She accidentally caught her reflection in the window glass before starting to unravel the constraints of her corset. Even after turning away from the reflection, she couldn't get what she had seen out of her head. She didn't recognize herself. Everything about her seemed to belong to someone else. A painful thought: she would never be saved. Her mascara was smudged, and the handsome prince had not chased after her. She was incredibly lonely.

Perhaps some people are simply not born to live in a fairy tale. At least, not Lara. She always felt like an imposter, waiting for someone to catch her by the hand and shout, "Hey, everyone, Lara Vovk is no countess! She's just a journalism student! And a truant at that!" But time went on, and her image became more and more encrusted with rumors: some said she was the favorite of a member of the British Crown; others that her family engaged in slave trading in the States; still others recalled her relation to the French ambassador. All agreed on one thing: a young girl allowing herself such liberties must be indecently rich and influential. As is known, spoken words have incredible power, and words whispered from one parlor to another become reality.

Until this day, Lara had stoically endured all trials with a maniacal resilience. Like an icebreaker, she moved forward. It seemed nothing could stop her, but suddenly the New Year arrived. New 1825. And something inside her clicked, something broke.

Lara was not liked by everyone. For example, Trubetskoy could barely tolerate her. But his wife, Ekaterina Ivanovna, for some reason, took a liking to the lonely American. Thus, despite her husband's objections, she often dragged Countess Vovk to the balls for which winter St. Petersburg was so generous.

Lara stepped out into the frosty courtyard. There was no snow, making everything seem strikingly bleak. An unbearably dry winter. Lara took a deep breath, and the frost gripped her lungs. She remembered building a snowman with her mother in this courtyard centuries later. She wasn't in the mood for fun. She wanted to be alone but needed to keep moving forward. She needed to enter society.

She headed to the Moyka, where the Trubetskoys were to meet her. Lara stepped out of the rented carriage at the grand doors and slowly looked around. All this pomp scared her: she was definitely moving to a new level. When she moved into the house behind the economics faculty, it seemed she wasn't worthy of living there. Such a change of location—from a modest apartment with a view of the forest to an elite complex—definitely broke the established rules of the game.

She was invited to dance, she smiled, but for the first time in a long while, she couldn't shake the feeling of all-encompassing loneliness. She remembered how her mother once said that Lara would never spend a New Year without her family. It was said so long ago when the girl's only desire was to protest. She had taken her mother's words as a curse. But now the day had come when Lara celebrated with friends, yet for some reason, tears welled up in her eyes. After another waltz, she politely excused herself and quietly slipped out onto the balcony.

By this point, Lara had learned to keep her back straight and choose her words carefully. She had stopped thinking much about what was happening around her and, to her sorrow, had plunged into soul-searching.

Lara leaned against the cold wall and bit her thumb, trying not to cry. She remembered yelling at her mother for inviting an unpleasant cousin to the holiday. She was ready to bang her head against the wall, to gain twenty kilograms again, just to be at that table where she could laugh loudly and not have to keep her back straight.

Suddenly, Lara felt someone watching her. In the opposite corner of the balcony stood an officer. No, just a shadow. A phantom.

"Excuse me," the silhouette nodded slightly, "did I disturb your solitude?"