Yana

4. Valentin

I stood on the road by his car. All around me I could see the flat country side with a narrow dirt road snaking through it. The sun was at its high point and the sky was cloudless.

He stood a few steps away from me, his hands deep inside his trench coat pockets. He was tall with a pale face and short black hair that was graying around his temples. His dark eyes were large and ominous. He looked like a man with terrible things to say. He was Valentin, the man from the picture beside my desk.

They're saying terrible things about you, he said softly. Just terrible. The best thing for you is to go home now.

What things? Who says them? I asked.

Go home, he repeated and got into his car and drove away.

I stood in the dust his car had stirred up, and then decided to follow the road in the opposite direction he had taken. I walked what seemed like a long time. No cars came by and I saw no houses until I suddenly glimpsed a small cottage off the side of the road. I walked to it and stood before it. Its shutters were closed and its front door stood open. Grey smoke curled upward from the chimney.

I walked through the door and entered the kitchen. There were pans on the stove and the gas burners were lit. She was lying on the floor, her head in a growing pool of blood. She looked like Nonna, but she was younger.

You're too late, child, the woman said to me. He was already here and he took it.

Who came? I asked.

The one in the trench coat, she said. He finds us all. Best go home before he finds you as well.

I woke up in my bed, my body drenched in sweat. I shrugged myself free from the dream and left my bed. I stood before the sink and splashed cold water on my face; I combed my short black hair and looked into my own dark eyes. They looked like they had seen something. Something alarming that they did not understand.

I found Nonna in the kitchen, making eggs and bacon on the stove. She was humming to herself. I pulled up a chair and sat down to watch her.

"Still in your night gown?" She said. "Good! It's Saturday morning, a time to move slowly. Now eat your breakfast." She handed me a full plate and sat down across from me.

"Why the serious face, child?" She said.

"What does it mean: he finds us all?" I asked.

"Ah," she said. "Ayasha spoke to you."

"Who is Ayasha?" I asked.

"The tenth," she said. "She is all I have left. He took the others. Every time he takes one, he becomes stronger."

"Valentin?" I asked.

"Did she tell you about him?" She asked. "Never mind that, child. Eat your breakfast."

We ate our breakfast in silence. Morning light was pouring into the kitchen windows.

Then she said: "It has begun. It always begins with the dreams." Her face looked sad and drawn and I didn't know what to say to her. I decided it was best to ask no more questions.

"By the way," she smiled suddenly, "our little friend is coming over later."

"Caleb?" I asked.

"The very same. You know that big maple tree near the road? It has rotted branches, and he is coming to cut them down and make them into fire wood. After we have lunch, of course. Wear your light blue sundress again. He seems to like that one."

I nodded and finished my breakfast.

Nonna's house stood on Third Avenue, a ways back from the road. It was surrounded by lawn and there was a gravel drive way that led to the house. There were solar lights pushed into the ground on both sides of the driveway, so you could find your way at night. To me it always looked like a runway for planes. On the edge near the road stood the tall maple and I used to climb it when I was a little girl, to the dismay of my father who immediately foresaw broken bones and emergency trips to the hospital.

I saw my parents mostly on weekends now. I loved them dearly and missed them. My father, Iosif Kovalsky, was a professor of Russian at the women's college. My mother, Marija, taught German literature at Roanoke College. They each had their own study in our house and the shelves in each buckled with the weight of their books. My father was fond of saying that you don't begin to think until you begin to read. And the problem with today's youth, he would continue, is that they don't read.

I read all the time. I was fluent in both Russian and German, and I had read Tolstoy's War and Peace by the time I was fourteen.

When you drove on Third Avenue, going toward the mall, you would see Nonna's house on the right. You would see the enormous, meticulously kept lawn and the flower beds, and then the pale blue house with the tower jutting from the left side. It would look a little like a fairy castle from Walt Disney, and you would almost expect dragons lurking behind the house and a fairy princes peering from the tower's balcony.

Third Avenue is where the very rich lived. If you followed the road you would see villas with outdoor swimming pools and roof gardens, and a Mercedes in the drive way. You would see huge green lawns that looked like golf courses and the occasional security fence.

In between those beautiful houses, Nonna's house looked simple but elegant, its windows on the front side personal and inviting. The wrap-around porch always sported a fresh coat of white paint and the porch swing would move lazily in the breeze.

In front of the sunroom were two ponds, one raised over the other so its water flowed down into the lower like a steady waterfall. In the lower pond was a fountain that sprayed water in the shape of a large bell. The sound of water falling on water always soothed me, and you could hear the sound from inside the sunroom if the glass doors were open.

The lower pond was stocked with Koi, and you could glimpse their orange backs moving in the water.

Caleb's father had lovingly tended the lawn, the trees, the flower beds and the ponds for 20 years. He would tend other gardens on Third Avenue as well. He would drive up in his white pickup truck with "Hendrickson Garden Service" written in black on the side. Then it became "Hendrickson and Son", and then Mr. Hendrickson retired and Caleb tended a few gardens after school and on Saturdays. It was Saturday afternoon and I watched the white truck enter our drive way.