The Romanov Diary

Chapter twenty eight

July 5, 1918

The sun paints the grand duchesses' room with colours and shadows as she rises. Summer has reached Siberia for real. The cold winter which lasted between October and April has changed into warm summer days with flowers in the garden, singing birds and refreshing breezes. None of the people passing by could ever imagine that one of the most brutal crimes in history would go down in the very house next to them, under the same joyful sky and on the same fertile ground. Life is at blossom in Yekaterinburg, but lives will also go out.

Unless, four foreign teenagers can stop it.

"Yes! I won again!" Tatiana cheers and stands up.

"You're good, I'll admit it." Ophelia smiles and puts down her cards at the table.

They've been spending the morning with some card games, of course out of sight from other soldiers. No one has woken up yet besides Ophelia, Ella, Tatiana, Olga and a few soldiers, but they are nowhere to be seen.

The sun reflects in Ophelia's dark skin and heats up the room. There aren't many black people around the imperial family at this time in Russia, so Ophelia's had to receive many weird looks from the people she's met. Nicholas and Alexandra were also very sceptical about her in the beginning, but softened up ones they got to know her. The grand duchesses and the little tsarevich were very open minded from the beginning.

"Another round?" Tatiana asks politely.

"I have to get back to work. Breakfast isn't going to make itself." Ophelia stands up and cleans up the table.

"Oh, okay." Tatiana sounds disappointed, but helps to clean away the cards.

Tatiana dusts off the morning dust on her black skirt with her thin hand, bringing her to a sneeze.

"Oh, my apologies." She laughs

"Bless you!" Ophelia smiles.

Ophelia looks at the woman in front of her. Tatiana's former glory is all that's left of the imperial duchess she once was. If Ophelia would have met her on the street, she could never have guessed that she was of royal blood.

"What happened to your white dresses by the way?" She asks, looking at Tatiana's clothes and simple jewelries.

"We wore them out. They got teared apart and ruined from the snow, cold and getting stuck everywhere. So now we have to wear these."

Tatiana points down at her white shirt and long, black skirt. The girls almost look identical wearing them. The only differences are their heights and their hair, but since they had to shave it off it's been harder to tell them apart. Tatiana is the tallest used to have the shortest hair. She liked to flatten it, but sometimes she kept it natural and curly. She used to have long hair but she cut it shorter as she got older. She's around 5'9, just like Ophelia. Olga is 5'4 and her hair was thin and flat. She mixed between having it in a bun and released.

Maria is wider than her sisters and a little bit taller than Olga. When they were young, Maria was often bullied by her siblings for her weight. Her hair was thicker and longer than her older sister', and she preferred to keep it down. Anastasia is the shortest, around 5'1 and shared Maria's hair, but hers was shifting in a colour of strawberry rather than auburn. Alexei is 5'5 and used to have the same hair and has the same eyes as his sisters. Despite their differences, the Romanov children are very alike.

A knock on the door startles Ophelia and Tatiana as the former czarina Alexandra comes in. They look at the woman who used to be so very proud and elegant. Now, she looks more like a tired lady in her mid 40's. Her cane, which she carries around whenever she walks, echoes through the library when it thumps into the floor. Her eyes have turned from blue to grey, and her hair has too begun to shift in silver colours. Her facial expressions show a tired, broken down woman. She doesn't look too happy.