Chloe's Daughter

As Anastasia hesitated beneath the chair, uncertain what she ought to do, the door to Ivan’s quarters swung open from deeper inside the church. Emerging into the sanctuary and catching sight of the visitor, Ivan cried out.

“Count Lauderdale! How have you come all this way…!”

Count? At the word that left Ivan’s lips, Anastasia’s eyes flew wide. Ignorant as she was, she still understood that the world held commoners like herself, nobles above them, and royalty higher still. And “Count” was a title reserved for nobles.

They said you’d be lucky to see one even once in a lifetime.

Even the lord of this region was said to rank among the lowest of the nobility. Yet a count… that was someone of far greater station. Why would such a man come here? Did he know her father? But this man had spoken her mother’s name.

While Anastasia sat bewildered, trying to make sense of it all, the count shouted.

“Seize that man!”

At the count’s cry, Ivan tried to flee at once. But the count’s men were far quicker. They dragged the thrashing Ivan before their master and forced him to his knees on the floor. Anastasia could scarcely believe what she was seeing.

Even the village headman—the most important man in the settlement—bowed his head and knelt before her father inside the church. Ivan had always said that he was the intermediary who carried human prayers to God and God’s will down to the earth. Inside these walls, therefore, Ivan was as good as God himself. To watch that god forced to his knees was a shock greater than any Anastasia had ever known.

In that moment, the prostrate Ivan’s eyes met hers. His lips moved.

Keep your mouth shut.

Anastasia stared at him, numb.

She had always feared her father. Before her mother left this world, and after.

He had never stopped forcing harsh discipline upon her, beating her day after day for failing to follow the will of God—his will. Yet she could endure that. She was a bad child, after all. So of course Father had no choice but to raise the rod. But…

…Mother.

Anastasia thought of the grave she had looked upon only moments before.

She could bear anything else. But even if Father beat her harder for it, she wanted only to visit her mother’s grave.

The only being who had ever pressed a kiss to her since the day she was born. There had been times when Mother would shove her small body away as if she could not bear the sight of her—yet far more often she would carefully take Anastasia’s hand.

But that beautiful, fragile mother had been unable to endure the cold of this frozen land. Her mind had crumbled first, then her heart. And then she had died. In the year before she drew her last breath, had she not simply lain there, murmuring words no one could understand, or reciting prayers over and over?

Whenever Mother’s eyes met hers, she would whisper in that foreign tongue. Anastasia had decided it was the language of paradise, and she had secretly memorized it so that Father would never know. There had to be love in the words Mother whispered every time she looked at her.

When Mother fell asleep, Anastasia would lie down beside her and try to sleep as well. The warmth that seeped through the rough blanket had been the only warmth she had ever known. She wanted only to go to what remained of that warmth—yet for five years her father had never once allowed it.

But…

Anastasia watched the count’s boots pacing roughly around Ivan. This man stood above her father. Then perhaps… the count might take her to her mother?

In the meantime, Count Lauderdale put the question again in a harsh voice.

“Ivan. Where is Chloe?”

“Do you think I would tell you that?”

Ivan answered with a sneering little laugh. At once one of the count’s men seized him by the collar, hauled him up, and drove a fist into his face. A dull thud, and blood spattered across the church floor. As the man drew back his fist for another blow, Anastasia scrambled out from beneath the chair and threw herself in front of Ivan.

“Don’t hit him! I’ll—I’ll tell you where my mother is!”

“Mother?”

The count looked down at the child who had suddenly appeared from under the chair. Anastasia looked back at him. She could see the face she had not been able to make out while hiding. Brown hair threaded with white, and brown eyes. Colors that ought to have held the warmth of wood—yet his gaze was colder than the wind outside.

That gaze raked her from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. The moment it sharpened further—

“Ha… ha…”

The count began to laugh.

“Hahahaha!”

The slow chuckles swelled until they rang through the entire church. Still laughing like a madman, the count suddenly fell silent, stepped close, and seized her shoulders with both hands.

“Chloe’s daughter. You are certainly Chloe’s daughter. Nothing else could explain a resemblance like this!”

The crushing grip tore an involuntary whimper from Anastasia. But the count did not release her. Still holding her fast, he asked,

“What is your name?”

In a trembling voice she answered,

“Anastasia… Ivanovna Domanova…”

“Ivanovna Domanova?”

At her reply the count’s face twisted.

Was there something wrong with her name? She had been told it meant Anastasia, daughter of Ivan of the Domanov family.

The count turned to look at Ivan, who was still pinned by the men and glaring up at him. For a moment the two men’s gazes clashed in the empty air. The victor was the count. Her father let out a low groan and closed his eyes; the count gave a scornful smile.

“A lowborn fisherman who barely received a name thanks to a priest, swaggering about this place with a royal surname. Playing God’s proxy out here in the sticks must have left you blind. And Ivan’s daughter… Ivan’s daughter, is it…”

He considered for a moment, then put another question.

“Anastasia. How old are you this year?”

“T-twelve…”

Unlike before, a smile rose to the count’s face at that answer. By contrast, the face of the man still prostrate on the floor contorted in utter ruin.

“Twelve. Twelve years old…”

The count murmured it over and over, as though the fact were of the utmost importance.

“You met her mother thirteen years ago.”

Anastasia had no idea what that meant and could only stand frozen. Suddenly Ivan twisted violently in the men’s grip and shouted,

“She’s my daughter! Chloe bore my child!”

“Yet the girl doesn’t resemble you in the least.”

“She doesn’t resemble you either!”

The count’s brow furrowed briefly at Ivan’s words. Then he lifted Anastasia’s face and murmured,

“Interesting. Whose seed did she truly carry, I wonder.”

His gaze traced her red hair and green eyes, and a distant longing surfaced in it. From that look Anastasia understood that the count was mourning her mother in her.

“A child who looks like no one. Only Chloe…”

He seemed both pleased and displeased by the fact. Anastasia could not understand it. Children resembled their parents. That she looked like her mother was only natural, so why…

Unable to grasp the situation itself, she clutched her worn clothes in anxiety. She had only wanted to go to her mother. So, following the teaching her father had always drilled into her—never tell a lie—she had simply spoken the truth to this fine gentleman. Why, then, were only these incomprehensible words flying back and forth, and why would no one take her to her mother?

“M-Mother…”

“Ah. Yes. We must see Chloe.”

The count made as if to lift her into his arms, then noticed the dirt and straw clinging to her clothes and drew his arms back.

“Well then. Where is your mother?”

“There.”

Anastasia pointed through the window to the hill beyond.

“Mother is over there.”

Anastasia looked down at the ground beneath her feet. Spring was still a long way off, and the hilltop lay buried under white snow. Where the earth showed through at all, it was nothing but rock mixed with ice. Her mother’s headstone stood among it.

She watched the count’s back as he approached the stone ahead of her. She longed to run to it herself, to throw her arms around it and call for her mother—but one of the count’s men held her shoulder in a firm grip and would not let her go.

Through the barren wind of the frozen land came the count’s muttered words.

“I finally found you… and already you flee from me again, Chloe.”

Standing behind him, Anastasia could not see his face. Yet she thought it must be the same expression he had worn the moment she pointed to the stone.

The count stood before the grave for a long while before turning. Contrary to what Anastasia had expected, no emotion at all showed on his face. He glanced once at her, then gave an order to the man holding her.

“Once we have gone, take her back to the church. See that she does not wander.”

With that he started down the hill toward the church. Anastasia watched him go, then slipped free of the man’s hand and went to her mother’s stone. It was scarcely worthy of the name—nothing more than a small, clumsily shaped rock. Letters she could not read had been scratched into it with a nail, leaving only the faintest trace.

Anastasia threw her arms around the stone and pressed her face to it. The rough surface scraped mercilessly at the child’s delicate cheek, already frozen by the wind.

“Mother…”

A headstone standing in the winter wind could not possibly be warm, yet Anastasia searched desperately for the warmth she remembered. While she clung to it, she saw the count and Ivan emerge from the church in the distance.

Ivan staggered a few steps and then crumpled. The men at his side seized his arms and hauled him upright. The count, Ivan, and the count’s retainers walked over the hill toward the river. Once they had vanished from sight, the man left with Anastasia took her by the arm, led her back to the church, asked which room was hers, and shoved her inside.

Click.

The sound of the door locking from outside reached her ears.

Anastasia climbed onto the bed, still feeling the cold texture of the stone on her palms. She rolled herself tightly in the blanket and closed her eyes.

I’ll be punished.

Father and the count had gone to talk, they said. No guest stayed forever. Once the count left, the church would become her father’s domain again. Once more he would be God.

I’m afraid.

Anastasia curled into herself. She had disobeyed her father’s command. She had met strangers and spoken with them. She had even gone outside the church.

Already she could hear the switch cutting the air. How many strokes this time? She could not begin to imagine the marks that would be carved into her ruined calves. Trembling with fear, she prayed in her heart.

Please let Father talk with the count for a very long time. Please make him return to the church very late. Very late… very, very late…

It was the most sincere prayer she had ever offered. A prayer so raw with desperate longing that anyone who heard it would have had no choice but to grant it.

The next day, word reached Anastasia that her father had left this world.