Nika opens the door calmly enough, then a wave of panic grips her and she dashes inside. She sinks to the floor as an indescribable mix of emotions churns her stomach. From the moment the camp lights turned on, a part of her didn’t believe this was real. But here, now, how could her own house be unreal? She stares at the home phone, resting on a small table in the main hallway. I should call the cops… As she looks on, memories of the last time sirens roared outside the house play in her head.

“You get the hell away from us, and never come back!” Her mother, hoarse from screaming. Nika heard a man’s voice, answering angrily. She remembered being huddled against the door to her room, trying not to cry until the house was silent once more.

“It’s okay baby, everything’s alright now.” Her mother carried her downstairs. Peeking out from under her hair, she remembers seeing a giant hole in the wall. They fixed that seven years ago… Nika holds the feeling of being comforted in her mother’s arms.

Getting up, she walks past the phone into the kitchen. What am I doing? I should be- I should… I should tell modern policemen that a boy from a fairy tale destroyed an entire campground. That will work out wonderfully, give the town even more reasons to think I’m crazy.

Nika does the most normal thing she can think of- she makes a turkey sandwich, open-faced as she had thought all sandwiches were supposed to be as a little one. If the noise sensitivity hadn’t been enough, her Russian-American background had further alienated her from classmates. Curling on the living room couch and taking a bite of her sandwich, Nika thinks about the first time her parents received a call from school. She had disrupted the classroom, arguing with other first-graders about the “real” endings to Disney fairy tales that her grandmother had taught her. Her grandmother. Nika had almost forgotten that part of her childhood, hiding at the house of her mother’s mother while her parents fought; listening to stories of princesses, clever brothers and magical creatures until she fell asleep.

If anyone had known about the “artifact” Mikhail spoke of, it would have been her. But Nika’s mother, thoroughly disenchanted with the old ways, had given away most of her grandmother’s possessions when she passed. Well, she could at least take a look. Finishing her small meal, Nika goes upstairs to the spare room that served more or less as an attic for her family’s things.

A wish-giving device could really be anything, but in particular she looks for gold rings in dusty jewelry boxes, magical feathers in an old sewing kit, and even carefully examines a wooden spoon. Finally, she finds something- a yellowed old parchment covered in inky words. She stares at the scrawled characters, some of which she hasn’t seen in a long time. This is going to be fun. With a sigh, Nika tracks down pencil and paper to translate the letters into their more familiar English equivalents.

There. Nika looks down at her handiwork, the Russian words sounding in her head with English echoes close behind.

Dearest daughter,

If I do not come back from this war, there is something you must know. I have moved our family’s greatest secret, buried it in the trenches of Stalingrad. Do not waste our last wish on asking for my life. When I asked for your mother, nothing answered.

Your father

On the back, the letter is addressed to Maria Berennikov. Her grandmother’s name. Nika reads the short message over and over again. Whatever has been holding her together breaks, and she sits in her empty house crying all alone. She could call the police, pretend she knows nothing of fairy tales or strange boys, be placed in foster care, and try to finish growing up a normal girl. But no princess with a cruel stepmother or witch’s curse broke free by ignoring fate. She stands slowly, still wiping away tears. She will pack her bags for the cold, cold winters of Russia. Tomorrow.