Free Anastasia's Secret by Susanne Dunlap

lying on a sofa, still wearing her nurse’s uniform, and staring blankly at the ceiling. Countess Hendrikova, the maid of honor we called Nastinka, came in a moment later stirring a bromide, a worried crease in her forehead.
    “Olga, dearest?” I said, approaching my sister. She was twenty-one at the time. I thought of her as almost as much of an adult as my mother.
    “She cannot answer you,” Nastinka said. She sat beside Olga and tried to tip the bromide into her mouth. It dribbled out down her chin.
    “What’s wrong? Is she ill? Has she got a fever? Is she hurt?” Any of those events would be worrisome, in the midst of everything else. Even Alyosha had cooperated by being in one of his healthy phases. Yet Olga didn’t look unwell. She looked… blank. Empty.
    “Not exactly ill. Just overwrought.”
    Olga didn’t seem to see or hear anything, but as I watched, great tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her face. She didn’t move a muscle to wipe them away. Nastinka blotted them with her handkerchief. “Nastya, be a dear and go and fetch Dr. Botkin, would you?” Nastinka was trying to appear calm, but I could hear panic on the edge of her voice. Something had happened, clearly, and Nastinka either wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me what.
    I didn’t have to be asked again. I ran to find a servant who could call one of the other ladies-in-waiting to telephone Dr. Botkin, who lived in the village. It seemed an eternity until he arrived. He came in immediately to see Olga, opening his medical bag as he walked so that his stethoscope was already out by the time he reached her side. Mother returned home a short while later and came directly to the parlor. “Nastinka, please take Nastya to the schoolroom to prepare for tea,” she said, not looking at me.
    I opened my mouth to protest. I wanted to know what was wrong with Olga. But one did not contradict Mama. She had a delicate heart and any unpleasantness made her short of breath. “No need to take me, I know my way,” I told Nastinka. She cast an apologetic look at me as she closed the door after me.

    That night, Olga did not come to tea or supper. No one said anything in the parlor, although often it was Olga who read or played the piano, or played bezique with Papa. We were the usual circle: Mama, Anya, Nastinka, Isa, Lili Dehn, the elderly Count and Countess Benckendorff, and Prince Dolgorukov—marshal of the court and Papa’s aide-de-camp. There were also one or two officers who were on leave and whom Anya had invited, thinking they would be company for Olga and Tatiana, but only Tatiana was there. The atmosphere was tense, and Mama went up to bed early, probably to check on Olga.
    When Mashka and I were at last alone in our room, I asked her if she knew anything.
    “Olga collapsed at the hospital. She just collapsed.”
    I didn’t understand. “What would have made her do that?”
    “Anya says she could not bear the sight of so many torn limbs and dreadful injuries. It happened right after she saw someone die following an amputation.”
    It made sense that Anya spoke to Mashka. She was Anya’s favorite. Still, I was a little hurt that people not even in our family knew more than I did. “Will she be better?”
    “Dr. Botkin says yes, although they’ve called a mentalist from Petrograd. She won’t nurse again, though.”
    I pictured someone who looked like Grigory Rasputin, but with a watch that he would dangle in front of Olga’s eyes to mesmerize her. “She looked so sad.”
    “The injuries are horrible to see. Who is that soldier you spend so much time with? The one with the bandage over his eye?”
    I was startled for a moment that she would have noticed, then I realized that when I was with Sasha, I barely looked anywhere but at him. She could easily have come into the ward and seen us and I wouldn’t have noticed. I had taken no pains to conceal my concern over him. “Oh, only someone I feel particularly sorry for. He will never