Dream of the Unlikely Princess Ch. 01

A plain-looking gold ring fell out and rolled along the floor. She picked it up and examined it. The markings were faint, but there was the same motif on the ring as she bore on her finger. She set it on the table and read.

If she wanted her place in the sunshine, the paper said, she had to follow all of the directions to the letter. There would be more instructions at intervals. Oksana sat down and thought back. The really odd thing was that in the light of day, here in her flat, she wasn't all that afraid of what she'd seen the night before. Given that he'd disassembled her pursuer in the span of a breath, she didn't know why she still wasn't terrified.

There were specific instructions regarding the ring and the vine on her finger. For most of the time, she was to wear the ring only on that finger, covering the vine. The ring would fit itself to her hand, the letter stated. She looked at the ring again and smirked. If it was going to do that, she thought, it was going to have to get a hell of a lot smaller all by itself. The thing had obviously been made to fit a man's finger.

She continued to read. If in her dealings with anyone, she was asked to identify herself, she was not to speak a word in reply, only to remove the ring and allow the vine to be seen. She was to replace the ring immediately afterward. Those who recognized the mark, the letter said, would acknowledge it and she could trust them. If she decided to decline to follow the instructions, she was to leave the ring in a specified place at night, keep the remainder of the money and go back to her life.

Oksana tried on the ring. Within a second, it changed as she watched it. The thing was sized perfectly. She slipped it off and on a few times, and marvelled at how it was now sized for her exactly.

She was still marvelling over it when there was a knock at the door, and it marked the beginning of her trip down the rabbit hole.

She opened the door as far as the chains would permit. She was peering out at a tough-looking, middle-aged man.

"Zaratskaia?" he growled quietly.

When she didn't answer, he just said, "Come on, kid, show me the sign or you can fuck yourself. I haven't got all week for this."

Oksana slipped off the ring and held up her hand so that he could see it.

"Fine," he said sounding impatient and a little disappointed, "get your coat. You're to come with me for a proper meal where we can talk. You can call me Kirrill."

It took quite a bit of courage for her, but she nodded after remembering what the stranger had said in the alleyway that no harm would come to her. She had her doubts but decided to go along with it.

Kirrill drove her to a really good restaurant and she was allowed to order whatever she wanted. He had a salad. She stared at the tattoos on his fingers and hands. She didn't know the exact meanings of what she saw there, only that he was a man used to living on the dark side of the law with the sort of people who usually didn't have the best interests of strangers at heart.

"Here's the way this goes," he said, "I'm going to lay out as much of a carpet for you to walk as I can for this. You'll have to make an appearance here and there, but I'll let you know ahead of time what will be required." He reached into his jacket pocket and produced an envelope.

"This is for you to read later tonight. I am to give you several more before this is all over with. When we're done here, I'll take you to a bank. You'll go to a woman who I will point out to you. Together with her, you'll activate a bank account which already exists in your name. There's already money in it. You will have to provide identification to prove who you are, but she will only pretend to examine it, other than to write down the address for the bank's records."

He leaned forward, "Do not make her ask to see what's under that ring as I had to. Take the ring off and let her see as you hand her the identification. You are not to touch that money. You'll need it later. Then I'll take you home and we will be finished for today. I'll have your phone hooked up and working by this evening. You are to place no calls. You are not to use it unless I call you. Understand?"

She nodded; more confused by the second, "Do you need my phone number?"

He looked at her, "If I can make your unpaid telephone work, do you really think that I can't find your number? Do you know your blood type?"

"B. rH negative," Oksana replied.

"A little rare," he grunted writing it down on a page in a little book that he'd pulled from his jacket pocket, "I'm glad that I asked. You're supposed to obtain some documentation from a doctor, but I will provide that for you. I'd like to have it at least a little accurate. Since you're wearing those glasses, I assume that you are not wearing contact lenses, correct?" He motioned for her to lean closer. "I need to see your eye colour."

She nodded, taking her metal rimmed glasses off for him to see her eyes.

"Gray eyes," he said to himself. "Questions?"

"Yes," she nodded uncertainly, "what's this about?"

Kirrill stared at her. "You have no idea?"

She shook her head.

He looked at the ceiling for a long moment and then back at her. "Alright. I'll try to tell you what I can. I usually do this a lot quicker and with a bit of risk. For you, I have instructions to make this slower AND legitimate, but it will still take over a month, and likely two to three months, so be sure to pay at least three months of your rent ahead of time."

"You are going to leave Kiev to begin a life far away. I've been paid a lot to make this happen or I wouldn't even be telling you this much, but he said that you would need to be guided. I think that I see why he said that now. Even so, I normally wouldn't do this, but for him I would. He helped me with a few little problems - rats in my fields, you might say - so I owe him. And you fucking know that I'd cross him if I thought I could manage it, but I know what would happen then. There are not enough places to hide when he hunts, if he has a reason."

Oksana tried to sit still as she fought off an urge to run out of the place. Instead, she leaned forward a little, "Who, Kirrill? Who is he, this person?"

Kirrill looked slightly disgusted for a moment, "I was hoping that you would know more than you obviously do. If you don't, then I won't tell you more because I can't. Saints in heaven, you look like a sweet little thing, but you don't look worth this trouble to me. Look, girl, we're not having this little talk right now, but I will say this; if he wants you," he looked her over in an appraising manner, as though he wondered himself, "then he'll have you wherever and whenever he decides to. It looks to me as though he wants you out of some shithole, at least for the moment. That must be why you're going to Canada -- and very legally, too. You ought to be thankful, I'd say."

She tried to cover her shock, but her jaw still almost hit her plate, "Canada? But -- "

He held up his hand.

"A little advice." He looked around in a low-key sort of way, "Learn to hear with your ears and think with your brain. Leave your mouth out of it altogether. You can still refuse to go. I am sure that it will all be spelled out for you in that envelope."

He raised his hand, and their waiter was there instantly. "Find Dimitri, and tell him to bring what he was told to prepare. And tell the sorry bag of turds that we do not have all day."

Within three minutes, a man approached their table and politely handed Oksana a large envelope which obviously contained books. "You will find the important things highlighted," he said before bowing very slightly and turning on his heel to walk off.

Kirrill leaned forward, "Whether you go or stay is up to you. If you do not wish to be working for me later on, I would advise you to take this offer. While you make up your mind in the time that you have left to you, and for the time that it takes to get you out of Kiev -- if you decide to wise up - you will have my protection. But if you decide to remain here, you will become one of my girls, since your benefactor will not care anymore by then. It is not so bad. But take my advice and do the right thing here. I do not know why he likes you, or even what he sees in you, but I think that you will have a better life there. Now, if you are ready, ..."

Oksana remembered sitting in shock in her cold little flat afterward. She suddenly had a bank account with nearly a hundred thousand rubles in it. The letter in the envelope told her that she was now a real gardener, and would have several "clients" where she would prepare plots as soon as the winter had passed by a little. She would be taken to an embassy to make an application to immigrate as well as the proper government offices to obtain a passport and an exit visa. Her clients would back up her story when they were contacted. She was not to concern herself with worrying about any details; everything would be laid out for her in advance. For all intents and purposes, and in actual fact, as far as that went, she was now a rather successful commercial gardener and landscaper who was planning to come to a new land.

It had happened just as the unsigned letters said. Kirrill would contact her, and then she went where she was supposed to go and saw who she was supposed to see. She had several interviews where she was asked various questions, and she'd studied the material which had been provided for her to learn.

But it always seemed that the person on the other side of the table only listened out of polite interest after they'd seen what lay under her ring. Whenever she wasn't looking at facts about the geography, politics and people of the place, she was trying hard to figure out ways to practice and improve upon her poor English.

Kirrill gave her a cassette course in English as a gift from him. As odd as it was, Oksana was thrilled by the gesture. To her, it meant that this was real.

It was almost eerie, she'd thought, as she noticed men near to her wherever she went. It took her a while to be able to make them out at first, but after a time, she began to recognize the same men, over and over. They looked to be completely interchangeable.

It lasted for the next two and a half months. Whenever she'd been taken to where she was to garden, she found herself really working for days at a time, sweating in the cold, preparing plots for the spring, pulling back the dark cloths and tarpaulins laid there by someone else the previous fall to hoe and work some moss into the half-frozen loam.

Oksana never met any of her "clients", but she was paid and well every single time. Kirrill stopped at the bank every time that she'd been paid so that she could add to her new fortune. She'd planted thousands of plants and bulbs and covered them again in the event of late frosts, She'd been told that they would be uncovered and cared for after she was gone. It was hard work, but it made her feel as though she was at a least earning a little of what she now had. It was really very satisfying in spite of the mystery of it all and far better than what she'd been doing with her life up to this point. She was dog-tired every evening, but she studied hard.

It all led up to her trip to the airport the day before. By then, the mysterious Kirrill had seemed almost like a kindly uncle to her, but she knew that he hadn't been lying. If she had decided not to go, he would try to capitalize on the young woman whom he'd been well paid to chaperone through this process. Oksana had no doubt that her bank balance could be made to disappear just as quickly as it had materialized and then she'd be left with no choice.

He still couldn't understand why, and he admitted it to her on more than one occasion, but if the enigmatic person behind all of this chose to behave as though she had some value, Kirrill was only waiting for her to refuse, even up to the last minute, so that he might have her working in his stable. Maybe she had some appeal that he wasn't seeing, he admitted, but he'd give her a try since he was always on the lookout for new talent, he'd said. She only wondered what happened to the old talent, but she didn't think that she had to wonder all that hard.

"So, my little niece," he'd said at their parting, "and you almost seem to me to be that after all of this time, are you certain now that you wouldn't like to stay here?"

He looked at her fondly, "No? Well, I guess that I can understand that. Remember the directions for when you arrive there. Your journey will not end at the airport. It is still a way from there to where you need to be."

He kissed her then, just as a kindly and loving uncle would in other, more real circumstances, and hugged her tenderly. Oksana almost thought it felt a little too real to her, as though with the right move on her part now, he might turn into the man in the role for her. But she knew better.

She'd never had this for herself in her childhood. She had no doubt that she probably had real blood uncles someplace. She'd just never met one of them.

"Remember also that you might be pulled into a cubicle and questioned. If it happens, do not remove the ring to any official there. It will mean nothing to them and then you know nothing about me, because if I hear that you mention me, I will silence you for the trouble. But you should have no difficulty. You have proven to me in our little sessions that you know more than you need to in order to appear legitimate, since you are legitimate, after all. Indeed, you probably know more about the place than many of the officials," he chuckled.

"Take care of yourself and tell him that I looked after you well, and that if my dreams come true, I will never lay eyes on him again. I am sure that he will laugh."

With that, Kirrill stepped out of her life as oddly as he'd stepped into it and she stood alone at the check-in counter. Well, not quite alone, she saw as she looked around the place. She could pick out several of her protectors, no doubt there to make sure that she boarded and actually left. When she landed in London, she had to wait a little for her connecting flight. She'd been certain that Kirrill had people there to be sure that she journeyed on, and now knew it without doubt as she thought of the blonde's escort.

Oksana closed her eyes and thought about the two and a half months that this had gone on. She didn't know for certain because no one had ever really spelled it out for her. But she did know a couple of things.

She hadn't been getting anywhere in her shitty life for a long time. If she hadn't met one very strange person there in the dark of the alleyway, she knew that she'd very likely have been killed. After that, her life had begun to get so much better. She'd been careful to avoid it, and it had never come up between them, what had happened to her that night. She didn't know if Kirrill knew what she did about the stranger -- she wasn't a hundred percent certain that it was the same person, but she was more than willing to bet that it was.

She knew that she'd likely know all of the answers to this riddle soon. At least she hoped to. She hoped to really be able to pay back his kindness somehow while at the same time praying that he wouldn't insist on the same arrangement that the blonde had with her captors. She was still confused by one aspect which had nothing to do with Kirrill, or the money, or the way that this had all happened. It was something which concerned her and how she felt about all of this because at first glance, it didn't make a lot of sense to her, though she thought that maybe she was beginning to understand it a little bit.

She remembered hoping very hard as she shook in a bit if terror in that alley that he didn't want her.

Over the time in between, she'd replayed the scene over and over, so many times now that it bordered on driving her insane. She saw him frequently in her dreams and he often intruded in her daily thoughts as little daydreams, these odd little hopes that he was the mysterious individual who was sponsoring her here. He just had to be real and not some trick of the darkness.

She was often a little upset with herself, the way that she saw herself going through her life, and yet imagining that he was watching her, as though he was near to her. She'd drawn a little comfort from it after a while - even if she did feel something like a wishful young schoolgirl as she did it.

But she'd finally been able to admit something to herself all this time later. She found him there in the movie of her memory as she lay in her always-lonely bed night after night with him in her mind.

If it was him, he was no boy. All that she really knew from her feelings was that he was a male in his prime. What sort of male, she had no real idea, but to her, he was beautiful if it could be said.

Beyond anything else, he most certainly wasn't lost-looking.

The thought had caused her to smirk more than once when it came to her and when it did, she gave in to a bit of quiet, self-pleasure as she thought of him late at night.

Because to a lonely girl who seemed to look to everyone else like a lost little mouse in a library, for damn sure he wasn't the least bit forgettable .

Now Oksana had reversed her first thoughts of that night. Because as odd and inexplicable as all of this was, ...

Now she hoped very much that he did want her. Other than Kirrill's doubtful appraisal, no one else did.