Rosa and the Veil of Gold Read Online Free Page B

and ears. Pale vaporous ribbons snaked around the bear, and Rosa couldn’t deny there was something sinister about them. She closed her second sight and used the cloth to gently rub away the dark stain of centuries. The bear was yellow-bright underneath. Rosa took it to the table.
    Vasily came in as she sat down.
    “It’s a pretty thing,” he said, falling into the chair opposite.
    “That’s a long face, Uncle Vasily.”
    “I broke it off with Larissa.”
    Rosa raised an eyebrow, feigning surprise. “Any reason?”
    “It simply didn’t feel right.”
    Rosa nodded. Vasily had never married, and Larissa was the latest in a long string of lady friends who seemed to last two months at most. Rosa’s suspicion was that Vasily preferred the company of men, but he was the kind of man who would never admit such an inclination. It made Rosa sad to know the passing years might leave him lonely.
    “When it feels right, Uncle Vasily, will you ask one to stay, no matter who it is?” she said.
    “What a strange thing to say, Rosa. Of course I will.” He smiled at her. For everyone else he had terrifying mood swings, but forher he always had smiles. “It was better to finish it now, before I go away.”
    “You’re probably right, Uncle Vasily.” Vasily was leaving for Moscow that afternoon for a business conference.
    He touched her cheek. “You are so much like Ellena,” he said softly.
    Rosa couldn’t meet his eye.
    “Rosa, why won’t you talk about your mother?”
    “I can’t, Vasily. It was so awful at the end.”
    “Then talk about the beginning, or the middle.”
    Tears brimmed and she swallowed hard. “You talk about her. What was she like when she was twenty-seven, like I am?”
    “She was beautiful and clever, like you are. Her own mother had just died, and she met a handsome man named Petr Kovalenko. He had red hair and blue eyes.”
    Rosa smiled and looked up. “Go on,” she said, although she knew the story.
    “He was an architect and he dreamed of the West. We hated him for it, because he took our beautiful Ellena away, and their tiny girl named Rosa. They escaped to Prince Edward Island and lived in a misty valley and they were happy for a time. But all times pass.”
    Rosa nodded, thinking of her father’s death when she was only eight. “They do.”
    “Now that tiny girl is here with me, and I worry about her.”
    “You don’t need to worry about me, Uncle Vasily.”
    “When you find a nice young man to settle down with, I’ll stop worrying.”
    “I found one, I let him go,” she said. “I haven’t much hope of finding another.”
    Vasily snorted. “All those boys you see. You have a new one every week! So many to choose from.”
    She dropped her head, not comfortable. “It’s not serious, Uncle Vasily. They’re just for fun.”
    “Fun?” Vasily’s voice grew dark. “Not too much fun, I hope.”
    “I don’t do anything you’d be ashamed of,” she lied, “but they’re not people to stay in my life, Uncle Vasily. They’re not people to fall in love with.”
    He reached across and touched her hair. “You’ll find somebody wonderful, Rosa,” he said. “A girl as special as you need not worry.”
    At that moment, one of the draftsmen gingerly knocked at the door. Vasily turned with a snarl on his lips. “Is it important?”
    “Vasily, we need you to approve these plans.”
    Vasily rose and took the plans from him, running a practised eye over them. “Pah! These are not the right ones. Must I do everything myself?” Then he was gone in a thundercloud.
    Rosa tapped her fingernails on the table in a rhythm. She sang a song under her breath and drove out thoughts of her mother. The bear smiled at her.
    “You are a strange thing,” she said, reaching for it and opening her second sight again. “Tell me something about you.”
    A chill prickle on her fingertips warned her to pull away, but she didn’t.
    “Go on,” she said, “I’m not afraid of you.”
    Ice shot up