Exposed (3 page)

Ivan growled and pushed himself up to sit on his bed. Sleep was not going to return. Early morning light filtered through the open windows and hung in patches and streaks. The cabin was bare and half-finished, nestled at the back corner of his parent’s property south of town. 

Ivan padded on bare feet over the naked wood floors, stepping through the hole where the bedroom door still needed to be hung. In a corner of the still-unfurnished great room, a work table was cluttered with tools and long slats of wood being slowly turned into kitchen cabinets. 

It was a project, this cabin. But it was Ivan’s project. It was the one place outside the greenhouses and forests where he felt he could breathe properly. When he was younger, he’d thought he would leave and explore the world—the dream of a child. Why leave when everywhere was the same underneath? The world was full of rotten people, but this slice of earth was his and his alone. Just as he needed it to be. Ivan leaned against a half-finished counter in what was going to become the galley kitchen and twisted a tap. Cold water spurted from the faucet, and he splashed his face. The water helped wake him up. It chased away those lingering thoughts of June and his impetuous mistake from the night before.

Out the window above the sink, the grove of aspens hugging the edge of the valley floor rustled in a breeze and threw dappled sunlight quivering across Ivan’s face. He’d stay away from town, that’s what he’d do. June would forget about the flower. She’d probably already forgotten. 

It was better that way, Ivan told himself. Out here, among the trees and fields that rolled like velvet over the valley floor, Ivan didn’t have to worry who saw him. Who saw him for only his last name and his heritage. Out here, no one bothered him or disappointed him. 

Ivan cupped his hand under the faucet and drank deep. How he wished he’d learned that lesson when he was younger. If he expected the worst of others, there was no way to be disappointed. How many years had he wasted trying to find someone like himself, someone to talk to outside his family? 

Ivan remembered the moment he’d stopped caring. The moment he’d seen the true nature of people. He’d been a sophomore in high school, gawky and not yet grown into his long arms and legs. His family had been living in Independence Falls for nearly six years at that point, and Ivan still wished—foolishly, stupidly—that others would see him for who he was. Someone had shoved him from behind into the lockers, and his books had spilled everywhere. Notebooks scattering, papers and bent-edged textbooks smacking the ground. It’d been the beginning of the Korean War and so many of the boys looked at Ivan and saw the enemy, the Commie bastard who was opposing the Americans in Korea. It didn’t matter that Ivan had never even been to the Soviet Union. What mattered was his name and his parents’ accent and the whiff of other that seemed to hang on him like smoke. And no one—not a single person—had stopped to help. He’d had to crawl on the hallway floor, gathering his things, and people just watched. 

No. He’d learned the hard way the nature of people. And what he learned made him want to stay away forever. It was better that way, safer. There was no one out here but the plants and his family.

Now he just had to hope June forgot that damned flower.

A bead of water clung to the bottom of Ivan’s cupped palm, and he stared at it. There was something small and hard at the center of the water droplet. Something that hadn’t been there the moment before. 

Ivan stared at the hard little beginning of life and breathed. Let his power take hold and flow. It grew into a tiny seed, nut brown and ridged, tapering to a sharp point at one end. Ivan couldn’t help but marvel at the seed taking shape under the power of his new ability. 

He glanced quickly over his shoulder. This was dangerous. But it felt so natural, like waking up or walking. Ivan raked his eyes across the half-finished cabin and open windows, but he was alone. Of course he was alone. 

Ivan concentrated, and a shoot of bright green poked through the end and searched across his palm. The stem curved around his thumb and unfurled delicate leaves, the edges serrated and just the tiniest bit fuzzy underneath. Ivan stared hard, willing the new plant—his plant—into shape and form. A bud balanced at the end of the wispy stalk, and purple petals opened to the sun filtering through the trees. Ivan smiled at his flower. His creation.

What need did he have for people when he had this power?

A knock at the door startled him.

“Just a minute!” He called out in Russian, assuming it was family, and heard his brother respond.

Ivan scooped the flower from his palm and rested it gently in an empty pot. The flower turned its face from the sun to look up at Ivan. He patted the head of the flower before crossing to the door. He quickly pulled on a shirt as he walked, and yanked the door open to his older brother Kostya.

“Bad news,” Kostya said. He was nearly ten years older than Ivan, and bulky where Ivan was slim. But the brothers shared their father’s blue eyes and their mother’s unruly dark hair.

Ivan frowned in question. “What’s wrong?”

Kostya nodded his head back over the field toward the large, red barn in the distance where Ivan could just make out his mother holding onto the brown mare. “Anastasia threw a shoe when I was out in the south field, so Mama and I need to see to her. You’ll have to go into town for the market.”

“But,” Ivan started. His stomach twisted into a knot but he covered it with annoyance. “Why bother, Konstantin Abramovich? We’ve not sold anything in weeks.”

Kostya leveled a glare at his younger brother, looking shockingly like their mother for a moment. But it was true. Ever since the military had been in town because of the sickness, ever since the whispers had started about the Soviets being responsible, the farm stand at the weekly market had gone largely ignored. 

“We can barely find ways to use all the leftover produce,” Ivan said. “They won’t buy from us, not anymore.”

Kostya glanced over his shoulder and when he turned back to Ivan his eyes were drawn. “Giving up would only be worse. We’re not guilty of anything, brother. Give it time, and the business will come back.”

Ivan didn’t have the confidence of his brother, but Kostya left no room for argument. He held up a wide, calloused hand in good-bye and left Ivan standing in his doorway. 

But he called back to Ivan just as he was shutting the door. “Try to be nice, Ivan Abramovich. Your scowl certainly isn’t going to sell any flowers.”

Ivan swore loudly at his brother, but it did little. He turned back to his cabin, roughly tugged on boots, and scrubbed his hands through his hair. 

So much for staying away.

“Father?”

Ivan knocked at the door to the main house and stuck his head inside. It smelled of fresh bread and strong coffee, but the place was shadowed and silent.

Kostya and his mother would be with the mare Anastasia most of the morning, but perhaps Ivan could talk his father into going to the market instead. The thought of heading back into town … Ivan swallowed hard. He had planned on spending the day in the greenhouses or working in his cabin. Annoyance bubbled hotly inside of him at the prospect of instead spending his free day among the sharp glances and gossip of town.

“Father?” He called again, and a distant voice answered. Ivan walked down the long entry hall and into the great room. Large windows washed the room in sunlight and cast yellow light over his father. The man sat stooped at the long wooden dining table near the corner of the room.

Sheaves of bound pages and glossy journals were scattered around Abram Sokolov, and the wiry, aging man was nearly lost among them. His head was bent over a piece of lined paper as he wrote quickly.

Ivan stood at his father’s shoulder and read a few lines of the letter. It was in the elegant Cyrillic alphabet of his family’s heritage.

“Another letter to Anatoly Vladimirovich?”

His father made a
mmm-hmm
noise, but didn’t look up or stop writing.

“Downing Street still requires his services, and he was asking more about my time in the Kremlin’s special projects unit.” Abram spared a glance at his son, his mouth curved in a wry smile. But his brown eyes stayed flat. “Anatoly Vladimirovich never reached the clearances I did, but it seems Britain respects him far more than America ever did me.”

Ivan cleared his throat. His father had grown bitter these last few years, retreating to his journals and correspondences with other Soviet defectors. Giving up Russian secrets to the American government had limited the family’s choices. Ivan’s father was a brilliant physicist, but no lab or university was willing to hire a Soviet. They would shower compliments on the famed doctor, ask him about his work, and then give their apologies and send him away empty handed.

And so Abram stayed here, writing, reading, going days without seeing the sun. Hard labor, he said, had never agreed with him. Ivan knew before even asking what his father’s answer would be, but he cleared his throat again and asked anyway.

“Kostya and Mama are with the horses, and it’s market day. You could use a break, Father. Fresh air will clear your head.”

“I don’t need a clearer head, Vanya. I need to finish this letter.”

The name made Ivan flinch. When they’d first moved to Independence Falls, Butch and some of his cronies had overhead his mother calling him Vanya, a loving form of Ivan, and teased him for the girly name. He’d spent an entire winter refusing to answer to it before his parents gave it up. Or nearly gave it up.

Ivan cast off the annoyance and smiled at his father hopefully.

“But maybe if you came with me to town ….”

Abram twisted in his chair to look up at his son. Gray threaded through his dark hair, and there were deep lines on either side of his mouth and at the corners of his eyes. Abram had not been young when he’d married Galina Olegovna, but Ivan had not really noticed his father’s age until these last few months. He suddenly looked like an old man. That made something like fear twist in Ivan’s gut. When his family was gone, he’d be truly alone.

Ivan shook away the fear. He was good alone. 

“Bring me one of those blackberry pastries when you’re in town. Kostya bought them from a new bakery last time he was at the market.”

Ivan sighed. His father was not one to change his mind. Ivan had learned his own sense of stubbornness at the knee of his father, but right now he wasn’t happy about it. He growled a good-bye and stalked down the hall.

Outside, his brother had already loaded the bed of the beat up old Chevy with fresh produce and flowers for the market. Ivan had no choice but to climb into the truck and head into town.

It was still early, and just the first few trucks laden with produce, meat, dairy, or homespun items were pulling up along the lanes near the town square for the weekly market. Ivan slammed the truck door behind him and grabbed the first armful of goods for the Sokolov market stall. One was a tin bucket of flowers from the greenhouses—peonies, bleeding hearts, and tiger lilies. Another tin was heaped with rosebuds. Behind that, three more tin buckets were crowded with roses in shades of pale pink, yellow, and deepest red. The people in town may not have wanted anything to do with the Sokolovs, but not a single one could resist those roses. Or, that’s how it used to be. Ivan hadn’t missed the nearly full tins coming home each week. 

Ivan didn’t care for roses, but he hated to see them go to waste. He reached out and fingered the velvet edge of a rose petal, and the flower shivered against his hand.

“Commie.”

The word was spit nearby, and Ivan wrenched his head around. His lips curled in disgust. Butch Murphy sauntered along the sidewalk, Ralph Crabtree and Danny Egan flanking him. 

Ivan’s jaw clenched and his arms went rigid where they gripped the tin bucket of flowers. “Say that again,” he dared Butch.

Butch sneered at Ivan and took his time spitting on the side steps of the church. He stalked closer, Ralph at one shoulder. 

“What? Don’t you understand English?” Butch growled. He walked even closer, and Ivan planted his feet wide, holding himself back from lunging at Butch. The man had a face that begged for a fist in it.

Butch barked out a harsh laugh. He shared a mean look with Ralph then reared back and slapped at one of the peonies. The flower exploded in a flurry of petals that fell to the ground at Ivan’s feet. 

Butch’s mouth stretched in a grotesque smile and he ground the toe of his boot against the fallen petals. “Selling flowers like a pansy. Guess you’re not going to get anyone to buy that one, huh? Not that anyone will buy from you Commies anymore.” 

The tin screeched against the metal truck bed as Ivan slammed the flowers down. He reveled in the way Ralph flinched at the movement and scurried back a step. But Ivan didn’t care about Ralph, not really. It was Butch he hated. Butch who’d tormented Ivan in school—one of the few people who was actually considered lower than the Murphys. The best thing that’d ever happened to Ivan was Butch dropping out. He hadn’t seen the caustic man in years, but the old hatred flared inside of Ivan, hot and pulsing. It made him shake with fury. 

No more hanging his head to Butch’s twisted insults. No more letting the brute win.

He balled his hands into fists, and the spark of fear that flashed in Butch’s mean little eyes fanned the flames of anger. “You couldn’t afford my flowers. I’m sure you’ll need every penny to bail your useless father out of the drunk tank again.” 

“What’d you just say?” Butch whispered, his voice low and deadly.

Ivan hissed out a harsh laugh. “What?” Ivan mocked him. “Don’t you understand English?”

Butch growled and sprang, lobbing his arm through the air in a heavy punch. He was a brute of a man, hard yet slower than Ivan. Ivan ducked away from the wide arc of Butch’s punch and easily stepped aside. The man’s fist rammed into the wheel well of the truck with a dull metal
twang
, and he hissed in pain. 

Butch’s nostrils were flaring and his eyes were wild when he spun around and glared up at Ivan. But he was shaking out his red knuckles as well.