There was no sound, and it was dark. She opened her eyes, but saw nothing. Then, the feel of the rain began to blur in her mind towards sound, so that for a moment she was not sure what she was hearing and what she was feeling. Then the light, gray, muted light, creeping in. Soon, over the rain, she heard another sound, sobbing, and she felt the faint weight on her stomach before she felt the weight leave, then find her face, hands caressing her cheek with a trembling urgency.

She moved her lips, but no sound came, and she moved her head to see her mother as she was pulled up into her arms, out of the mud that released her gently. In the air, startlingly new, and the mud beneath her, she knew she was home.

She slept and woke. She dreamt, still waking without memory, but with the same vague uneasiness. Hours, maybe days passed, and she lay there, shades drawn, trying to follow the shadows to their source, often finding nothing. Her eyes traced and retraced the course of reflected light, but every time, it seemed there was a barrier unseen, as if she were trapped in some event horizon, looking at cause and effect, but never seeing where they actually met.

She knew where she was, how could she not, the room she grew up in, back home, Beaumont. She knew her room, and felt home around her, felt the earth, even, more than she could recall. She heard noises downstairs, knew it was her mother. She felt a flash of excitement and fear, familiar but startling, and felt, through the same haze of confusion and certainty, that no, it was not him, he wasn’t home.

She remembered mornings before, hearing the sounds of life below, but not wanting to get out of bed, not wanting to face the day. She had spent those mornings in the same shadows, But this, this morning, was different.

She fell back asleep from time to time, and when she did, she knew she dreamt, or perhaps remembered, but when she woke, there was only the gasp of shock, and the sweat-soaked sheets around her, as if her soul had bled.

Hours passed, and no memory returned. Then she heard, faintly, music. She focused, listened, and other memory followed. She remembered the drowsiness of wine, the feel of warmth and comfort, and then, a face began to coalesce, bit by bit, a face rendered in oil on canvas, old but alive, a memory that began and ended with the eyes.

It was the eyes that held her. Mary turned her body, rested her head on the back of the leather couch, letting her body sink deeper into it, the wine making it difficult to tell where her body ended and the couch began. Tchaikovsky faded, the last chord decaying delicately like sugar melting on her tongue. The stereo whirred, clicked, shuffled, and a balalaika strummed sweetly, clearly, in the delicate rhythm and curious scale of a Russian melody. Voices joined in, like the trickling of soft water, speaking words she did not understand, and as her eyes grew heavy, she thought at moments that the voices were singing of the love between her and the dark figure in the painting.

She felt a hand on her hair, caressing it slightly, familiar but tentative, and she stretched luxuriantly as she turned her body back around to face him.

“Who is that?” she asked, nodding towards the painting.

Gregory poured more wine into her glass, seemingly absorbed in the smooth scarlet flow, twisting the bottle just so as he finished pouring. While his seriousness kind of seemed severe, even ridiculous at times, it was one of the things that fascinated her so about him – he seemed fascinated in the details, the minutiae of everything that happened around him, meticulous and calculating and appreciative of everything he did, every move he made. He set the bottle down and sat gently on the couch next to her.

Mary looked back at the painting on the wall behind her. A portrait, a pale figure, with a heavy beard, dressed in an embroidered black tunic. The subject was by no means attractive- his was a hardened face, lined, pocked, severe. But the eyes stabbed out, charcoal and acrylic alive, passionate, burning darkly, living beyond the canvas and paints, recognizing her, loving her, accusing her.

“You have the same eyes, I think. I mean, sometimes, when you get serious and quiet.”

She looked at him, and he just smiled at her.

“And is that a good thing?”

She smiled and looked down at her glass, warming in her hand. “Well, it’s weird. In you, it’s mysterious, kind of alluring.” She looked again at the painting. “Kinda creepy when he does it, though, in a sort of... Charles Manson way.”

Gregory’s smile was briefly, so faintly tinged with disappointment, maybe even anger.

“It’s Rasputin.”

“The badguy in the Disney movie?”

He cocked an eyebrow at her, the possible presence of anger momentarily amplified, and she laughed. “No, I know who Rasputin is - I do have the History Channel. Sort of a mystic in the court of the Tsar of Russia. The ‘Mad Monk’, right?”

Annoyance. “That name was an insult, born of ignorance and fear, to a powerful and great man. He saved the life of the Tsar’s son. He foresaw events, served as counsel to the Tsarina. But certain powerful people envied, feared, resented his influence. They suspected his love for the Tsarina, and were outraged by the relationship between their queen and a peasant. And, in fact, he did love her, but she betrayed him.”

“Yeah, well, he loved her so much that he cursed her and the royal family for it. Within a year, the entire family, including the children, were executed in a basement. Not a real forgiving guy.”

Again, the eyes turned so slightly dark, and Gregory opened his mouth to speak. Mary felt the chill, afraid of his response, and decided it better to beat him to the punch.

“I really did see the History Channel piece on him. But like you said, he was misunderstood, probably. Who knows what really happened, it’s all legend and myth by now, isn’t it?” She bit her lower lip coquettishly and slid closer to him. “I’m more interested in what’s happening right now.”

He didn't take the bait. “But they’re the same. What is happening now, and what happened then. There’s a continuity in things that people are too small, too stupid to see – they lose track of it with the passage of years, with the weight and volume of all the intervening events. But there is some history, some power, some will that time and circumstance and poor retelling can never dull or defeat.”

He looked levelly at her. “People have no sense of history. History teaches, but we learn nothing. Tell me... do you have any idea who you are, Mary? I mean, who you really are?”

She felt suddenly and starkly sober. There was something, like a small corner of her mind coming alive, that she couldn’t quite figure out.

“Yes... and no. I know who I want to be. I know who I am right now.”

“And they're not the same, are they? Those things are no more than ideas imposed by a combination of circumstance and our fears and our weaknesses. Even what you envision as your ideal self is poorly crafted by a limited vision, a limited grasp of your capabilities, of who you really are.

"No, I want to know, do you know what you’re meant to be? Do you have any idea?”

She stared down into her glass, and it was either the glass or her mind that rang, the question resonating and lingering.

“No. No, I don’t know that I do.” She paused. She was not used to confession. She knew she had always acted as though she did, in fact, know the answer to that question. She showed strength and assurance by not asking the question of herself, but no one had ever posed it to her so bluntly. She felt shamed. But, she couldn’t help herself. She asked, quietly, “Do you?”

The darkness changed. Now no anger, no coldness; just the same comforting, warm darkness one finds in sleep. He leaned forward and kissed her, and she believed that yes, he did know who she was meant to be. She also believed that at the moment, she didn’t know if she was asleep or awake.