It took me exactly ten minutes to figure out that my Ukrainian phrasebook was largely useless (not just because I was useless when it came to using it, but because most of the people I ran across spoke Russian instead).
Did Kelsey speak Russian? I may not have gone to college, but I didn’t think the average rich girl from Texas would be fluent in the language. Then again, given the chance to go to Europe, the average girl would have probably chosen London or Paris or Rome.
Maybe she knew that guy on the moped. Except, her father didn’t mention anything about Kelsey visiting friends (or a boyfriend) overseas. But then again, he ran in the same circles as my father, who made it a point to be as oblivious as possible, so perhaps he just didn’t know.
Or maybe that boyfriend was why he sent me. Maybe he was dangerous.
Frustrated, I rubbed my hand across the top of my shorn head, not for the first time, missing the longer hair I’d had before enlisting. You’d think after two tours, I would be used to it, but I wasn’t. Groaning, I decided that I wasn’t getting any closer to her by standing around. And the idea of her being God-knows-where with that guy had my insides clenching uncomfortably.
I set off on foot, too annoyed and worried to actually look around me at the city. I could only stare at that dot and know that I was f**king this up as badly as everything else in my life.
Finally, after another ten minutes, the dot stopped moving. I walked for a little longer, and when I was certain that Kelsey wasn’t going to take off again, I worked on finding someone who could help me figure out where she was and how to get there.
There was a moment when I assumed the worst about her unmoving dot. Maybe it was because I’d lived amidst war for more than a fourth of my life. But I shook that off. The Ukraine wasn’t war torn, not right now anyway. She was probably sitting down in a café or on a park bench.
My deliverance came in the form of a cute little girl with scuffed shoes, curly hair, and a gap-toothed smile. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, but she understood me. My words anyway. She directed her big brown doe eyes at my phone, but she was a little too young to help me figure out how the map translated to the city of Kiev.
“Ivan!” she called out. Her tiny fingers circled around her mouth, pressing into her chubby cheeks, and she yelled louder, “Ivan! Идите сюда!”
An older boy, distinctly preteen with messy hair and pimples, came bounding over toward us.
“Что?” he said, annoyed.
Her tiny lips moved faster, words with too many consonants pouring from her mouth, as her hands took up residence on her hips.
Ivan, who I guessed was her brother, rolled his eyes and held out his hand toward me.
I handed over my phone, then watched as he studied it with a bit more comprehension than his sister. He turned it sideways, then back again.
“Botanical gardens,” he said. “Near the monastery.”
“Can I take a cab there? If I say ‘botanical gardens’ will they know what I mean?”
Ivan rubbed at a pimple on his chin, and then shrugged. “Metro is easier.” He pointed down the street and said, “There. To universytet.”
“University?”
“Yes. Is next to botanical gardens.”
I nodded. “Okay. Okay, thank you, Ivan.” I knelt down in front of the little girl, and I noticed the bottom of her dress was smudged with dirt. “And thank you, too.”
“Sasha,” Ivan told me.
“You were very helpful, Sasha.”
Her grin was adorable.
Sometimes, I wondered if I might have turned out differently if I’d had siblings. If I’d had a little sister like her to look after and protect, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten lost so deeply in my own troubles.
But there was no time to think of that now, to wander through the minefields of my past, not when I had someone who needed me in the present.
2
I EMERGED FROM the metro right next to the university, and the botanical gardens were easy enough to spot. They were situated right next to a monastery. Green domed roofs and golden spires took up the forefront of my view while the gardens stretched out behind it. With a river at my back and the cool breeze carrying the scent of flowers, I was distracted for a moment from my search.
If I didn’t need to find her, this would be the perfect place to draw.
Sketching calmed me. Maybe because it brought order to a disordered world. But it more than that. It allowed me to do more than just fix a chaotic world; it let me escape it. By focusing on the page, I forgot about everything around me. I stepped onto another plane and found peace in something beautiful. And though sometimes this seemed impossible in all the world’s ugliness, there was always at least one beautiful thing.
At the moment there was much more than one.
The smell of the gardens was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, light and sweet and seductive all at the same time. The breeze teased through the canopy of trees, and it hit me then how tired the flight halfway around the world had left me.
I blinked, shook my head, and stretched my neck.
Focus, Hunt. This is not a vacation for you.
I referenced the GPS on my phone again. The garden was full of winding trails, and there wasn’t a straight line between Kelsey and me, not without trekking through some, no doubt, rare and expensive greenery.
So I guessed as best I could. Whenever there was a chance to turn in Kelsey’s direction, I took that path. Sometimes it would wind in a completely different direction, and I’d have to double back and try a different trail. I should have picked up some kind of map or something, but I didn’t.