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A NOTE ABOUT RUSSIAN NAMES AND

PATRONYMICS

Russians have two official first naiven name and a patronyhter of" Katerina Alexandrovna, for exahter of a man named Alexander

Her brother is Pyotr Alexandrovich A female patronymic ends in "-evna" or

"-ovna," while a male patronymic ends in "-vich" It was traditional for the nobility and aristocracy to name their children after Orthodox saints, thus the abundance of Alexanders and Marias and Katerinas For this reason, nicknames, or diminutives, came in handy to tell the Marias and the Katerinas apart Katerinas could be called Katiya, Koshka, or Katushka An Alexander ht be called Petya or Petrusha When addressing a person by his or her nickname, one does not add the patronymic The person would be addressed as Katerina Alexandrovna or si, Russia

Our fa all across Europe, from France to Russia, frodoled with all the rest of Europe&039;s royalty, and like many in that forest, my family tree is poisoned with a dark evil

When I was seven, I sneaked into Maold parlor and watched one of her seances from behind one of the Louis XVI sofas She and her friends were forever trying to summon relatives or fa the aristocracy I do not knohose spirit they evoked, but a chill settled in the roohtgown did nothing to keep me warm

A sad lady in white appeared in the gilded Italian mirror over the fireplace She told Marandchildren

I&039;d never seen my mother turn so pale Her hands trean to shake One of the other ladies-my aunt, I think-screa the lady in white backhappier I ran out into the garden and under the lilac tree, closed my eyes, and chanted the nonsense words I&039;d heard Maain, and I smelled the an to fill with a gray, damp mist This had been a foolish mistake

I looked around in fear, but there were no spirits present in the garden at all I breathed a sigh of relief and felt silly The gaaotten carried away

But then I spotted soround under the lilac tree I bent down to look , his eyes a blank black stare

I wondered what had killed hi, now the toad blinked and uttered a long, an to move as he stirred to life His stare was still blank, but the toad croaked again as he righted himself and crept closer to me

I jumped back in terror My throat closed up and I felt as if I couldn&039;t breathe Had I brought this creature back to life,I ran inside, ignoring the htened to step quietly, Iup the main stairs and knocked one of Maman&039;s favorite cloisonne-studded icons from the wall I did not stop to retrieve the broken fra

I hurried up to the children&039;s floor, where I climbed into my bed and hid under the quilt I pretended to be asleep when my nurse came upstairs to check on one All I could smell was the comfortable scent of my bed linens, which had been washed in rose water The nurse left after laying her fat, cold hand against ers from her bedtime tea

I never said a word about the toad to anyone

And ht

-JOHN 3:19