There was nothing about the old house that did not creak or squeak or moan. The Almasy children who lived here had long grown accustomed to how their home would complain if they ran across its ancient floorboards or leapt up its many windings stairs - if they crept down its narrow passages or danced playfully in its tea rooms. They did it all anyway and the house tolerated this generation of wild progeny as it has done for far longer than any of them could yet comprehend.

Wildest of them, the daughter. Ira Almasy was nine years old and a shock of electric blue hair as she came sprinting through the main hall into the foyer, screeching at the top of her voice in a manner that would have had the house elves in a panic if they did not know better. She was in a plain black dress and as soon as she reached the foyer, dropped her screaming and slid smoothly to a complete halt.

She stared in surprise at a strange redhead boy who, in his oversized jumper and modern corduroys, looked much younger even though they must have been hardly a year apart.

Ira blinked. "Excuse me. Who are you?" she asked politely, just as the boy stopped examining her white lace socks to offer his attention to her unusual hair. Before he could answer, something collided into her from behind. Someone. Ira looked around at Kazamir; he had been chasing after her in their race but his short legs were not so graceful at drawing up. He grinned sheepishly at his sister and stuck his smooth black head over her shoulder, curious.

Just like that, he came out from behind Ira to take the boy's hand. "Roman!" Kaz exclaimed with delight. Roman Almasy[1] exhaled in relief, clasping back with bashful familiarity. "Sister! This is cousin Roman. He's from England! A place called Oks-ford." Kazimir explained excitedly before quickly adding: "But he knows Russian. He isn't stupid." Both boys flushed red.

Of course, Kazimir had been to England before with mama, so he knew their relatives there. Ira tried not to look impressed at her little brother's introductions and instead stuck out her hand to this new cousin. They shook with comical sombreness. "How do you do?" she greeted in his native language and continued gracefully in their own tongue. "Have you come to stay? You may play with us if you like."

Roman understood that this was naturally a great honour and he nodded eagerly as Kazamir hooked their arms together. The great house was dark and foreign to him. He did not like its ominous wooden panelling (each panel had the look of a hidden door) or its thick, musty curtains. But the secretive smile offered to him by Ira changed that view. Beyond every door there was some excellent adventure - and surely skeletons hid behind those drapes, ready to leap out at them with frozen grins?

That was the promise he sensed.  "What are we p-playing?" he stuttered in weak Russian. Ira straightened her dancer's back and shook out her hair - the blue turning a gleaming, unearthly silver. Kazamir dropped to his knee and forced Roman to follow with obvious flourish. The new game had already begun.

"You dare ask?" Ira flashed them her most darling smile, which was really quite a ridiculous one on her wan face. "I am the first Tstaritsa Romanovna. And today, brothers, we conquer the great lake of Sobinka." They believed her.

1.	Raine Almasy's half-blood father.

A fire had been built in the parlour that night, burning brightly in a hearth that was as high as Ira was tall and as wide as she was if laid alongside. The light it flickered across the otherwise dark room was warm and welcoming - catching only glimpses of Persian carpets and richly textured damask furniture. Gleaming cherrywood surfaces. The odd decanter of port of whiskey.

Five young and washed faces basked in the heat, each one of the Almasy children aware that beyond the safety of their house was the great cold wilderness of nocturnal Sobinka. Ira, Kazimir and Roman were huddled on the floor with a single great goose feather eiderdown draped across them: boney shoulders pressed together and still faintly reeking of saltwater, even though they had all changed into their nightdresses by now.

On the large settee behind them, the two older Almasy brothers - Feliks and Fyodor in their early teens yet - were consulting over a scroll of parchment, tousled dark heads bent intently over its unfurled script. The Durmstrang insignia blemished a corner.

"English word, meaning graceful or deft-" Feliks suddenly said, causing Ira to look over her shoulder. "Six letters." An expectant silence ensued until Roman whispered something into her ear and she repeated his answer like a neutral and elegant mouthpiece: nimble. Fyodor scribbled away.

Elsewhere in the great house, a gong sounded and each fledgling began to collect themselves, aside from Roman. He looked to Kazimir curiously as they obediently tidied up the eiderdown. "Bedtime. But don't worry, I'll come get you," Kaz smiled secretively - he was off, running again, before an explanation could be demanded. Feliks yelled at him to slow down.




Unlike the other children, Ira Almasy slept on the other side of the house - and in the attic, of course, where the rest of the family could safely assume that she might entertain herself without inadvertently waking the entire household. This naturally made it the perfect place to meet after curfew.

The nine year old, natural red hair pinned into a mess of curls atop her head, was lighting a lantern when the first of them arrived. It was easy enough to see by moonlight coming through the windows but she was still many years away from appreciating the subtlety of hallowed blue illumination over the comfort of fire.

Kazimir and Roman climbed in, one sleepily dragging the other. Before the trapdoor could be shut, the older brothers appeared in their navy nightclothes - each carrying red enamel mugs of coffee. Their younger counterparts wrinkled their noses at the smell.

"Mama and papa already asleep?" Ira trotted daintily to her bed with the lantern, where she folded herself on to the floor at its foot. Feliks was dragging a chair over while the others settled in a circle and stole sips from Fyodor's mug. Kazimir yawned. "Da, snoring to high heaven."

A titter of giggles through the group. Ira turned around and slid out a thick, old looking tome from beneath her bed. They fell quiet and watched as she methodically opened it to a blank middle page before whispering the watchword. At first, only her. "Privyet. Once there was-" and then altogether her brothers read, "- where there wasn't, there was[1] a misfortune of children." The tome stiffened.

With a muffled thud the pages shivered and shuddered and flattened, and instead of a book, there lay in the middle of their circle a pale cream block of marble. It scintillated and looked almost golden by lantern fire. Roman stared. He was truly awake, flooded with fascination. Oxford seemed a distant memory.

Ira ran her palm across the marble; from the nightdress pocket procured a small knife. The blade was blunt and its handle plain as a kitchen tool. She looked at her cousin, pensive. The others smirked condescendingly at his flinch of fear.

"Give me your hand," she ordered.

Feliks and Fyodor watched like hawks, ready to pounce on their half-blood relation at any show of hesitation or weakness. They did not seem any less dangerous for all their deference to the young sister. He sensed their gazes. Roman offered his left hand and closed his eyes to its nervous tremor. He felt her take it--

-- and then a strange, dull pain at the base of his pinky. Grating. His dark eyes were open in a flash. Every other child in the circle did not seem bothered that Ira was slowly digging the blade into the finger, severing it. Yet no blood was spilt and even at his tender age, Roman knew that this was not a palpable pain. Still. His face was a ghastly white.

She cut through completely and the pinky disappeared into thin air. Ira smiled down at the hand, now short a digit, and seemed to know rather than see the horror of his expression.

"We play a game of dice. For every match you lose, cousin, I will take a finger." Just as serenely, the young witch dragged the blade in the opposite direction of before - just like that, with a cramping sensation, Roman saw that he had recovered the missing digit. "See?" He pulled back his hand immediately and the others laughed, merry voices falling dead on dark floorboards.

Fyodor had been working on the marble slab with a fountain pen as they talked. Fluid black lines marked a series of complex pentagons and paths, that it began to almost resemble the backdrop of some archaic board game. Kazimir pulled out a pair of ebony dice.

Outside, the winds picked up and the house creaked in response. Roman rubbed his hands nervously. Ira looked around the circle with a feeling of great fondness for her family. She raised her knife, saying: "I won last time..." and then proceeded to carve off her thumb and index finger as the handicap for tonight's round.

1.	Translation of a Hungarian version of "Once Upon a Time"