under the pile of frozen bodies and clawed my way to the surface. Even though people were hollow-eyed and starving, many wanted to take in an orphan, so I survived without him.
I only learned what happened to him a few days later, when there was an air raid. What that old bat, Olga Petrovna, said about upyr becoming human for a while was true. What she didn’t know was that once human, the upyr would seek death—he would go to the roof of some apartment building and wait for the German bombs among the giggling, gossiping girls and the buckets of sand. He would die a hero’s death, he would cover an incendiary bomb with his own body and save everyone, and the newspaper would write about him. People would know his name.
And so I wait by my sister’s door and beg her, I beg her for the word and a shot from my father’s pistol, so that Vanya could finally have a hero for a brother.
Other Books By Ekaterina Sedia
PUBLICATION HISTORY
“A Short Encyclopedia of Lunar Seas” © 2008 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in The Endicott Studio Journal of Mythic Arts, August 2008.
“Citizen Komarova Finds Love” © 2009 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Exotic Gothic 3 (ed. Danel Olson), Ash-Tree Press, 2009.
“Tin Cans” © 2010 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Haunted Legends (eds. Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas), Tor, 2010.
“One, Two, Three” © 2009 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Hatter Bones (ed. Jeremy Needle), Evil Nerd Empire, 2009.
“You Dream” © 2010 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Dark Faith (eds. Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon), Apex Publications, 2010.
“Zombie Lenin” © 2007 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Fantasy (ed. Sean Wallace), Prime Books, 2007.
“Ebb and Flow” © 2009 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Japanese Dreams (ed. Sean Wallace), Lethe Press, 2009.
“There is a Monster Under Helen’s Bed” © 2008 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Clockwork Phoenix (ed. Mike Allen), Norilana Books, 2008.
“Yakov and the Crows” © 2006 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Book of Dark Wisdom, December 2006.
“Hector Meets the King” © 2007 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in New Writings in the Fantastic (ed. John Grant), Pendragon Press, 2007.
“Chapaev and the Coconut Girl” © 2012 by Ekaterina Sedia. Original to this volume.
“The Bank of Burkina Faso” © 2012 by Ekaterina Sedia. Original to this volume.
“Kikimora” © 2005 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Jabberwocky, July 2005.
“Munashe and the Spirits” © 2006 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in GrendelSong, September 2006.
“By the Liter” © 2008 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Subterranean Magazine, Spring 2008.
“A Play for a Boy and Sock Puppets” © 2007 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Text: UR—The New Book of Masks (ed. Forrest Aguirre), Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2007.
“The Taste of Wheat” © 2007 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Clarkesworld, August 2007.
“Cherrystone and Shards of Ice” © 2009 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in HP Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, April 2009.
“Seas of the World” © 2007 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Sybil’s Garage, May 2007.
“End of White” © 2012 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Shotguns v. Cthulhu, Stone Skin Press, 2012.
“A Handsome Fellow” © 2012 by Ekaterina Sedia. Originally published in Asimov’s, October/November 2012.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ekaterina Sedia resides in the Pinelands of New Jersey. Her critically-acclaimed novels,
Visit her at www.ekaterinasedia.com.
Praise for Ekaterina Sedia’s Novels
“Sedia’s beautifully nuanced prose delivers both a uniquely enchanting fantasy and a thoughtful allegory that probes the Russian national psyche.”
“A lovely, disconcerting book that does for Moscow what I hope my own Neverwhere may have done to London…”
“The Secret History of Moscow really feels like a secret: an alternative world a half-dimension removed from
