Panthera Spelaea

Nadezna and Sergei greeted the three of us warmly. They may not have agreed with our decision, but it was ours to make. They loved their daughter enough to want her to be happy, and she was in love with the two of us. Fighting that now would make her pull away, so they embraced our unique union and prayed it would work out.

Anna handed Mom a flower arrangement while I brought bottles of white and red wine. The girls went inside while Sergei helped me with our bags. “Nice car,” he told me.

“It will work for now,” I told him. “We need to get away and let things cool off.”

“I agree. Even at my work, where I have been for thirty years, I face pressure to make a public stand against you. I will not; the Federal Police are making a mistake. They should spend more time finding the killer and less time harassing you and my daughter.”

“I can’t argue with you on that. This week has been very hard on Svetlana. She thought coming home would fix things, but it has made them worse.” We left the bags inside the door and washed up for dinner.

The five of us gathered around the table for dinner. Momma was prepared for my appetite this time, the dinner table covered with traditional Russian foods. The meal started with a vinegrette salad, made with boiled beets, potatoes, carrots, pickles, onions, and sauerkraut. The ingredients were tossed with oil, not vinegar, and the fresh garden vegetables made for a great salad.

The main course was a familiar one, Chicken Kiev. I had four of the chicken breasts, making my future Mother-in-Law smile as I enjoyed her cooking. I didn’t tell her I’d eaten a meal just an hour ago so I wouldn’t embarrass myself again.

For dessert, she had made a Russian apple cake. It was a fitting end to a meal filled with light conversation, drinks, and love. The girls cleared the table, and Sergei brought out the vodka and the glasses. He waited until the ladies returned to pour glasses and toast the power of young love.

I’d drink to that.

The conversation turned more serious as he refilled the glasses. “I’m sorry that your return home has gone this way. I see why you have to leave again.”

Svetlana took her father’s hand while keeping her left hand in mine. “The investigation is ruining everything for us, and I don’t see it changing. I can’t even go shopping without people staring at me and calling me names. I’ll never get a job here.”

Nadezna was distraught at our treatment. “So, what will you do?”

“We’re getting out of town for a while,” I told them. “We all need a break, and we have a car now and time to see the countryside. We even bought some camping gear so we can get away from civilization completely.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t even know yet,” I told him. “I’m going old school to get clear of the surveillance. No cellphones, no set itinerary, no credit cards, and no trackers. I stopped at the bank on the way over and removed enough cash for a few weeks of tourism. We’re going dark and moving randomly, not deciding on our next stop until we are on the road.”

“Dad, do you still have maps in your car?”

“I think so.” Yes, we were going so old-school that we’d be using folding paper maps on this trip.

Mom made us promise to check in with her once in a while; I agreed, but I told her we’d do that just before we made a move elsewhere. The weak link of our plan was the car and our faces. “I’ve got hair coloring in my bedroom,” Svetlana said. “I look good as a redhead.”

“I can cut your hair if you want,” Nadezna said. “A short hairstyle plus a color change would make people look twice.”

With that, it was salon night. All three of us looked slightly different before sunrise. I looked older, with a crewcut colored black and a tinge of grey hair at my temples. Svetlana looked hot as a redhead, and Anna had spiky white hair. Sergei and I inspected our car for bugs while the girls made sure our phones were off. We wrapped them in foil, put them in a metal box, then put that box in another metal box before burying it at the bottom of our luggage pile.

We said our goodbyes and climbed into the SUV, with Svetlana driving and me riding shotgun. I’d won the rock-paper-scissors battle to pick the first place to visit, and I told her to head north while I figured it out.

Wanting to get away, I looked on the map for national parks. Svetlana drove north along the east bank Rybinsk Reservoir, and we stopped for lunch in Cheropovets. We didn’t see anyone recognize us, and we kept the car in view the whole time, so it was a good start.

Anna took the next leg, driving north. We wanted a big park, but we couldn’t get there too late in the day, or we’d run out of daylight before getting set up. When we stopped for gas in Vytegra, Anna asked if there was a nice hotel around. He pointed to the Wardenclyff Volga&Balt tower down the street.

The hotel was pretty nice, located on a small river with lots of commercial traffic near the big Lake Onega. Anna rented the room, paying cash for the night. We dropped our things off in our room, then played pool in the bar area until it was time to eat. The food was good, and we were all in good spirits as we retired to our room for the night. We didn’t see any indications the owners or any of the guests recognized us.

The girls wanted to take advantage of beds and showers, knowing we’d be roughing it soon. The girls did their best to wear me out as we tested the soundproofing of our room and the strength of the bedframe. They got five loads out of me, and I lost count of how many times the girls climaxed. When we were all rotated through the shower, sleep came quickly.

We had a big breakfast before heading northeast to the Vodlodersky National Park entrance. We drove into the park to the village of Kuganavolok, where we had to purchase a permit. While we were there, we all saw the maps that showed just how big the park was. The main lake was twenty-four miles wide and ten miles long, filled with islands and surrounded by forests and swampland. “Anna? Ask them how they access the most remote areas of the park.”

She talked in rapid-fire Russian with the clerk, then came back to us. “There are dozens of uninhabited islands in the lake. We can hire one of the locals to drop us off and pick us up a few days later,” she said.

Damn. An island would be perfect. “We want one that is not tiny, that is isolated, and where we won’t see other people on it during the stay.” That turned out to be easy, as they controlled the camping permits. Rubles changed hands, and an hour later, we were on a motorboat heading north into the big lake.

We got dropped off on Ostroff Chernyy island, which was long east-west and narrow. It only had one camping site on the one-third-mile long length, but the sand beaches made up for it. We said goodbye to our guide, who would return in two days at ten in the morning.

“It’s just us now,” I told the girls as I hefted the big backpack and the tent.

“This is going to be fun,” Anna said as we reached the high point where the campsite was. You could see the rest of the island and the big lake surrounding us.

“Oh, yeah.” I’d been a Boy Scout and was no stranger to camping with all the expeditions I’d gone on. It didn’t take us long to get everything set up, and we ate lunch before heading out to explore the island. The beach was perfect, and swimsuits were optional. The early fall weather meant the lake was cooling off but not cold yet.

We returned to the campsite as sunset approached, building a small fire to sit by. The girls sat next to me on a blanket as I started to meditate under Anna’s tutelage. “Relax and let your mind drift,” she told me. “Your lion is in there somewhere. He is you, and you are him. He is no more a danger to us than you are,” she whispered to me.

It was true. My lion knew the girls intimately. He loved them and protected them just as I did. “Come on out,” I said in my mind. “You’re safe here.”

It took a while, as I had to keep clearing my head of doubts and look within. I felt something pushing forward from deep inside me, but this time I didn’t fight it.

I welcomed it.

It moved forward slowly, pushing my consciousness aside gently as it took over. There was no pain in my head, and I got a glimpse of its mind as it joined me.

I felt my body change, and this time I watched it through the eyes of a lion.