Anastasia: The Last Grand Duchess

25 Apri1 1914 -- Livadia

Papa took us on another long walk. Mama and Alexei joined us later for a picnic, although Mama was feeling weak and needed her wheelchair. An odd thing happened. My sisters and I were picking wildflowers in a meadow, and Alexei was lying on a blanket nearby staring up at the clear blue sky, when suddenly he said, "I wonder what's going to happen to us?"

We asked him what he meant, and he couldn't explain it—just that he had a strange feeling that something was going to happen, and that next year we wouldn't be here.

"Nonsense," Mama said, but I wasn't at all sure that he was speaking nonsense. Alexei has a way of sensing things.