Adelina

After the harrowing escape from the soldiers, Adelina’s first impulse was to try and track Nadia and her abductor down but Sofia counseled otherwise. Sofia agreed Nadia needed her mother, but said the Roma people needed her more, needed her guidance and help as the German war machine ground them under heel and scattered them like leaves to the wind. Finding others who had somehow managed to either escape or elude capture, she developed a small Partisan group designed to impede German war efforts. As the war progressed, her forces joined other resistance movements and became part of what was known as the Underground. As such, in summer of 1944, weeks before King Michael’s Coup where Romania switched allegiances in the war from Axis to Allies, three allied airmen who had escaped from Stalag Luft VII Bankau came into her care. The Underground had helped others flee from German forces before and she thought little of the task. Meeting with the three flyers to discuss strategy, she found herself suddenly smitten by a young RAF Flight Lieutenant named Andrew George.

She had hardly expected such a thing, especially from the dashing young man nearly a decade her junior but something in him ignited dormant feelings in her. Although their affair was brief, his time with her only a span of three days, it was torrid and passionate. She invited him to stay and help with resistance efforts but he cited duty and a need to return to his own country.

When the war had officially ended in May 1945 with the defeat of the Nazi regime, but there was still much to do in the aftermath of the conflict. Plus, Adelina was now once again a mother to a beautiful daughter she named Anna Sophia as a result of her tryst with the aviator.

During the immediate post war chaos, she received information through Underground sources of a man matching Hertz’s description in Belgium travelling with a young male toddler and she knew he had somehow slipped through the net designed to catch war criminals. With a newborn infant of her own to care for, she was unable to investigate the matter personally so she dispatched two men and Sofia to make efforts to track down the man now travelling as Nicholas Hearst. Gifted in the way, Sofia was able to trace the man to a borough of Toronto. When the trio attempted to capture the man, something went awry and Sofia and both men were killed, while Hearst slipped away and the trail went ice cold.

While this defeat seemed to put Hertz out of her reach, Adelina never relinquished hope of finding Nadia, but with millions dead and a continent torn asunder, finding one little girl seemed impossible. Doing what she could, she assisted her people while the powers of the world divided up the spoils of war leaving Romania under the communist rule of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. Living life under the new regime was not particularly easy for the Roma. Forced relocations and prohibitions against Romani culture and language. Surviving purges and declaration labelling her people as enemies of the state. In other parts of Europe, others were being forcibly sterilized.

Time passed, Anna Sophia grew to womanhood and soon had a husband of her own, though he was killed before the birth of their daughter Teodora, born with fiery red hair, disposition, and blood to match.

Existence under Ceausescu was no easier for Adelina, economic hardships made worse by the austerity steps.

Thousands died in the December 1989 revolution in Romania including Anna Sophia, leaving Adelina alone with thirteen year old Teodora who was beginning to manifest abilities rivalling her own and the very distinct decision to use them.

While the persecution continued, Teodora became more and more rebellious and flagrant in the use of her power. Adelina knew she had to get the girl out and away from Romania but it wouldn’t be for another handful of years before opportunity presented itself.

Fortune seemed to smile upon the now eighty-two year old Adelina when the country of Canada loosened travel restrictions and was granting entry to Romani people.

In 1997, making her way to Prague in the Czech Republic with a now gravid Teodora, Adelina was able to secure passage to Canada due to the lifting of visa restrictions.

Arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia they were soon sent off to Hamilton, Ontario before being relocated to Boian, Alberta. It was here the Hearst name came back into her life quite by happenstance when Teodora, with her recently born infant daughter Luciana, spotted a tabloid magazine on a rack at the local grocery sensationalizing the birth of a son to business mogul Mortimer Hearst and his celebrity wife Helena. Simply because of the name, Teodora purchased it and brought it home to show Adelina.

The moment Adelina saw the picture of Mortimer, she recognized those eyes, eyes she had last seen in Romania in 1941.

Finding the Hearst history took some effort. The Hearst family name rose to prominence in 1949 with Nicholas Hearst and strong ties to oil in Oklahoma. Nicholas was very prosperous until failing health forced him to relinquish control to his son Edward Grayson Hearst. The younger Hearst took the business to all new heights, diversifying and branching out, continually strengthening the Hearst name until his untimely demise in a plane crash, leaving the now global business giant in the hands of young business prodigy Mortimer Hearst.

While the Hearst news rekindled the icy desire for revenge in Adelina, who had never been able to find out what had become of her lost daughter, she had her hands full with trying to contain Teodora who was becoming more and more reckless with her power and now fueled with a desire to bring the Hearst fortune to ruin.

Not that Adelina necessarily disagreed with the notion, she was more inclined to approach the situation tactically, strategically rather than impulsively.

It would take more than a decade for Adelina to procure the means of her revenge. In the intervening time, she found she could no longer trust Teodora with the power and being unable to strip her of her abilities, she placed a slumbering curse on her own grandchild not unlike those told of in children’s stories.

Gathering all of her possessions, including her 11 year old great granddaughter, Adelina relocated to the outskirts of the city where Heart headquartered their offices.

She remembered the day she climbed the first step leading up to Hearst Plaza with the intent of bringing Mortimer and his family to despair, each step drawing her closer to bittersweet vengeance. A score of paces from the main doors to the Heart building, she saw little ten year old Madison Hearst emerge through the glass doors being pulled along, practically dragged by a woman she immediately recognized to be the child’s mother, Helena. There were descriptions of the girl in the news, but no images and seeing her now in the flesh dropped Adelina to her knees, burying her face in her hands as she wept, for the beautiful child was the spitting image of Nadia. It was a moment of epiphany for her and she saw clearly now how things must have been. The monster who had wrought so much havoc and pain in her life had sired a child with Nadia, continuing her very own bloodline. Eyes bleary and red from tears, she looked up again at the beatific girl, their eyes locked a moment and the girl smiled, then seeing the tears, looked crestfallen. Even at the distance, Adelina could feel the surge of incredible power coursing through the young girl who she knew with no uncertain doubt she was blood of her blood.