Juliet Marillier - Wildwood Dancing

Without a good sleep tonight, we’d be blundering through Full Moon, dancing with our eyelids half shut. She and I stayed up a little later, working on the shaping of the new gown.

“Jena?”

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“Mmm?”

“I wonder if that young man will be there again tomorrow night.”

“You mean the one in the black coat?” I had almost forgotten him; I’d been too busy even to think about the Other Kingdom.

“Who knows? I don’t know why you’re interested. All he did was stand around looking mournful and showing how long he could stare at you without blinking.”

“Maybe he’s shy.”

“Shy people don’t go out of their way to look different. Besides, he was with the Night People. I wish they’d go back where they came from. I don’t like the stories I’ve heard about them. They disturb me.”

“Oh well,” said Tati dismissively, “it doesn’t really matter.

What do you think about the sleeves, Jena? Narrow at the wrist, or cut in a bell shape?”

Tati sewed the last stitches in the hem at about the same time the following night, surrounded by the rest of us in our dancing finery. It was piercing cold outside. I had felt winter’s bite earlier, when I had taken a break from sewing to perform some essential tasks. Petru was out on the farm, and Florica could not do everything. By the time I had replenished the wood baskets, taken a steaming mash out to the huddled chickens, and ascer-tained that the storeroom was staying dry, my teeth were chattering and my ears ached with cold. Tonight we wore fur hats, heavy lined cloaks, and outdoor boots. We carried our dancing slippers. In our bedchamber the chill wind was slipping in 66

through every crack and chink it could find. Shivering, Tati stood close by the stove to take off her day dress and put on the new gown.

“Come on!” urged Iulia.

I gave my elder sister’s hair a quick brushing. The gown floated around her like a cloud of mist; her eyes were bright. I helped her put on her thick woolen cloak, blue-dyed, and pull up the fur-lined hood. In the pocket of my green gown, I had tucked Gogu into an old glove made of sheepskin. He did rather spoil the line of my skirt, but I couldn’t have him catching cold.

A freezing draft swirled and eddied up the spiral staircase; it tangled and teased its way along the Gallery of Beasts, seeking out victims. The gargoyles had retreated into whatever niches and cavities they could find between the stones. I spotted a group of them clustered together like bats, up in a corner.

Nobody wanted to come out tonight.

On the shores of the lake, we stamped our feet and rubbed our gloved hands together, our breath turning to vapor as we watched the line of small lights draw closer. A thin layer of ice crusted the lake’s surface. We could hear its shifting music as the boats broke through. By next Full Moon, the water would be hard frozen.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” muttered Stela. “I’m turning into an icicle.”

One, two, three, four boats nudged in to shore. One by one, my sisters stepped in: Stela with a blue-bearded dwarf, Paula with a gap-toothed wizard, Iulia with tall Grigori. As 67

Sten stepped from the fourth boat and reached out his hand to help me in, I cast my eyes about, confused. Tati was still standing beside me on the shore, waiting. Gogu began to tremble. I could feel it even through the thick sheepskin.

“What about my sister?”

Sten mumbled something. I got Gogu out, glove and all, and held him close to my chest under my cloak.

“What did you say?”

“Late,” said Sten. “He’s running late. Step in, young lady.

And the young master there. That’s it.” Without further ado, the troll shoved his pole hard into the mud and we shot off across the water in a tinkle of swirling ice, leaving Tati all alone on the shore. I was opening my mouth to protest when I saw the last boat coming. As the craft emerged through the layers of mist, I saw the pale length of the willow pole first, and the white hands holding it—then the black-coated form and ashen, solemn features of that young man, the one who had spent the night of last Full Moon standing unnaturally still with his eyes on my sister. I only got a glimpse, because Sten seemed to think he was in a race and must win; he dug the pole deep and we surged forward, making an icy wave.

“Perhaps we might wait for the others?” I suggested shakily as we stepped out on the opposite shore—so far ahead of the rest that even Stela’s boat had not yet emerged from the mist.

Then I whispered, “It’s all right, Gogu, we’re there now.”

My boatman bowed low. For a troll, he had exceptionally good manners.

“That young man,” I said, “the one poling the last boat . . .

do you know who he is?”

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“Night People,” Sten grunted. “Rubbish. Should go back where they came from, if you ask me. Heard nothing but bad about them.”

“If he’s rubbish, how is it he was chosen to be my sister’s boatman?”

“Ileana tolerates them. Our visitors. He probably went to her. About our dance—can I have that one where we toss our partners up in the air? I was a champion back home.” Sten had traveled far to settle in this forest. His home was to the north-west, in a land he had told me was even more icy than ours—

though that was hard to believe. “I made a bet with Grigori.”

“What bet?” I asked suspiciously, all the time watching as my sisters came into view, one by one.

“Who can throw who highest. I’ll win, of course.”

“All right.” I grinned; I never could resist a good bet. Then my grin faded. All my sisters were now arriving—all but Tati.

“He’s so slow,” I murmured. “And he’s strange. He never says a word. He never even opens his mouth.”

“Uh-huh,” the troll said. “That’d be the teeth.”

“What?”

“The teeth. You know, Night People teeth. He doesn’t want you to see them. In particular, he doesn’t want her to see them.”

This terrified me. Surely the Night People could have only one reason for showing interest in human girls, and it was nothing to do with dancing or making polite conversation. I drew breath to call out for Tati. But at that moment, the last boat came into view. The pale young man guided it without ever taking his eyes off his passenger, who was sitting very still in her hooded cloak. They glided to shore. He stepped out and 69

offered her his hand. Tati disembarked with her usual grace and spoke what must have been a polite thank-you. There seemed nothing untoward about it at all. Teeth or no teeth, perhaps I was just being silly to feel such misgivings. This was Tati, after all: my big sister. At sixteen, surely she knew how to look after herself.

“Come on, then,” I said briskly. “If we’re going to win this bet, maybe we should get in some practice.”

It was a good night. The magic of the Other Kingdom made my weariness fall away. I was enveloped by the sound of the music, the tantalizing smells of the sweetmeats, and the glori-ous whirl of color under the ancient oaks. In the human world autumn was well advanced, but here in Dancing Glade we could shed our hats and cloaks, take off our boots and put on our party slippers, for the air was balmy and on the lush grass flowers bloomed.

There was a particular tree whose inhabitants looked after items of apparel until it was time to go home. It was full of odd, small folk with snub noses and long arms, who simply reached out, donned cloak or hood or boots, and settled in the branches to wait. Some items were fought over—Iulia’s rabbit-skin hat seemed to be a favorite. I wondered how well it would survive the tug-of-war that was taking place, high off the ground, to an accompaniment of screeching and spitting.

Sten won his wager. By the end of the dance I was dizzy and bruised but happy that his pride was undented. Being from foreign parts, he did seem to feel he must prove himself before the others. I had spared Gogu this adventure and left him in Paula’s care—while he loved to leap, he most certainly didn’t 70

appreciate being thrown about. After that, I danced with Grigori, and Iulia with Sten. Then came a jig and my usual partner for such light-footed capering, the red-bearded Anatolie.

“Your sister’s boatman hasn’t claimed his dance,” the dwarf said with a wink as we twirled arm in arm.

“Really?” That was a surprise. “Perhaps he doesn’t dance. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing Night People would enjoy.”

I let go his arm to jig three paces right, jump, and clap.

“The others are dancing. Look,” said Anatolie, executing his own jump with flair and clapping his hands over his head.

So they were. A black-booted man, his features like a tragic carving in pale stone, circled with a black-gowned woman, her scarlet lips unsmiling, her raven head held like a queen’s. A jig?

Not for them—they moved to some silent, dark music that was all their own. Around them the rest of the Night People moved in concert, pallid and haughty. The jostling, jumping throng of other folk kept their distance. Across the sward, the stately Ileana partnered her consort, Marin. They were not above a jig, though they performed it with the air of nobles playing at peasants—drolly indulgent.

“Each to his own, eh?” chuckled Anatolie, seizing both my hands for a prance down the sward. “Nobody does it as well as we, Mistress Jenica! Kings and queens, lords and ladies—what do we care about them?”

“Shh!” I hissed as the music came to a close. “Ileana might hear you. Offend the queen of the forest, and even a dwarf could find himself in very nasty trouble. Now why don’t you go and dance with Iulia? I need a rest.”

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I found a little space to one side of the sward and stood there awhile, watching. I counted my sisters: Iulia, dancing, and Stela sitting on the grass with her friends, making chains of flowers. Paula deep in debate with the scholars, while Gogu, on their table, sniffed at the flask of plum brandy. Paula said something to him and he hopped back to her. Tati . . .

Not dancing. I had not seen her out on the sward all evening, and she loved to dance. What about the beautiful new gown over which we’d all slaved until our fingers ached? Surely she must want to be out there showing it off—it would look magical under the colored lights of Dancing Glade. I glanced about. Where was she? And where was the young man in the black coat? My heart skipped a beat. Our rules were sacrosanct; we never broke them. No going into the forest on your own. No leaving the glade until home time.

I started to panic, something I never did. My pulse raced and my palms grew sweaty. Night People . . . bloodsuckers. I made myself look systematically across the crowded glade—up, down, this way, that way. . . . Those others were there, with their waxen skin and dead eyes, but not the somber youth. My younger sisters were all accounted for, but there was no sign of Tati. A terrible doubt crept into my mind. The exquisite fabric, the frenzy of sewing . . . Surely Tati hadn’t planned this all along? Wishing to be beautiful not to dazzle the throng of revelers, but just for him ? If it was true, it would be the first time my sister had ever kept something secret from me.

I began a search, starting with Paula’s table. “Have you seen Tati?”

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“No,” said Paula. “Here, take Gogu—he keeps trying to drink the ¸ tuic˘a. She’ll be here somewhere, don’t worry.”

“I’m not,” I lied, and elbowed my way through the crowd to Stela’s group and their daisy chains. I squatted down beside her. “Stela, have you seen Tati?”