Juliet Marillier - Wildwood Dancing

“Jena?” My sister’s voice was soft in the shadows of the candlelit chamber. “Are you cross with me?”

Gogu jumped into his bowl. There was a miniature tidal wave, then he settled, neck-deep.

“I was,” I said. “With Father gone, I need to be able to rely on you. I didn’t think Cezar would try to take over. He shocked me today. It’s not just the money. You’ve heard the kind of thing he says about felling the forest and destroying the folk of the Other Kingdom. I’m beginning to wonder if he might actually go through with that.”

Tati stared at me, horrified. “But it’s just talk, isn’t it? How could he do it? He doesn’t know about the portal, so he couldn’t 103

reach them even if he wanted to. It’s just . . . bluster. Nobody’s as powerful as that.”

“I don’t know. I think if he cut down the forest in our world, it would be destroyed in the Other Kingdom as well.

The way I understand it, from what folk say, the two realms exist side by side. They have the same pathways, the same ponds and streams, the same trees. If you do harm or good in one, it has an effect in the other. I think our world and the Other Kingdom are linked—balanced, somehow—and they depend on each other. That means Cezar could wreak havoc there without even needing a portal. I always thought he’d grow out of his anger over Costi.”

“He probably will, Jena, especially now he’s master of his own estate and has so much more to occupy him. Anyway, couldn’t Ileana stop him?”

I slipped my gown off over my head and reached for my night robe. “I don’t know. When Cezar talks about it, his eyes fill up with hate. He seemed different today, so sure of himself that he didn’t really listen to me. He scared me.”

Tati did not reply.

“Tati,” I said, “there’s something else we have to talk about.”

“What, Jena?” Her voice was suddenly cool. It was as if she had taken a deliberate step away.

“Sorrow. The Night People. I saw the two of you dancing; I saw the way you were looking at each other. You need to be careful—careful you don’t forget the rules.” I pulled the covers up to my chin; the chamber was freezing.

104

“I haven’t forgotten them, Jena. I just . . .” Tati’s voice faded away as she lay down beside me.

I struggled for a way to say what I had to without hurting her. “I know that Ileana said you could join the grown-up dancing. That worries me, too. You may not have seen the way some of your partners were looking at you. I started to think that maybe we shouldn’t be going there anymore. It began to feel different. As if danger was coming closer and closer. You and Sorrow . . . That’s something that can’t be, Tati. Even if he wasn’t with the Night People, it would still be impossible.

I can’t believe I’m having to tell you that. It’s in this world that we must find husbands, bear children, make our own households—the world of Aunt Bogdana’s parties and polite conversation over the coffee cups. The world of feeding the pigs and needing to be careful with money. Not the world of Dancing Glade.”

There was a silence; then came Tati’s voice, not much more than a whisper: “Sometimes you’re so sensible, you make me angry.”

“Someone has to be,” I said, swallowing my annoyance. “I’m just trying to keep you safe. To look after things while Father’s away.”

“I don’t really want to talk about this.”

“We have to, Tati. Things are hard enough already without you drifting off into your own world and losing touch with common sense.”

“If we decided everything on common sense,” Tati said, “we wouldn’t go to the Other Kingdom at all. We wouldn’t take 105

such pains to keep the secret month after month and year after year. We’d just lead the kind of lives Aunt Bogdana thinks are appropriate for young ladies. I can’t believe that’s what you’d want, Jena. You’re the most independent of all of us.”

She was right, of course. That didn’t make me feel much better.

“We won’t be able to keep visiting the Other Kingdom forever,” I said. “The portal only opens if all of us make a shadow with our hands. It’s possible that as soon as one of us marries and goes away, the magic won’t work anymore. Perhaps it was never intended to last after we grew up.”

“It worked with only four of us before Stela was born,” Tati pointed out.

“All the same,” I said, “it didn’t work those times one of us was ill or off on a trip with Father. We do need to start getting used to the idea that this may not be forever. We need to make sure we don’t form serious attachments, because not going will be hard enough even without that.”

Tati said nothing.

“Promise me you won’t spend the whole night with Sorrow next time,” I said. “Promise me you won’t get . . . involved. You know it’s against our rules. You’re setting a bad example for the others.”

Gogu jumped out of the bowl, shook himself like a dog, and made a damp track across my arm and chest to his favorite spot on the pillow, beside my neck. He was cold; I pulled the blanket over him.

“I won’t make any promises I can’t keep,” Tati said, rolling over, her back to me.

106

“All right,” I said grimly, “maybe I need to spell it out for you. Sorrow came to Ileana’s court with the Night People. He looks like them. He acts like them. I have no reason at all to think he’s not one of them. You know the stories just as well as I do. What about that time there was an attack in the mountains north of Bra¸sov, and everyone was scared our valley would be next? There wasn’t a single household that didn’t have a sharpened scythe, or an ax, or a pitchfork ready by the door.

Folk were too scared even to go outside. You’ve heard the stories about Night People. They feed on human blood. Without it, they waste away. Once they bite you, if you don’t perish, you become one of them yourself: one of the living dead. It doesn’t matter how courtly Sorrow’s manners are or how much he likes you, Tati. The fact is, even if he has the best intentions, sooner or later he’ll be the death of you. You must stop this before it gets too serious.”

In my mind was an image of the two of them lost in their solemn dance, a shaft of moonlight capturing them and setting them apart—a vision of wonder and magic. What was between them seemed to have come from nowhere. It had been serious since the moment they set eyes on each other. Was there some spell in play—had the young man in the black coat bewitched my sister?

“You don’t understand,” Tati said. “I can’t turn my back on him now. He’s never had a friend before. He’s terribly alone.”

“I thought he came to Ileana’s glade with the Night People.” I couldn’t summon the least twinge of sympathy.

“He’s with them, but not with them,” Tati said. “It’s something he can’t talk about, not fully. I think that tall one, their 107

leader, has some kind of hold over him. If Sorrow stays among the Night People, it’s not through choice.”

“He told you that?”

“More or less, Jena.” Tati hesitated. “Where they come from, it’s not like Ileana’s kingdom. The rules are different. He’s desperate to get away, but something’s holding him there. Something he can’t tell me about. He needs me.”

“He’s probably just saying that to get your sympathy.” This was all wrong: it was like being in a cart hurtling downhill with the reins slipping out of my hands. “How do you know it’s not all lies?”

Jena. Gogu wriggled closer. Shh. Shh.

“You sound so hard, Jena.” Tati’s voice was very quiet.

“Someone has to be. Someone has to look after things.”

“That’s always been you. Sensible Jena. You know, I sometimes envied you that. Being known simply as the pretty one can be a little galling, as if I have no other good qualities at all.”

I said nothing, but lay back on the pillow, my hand around Gogu for reassurance. The truth was, it was exhausting being the sensible one. I had a simple solution to the Sorrow problem.

All I needed to do was refuse to help open the portal. While part of me could not imagine giving up our Full Moon visits—

the music, the magic—another part of me, growing steadily stronger, said the time was rapidly approaching when we must do so or see the two worlds touch in a way that spelled disaster. But I had to go once more, at least. I needed to warn Ileana and Marin about Cezar. I needed to tell them that, now he had authority over Vârful cu Negur˘a, the ancient forest might begin to fall on the first day of spring.

108

“I know it’s against the rules, Jena.” Tati’s voice was a whisper. “I know what I’m supposed to do. But I don’t think I can.

This is like a tide pulling me along. It’s too strong to swim against.”

I had wondered whether Tati would wear the butterfly gown again, but she put on her old dancing dress, the violet-blue one.

She spent some time plaiting her hair and pinning it up on top of her head, with Iulia’s assistance. Around her neck was a fine silver chain that had belonged to our mother. Even clad in such a severe style, Tati could not look less than beautiful, though there was a pallor in her cheeks and an intensity in her eyes that had not been there a month ago.

We were not exactly jubilant as we made our preparations.

Iulia and I had argued earlier in the day about the lack of ingredients for such items as fruit pies and sweetmeats. I had perhaps been a little sharp with her when I told her I would not be asking Cezar for the means to acquire such inessential trifles. Now she was sulking. Paula was unusually subdued. On the appointed day for our lesson Father Sandu had not come, and although I had suggested that the inclement weather was the cause, none of us quite believed it. Stela had picked up the general sense of disquiet and complained that her head hurt.

Gogu sat on the little table, watching as I slipped on my green gown and brushed my hair. Green as grass, green as pondweed, green as home.

“Do you want to go in the pocket?”

I will ride on your shoulder until the crossing. Don’t be sad, Jena.

My frog was perceptive, as ever. I was such a mess of 109

churned-up feelings that I couldn’t tell which was the strongest.

I was certainly sad: sad that we had lost the ability to prepare for our special night in a spirit of simple excitement. I felt guilty, too. In a way, Iulia’s discontent was my fault, for not keeping a closer eye on the funds and for failing to stand up to Cezar. I had to face the unpalatable fact that I wasn’t coping as well as I should be. Above all, I was afraid: afraid for Tati and for the future.

“Hurry up, Jena.” Iulia looked me up and down, her eyes critical. “Can’t you do something with your hair?”

I had washed my hair earlier and, on drying, it had decided to go bushy. I could not force it into any form of confinement.

“No,” I said crossly, and headed for the portal. Tati was crouched there already, eyes like stars. I could feel Gogu nestling into the wild cloud of my hair.

Soft. Cozy. Nice.

The Deadwash was a sheet of black ice.

“Ooo-oo!” It was Tati who called them this time. I saw the vapor of her breath in the freezing air.

Not even the indomitable Sten could force a boat through this rock-hard barrier. In winter’s chill, our escorts came in sledges, each with its particular sound, so we heard them before their lights appeared in the misty distance. The wyvern was fringed with sprays of silver chimes. The wood duck had a cowbell, and the phoenix a row of tiny red birds that kept up a twittering chorus. Iulia, Paula, and Stela were duly greeted and borne away. Tati and I waited on the shore. This time, two of the sledges were late.