Juliet Marillier - Wildwood Dancing

“Come on, Tati. Step by step, that’s it. Come with me.”

Back in the bedchamber, I put the quilt around her and sent Iulia, who had awakened at our return, down to the kitchen for dried berries so we could make fruit tea. I set the small kettle on our stove. After a while, Tati’s trembling subsided. She said in a whisper, “I had a terrible dream, Jena. I think Sorrow’s hurt. I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“Tell me. Remember, dreams aren’t always true.”

“He was fighting some kind of monster, like a wild boar, only much bigger, and he . . . he fell, and the thing gored him with its tusk. . . . He was bleeding, Jena. He was just lying there in the mud. He looked so pale, as if he was already dead. . . .

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And I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t touch him, I couldn’t even say goodbye. . . .”

“Shh . . . shh . . . Don’t think about it anymore. It doesn’t mean anything, Tati, just that you’re worried about him.”

“He’s not coming back,” my sister said flatly, staring into space.

After that she stopped eating altogether. Already she was skin and bone, her appetite whittled away to a nibble of fruit here, a morsel of bread there. Now she refused to touch anything. I could hardly get her to swallow a sip of water. Logic got me nowhere. I told her again that what she had seen was only a dream, not reality, that with half the month still to go, Sorrow had a good chance of getting back in one piece with all the required items. I had scant grounds for such confidence, after what Paula had said about the quest. But I knew the importance of hope. If there was a decision somewhere in what I was saying, I did not acknowledge it even to myself.

As Full Moon drew closer, Tati became too weak to get out of bed. I sent for a doctor. We had one in the valley, an old man who had once traveled with great armies on the march, and whose skills ran more to bone setting and stitching up knife wounds than to tending young ladies fading away for no apparent reason. He applied leeches; the treatment effected no visible change. He suggested bleeding the patient, but I said no, for it seemed to me she was too frail to endure it. My heart was chill.

When I had made my confident assurances to Father that I could look after things in his absence, I never dreamed that I would be watching Tati dying before my eyes. It seemed we 361

might lose her even before we knew whether Sorrow had achieved his quest. I spent a lot of time praying, and even more time thinking.

Florica had heard about the rumors in the village. She did not actually ask us whether our sister may have been bewitched by forces from the Other Kingdom, but she climbed the steep stairs to our bedchamber and festooned the place with plaits of garlic, enough to keep out anything that might conspire to snatch Tati away from us. She put a hand to Tati’s brow and looked closely at her neck—something I had not been brave enough to do myself—and then she went back downstairs. Her expression troubled me: it combined grief and acceptance.

“What will you do when Full Moon comes?” Paula asked me as we sat by Tati’s bedside one evening, listening to the labored sound of her breathing.

“What will I do?”

“It’s not an unreasonable question. You usually do make the decisions, Jena. Do you think Sorrow will come? If he does, how can she go across? She’s barely conscious. She won’t be able to walk.”

“I know that.”

“So what if he does come, and there’s some way he can take her? Will you let her go?”

I gazed down at Tati. “It’s not my choice,” I said, realizing that I had learned that much from all this. “It’s Tati’s and Sorrow’s. I don’t know what we’ll do.” I knew whose advice I wanted. I knew whose support I needed. But I wouldn’t go to Vârful cu Negur˘a. I couldn’t ask him. There was too much 362

between us: too much love, too much hurt, too much misunderstanding. We’d made a gap too wide to bridge.

“Is Tati going to die?”

I had not heard Stela come in. She stood at the foot of the bed, her eyes on our sister’s fragile form—the tight-stretched skin, the shadowed lids.

“I hope not.” I wasn’t prepared to lie to her.

“Doesn’t she believe in true love anymore?” Stela asked.

The moon grew from new to half to almost full again, and the first lambs were born. Men came up from the village to help Petru, willing and able now I could pay them a fair wage. Tati was sinking steadily. I knew she could not last many days more unless we could get her to eat something—a little soup, a sliver of cheese. But she refused everything.

Not knowing what else to do, we told stories of true love in an effort to coax hope back to Tati’s heart. It was often hard to tell whether she could hear them, for she lay mostly limp and unresponsive. Late one afternoon, when Stela was down in the kitchen, Paula told a striking tale she had heard among the scholars of the Other Kingdom. The sun had almost set beyond the green window; the light in our chamber was mellow. Green as grass, I thought, green as pondweed, green as home. Maybe I was the one who needed to believe in true love.

Paula’s was a dark tale, in which a father desired his daughter. She fled to conceal herself in the kitchens of a great house, ash smeared on her face, her body hidden by a coat of many small skins—rabbit, fox, stoat, mole, badger. She fell in love 363

with the young master of the house, and drew his attention with a series of gifts.

“So she dropped her gold ring in the bowl of broth, and gave it to the kitchen maid to place before the young lord at table. And this time, he demanded to know who had served the soup, and where he might find her. . . .”

When Paula reached the end of the story, Tati’s eyes were open. It was the first time in days she had shown any awareness of her surroundings. I took her hand and felt her fingers squeeze mine weakly. They were deathly cold. It came to me that if I said the wrong thing, she would shut her eyes again and sink away beyond reach. Paula’s story had sown a seed in my imagination.

“Iulia,” I ventured, “you remember when Costi first changed back into a man, and you said if it were a story I’d have to grovel to get him back? Was that what you meant—ash and rags and mysterious gifts?”

“I suppose it might work,” Iulia said doubtfully. “Are you saying you’re actually prepared to try now?”

I took a deep breath. “I might be,” I said. “If I can work out the best way to do it. Costi’s not the sort to respond to a gold ring. And you know I’m not the groveling type. But there must be a way to show him that—that—”

“That you love him?” Tati whispered.

I felt my cheeks flush red. “Well, yes,” I admitted. “I’m terrified of going to see him. Why hasn’t he invited us to Vârful cu Negur˘a? If he’s forgiven me, why hasn’t he come to see me?”

“He loves you, Jena.” Tati was too weak to lift her head, but she turned her eyes to meet mine. “You must know that in your heart.”

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“He needs to know he can trust you,” Iulia said. “That if something bad happens in the future, you won’t let go again.”

“I’ve already broken two promises,” I said. “I told him I’d never leave him behind, and then I did. First to find Tati, then all by himself in the forest, with no voice. If I promise again, why should he believe me?”

Paula was thinking, her chin in her hand. “He shouldn’t be so hard on you,” she said. “When you wouldn’t accept that he was Costi, you were just being careful. That was reasonable enough, considering all the things that had happened. Surely he hasn’t forgotten that you protected him and loved him and put him first for nine whole years. That can’t be wiped out in a single day.”

“But it was,” I said.

“Remind him.” Tati’s voice was like a leaf stirred in the wind. “Remind him how things were.”

“And show him they haven’t really changed,” said Iulia.

“Do it while you’ve got the courage,” Paula added. “Go tomorrow. One of you has to take the first step.”

“It’s too soon. I’m not ready.” My heart was pounding; it was as if I’d been asked to fight a dragon single-handed. I got up and fetched a glass of water.

“Jena,” said Tati, “I want you to talk . . . Costi. To be . . .

happy. I want you . . . go . . . before Full Moon. . . .”

“That’s not very long,” I protested. “Only five days. And I haven’t worked out how to do it yet.” But a plan was forming in my mind, for Paula’s story had reminded me that Costi loved games.

“Go . . . soon.”

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The look in Tati’s eyes frightened me. It was a farewell, and it seemed to me it did not mean she believed Full Moon would see her safe and happy, either in our world or the Other Kingdom.

“Tati, stay with us,” I said. “Wait for Sorrow. It would break his heart if he came for you and . . .” I could not put this into words.

“You think he’s all right?” Her voice was a plea. “You really believe he’ll come back?”

“I do believe it, Tati. I’ve seen how he looks at you, how he touches you. You’re his whole world. The quest is difficult, yes. All the same, I think Ileana wants him to succeed. Don’t lose hope. Sorrow will come for you—I know it.”

“So you do believe . . . true love?” she whispered.

I took a deep breath. “I think I have to,” I said, blinking back tears. “Without it, we’re all going nowhere.”

“Then talk to Costi. . . . Go tomorrow. . . .” Her eyes closed.

I tried. In the morning I put on my outdoor boots and went down to breakfast, fully intending to make my way to Vârful cu Negur˘a as soon as I’d eaten. What I would say to Costi was not yet clear in my head. My whole body was strung tight; my nerves were jangling.

“Your cup’s rattling, Jena,” said Florica, looking at me closely. “Are you quite well?”

“I’m fine.” I tried for a casual tone. “I thought I might go up to Vârful cu Negur˘a today and visit Costi, since the weather’s improved so much.”

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“Your aunt would like to see you, I’m sure,” Florica said,

“but Master Costin’s not there, Jena. The word is he’s gone off down the valley for a couple of nights.”

“A couple of nights,” I echoed, the tension draining from my body to be replaced by bitter disappointment. It had taken all my courage to decide to go and face him. “When is he expected back, Florica?”

Florica’s eyes sharpened. “Before Full Moon, I expect,” she said. “Why not go up and ask your aunt Bogdana?”

“No, I . . . It’s Costi I need to talk to. Florica, could Petru arrange for someone at Vârful cu Negur˘a to let us know as soon as Costi comes home? Right away?”

“I expect so, Jena. So you won’t be going up today?”

I shook my head. “I’ll go when he’s back home. I just hope it’s soon.”

It suddenly seemed urgent to speak to him before Full Moon, to be able to prove to Tati that happy endings were possible in real life, as in tales. If I sorted out my own problem, I thought, the solution to my sister’s might fall into place, too.

There was no great logic to this. After all, I was the one who had refused to recognize true love when it was no farther away than my own pocket. I knew I needed his help. Hurry up, Costi, I urged him silently. Come home. I need you.

The sun set beyond the colored windows four more times, and inside our chamber the stories went on. Not all were joyful tales; we needed to acknowledge that love was not just kisses, smiles, and fulfillment, but also sacrifice, compromise, and hard 367