Darkwood (17 page)

“Annie! Where are you?”

“I'm right here.” Annie touched her sister's hand. Page jumped.

“I can feel you, but I don't …I can't… oh, I
hate
it!” Page's voice was nearly a wail.

“I have matches. Wait, it's almost lit.” Annie counted to twenty, then made the sounds of fumbling. She was glad her sister could not see her face.

The torch hissed into light. Page lunged for it like a drowning person. So this question, at least, was answered. Page could speak to the kinderstalk, but only Annie could see in the dark.

From the top of the stairs Page walked straight to Annie's door. Of course she would know where the room was, but still, it hurt to see her act as though she had been to visit Annie a hundred times before.

“I
did
visit you. I snuck in when you were asleep. I even read to you a few times about abnormal topography.” She forced a smile and lifted her hand to tuck a piece of hair behind Annie's ear. “You're as tall as I am.”

“Page, I have something important to tell the king. It's why I came.”

Her sister's eyes were light blue, very clear, like water from a spring. Now she did touch Annie's face, briefly. Annie turned her cheek into her palm. She would forgive her anything. Everything.

“I'll be back for you tomorrow morning,” Page said. “We'll talk more then. Sleep well. And don't … don't worry.”

Annie woke to find Page sitting next to her in bed, reading. Her hair had been looped and braided into an elaborate crown. On top of her real hair was a tower of what looked like someone else's hair, all of it held together by jeweled combs. She wore a red velvet dress embroidered at the bust and hem with gold curlicues. Her lips were painted red to match her dress. Strangest of all, her face was dusted with white powder and her eyebrows had been shaped into high, surprised-looking arches. Annie felt a little afraid of her, until she noticed the brown and white cat hairs clinging to the lap of her dress. Prudence sat at the end of the bed washing her face.

“Sleepyhead. I was just about to wake you.”

Annie scooted up from under the covers and leaned over her sister's shoulder to see what she was reading. Page showed her the cover.
Topographical Anomalies of the Frigian Glacier
.

“Dull?”

“Extremely.”

“Page, I found your book! I took it from Aunt Prim. It had
your notes in it but the rest was written in some language I couldn't read. It isn't even a book, really, just a paper hidden inside another book.”

Page had gone pale. “May I see it?”

Annie jumped up and ran to the wardrobe. “It was in my pocket when they washed my dress. The ink washed away.”

Page held the book for a moment without opening it. Quickly, she lifted the cover, looked at the watery streaks that had once been letters, and closed it again. Her fingers reached for the locket she had worn since childhood, a gift from their parents. It looked plain and dull against the elaborate dress.

“You said Aunt Prim had this? Not Uncle Jock?”

“Aunt Prim. I don't think he knew she had it.”

“That's good.”

“Why? What did it say?”

“I never figured it out, but I think its a message from Mother and Father. I was trying to translate it when—” She broke off. “You'd better get dressed. We're going to have breakfast with the king.”

Annie looked at a puddle of brown fabric on the floor by her feet. She hadn't bothered to hang up her dress last night, and now it was not only stained, threadbare, and two sizes too small, but wrinkled.

“Not in that. In this.”

Page reached past her into the wardrobe and took out a green dress. Not a dress, a gown. A woman's gown. The waist nipped in, the skirt flounced out. The sleeves were embroidered with a pattern of silver vines.

“I'm sure you'll hate it, but it was the least lacey one I could find.”

“I don't hate it.”

“Oh. Well, good.”

“Page?”

“There are slippers as well. They have a bit of a heel. You're too young for that, but—”

“Why did you leave? How did you get here?”

Page had been holding the green dress up to her body. Now she lowered her arms, as though the dress had become too heavy for her. It pooled around her feet.

“Oh, Annie.” She walked over and sat down on the bed. Annie watched a cat hair on the collar of her dress flutter each time she breathed. “It's a horrible story. The first part, anyway.”

“Tell me!”

“Uncle Jock sold me to the Drop.” She touched the handle of her cane. “He couldn't have gotten much for me.”

Annie moved to put her arms around her sister, but Page leaned away. “Let me get it over with. He'd sent you and Aunt Prim to market, remember? A man came to the house. I'd never seen anyone so ugly. Gray skin like milk gone bad, and beady eyes.”

“Did he have a scar, like this?” Annie traced a line down the middle of her scalp.

Page shook her head. “No scar, but—” Her eyes widened.

“A wound. He was wounded there. How did you know? Oh, Annie, tell me Uncle Jock didn't—”

“He did. He tried. I'll tell you, but finish the story.”

“Uncle Jock and this ugly man, they tied me up in a wagon with the rain cover on it. I was trying to translate the paper when they grabbed me. Aunt Prim must have picked it up.” She shook her head. “I knew where they were taking me. Uncle Jock forced me to drink something awful, so I wouldn't fight.” She gripped both Annie's hands tightly in her own. “Sharta attacked the wagon, Sharta and his mate. They saved me.”

“Kinderstalk saved you?” Annie blurted. “But why? Why not kill you?”

“Annie, shh, just listen. Uncle Jock ran at the first sight of Sharta, of course. But the other man fought. I couldn't see because of the wagon cover, but I could hear—oh, it was awful! Sharta fought the man and his mate freed me. When she jumped into the wagon bed … you can imagine what I thought. But she chewed through the ropes. She pulled me by the back of my dress, here.” Page touched the nape of her neck. “I saw the ugly man lying on the ground, bleeding from his head. I thought Sharta had killed him. And Sharta—”

“He made Sharta blind?”

“Yes. I don't remember much after that. Whatever they'd given me to drink made me sleep. I woke a few times and it felt as if I were flying, but I think—I think Sharta's mate carried me on her back. The next thing I knew I was tied up again, this time by the king's guards. I learned later that they found us together, Sharta and I, outside the same gates where we found you. They put him in a cage and let all the lords and ladies in to look. The ‘Blind Beast' they called him.”

“And now you can speak to him?”

“His language is Hippa.” The word sounded like a cough.

“Hippa?” Annie coughed back.

“That was good!” Page smiled. “You would hardly believe how difficult it was to learn. The difference between one sound and another can be so small, but the
meaning
… I still make mistakes all the time. But yes, we talk together. He and his mate had a message of their own for the king.”

“What is it?

“Not now, Miss Curious.” She picked the green gown up off the floor. “Will you put this on and wash your face, and come meet the king?”

Annie walked to the window. Through the glass she could see the tips of the trees in the pleasure forest, waving like kelp in a pink sea. She thought of Gregor, who loved the sea.

“Should I braid my hair?'

“Leave it loose. It's so pretty loose.”

Twenty minutes later, Annie descended the stairs for a second time to meet Page in the black and white tiled hall. She kept forgetting she didn't have to sneak, and snuck. Not that it was easy to move unnoticed in this dress. It rustled. It pinched. It caught itself on everything. And the shoes: wobble, wobble, wobble down the stairs.

Page looked as small as a toy at the far end of hall. She led Annie along an arched corridor. The curved ceiling was painted gold. The walls were lined with portraits. On one side a row of dimpled ladies reclined against cushions; on the other a line
of dark-haired men posed beside the bodies of dead kinderstalk.

Gilt-edged mirrors reaching to the floor hung between the portraits on Annie's left, reflecting the sunlight that filtered through the colored windowpanes and washing the painted ladies in shades of mauve and indigo.

Page stopped in front of one of the mirrors and tapped on the glass. Instantly the mirror swung open like a door and revealed a small, warmly lit chamber. The king was sitting in an armchair by the window. He looked up when they entered.

The king was so handsome that Annie found it embarrassing to look at him. He had glossy black hair that waved over his forehead and a red mouth that pouted like a woman's. But his hands, lightly gripping the arms of his chair, were as big as a laborer's. Annie decided immediately that he was vain. She glanced at the mirror over the fireplace and met his eyes there. He had been studying her, studying him.

The king gestured to two chairs facing his own. Through the window, Annie could see the courtyard and the massive doors that had been shut against her the night she arrived. They were shut now.

A servant emerged through the mirrored door carrying a tray of tea and chocolate. Pastries fanned across a plate, each shaped like a different kind of leaf: oak, maple, bay. The king picked up a bay leaf and bit into it. Flakes of dough fell onto his lap, staining the gray silk with spots of oil. The servant used a little silver brush to sweep the crumbs into a napkin.

Annie ate five pastries. The first bite dissolved in her mouth
in a rush of sugar and butter; after that, she hardly noticed the taste. She forgot to thank the servant when he poured her a second cup of chocolate. She set down her cup and found Page and the king both looking at her, the king with bemusement, Page with mortification and a hint of alarm.

“I trust you have found your accommodations satisfactory, Miss Trewitt?” the king said.

“Yes, Your Highness.” If he had not been so handsome, and not been the king, she might have told him he would be starving too if he'd had the doctor in charge of his meals.

“I am pleased to hear it.” He flicked his fingers at the servant, who disappeared through the mirrored door.

The king settled back in his chair and smiled broadly at Annie. “Your sister has not been very forthcoming about your reasons for visiting the palace, Miss Trewitt. May I indulge myself a moment in letting you know what I imagine?”

Annie nodded, realizing as she did so that he had not asked the kind of question that waited for an answer.

“I imagine you are here to do me great harm, Miss Trewitt. I imagine you have an army of kinderstalk waiting to rescue your sister from a most wicked king. Is that not what she has written you, in her many dozens of letters? Were they not all accounts of my great wickedness?” His hands had become clenched on the arms of the chair. He folded them in his lap and smiled more broadly than ever. “I imagine, Miss Trewitt, that at this very moment, you have merely to snap your fingers and summon that army of kinderstalk to your side. Am I wrong to imagine such things, when in all the history of Howland, so far as any of
my scholars can tell me, no person has survived an encounter with the kinderstalk such as yours, save, perhaps, your dear sister?”