Authors: Sherwood Smith
G
RADUALLY I BECAME AWARE
that there were people in the room. A kid with a shock of messy dark hair put his flute down and beamed at me.
“Misha?” I said from Alec’s arms.
I discovered I was not strong enough to sit up on my own. But that was okay. Alec could hold me, oh yes.
Alec wiped his eyes with his free hand. “Misha offered to come play for you. He picked all your favorites. In fact, several of the students from the temple school have been coming in rotation to play for you, all sworn to secrecy. But it was ‘Aurelia’s Air’ that just now did the trick. I didn’t know you knew that piece.”
“I didn’t,” I said, “until recently. Aurélie wrote that when she was about thirteen, and they played it—
Mom?
”
My mother dropped down on her knees beside my bed. “Kimli, darling,” she said. “They wouldn’t let me up here. They didn’t want me seeing you stretched out like a stoned vamp. What the hell happened?”
“Water first. Please? How long has it been?”
Alec peered into my face. “It was a month ago. Natalie and Beka found you lying on the ground near those old buildings off Roskvit Square, near the painted door. When you didn’t show up for lunch they came to me, then went out to reconstruct your path. By the time we got
you back here, you’d nearly turned to stone, and Beka said there was Vrajhus involved. Nat agreed. Said that your state was a medical impossibility, therefore we should back off from medically invasive cures. Kim, you breathed maybe once an hour.” He said in a low voice, “Three nights ago that slowed to once a day.” He thumbed a strand of hair off my cheek. “We kept it a secret, but we’ve traded off watching over you.”
“I saw you,” I said. “And I called to you.” It took all my strength to say that much, especially since he crushed me in another hug. It felt wonderful.
“I heard you,” he murmured into my hair. “I thought I was going mad.”
Everyone gave way before my grandmother, who leaned down to kiss my forehead. “Aurelia Kim. It is good to see you awake.” To the others. “Perhaps, in addition to the water she asked for, a meal?”
A couple hours later, after I’d got some bread and soup into me, and about a gallon of water, we began the catch-up process. Alec told me that they’d gone right ahead with the wedding plans, as a way to fend off curiosity. “We told them you had caught a violent cold.”
“What is the date, anyway?” I asked.
“August 13th,” he said.
“Then I’m in time for the March of the Innocents. Good.”
He said with concern, “Don’t you think you’d better take it easy?”
“I’ve
been
taking it easy. Too easy. I want to be there, Alec. I know we’re not worrying about the Blessing anymore. It’s important for other reasons. I can’t even explain them to myself yet. It just is.”
“Then you’ll be there,” he said, “if I have to carry you myself.”
But I rapidly regained strength. I hadn’t been in a coma, in which muscles waste and organs shut down.
I hadn’t aged, either. My physical self could not be harmed by those demons, even if they’d tried to lure my spirit to stay and dance forever. I had been enchanted into a state not unlike stone. When I found that out, I ventured a joke about how they could have set me up in a garden with the vamps, but nobody found it funny.
It’s eerie, how mutable time can seem. Here I’d been away for nearly twenty years, sort of—about ten years of Aurélie’s life and then ten years in the Nasdrafus, and it felt like a weekend marathon of movie watching. But for the people who loved me, in my time, it had seemed an eternity, even though only a month had passed. They’d had the tough time, not me. I dropped the feeble attempts at humor.
That first night, Alec and I sat up until dawn, mostly me talking. He didn’t want to leave. I think he was afraid I’d wink out a second time.
The next day, Beka Ridotski showed up, and I had to go through it all again. But this time it was easier. I didn’t go into the personal side the way I had with Alec. I kept it to the magical, with side-trips into history.
She liked hearing about her greats-grandfather Shmuel, and she leaned forward with interest when I told her I’d met Elisheva. It turns out that she’s famous among the
Salfmattas
—she and Mordechai both. He’s known for having established the temple music school the way it is now, making it top notch in spite of Dobrenica being so small. And what few know is that magical charms are taught along with the music.
I ended with, “And so, at least, the timeline is preserved, because all they knew of me was that I was a ghost. They thought I was English, because there was no record of me in Dobrenica’s history.”
“Actually,” Beka said, “that’s not true.”
My turn to be surprised. “You’re kidding! You mean I went to all that trouble to preserve the timeline for nothing?”
“Not quite.” Beka grinned, her light brown eyes narrowed with sardonic humor. “The ghost named Kim who closed the Esplumoir is a legend among the
Salfmattas
, a well-known, extremely well kept secret. Your sudden appearance, your name, your ability to see the past worried people quite a bit. We didn’t know what it meant, you see: the young
English
ghost named Kim.” Her smile faded. “Over New Year’s, when you told me about your visions, I figured it might be you, though no one could explain the English connection, since no one in your family had ever been to England until you went for your first visit. I was afraid it meant you would not survive the year, because how else would you become
a ghost? But I didn’t dare tell you that. It would be horrible, especially if we were wrong.”
“That definitely would have been horrible,” I said feelingly. “And that convinces me more than anything that I was right not to tell Aurélie who I was, or what I knew about her life. But I am really glad I didn’t know when she dies.”
“She lived a good life. They both did. Their three daughters married into the Ysvorods, the Trasyemovas, and the von Mecklundburgs respectively. It was the son of the eldest daughter who brought the crown back to the Ysvorods, and in turn their grandson who was Alexander IV.”
“Did Mord and Elisheva have kids?”
“Oh, yes. Three. Their sons both moved away from Dobrenica. One died as a revolutionary in one of the eighteen forty-eight uprisings, the other went on to a career in Vienna, playing for the royal orchestra. Their daughter took over the school.”
“Did Aurélie’s family ever show up?”
“No, and now I understand some odd context.” Beka smiled. “They wrote many letters back and forth. Burned by the Soviets when the archive went up in flames, but someone somewhere had copied out portions of them, and that is what we have. Anyway, her mother kept putting off the visit, then finally admitted she couldn’t stick going anywhere away from the sea, especially corseted. I remember debate in my royal history class about what that might have meant.”
“It meant she couldn’t stand corsets,” I said, laughing.
Beka flashed a smile. “The last letter made it clear that they were settled in San Francisco, having established a trading enterprise. They were bringing in gold miners when the letters ceased.”
“Okay, here’s my last question. If the
Salfmattas
knew that I, as a ghost, closed the Esplumoir back then, why were we struggling so hard over New Year’s find out what and where it was?”
Her nose wrinkled in a quick grimace. “Remember that I told you knowledge was passed verbally to novices one at a time, according to internal standards? The knowledge about the Esplumoir, which had not been opened for all those generations, was only known to the Elders. The
oldest was a victim of the Gestapo fairly early on. You know that the Nazis were secretly seeking information about magic in any form.”
“Yes, that’s generally known. There are even TV shows about the Nazis and their crackpot theories about supernatural powers.”
“I have been told that real mages often saw to it that false facts were passed to them, to keep them haring off down the paths of superstition and futility and bypassing real power, because their intent was evil from the beginning. But anyway, we Dobreni lost a lot of knowledge, and so we were trying to reconstruct it all last year. I suspect that Aurélie’s necklace lies somewhere inside that mountain.”
“Or it’s caught somewhere in the Nasdrafus.”
“I think some of the present Elders hope that
their
Elders are somewhere in the Nasdrafus, but that is not known. Grandmother Ziglieri, whom you have met, said her Elders feared demons were working on the Esplumoir to open it again, while the war raged all around. We didn’t know that Jerzy von Mecklundburg’s mother, Maritza the Stone mason’s daughter, was the one helping them by gleaning what information she could get. Your encounter with Duke Armandros has cleared up some mysteries. He must’ve overheard her, or maybe she even bragged to him, not realizing that she would stir his latent loyalties.”
“I wonder if we’ll ever see him again,” I said.
“You,” Beka said, getting to her feet. “Not we. You are the one who sees ghosts.”
“I hope I
was
the one to see ghosts,” I corrected. “I am ready for a nice, boring, ghost-free and Vrajhus-free life now.”
I said that, but it wasn’t really true. What I wanted was no more surprises, magical or ghostly. When I got out of the car on the 15th, on the top of the mountain near the Roman church, shivering in my white gown, I did have ghosts in mind, but my experiment was one of intent.
August is usually a beautiful month in Dobrenica. Seldom hot, and that only for a few hours in the day. If there is rain, it’s generally an afternoon thunderstorm, well-behaved enough to roll over the mountains by sunset, leaving a clean-washed sky.
The morning was chilly but promised warmth when the sun came up behind us. There I found a dozen or so girls and young women waiting, some in elaborate white dresses that they had made themselves or that had been handed down for generations. Everyone had a wreath of white flowers on her head.
The March of the Innocents was usually brides-to-be but could be any young woman at a milestone: someone going into a religious vocation, or these days, who had been promoted from journeyman to full-fledged artisan in her chosen career. There was no equivalent for the guys, as in the past, public parades of any kind had been a male thing, excepting only nobles and royalty on their way to festivals. There was only this one exception for the females.
My white gown had been bought the day before, the wreath made from flowers plucked in the Ysvorod garden by Madam Emilio, the household steward. The important object was the braided candle in my hand. Soul candles, Beka had told me, were a Jewish custom that had been adopted long ago by Dobrenica at large. A soul candle was three wicks braided during a lovely ritual, adapted to be distinctly Dobreni.
The eastern sky blued gently, blanketing the stars one by one. The blue had turned peach when the girls began to sing “Xanpia’s Wreath.”
Beka had told me that I, as the soon-to-be-princess, would be expected to light my candle first and touch the flame to the next girl’s. So I did, meeting the smiling face of someone I didn’t know. Her singing voice was pretty (as mine isn’t), and strong enough to keep everybody around her on the right pitch.
From one to the next multiplied the flames, casting a glow over smiling faces, and then we started down the mountain path. The wildflowers, trees, and shrubs were in full bloom. There was the plateau where Alec and I had spent the night before I fled back to Los Angeles.
I waited until my walking rhythm was well established, and then it was time for my experiment. For some reason I existed in liminal space, so I meant to learn how to control it. I reached back a couple of centuries, to this very morning…
And there they were.
For Aurélie and Elisheva, Margit and Irena, it was a foggy morning. Their candles were much bigger than ours, and they walked arm in arm, their gowns silken, tied high in Empire style. They were not singing “Xanpia’s Wreath” but a round that blended perfectly—a Jewish hymn, something Russian, and something in Latin. I wondered if Mord had found the music and made it match like that.
Aurélie walked with her face lifted, full of joy.
And then they were gone, and I was back, nearly stumbling over a rock. I hopped just in time, my candle flickering and splattering wax down my front. Ow.
It was full morning when we reached the palace garden, and a short while later the square, where families waited. Some separated off to go to church, basilica, or temple, others to be fêted at family breakfasts.
My breakfast was at the palace, with my parents, Gran, Alec, and soon-to-be-King Milo, Alec’s father, whose health was frail these days. Also present were all the cousins: tall, stylish Phaedra Danilov and her brother, descendants of Captain Danilov of the King’s Guard; Honoré de Vauban, baron, whose new house was nearly finished. I wondered how much he knew about his one-eyed diplomat forebear. Oh yes, he was an archivist. He’d know if anyone did.
The von Mecklundburgs were all there. Tony lounged in the background while watching me narrow-eyed, as though trying to figure out the mystery. Even Cerisette was there. She was blond again, perfectly turned out in the latest French fashion.
Her only comment was, “I trust you are well enough to favor me with a long overdue consultation. Unless you want your wedding to be a surprise?”
“I’ll be there tomorrow,” I said.
Tony cornered me at the end of breakfast, when everyone was talking to everyone else. “Cold feet?” he asked, one brow aslant.
I looked into his tilted black eyes, throwbacks to Aurélie’s beautiful family. I don’t know what he saw in my expression, but his altered to inquiry, and I said, “I saw Ruli.”
That he did not expect. “And?”
“She was in Paris. I think she likes her new state. She seemed more self-assured.”
He whistled softly. “You ran away to Paris?”
“I was sent there,” I said. “No choice. And it was not the Paris you are accustomed to.”
“I don’t know whether to be relieved or terrified. About my sister, I mean.”