The Glass Casket (5 page)

That evening as Rowan walked home, she kept her eyes on the trees. She trusted her father when he told her that the
village beliefs were no more than superstitions, yet she could not deny that there was a magic to the forest—perhaps not goblins and fairies, but it held an otherworldly beauty for her, and even at dusk, she usually found herself taking the path that skirted its bewitching wilds rather than walking through the center of the village. She considered the woods her second home. And while she would never hazard them at night, she and Tom had spent most of their childhood running through the trees and combing the forest floor for insects. In the summers they would swim in Seelie Lake, and resting on its shores, they would gaze up toward Cairn Hill to the slate outcropping of Lover’s Leap—perched as it was above the waters, it was where widows went to weep. But now the villagers were losing their heads over a wolf, the forest declared dangerous even during the day, and Rowan felt anxious and displaced.

When Rowan reached her home, she could see the candle lamps burning in the window of her father’s study. As she stepped into the foyer, Rowan caught a whiff of a scent that always made her think of her mother. She knew there was no way she actually remembered her mother’s scent—she’d died when Rowan was only hours old—yet sometimes, Rowan could have sworn that she did.

Rowan knew very little about her mother. Her father, still grief-stricken after sixteen years, refused to discuss her, and if Rowan ever asked any of the villagers about her, they would sweep their eyes away, not wanting to answer, not wanting to make a child pine all the more for a mother she’d never known. Her only knowledge of her mother was
through her dreams. She came to Rowan when she was sleeping—of that the girl was certain. In her favorite dream, they were in her mother’s room. The light from the window seemed to sparkle, and her mother moved her shining face close to Rowan’s. In one hand, she held a wooden egg; in the other, a rope woven of pure gold.

Ah, that’s better
, her mother would say, and then she would kiss Rowan on the cheek, her lips soft as butterfly wings. Rowan would always emerge from those dreams feeling as if they were somehow more real than her conscious life.

Stepping out of the foyer, Rowan tried to put thoughts of her mother from her mind. She moved through the corridor and into the central hall with its high arched ceiling and heavy wooden beams. She was running her fingers along the carved rosewood panels that lined the walls when Emily emerged from the kitchen, spoon in hand, her cheeks splotchy from the heat. The candles in the mounted sconces played upon the girl’s features, illuminating them with bursts of color.

“Late enough,” Emily said, and scrutinizing Rowan’s dress, she grimaced. “That’s right wrinkled, isn’t it? What have you been doing in that thing?”

“Nothing,” Rowan answered as Emily’s dog, Pema, bounded up to her. She ran her hands through the dog’s thick black fur and patted her on the head. “That’s a good girl,” she said, her heart warming with just one look from the dog’s watery brown eyes.

“Well, put it aside for me to work on,” Emily said, already
turning to head back to the kitchen, Pema in tow. “And go in and say hello to your father.”

Rowan gave a soft knock at her father’s study door, and he called that she should enter. He sat at his desk, surrounded by books. Before him was a thick stack of papers.

“Working on something new?” she asked.

He set down his pen and smiled at her.

“I am. I’ve had a new shipment from the duke conservateur. Some really interesting documents coming into the royal library these days. One is a text that was only recently discovered in the hills of Montatrea, where they unearthed that massive trove of ancient texts. It’s fascinating, really.”

“Fortunately, they have you to translate it for them,” said Rowan, who always took a quiet pride in her father’s expertise.

He leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Well, it’s not as if they have a choice. There are simply too few men trained in the Midway language these days. It’s a pity.”

“I can read it too, remember,” she said, grinning.

“Don’t say I never taught you anything. Have you and Emily had your supper yet?”

“Not yet, no. I was just about to go and see if she needs help in the kitchen.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.”

“Father,” Rowan said, looking at the shelves that lined the wall, at the endless stacks of books. “Those men who died. What killed them?”

He fixed his eyes on hers. “A wolf, naturally. But, Rowan, you mustn’t trouble yourself about such things. Fear is the
domain of the small-minded. You are to be a scholar, my dear, and scholars do not go around fearing the wind and quivering away at the thought of wolves.”

Rowan smiled, knowing she was lucky to have a father like hers who so valued a girl’s mind, who thought his daughter had the capacity to become as great a scholar as any son. In Nag’s End, most girls were married off as soon as possible, and once married, they had no chance of being anything but helpmate to a husband. That was why Greenwitches never married. To yoke oneself to a man was to cleave yourself in two, so her father always said. He had told her many a time that if she studied, and if she attained the level of skill he desired for her, when the time was right, he would take her to the palace city. He’d once held a well-respected position there but had left the city upon meeting her mother. Sometimes Rowan sensed that her father, more than anything, wanted to return to that stunning place with its magnificent castle set high upon rocky cliffs.

Someday, she told herself, she would journey down the mountain passes that spilled from the north like spider veins, all the way to where the warm waters met pebbled shores, and see the palace city with her own eyes. She had heard enough stories, had seen enough artists’ renderings to know that it was an enchanted place, a magnificent city pearled with sapphire canals.

Someday, Rowan told herself, someday she would see it with her own eyes, perhaps even live there. Her studies were the key, and she was capable of mastering them. Her father
had said as much, and she hoped with all her heart that he was right.

As if reading her thoughts, Henry Rose held up a finger to her, and with his other hand rustled through some papers.

“Since we’re speaking of Midway texts, I wondered if I might talk with you about your work on
The Book of Widows
,” he said.

Rowan felt her palms growing sweaty. She had given her father her notes on a translation she was helping him with, and while she had hoped he might look them over before she continued with her work, she had not expected a formal review.

“Is … is something wrong?”

He furrowed his brow and smiled at her. “Quite the opposite, child. I was examining it this morning, and frankly, I am stunned. When I gave you the piece, I thought I might do so as a training exercise, but you’ve discovered something in here that I missed.”

Rowan felt the anxiety draining from her as she processed his words.

“You’re pleased, then?”

“To say that I am pleased would be an understatement. Tell me, though,” he said, resting his chin on his palm. “How did you arrive at your conclusion?”

Rowan cleared her throat, trying to keep the excitement from her voice. “Well, I suppose it was instinct, mostly. After really looking at it, I just knew that a mistake had been made somewhere along the way. The version we have is in the ancient Luric, but the story itself reminded me
of something I’d read about the Midway peoples and one of their creation myths. That made me wonder if it might have originally been composed in a Midway tongue and since then translated into the Luric. So I began looking for words that might have been mistranslated, and I found two. It all comes down to a simple homophone, really.
Lan Ce Sai
, meaning ‘bloom colors’ or ‘colors bloom,’ but
Ce Sai
, when translated into the dialect of the Midway peoples, is the word
tsvety
, meaning ‘colors.’ Since the word
tsvety
has the homophone
tsveti
, which means ‘flowers’—I began to wonder if the word in the poem was not
colors
, but
flowers. Flowers bloom
. When you think about it, it seems rather obvious, and I don’t imagine that it changes much, but I thought I should make a note.”

Her father stared at her with a mixture of surprise and delight. He shook his head.

“Really, Rowan, I cannot tell you how impressed I am with what you’ve done. Whether the change is important or not is not for us to say. Our work is in the discovery. I’m going to send what you’ve done to the duke conservateur right away.”

Rowan could barely believe his words. “You are?”

“I am.” He smiled. “I am very proud of you, my child. Your gifts seem to grow with each passing moon.”

“Thank you, Father,” she said as she watched him set her notes to the side.

“Now,” he answered, “why don’t you eat with Emily. I’m afraid I won’t be joining you. I have far too much work ahead of me.”

Pride filling her chest, she left her father’s study and went to wash up.

Supper with Emily was stew again, and although Rowan could think of little other than her translations, Emily seemed able only to speak of Fiona Eira.

“So lovely, she is. Tall for a girl. Funny, your being cousins.”

“Why’s that?” Rowan said, taken aback by the perceived insult.

“Oh, no, not that you’re not lovely, Ro. It’s just that you are so scrawny and pale. It’s like you’re all one color—like mashed potatoes—while her colors are so vibrant, all black and peach and red. She’s almost like a painting. And hearty. She’s got lovely curves, that one.”

Rowan thought about her cousin long after supper and was still thinking about her, up in her room, as she dressed for bed. She resented her father for preventing her from speaking with the girl. Fiona Eira was family, after all, and they were practically the same age. She might make for a good friend; although, looking at the girl today down by the well, Rowan wasn’t sure the two would have much in common.

She changed into her nightgown and turned down her bed. On her desk, beside the candelabra, sat the remainder of
The Book of Widows
. Perhaps just a little translating before bedtime would calm her. After lighting the candles, Rowan was gazing through the picture window and out into the woods beyond when she was overcome by a sudden chill.
She felt almost exactly as if someone was watching her. She stood still a moment and nearly moved to blow out the candles, but then she decided she was being ridiculous. Shaking it off, she pulled out her chair and sat down. With the lush green lacquer of her desk smooth beneath her arms, she lost herself quickly in the motion of the pen over paper.

She did not stop until she was satisfied with her work, and when she laid down her pen, she looked out the window to see the nearly full moon stretching high into the sky. But just as she pushed her chair in, she thought she heard something outside her window. She froze, peering through the panes into the moonlight-dappled darkness beyond. Pema, who had been asleep under the desk, jumped onto Rowan’s bed, startling her.

“Pema, girl, you frightened me,” Rowan said, but she knew it was not Pema that had scared her. The dog curled up at the foot of the bed.

“You’re staying in here tonight, eh?” she said, petting the dog’s head. “I suppose Emily won’t mind.” Pema hadn’t heard the noise, Rowan told herself, and Pema could hear a northern squirrel scuttle up a pine from hundreds of yards away. Her mind was playing tricks on her, that was all. Nodding to herself, she climbed under the covers and blew out her candle. She lay there a moment, listening to her breath, until she could take it no longer. In a flash, she was up again and at her window. She drew down the curtains against the night, against the unknowable. Finally content, she climbed back into bed and drifted off to sleep.

F
IONA
E
IRA COULDN
’
T
stop thinking about the boy in the square. When she’d looked up to see him, when her eyes had met his—it was as if something inside her had changed. There was a kindness to his face that she’d not often seen in young men, and when he’d laughed, it had awakened something in her, and she realized that their shared moment was the first time she’d laughed since her father had died. As she walked back home, she noticed that she still felt him with her, lingering in her mind’s eye.

She wanted to meet him, but she would need to discover his name without Seamus, her guardian, finding out. She knew she ought to be grateful to Seamus for providing for
her and Lareina after her father’s death, but the truth was he made her nervous.

She walked on, concentrating on the ground beneath her feet, listening to the solid crunch of the snow and focusing on the scent of the rich oils of pine that lingered in the breeze. She filled her belly with air and softened her lungs, slowing the rate of her heart, which had crept ever steeper since thinking of her father.

Before he died, she had been a happy child, an uncomplicated girl. She loved her father and her stepmother almost as much as she loved swimming in the sea and playing chase with the village children. But when her father died, everything changed. Seamus Flint had shown up almost before the man’s body was cold, promising money and comfort, protection. Lareina had no family, after all, and had a girl to look after now—a girl who wasn’t even her own, he had said. How that had angered Fiona, for Lareina was her mother, if not by blood, then by spirit, and as Lareina often said, a woman need not birth a child to feel a mother’s love.