Wildwood Dancing (12 page)

Tati wasn’t there. The girls said she’d gone for a walk—an odd thing to do with the snow lying knee-deep on the paths and the sky so dark that noon felt like dusk. I sent Iulia out to look for her while Cezar made awkward conversation with my other sisters. The ball of compressed resentment that was Gogu, deep in my pocket, perfectly reflected my own mood.

After some time, Iulia returned with a message: Tati would be back soon. We waited. The conversation dwindled and died. The tea went cold. It became clear that Tati had either forgotten or had never intended to join us.

“I must be off,” Cezar announced, rising to his feet. “Thank you for your hospitality. Jena, I will return soon; I can see you do need my guidance, however reluctant you may be to accept it. Perhaps next time I can speak with Tatiana as well. As the eldest, she should be taking her share of the responsibilities. Goodbye, girls.”

“Goodbye, Cezar,” they chorused politely. Something in his manner, or mine, had banished the usual giggles and whispers.

I saw our visitor out. In my pocket, Gogu was thinking in a grumble.
Interfering busybody. Supercilious know-it-all. How dare he?

“Farewell, Jena.” Cezar gave a little bow, the two locked coffers under his arms. The sky was lowering; the snowdrifts wore gray shadows.

“Goodbye,” I said. “This isn’t finished, Cezar. I’m not handing over everything just like that. Once I let Father know—” I faltered to a halt. Who provided my sole means of conveying letters over the difficult tracks all the way to the
Black Sea? Without Cezar’s messengers, I had no way to let Father know anything at all.

Gogu shifted uneasily.
He’ll say it again, just wait
.

“Trust me, Jena,” said Cezar. As I watched, speechless, my cousin turned and strode away from Piscul Dracului, carrying my independence in his brawny arms.

It was not until after dark, with our sisters asleep in their beds and the waxing moon sending a cool glow through the four colored windows, that I had the opportunity to speak with Tati alone. She had not returned to the house until nearly supper-time. After the meal, she had busied herself washing Stela’s hair and brushing it dry before the stove while Paula told a story she’d had from Father Sandu, about a girl who turned into a tree rather than submit to a young man who was pursuing her.

I was more frightened than angry now. My stomach was churning with it, and I couldn’t enjoy the story. I’d had plenty of time to think about my confrontation with Cezar, and I could see something in it that truly scared me. He was master of his own estate now; only Father, in frail health, stood between our cousin and Piscul Dracului. If Father died, everything would belong to Cezar, and our future would be in his hands. Cezar, who did not believe women deserved lives of their own—Cezar, who had threatened to pursue and destroy the
folk of the Other Kingdom. This afternoon, our cousin had begun to stake his claim.

Tati seemed quite calm, if somewhat remote. Her air of self-possession made me even more cross. I tried to shut out the wise voice of my little green advisor:
Calm down, Jena. This is not Tati’s fault
. It was all very well for Gogu to say that. He wasn’t the one who had to keep the place going over the winter with no money. It wouldn’t be he who had to run to Cezar and beg whenever he needed the slightest thing.

“Jena, I can hear you grinding your teeth from here,” Tati said, tucking the blankets more snugly over the slumbering forms of Stela and Paula. Then she turned to face me. “I can almost feel how angry you are. What’s wrong?”

“Where were you?” I burst out, though I kept my voice down, not wanting to wake the others. “I needed you this afternoon!”

“I’m sorry, Jena.” Tati came over to sit on our bed and reached for her hairbrush. “I was out walking, and I lost track of time. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. The only one of us Cezar ever takes notice of is you.”

“He didn’t today,” I told her grimly. “I’m worried, Tati. Worried about Cezar, and worried about you. I thought he would help us properly, the way Uncle Nicolae would have done, letting us manage our own affairs and go to him when we had a problem. Cezar’s idea of helping is to take over completely. He thinks we’re incapable.”

“That’s nonsense,” Tati said. “We all know how good you are at these things, Jena. About the missing money—there were folk at the door a day or two ago, and I did give them some coins.”

“How many?” I asked her with a sinking heart.

The brush stilled. “I didn’t count, Jena. They looked so pale and tired, and there were little children. Father did teach us to be compassionate. But there was plenty left in the box. I think Iulia had to deal with travelers yesterday—she may have given more. Anyway, can’t you just top up the domestic funds from the business coffer?”

I could think of nothing to say. It was possible to see how it might have happened: the drained faces at the door, the small acts of generosity that added up to far more than a wise dispensing of charity. I could see how my sisters might all have believed that the answer was as simple as Tati’s suggestion. I had not shared Father’s financial system with any of them except Paula. They’d never been interested. Mixing the funds was something we never did—if we had planned correctly, it should never be necessary. Anyway, it was too late now. And it looked as if, in a way, what had happened was my fault.

“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
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.

“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
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.

“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 Braşov, 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
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 Vǎrful cu Negurǎ, the ancient forest might begin to fall on the first day of spring.