Relieved to have my younger sisters’ support on the issue of Sorrow, I risked a new suggestion. “There is one way to see the truth about the Other Kingdom,” I said. “We could go across 152
at Dark of the Moon and look in Dr˘agu¸ta’s mirror, as Tadeusz told me. We could see the future. And if we could do that, we could change it—take action to prevent the bad things from happening.”
There was a silence.
“Jena,” said Paula, “I’ve spent a lot of time with the soothsayers and wizards of the Other Kingdom. We’ve talked about tools for divining the future. We’ve talked about portals and the way that time and space work between their kingdom and ours. Nobody ever said a thing about a magic mirror.”
“Maybe they only tell you what they want you to know.”
My voice was a little sharp. I felt as if I were walking on a knife edge. A girl had died horribly. The men would be out there tonight with their crossbows and cudgels, their pitchforks and scythes, hunting the Night People down. Yet something still drew me toward Dark of the Moon. It was not so much Tadeusz’s beguiling voice, though I knew that was part of it.
Even after this—even after innocent blood had been spilled—
I felt its pull. But far more powerful was the thought that Dr˘agu¸ta’s mirror might provide the answers we so badly needed.
So easily, I could know whether Father would come home again; I could know whether Tati would get over her foolish in-fatuation and be safe. And if I went there, I could confront Tadeusz with what he had done. I could tell him that this vile act of bloodletting was not what I had wanted; that the price for mending a few fences should not be the life of an innocent young woman. I could make it clear that I had never asked for such offerings and that there were to be no more of them.
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“You wouldn’t actually go, would you, Jena?” Iulia was looking at me with a mixture of alarm and admiration. “After what’s just happened?”
“I don’t know,” I said. In my pocket Gogu was still, as if frozen. I could feel his horror. No, Jena. No. “Maybe I won’t have to think about it. Maybe Cezar and the other men will catch the killer. Maybe Ileana will banish the Night People from her realm, and this will be all over.”
“It might not be your fault, Jena,” Paula said. “It’s possible that the girl’s father did something to make the Night People angry, like setting fires in the forest or felling an oak. You can’t know.”
“I do know.” I took Gogu out and held him between my hands for comfort. “I can feel it. I can feel things turning dark.
It started when the Night People came. It got worse when Tati encouraged Sorrow. Now I’m responsible for someone’s death. I have to put it right somehow.”
“I told you, this is not Sorrow’s doing, Jena.” Tati was huddled on the bed now, hugging the shawl around her. “He’s the kindest of men, gentle and good.”
“To you, maybe,” I said.
A small voice spoke. “Tati wouldn’t fall in love with a murderer.”
Stela’s words hung in silence for a little, then Iulia cleared her throat. “You’d be surprised,” she said. “Love makes people do some odd things. I mean, Jena loves Gogu best in the world, doesn’t she? A frog. That’s just about the weirdest thing you could imagine.”
Gogu twitched as she spoke his name. Then, abruptly, a 154
sort of cloud fell over his thoughts, as if he were deliberately hiding them from me. “That’s not the same kind of love,” I said.
“Anyway, Tati hardly even knows Sorrow.”
Tati said nothing.
“Love at first sight,” put in Paula. “If it happens in stories, why shouldn’t it happen in real life?”
“It’s a mistake to let your head get full of stories about true love,” I said. “It just means you’ll be disappointed. There are no handsome heroes in the real world—only boring young men like R˘azvan and Daniel. That’s probably the best any of us can hope for.”
“I can’t stop thinking about it, Gogu,” I said later in the day, as I threw out grain for the chickens under a leaden sky. “I owe it to that girl, Ivona, to cross over and speak to Tadeusz again, to tell him to stop. What if Cezar’s hunt actually kills one of the Night People, and then Tadeusz seeks vengeance for that, and so on, until the whole valley is awash with blood? I can’t wait until next Full Moon. It’s too long. Think how much damage they could do.”
Brave. Brave, but foolish. You can’t go.
“The Night People must leave this forest—they have to go home. I don’t know why they came here in the first place. If they left and took Sorrow with them, that would remove the danger and solve the problem of Tati, as well.”
No response from Gogu. On the far side of the courtyard, R˘azvan was shoveling away snow, clearing paths to the barn and outhouses. In Cezar’s absence he had surprised me by offering his help with whatever needed doing. It was clear he 155
would rather have work to keep him occupied than stand about with crossbow in hand, trying to look fierce.
“What else am I supposed to do?” I asked the frog. “Stop looking at me like that!”
I could see by Gogu’s expression that he thought I’d over-reached myself this time, and it wasn’t helping. I set him down to explore the woodpile by the hen coop.
Don’t go at all. Full Moon, Dark of the Moon, keep well away.
“You think Tati’s going to agree to that? Sorrow’s all she can think about. In her eyes he’s incapable of an ill thought, let alone an evil deed.” At that moment an idea came into my head.
In one way it was ridiculous, given what had happened. In another it made perfect sense. “Unless,” I mused, thinking aloud,
“she met someone else, someone nice and suitable—the kind of young man she could like and Aunt Bogdana would approve of.
If I could get her interested in a real man, maybe she would realize how hopeless her attachment to Sorrow is. It might break whatever spell he’s put on her. I don’t suppose we could give a grand party. It’s too soon after Uncle Nicolae’s death, and the whole valley’s going to be consumed by the hunt for the Night People. Besides, our money’s gone; we can hardly feed guests on
˘ ˘
mamaliga˘. But . . .”
I sat down on a stone wall, wrapping my arms around myself. Gogu had begun to forage in some old decaying wood. I averted my gaze. If he planned on eating beetles, I didn’t particularly want to watch. “It’s not just Tati,” I said. “Iulia’s been behaving strangely, too. Cezar accused her of flirting, and I think he did have some cause for it. She’s too young for that. I hate to admit it, but Aunt Bogdana has a point about manners 156
and deportment. We all need opportunities to meet suitable young men. Like it or not, if we don’t want Cezar in complete control of Piscul Dracului and making all our decisions for us, we need to take this first step. We have to accept that Father may not be coming back.” I shivered. “Gogu, I can’t imagine Cezar as master of Piscul Dracului. He doesn’t love the place as we do. It would be just . . . wrong. Almost anyone would be better than him. Perhaps Aunt Bogdana’s friends have sons we could like, given time. Young men who would look after the castle and the forest. Men with good judgment and kind hearts.”
Gogu was pursuing a small scuttling creature. His thoughts were held tight.
“All right, then,” I grumbled. “If you don’t want to talk, don’t. Leave me to sort out my problems all by myself. We need an heir for Piscul Dracului. One of us has to marry. If Tati won’t do it, I think I’ll have to. I’d always planned to do other things with my life—have adventures, go on voyages, become a merchant in my own right. And if I did marry, I’d hoped it would be for love. I used to dream about how I’d meet an exotic stranger in a foreign port and know instantly that he was the one. Of course, anyone wanting to marry one of us would need Father’s permission. But—” I choked on the words. If Father should die, Cezar would instantly gain control of everything. It was unthinkable. A man with such anger in his eyes should not be allowed to decide the fates of others. “Gogu,” I said, “I need to go and visit Aunt Bogdana. Will you stop crunching those things? It sounds disgusting.”
He hunkered down in the woodpile, abruptly silent and 157
near-invisible. I reminded myself that not long ago I had almost lost him.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “The thing is, I’m so close to you I forget sometimes that we’re separate people. I just say what I think, and don’t realize I’ve hurt you until the words are out of my mouth. Gogu?”
I peered down between the logs. All I could see were his eyes—wide, unwinking, desperately serious.
“Gogu, I’m sorry. Come out, will you? I really need your advice.”
He made me wait long enough to realize how badly I had wounded him. Then he hopped onto the seat beside me, holding something in his mouth. He dropped it into my lap.
“What’s this?” A gift, clearly. He’d never made such a gesture before. It was a little seedpod, mousy brown and shaped like a heart. “Thank you! How sweet!”
He cringed. Maybe my tone had been a little patronizing.
“Gogu, I value your gift,” I said, taking off my glove to stroke his head with my finger. “On the first day of spring, I’ll cook you the finest pondweed pancake you ever tasted, and too bad if people say I’m behaving like a child. Unless there’s something else you’d like in return.”
I caught something bright and strange in his thoughts, gone so quickly I could not begin to interpret it. After a little, I sensed a more hesitant approach.
You could . . .
“I could what, Gogu?”
You could . . . Nothing.
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“You’re in a very strange mood today. I wonder whether that trip across the Deadwash on your own has scrambled up your head a little. Are you going to tell me how you did it?”
Silence.
“That’s a no, I take it.” Now I was hurt. We had always shared our secrets, the two of us. Ours had been a friendship of perfect trust.
Jena?
“Mmm?”
A party. You will marry a man you meet at a party?
“I don’t even know if we can do it yet, Gogu. It depends on what Aunt Bogdana thinks is right. This will be the first time
˘
I’ve spoken to her since the pomana, and I have no idea how she’ll react. If she’s still terribly upset, I may not even get as far as suggesting this. Anyway, it wouldn’t be a party, more like a polite gathering—though I’m hoping we can have music and good food. As for the marrying part, the idea of going about that as if it were a business transaction makes me feel sick. But I’ll do it if I must.” I slipped the seedpod into my pocket. A number of hurdles lay before me: the fact that Cezar had said his mother wanted no visitors; the possibility that my request might offend her deeply; the need to ask my cousin for funds; the snow lying heavy on the paths around Piscul Dracului, making travel by cart difficult; the Night People. Everything suggested that my idea was foolish and impractical. But with Father in such fragile health, I did not want to wait for springtime. “In the morning I’ll go up and see Aunt Bogdana. If she says yes, I’ll tell the girls we’re not going to the Other Kingdom again until the 159
Night People have left the valley. So you see, Gogu, I am being sensible. I’m following your good advice.”
I’m sorry, Jena.
“Sorry? What do you have to be sorry for?”
I’m sorry I cannot protect you.
Unease was plain in the frog’s hunched posture and the forlorn tone of his voice—the voice only I could hear. Abruptly, I was on the verge of tears. “Don’t be silly,” I told him, sniffing.
“Why would I expect that? It’s ridiculous. Friendship and good advice, that’s all I need from you.”
Put me on your shoulder now. I want to go inside.
“Jena! How lovely to see you!” It seemed that Aunt Bogdana was no longer too distressed to receive visitors. Her severe black dress accentuated her pallor and she was looking thinner, but her smile welcomed me as Daniela showed me into the sewing room. “Daniela, we’ll have some coffee, please. Come and sit down, Jena. I’m sorry I have not been out and about. It seems such an effort without Nicolae. Everywhere I go, I feel his absence.”
“I’m so sorry, Aunt Bogdana. I can’t imagine how it feels. If there’s anything we can do . . .” I seated myself on a little chair with an embroidered cushion. From the shelf nearby, Costi’s painted eyes watched me.
“And now there’s this terrible news of the miller’s daughter. . . . It’s as if a curse has fallen over the valley, a kind of darkness. It makes me wonder what we have done to deserve such ill fortune. And Father Sandu is gone. That was a blow.
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It is at times such as these that a community sorely needs its priest.”
I refrained from mentioning her son’s role in Father Sandu’s departure. “Cezar seems to be doing his best to hunt down the offender,” I said. “They didn’t succeed last night, but I think he will keep going until they do. He’s very determined.”
Aunt Bogdana sighed. “To be quite honest with you, Jena, I’m not at all sure that is the way Nicolae would have gone about it. A blessing on the settlement and on the margins of the forest, the erection of a crucifix, those things he would have done. But this . . .” She shuddered. “It’s answering blood with blood. I fear for Cezar. I fear for all those men. One does not meddle lightly with the forces of the forest.” She cleared her throat; her eyes were on Costi’s picture. “Cezar, of all men, should know that. Ah, here’s Daniela with the coffee. Allow me to pour for you, Jena. How are your sisters?”
“They’re well, thank you. Upset by what’s happened, of course. Aunt Bogdana, there’s something I need to ask you. You must tell me if you think it’s inappropriate.”
“Go on, Jena.”
I stumbled through my proposition, hoping I would not reduce my aunt to tears or make her angry by trespassing on her grief. Aunt Bogdana regarded me over her coffee cup, not interrupting. She did not seem upset, only intrigued. “And so,” I said eventually, “I did wonder if we might have a small gathering, perhaps just a few carefully chosen guests. I know it’s not the best time, but actually it might lift people’s spirits. In fact, I thought the folk of the valley might see it as a good thing to 161
do. A gesture to show we are not afraid, that we are prepared to light lamps against the darkness. You wouldn’t need to do anything, Aunt, just advise me on how to go about it and suggest whom we might invite. I realize we should perhaps wait until spring, but—”
Aunt Bogdana lifted a hand, and I halted in midsentence.
