“And after that? Did you look out across the water? Did you see Costi?”
“No,” I whispered, a terrible feeling creeping over me, the cold knowledge that I had misjudged my best friend in all the world. “I ran off into the bushes and hid. I put my little blanket over my head. When I came out, there was only Cezar. Costi was gone. And Cezar told me what had happened.”
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“And you believed him.”
“I was only five.” It seemed a poor excuse. “Besides, why would you turn Costi into a frog? You said he had to grow and change. How could that help?”
“He got his wish, as you did yours. He gave up what was most precious to him: his badge of family. He was an arrogant boy—impetuous and exuberant—but he did have duty at heart, and love for his parents and his home. There was a lot of good in him, enough to make his future important. I could not allow that arrogance to go unchecked. He wanted to be King of the Lake, and he got his wish. Isn’t a frog the master of the water, free to go wherever he wishes, lord of all he surveys—as long as he keeps a lookout for large fish?”
“But he wasn’t,” I said. “When I found him later, he was weak and sick and frightened. He didn’t know how to be a frog, not properly.”
“Part of his learning, and of yours,” said Dr˘agu¸ta, her beady eyes fixed on me from the shadow of her broad-brimmed hat.
“He learned patience and humility; you learned compassion.
You both learned love. At least, that was the intention. Don’t look at me like that, young lady. I have your best interests at heart.”
I found this very hard to believe. “Then why the magic mirror? Why show me Costi’s face and make it into something hideous that gave me nightmares? Why show him attack-ing my sisters? I thought the mirror showed the future. I thought it offered warnings. All it’s done is make me hurt him terribly.
He’ll never forgive me for this.”
“He will find it difficult to forgive, yes,” Dr˘agu¸ta said. “I 335
saw the anger in his eyes—the sorrow and shock—when I gave him back what he had given up to me, all those years ago. Costi has a difficult time ahead of him. It is unfortunate that he cannot have his heart’s dearest by his side, but this is the path you have chosen, and you must follow it as best you can.”
“You saw him just now? Gave him back his family ring?”
She nodded. “And I have sent Cezar back his own treasure,”
she said. “A surprise—he’ll get it tomorrow. Now that Costi is home, his brother can no longer be King of the Land.”
I stared at her, horrified. “What?” I whispered. “You mean . . . Cezar becoming the eldest son, and later on getting control of the estate, and taking ours as well, and . . . You mean that was all part of granting a wish? That he actually wished he could take Costi’s place?”
“At eight years old, Cezar was not wicked; he was an ordinary little boy who loved his brother dearly. When I asked him what was most precious to him, that was where his eyes fell: on Costi—his hero, his idol. But he did not make his choice in innocence. As he realized what he had been offered, his childhood fell away from him, and he set his feet on a new path. He chose power before love. He could have saved Costi. I offered him that opportunity after he brought you to shore: his brother was still swimming, but was held there by the current, unable to come in. Instead of helping him, Cezar stood and watched his brother go under the waters of T˘aul Ielelor. In that moment, he shaped his future. He has fought that decision over and over as he has grown to be a man. But he could not unmake it. He could not change the fact that when the choice faced him, he took the darker path.”
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“Oh, God.” The strange things Cezar sometimes said began to make a kind of sense: the mutterings about promises that were shams, about gifts that turned to damage those who received them. I understood, at last, his powerful hatred of Dr˘agu¸ta. “That was . . . unspeakably cruel. Without that, he might have grown up to be a good man.”
“The choice was not mine. It was Cezar’s. Every choice he has made, these ten years past, has been his own. Now he has run out of choices. He has lost his chance to rule the valley. He has lost his brother’s love, and yours. His father is gone. His mother has done her best to love him, but her feelings for this son have always lacked the warmth she turned on Costi, her adored eldest.” She turned her head, snapping her fingers to summon the snake to her.
“Please don’t go yet,” I begged. “The mirror—why that image in the mirror?”
“The monster? Not my doing,” Dr˘agu¸ta said dismissively.
“Hers, I imagine: Anastasia’s. All it would have taken was for you to have a moment of doubt, a moment when you mistrusted your instincts. That moment of weakness would have allowed her control of the image. Such creatures as she take delight in tormenting folk, Jena. She wanted to send you nightmares—to make you squirm.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I imagine she was jealous. She didn’t like the way her brother, if brother he can be called, was looking at you. She didn’t take kindly to his partiality to you.”
“Tadeusz was never interested in me. She told me so. She told me very plainly that I was beneath his notice.”
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“Exactly. She told you. He never said anything of the kind, I imagine. And since you are bidding the Other Kingdom farewell tonight, you won’t be getting the opportunity to ask him. Perhaps you are not such a plain, unattractive thing as you imagine, Jena. You might consider why, with two eligible young men on one estate and a family of five girls on the next, both men fell in love with the same sister: not lovely Tati or blossoming Iulia, but flat-chested, bushy-haired, opinionated Jena.”
“In love? Cezar doesn’t know what love is. As for Tadeusz . . .” I faltered. I had allowed the cruel logic of Anastasia’s words to overrule what I sensed: that the leader of the Night People was indeed drawn to me. I remembered Tadeusz telling me that his kind were misunderstood; that superstition had painted them darker than they really were. I wondered if there was any truth in that. I’d never get the chance to find out now. “And if Costi felt any love for me when he was a frog,” I went on, “it will all be gone after what’s happened. How could he love someone who’s shown such a lack of trust? If only he’d had his voice as soon as he changed back. He could have told me who he was and what had happened to him, and none of this misunderstanding need have happened—”
The witch cleared her throat, and I fell silent. “You have a short memory,” Dr˘agu¸ta said. “Trust your instincts, I seem to recall advising you. But did you listen? It would seem not. He was your dearest friend, and in your heart you knew it. You knew it from the moment you saw him sprawled out on the shore—you knew it as he walked through your dreams and every part of 338
you yearned for his touch. But you wouldn’t let yourself trust those feelings, would you? I couldn’t give the boy back his voice straightaway, Jena. That would have made things too easy for both of you. Even now, you need more time to learn what love really means.”
“Time to do what?” My voice came out tear-choked and harsh. “He just walked away. I don’t know how to mend things now.”
“I can’t help you with that,” Dr˘agu¸ta said briskly. “Now are we done here? It’s not my habit to answer so many questions. I hope you don’t have any more; I doubt if I’m up to it.”
I swallowed a further plea for help. I had not forgotten who she was, or what she could do.
“It’s for you to sort out, Jena,” the witch said, her tone not unfriendly. “You are, in fact, highly capable and full of good-will. You can do it.” The white snake slid up her arm to twine around her shoulders. She picked up her staff, which had been lying in the bushes. “Goodbye, Jena,” she said. “Hurry back.
Your sisters are getting cold.”
“Goodbye,” I said as she slipped away, vanishing within moments. “Thank you for giving me the truth.”
There was a diminishing cackle, high-pitched and scornful, then silence.
At the top of the winding stair my sisters were waiting, white-faced and silent. Paula had the lantern that we had left ready at the foot of the stairs when we came down, and Stela was carrying the bundle. Tati was sitting on the ground with her back against the portal, her eyes shut.
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“She says she’s not coming,” said Iulia, who was crouched by Tati with a hand on her shoulder.
“Tati!” I said sharply, kneeling down and touching my sister’s wan cheek. “Tati, wake up! Put your hand on the door—
come on!”
“Not going . . . must wait . . . Sorrow . . . ,” she muttered.
“Tati,” said Paula, “we can’t get home unless you help us.
We’ll all be trapped here in the middle. Come on! Sorrow’s going to be away for a whole month.” I saw in her face the unspoken thought: And probably far longer—that’s if he ever gets back. The quest had seemed formidable to me, and I had never even heard of Ain Jalut or Zaradok.
Tati opened her eyes. “I’m not going,” she whispered. “I’m waiting for him here.”
It sounded like nonsense. But something deep inside me had changed tonight. Now I could understand so well what she was feeling: the longing, the grief, the fragile hope. “Tati,” I said, “if you truly love Sorrow and he loves you, you need to do what Ileana asked you to do: to keep faith until he achieves the quest. Let us go home, and we’ll help you get through the wait until next Full Moon. Remember what you said: love and loyalty, truth and trust? You can trust your family.”
“You really believe that?” she asked me in a wisp of a voice.
“That love will make it right?”
I longed for the certainty that would let me speak as Tati had to Ileana, pleading Sorrow’s case and her own. If only I could believe that love must triumph over all adversity. But my head was full of doubts. “Of course I do,” I said, wishing with all my heart that it was not a lie.
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“Come on, then,” whispered Tati, kneeling and placing her hand on the stones. We set ours beside it so the five of us touched the portal together. It slid open, and we entered our bedchamber. There, both Ioan and Marta lay sleeping, exactly where we had left them. Our last visit to the Other Kingdom was over.
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Chapter Fourteen
We heard the bolt slide open soon after dawn, and Cezar’s voice. “Where’s my man?” he demanded. “What’s he got for me?” He was in the doorway.
We had changed back into our day clothes; our dancing finery was neatly packed away. I had unfastened the inner bolt.
Stela had slept for a little, but the rest of us had been too nervous to rest.
“Ioan’s still asleep,” I said as calmly as I could. “So’s Marta.
It’s very early.”
“Wake him.” Cezar was keyed up, his hands clenched into fists. His tone shocked me. “I need his account now.”
“I’m not your servant, Cezar.” Something had made me strong this morning. Perhaps it was the knowledge of what he had done, all those years ago. “I’m taking my sisters down to breakfast. I won’t be treated as some kind of lackey in my own home.”
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“Wake him!” He lifted his hand and struck me; my cheek burned. I heard my sisters’ horrified gasps behind me.
“You can’t do that!” protested Iulia.
“Excuse me.” My voice was not calm now, but shaking. I walked past Cezar, palm to my face. The others followed me without a word. As we made our way down the stairs, I could hear him shouting at Ioan, “Wake up, man! What’s the matter with you?”
It was a difficult day. Without making any kind of decision, we sisters did not say anything to Florica or Petru, or to Cezar, about Costi’s reappearance, though I had told the others after we came home that I had been terribly wrong. It was true: Gogu and Costi were one and the same. I feared to tell Cezar the truth. I did not know how he would respond, with anger and suspicion or with love and relief that the adored brother whose death he bore on his conscience was, after all, alive and well. I did not know what Costi would do, how he would manage his return. Would people know him? Or would they be like me—wary and doubtful, unable to trust? I should have known him better than anyone; he’d been my constant companion since I was six years old.
My face hurt. In the mirror, I could see a livid bruise flowering across my cheek, the imprint of my cousin’s angry hand. I was sad, guilty, and afraid.
There was a row. I heard Cezar yelling at Ioan; clearly he was throwing him out of the house. Marta made a hasty departure for home, accompanied by one of the guards. Then Cezar strode into the kitchen, where we were sitting in silence 343
over our breakfast, none of us able to eat much. He confronted me, hands on hips, his broad features flushed red with anger.
“You used something, didn’t you? Some kind of potion, something to send them to sleep? Don’t deny it, Jena, I know your tricks! Answer me! What did you do?”
“Leave her alone!” Tati protested, half rising, her hand on the table for support.
“Master Cezar—” began Florica.
“Enough!” His voice was thunderous. “Jena, tell the truth!”
“I have nothing to say to you,” I said, shivering. “Only that if Uncle Nicolae could see you now, he would be bitterly ashamed of you.”
“How dare you—”
“Don’t even think of hitting me again,” I said. “I have nothing to tell you.”
“Then we’ll see whether your sisters do,” Cezar said. “Not now—I have business to attend to across the valley. I’ll be home before supper, and I’ll be speaking to each of you on your own before you go to bed tonight. If you don’t like the sound of that, Jena, you know how to prevent it. You need only tell me the truth.”
The day seemed interminable. Tati went back to bed and lay there, very still; I could not tell whether she was awake or asleep. Iulia helped Florica with some washing. Up in our chamber, Stela fretted, unable to settle down to anything. She flounced around the room, kicking at the furniture and disarranging things on shelves. When she started to fiddle with Gogu’s jug and bowl, I snapped at her.
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“Stop that, Stela!”
Her lower lip trembled.
“Stela?” Paula put aside the book she had been trying to read and went over to her little storage chest. “You remember how you asked me to teach you to play chess? Shall we do it now?”
“Thank you,” I said as Stela began to unpack the chessmen from their bag while Paula unfolded the hinged board that was one of her prized possessions.
“That’s all right,” Paula said. “Jena, what do you think Costi will do? Will he come here?”
“He has to, eventually. He must confront Cezar. I suppose he might need time to prove his identity. Maybe I should have told Cezar what happened. But it sounds so mad: Your brother’s alive—he was a frog all those years.” I had not told my sisters about Cezar’s choice. I had not explained how Dr˘agu¸ta’s gift had turned our cousin’s life gradually to the dark.
