Juliet Marillier - Wildwood Dancing
“What do you mean?” I croaked, not liking the way his words made me feel, as if I had glimpsed something I wanted badly and knew I should not have. “That if we passed through this portal of yours, we wouldn’t be in Dancing Glade, but somewhere else? In your own realm? I was told you come from the forests of the east.”
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“There are many paths in the Other Kingdom.” He lifted his brows, and his mouth formed a derisive grimace. “I’ll wager you are not brave enough to try this one.”
I knew I should turn my back and walk away. “What if I did want to?” I whispered. “Where is this portal? How can I find it?”
Tadeusz’s teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “There is a price,” he said. “Do not forget that.”
“What price?”
“A price no greater than you can afford, Jena. I will ensure that.”
“You mean you won’t tell me what it is? That is asking me to take a foolish risk. I am no fool.”
“Ah, well. I am unsurprised that you lack the courage for this.”
I swallowed. “If I—if I did decide to try it,” I said, hating myself for asking, “how would I get over? Where would I go?”
“If you would cross over, call to me and I will take you there.” His voice wrapped about me like a soft cloak.
“Call to you? How?”
“Ah. That is a simple matter. You need only want me, Jena, and I will come to you. I am not bound by man’s fences nor fettered by his puny charms of protection. No need of doors or keys, of spells or incantations. I will hear your call in the puls-ing of the blood, in the urgent hammering of the heart.” He stroked my cheek with the back of his hand; it sent a shiver through me.
“I’ve heard about your kind,” I whispered. “What reason would I possibly have to trust you?”
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Gogu had been getting increasingly agitated. Now he startled me by leaping from my pocket and hopping rapidly away to disappear into a clump of long grass. I realized to my alarm that we had walked some distance from the sward of Dancing Glade—much farther than our rules allowed. Under the dark oaks where we stood, all was shadowy and still. The colored lights were a dim glow, the magical music a dim buzzing.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “My frog! I must catch him—” I wrenched myself away and strode back toward the glade, led by a series of rustling noises in the undergrowth that seemed to mark Gogu’s progress.
Tadeusz’s voice followed me, soft and deep. “Do not leap to judge me on the basis of old wives’ tales. Live your life that way, and you are no better than an ignorant peasant, raised on the dirt of the fields. If you require proof of my good intentions, I will give it, Jena.”
I did not look back. My heart was racing and my brow was damp with cold sweat. What had I been thinking? Gogu moved faster and faster. I ran, and there was a curious sound of derision in my ears: not the full-throated laughter of Tadeusz, but the cackling of an old woman.
I was shocked to find, when I reached the glade again, that the dancing was nearing its end—folk were leaping about in a grand finale. In keeping with the strange quirks of time in the Other Kingdom, my conversation with Tadeusz had swallowed up half the night. Gogu was nowhere to be found; a search of the bushes by the path revealed nothing. I retraced my steps to Ileana’s throne. I looked under and over and all 124
around. I eyed the confusion of skipping, jumping, stamping feet on the sward, some bare, some shod. Tadeusz had returned to stand with his fellow Night People; disconcertingly, his gaze was still on me. I gathered up Stela and Paula. Neither had seen the frog.
“But Tati’s up there,” Paula said helpfully. “They’ve just been sitting there all night.”
Tati and Sorrow had found a little hollow near the edge of the sward, under a stand of leafless birches. Tati’s blue cloak was spread out on the grass, and she sat on it with her back against a pale trunk. Sorrow lay with his head in her lap. She was stroking his hair; he was holding her other hand. They didn’t seem to be talking.
“Go and tell her it’s time to leave,” I told my sisters. “I have to find Gogu.” He’d been trying to warn me; I knew it. He’d heard how I was being lulled and charmed by that insidious voice and had hopped off to lead me back to safety. Now I was safe, and he had vanished.
I went right around the sward, asking everyone I passed:
“Have you seen my frog?” Nobody had. I asked the creatures in the cloak-tree, and they chittered a negative as they dropped my things down to me, the winter boots narrowly missing my head. By the time I got back to my starting point I was crying, and my sisters and their escorts were all waiting for me.
“It’s nearly dawn,” Grigori said. “We must go.”
“I can’t go! I can’t leave Gogu!”
“He’ll be all right, Jena,” Stela said through a yawn. “He should be safe here until next time.”
“I’m not going! I can’t! I can’t leave him behind!” I heard the 125
shrill tone of my own voice, like a frightened child’s. Losing Gogu would be like losing a part of myself—like being ripped apart.
“We must go now,” said Anatolie gently.
“Come, Jena,” said Grigori. “You must leave your friend behind.”
“He probably belongs here anyway,” Iulia pointed out.
“Maybe it’s time to let him go.”
I slapped her. She stared at me a moment, eyes wide with shock, a red mark on her cheek. Then she turned her back and put her hands over her face; I could see her shoulders quivering.
Misery descended on me. I was going to have to leave him. If I didn’t go with them, my sisters couldn’t get home. Besides, I could hardly vanish from my own world for a whole month, even supposing I could get by without eating or drinking anything. That was impossible.
As I followed the others down to the lake, I pictured Gogu as I had first found him: alone in the forest, weak, hurt, frightened. He had been with me for more than nine years. He was used to living in the castle, and eating with us, and sleeping on my pillow. He had no idea at all how to look after himself in the wildwood, even supposing he wasn’t injured, or worse.
He’d get cold; he’d get hungry; he’d be terribly lonely. What if he wandered off and I never saw him again?
Iulia was crying. Paula and Stela were pale and silent. Tati walked hand in hand with Sorrow. They were holding on so tightly that their knuckles were white.
We reached the shore. One by one, my sisters got into their sledges and glided off over the ice. The sky had begun to 126
brighten. Dawn came late in this dark season; we had had a generous night of dancing. My heart was a lump of cold misery in my chest. I pictured the empty sward, after the revelers had departed—and my dearest friend lying there, heedlessly crushed in a desperate effort to find me.
“Jena.” Tati stood right next to me, with Sorrow just behind her. “I don’t want to go.”
A chill ran through me. “What? You have to go—we all do.”
“I really don’t want to go, Jena. I don’t know how I can manage a whole month over there. . . .” Her voice drifted into nothing. She turned and put her face against Sorrow’s chest and his hand came up to the back of her neck.
“I could stay and look for Gogu,” Tati said, her voice muf-fled by the black coat.
“You can’t,” I said, sniffing back more tears. Suddenly I was angry: angry with myself, that my stupidity in listening to Tadeusz had allowed this to happen, and angry that Tati would use my distress to try to win time for herself. “Remember, we can’t open the portal without you. You have to come, and I have to leave Gogu here. As for you”—I glared at Sorrow and saw his hand tighten against my sister’s neck—“you should think twice about what you’re doing. You don’t belong here, and I wish you would go away.”
I turned my back and climbed into the salamander sledge, my eyes blinded by tears. The gnomes struck up a dirge. I was scarcely aware of crossing the Deadwash, or of bidding Grigori a hasty farewell before the sledges sped back, racing the dawn’s first rays. My mind was full of Gogu: abandoned, bereft, shivering with cold and fright—or, worse still, lying dead somewhere—
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because I had allowed myself to lose sight of common sense. I’d never felt so miserable or so guilty in my life.
Tati stood on the shore with Sorrow. He was leaving his departure until perilously late.
“You’d better go,” she said, apparently trying to be strong.
An instant later she flung herself into his arms. He held her, his head bowed against her shoulder, his lips on the white neck exposed by her upswept hair. Then he detached himself, backing toward the sledge with his hand still in hers. They held on as he got in; they held on while the swan sledge began easing away from the bank, with Tati balanced precariously on the ice and Sorrow leaning out at a perilous angle. Then, all at once, the sledge sped off into the morning mist and the clasping hands were torn from each other.
We made our way through the Gallery of Beasts, whose occupants were no more than vague bundles up in the corners.
We climbed the long, long, winding stair.
“Hurry up, Jena!” called Paula. “Hurry up, Tati!”
I was last, walking behind Tati. I did not trust her to bring up the rear and not decide to bolt back down and go crashing away across the ice in search of her pale-faced sweetheart. Up, up, and up . . . I felt each step as a blow to the heart. At last we reached the portal. We stretched out our hands toward the stone wall—but I snatched mine away, without touching it. I had heard something. . . . I strained to catch it again. For a moment all was silence. Then it came once more, a little, weary thud from down the stairs. Plop . . . plop . . .
“Something’s coming up,” Stela whispered, turning as white as linen.
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Plop . . . plop . . . It was getting slower.
“Gogu?” My voice was reed-thin and quavering, an old woman’s. A moment later he came into sight, three steps down.
He was shaking with exhaustion, a rime of frost over his whole body. A big heaving sob burst out of me. I gathered him up and held him to my breast. He was so cold; his skin felt all hard and crackly, as if his damp body had begun to freeze solid. His eyes were half closed.
You left me. You left me b-b-behind.
“Put out your hand, Jena!” snapped Iulia. “It must be nearly sunrise—quick! We might get trapped in between worlds!”
I hardly heard her. A flood of tears was running down my cheeks. I hugged my frog close, trying to warm him against my body.
“Come on, Jena.” Tati had moved up next to me. Her eyes met mine, and some kind of forgiveness passed between us. We each set a hand against the wall. Our sisters placed their fingers beside ours. The portal opened and we went home to Piscul Dracului.
No water bowl this morning. I lay in bed with Gogu on my chest. I had rolled him in a woolen scarf after warming it on the little stove. Monumental shivers still passed through him. Beside us, Tati lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. I know you were trying to rescue me. I promise I’ll never leave you again.”
Gogu made no response, but the shivering began to die down and his eyes took on a brighter look.
“Anyway,” I whispered, “how did you get across the 129
Deadwash? You’re too scared to go anywhere near it by yourself. Did someone bring you?”
D-D-D- . . .
“Never mind,” I said. “You’re safe and we’re together again.
I don’t want to think about anything else right now.” I couldn’t stop crying. Maybe I was making up for all the times I had stayed calm and sorted out other people’s problems. How could I have been so foolish? I had let Tadeusz lull me into forgetting what was right. I’d made it all too easy for him. I must never, ever do that again. His words were still in my mind: the startling revelation that Dark of the Moon allowed a passage to the Other Kingdom; the news of another portal; the tantalizing reference to a way of looking into the future. . . . What if I could see Cezar’s future, and somehow use that knowledge to stop him from going through with his threats? What if I could see what would become of Tati and Sorrow? And what would I see for myself, or for Father? I tried to stop thinking about it, but the images filled my mind—images of what might be revealed to me if I only had the courage to look.
After a while I felt Gogu wriggle out of the scarf and hop up to the pillow. He snuggled close to my cheek. Don’t be sad, Jena. I’m here.
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Chapter Six
A heavy blanket of snow lay over the hillside, making the paths treacherous. The forest had a special beauty in winter: frozen waterfalls like delicate shawls; foliage shrouded in a glittering, rimy coating; blue-white snowdrifts revealing, here and there, a rich litter of darkened leaves in a thousand damp colors of brown and gray. The forlorn, peeping cry of a bird . . . neat imprints in the white, the tracks of a hungry wolf or wildcat. The bears would be sleeping, curled deep in their hollows. My breath made a big cloud as we went, Gogu’s a smaller one.
I’d found it hard to sleep and had headed out early for a walk. I hoped that exercise would clear my mind, which felt as if a dense fog had descended over it. It was all very well for me to lecture Tati about becoming involved with Sorrow. What I had done was almost worse: I had let one of the Night People lead me off the path and whisper his dangerous lies in my ears—and I had felt, just for a moment, the delicious, forbidden 131
sensation of considering what he had offered. In the cold light of the winter morning, I could not believe I had allowed it to happen.
I walked all the way down to the village. Behind the carved gates of each smallholding, cows lowed and chickens squawked. Here and there, a woman swathed in shawls and scarves could be seen on the muddy pathway, carrying a bucket or a bundle. A long cart loaded with logs passed by, pulled by a pair of heavy horses. Red tassels dangled from their bridles, a charm against evil spirits. The logs would be from Cezar’s plantation, and destined for Bra¸sov. I stopped by Judge Rinaldo’s house to offer his wife our regards. She invited me in for a glass of rosehip tea and expressed the hope that Aunt Bogdana would be ready for visitors soon. I did not tell her that even we had been told to stay away.
The village church stood on a little hill, its pointed wooden roof reaching toward heaven. I wavered outside, tempted to seek out Father Sandu, but not sure exactly what I wanted of him. I could not speak of Night People. I could have asked him to pray for Father’s recovery, but in the end I walked past, for it was early and I did not wish to disturb the priest without good reason. The shutters of his little house were closed fast. I headed back past Ivan’s place and his wife gave me a small pot of honey. I suspected that she could ill spare it, but it was impolite to refuse such a gift. Iulia would be happy, I thought—Tati or I could use this to bake something sweet.
