Juliet Marillier - Wildwood Dancing
Aunt Bogdana lifted a hand, and I halted in midsentence.
She sipped her coffee, her eyes thoughtful. Waiting, I gulped mine down. Daniela hastened to refill my cup. Gogu had escaped my pocket and was on my knee. He made a sudden leap, landing on the arm of Aunt Bogdana’s chair.
“Oh, I’m sorry—” I began.
“Not at all,” Aunt said absently. “Now, Jena, this is a matter of balancing what is right for you and your sisters with community expectations. It happens that an old friend of mine, a lady with extremely good connections, is staying near Bra¸sov over the winter and is likely to have a significant number of houseguests. I think it is possible we might do something, as long as it is kept sedate. The season being what it is, we cannot expect folk to travel far. And with this new threat, it will be necessary to offer guests a night’s accommodation at Piscul Dracului—nobody will be wanting to be outside after dusk.
You’ll need to clear out your storeroom. It’s the only place where you can entertain so many guests.”
“So many?” I had imagined we might put people in the formal dining room.
“Jena,” declared Aunt Bogdana, evidently warming to the challenge, “there’s no point in doing this if you don’t do it properly. While you cannot expect to find suitors in one evening, if folk see you at your best, they’ll talk. Word will get about, 162
even in winter, believe me. By springtime there will be invitations flooding in for you.”
She had astonished me. I realized I had been expecting a flat refusal. “You think the guests will come?” I asked her. “Even with the Night People in our forest?”
“We can only try, Jena. As long as movement in and out is by daylight, I think we can achieve something. You’ll all need new gowns. My seamstress should be able to do the job, with a little assistance. When did you plan to do this?”
“I thought maybe at next Full Moon.” I imagined explaining this to Tati. “If that allows sufficient time to organize everything. I’ll work hard, Aunt Bogdana.”
“This is quite a change of heart for you, Jena.” My aunt’s eyes were shrewd. “If anyone had asked me last summer whether I would ever persuade you to show interest in such activities, I’d have said I thought it an impossibility until you grew up a little. What has prompted this?” She had crumbled a dainty biscuit at the edge of her plate; Gogu was investigating.
I gave her as much of the truth as I could. “Uncle Nicolae’s death; my father’s illness. We do need to look ahead. And . . .
I do believe in what I said before, about giving the appearance of being strong and brave. I’m as much afraid of the Night People as anyone is. But I think this would be good for the village, especially if we get folk involved. I would need quite a bit of help getting things ready.” I wondered how I might approach the delicate question of payment.
“No dancing, of course,” Aunt Bogdana said. “That’s a shame, really. Nicolae did so love to dance, and I know he 163
wouldn’t mind, yet it would be inappropriate so soon after. . . .
But I think we could invite the village band, just for some quiet tunes in the background. The men could do with a few extra coppers to tide them over the winter. And we’ll ask the women to come up and help Florica with the supper. That way we do everyone a favor, and if they’re all together they will feel safer after dark.”
“Aunt,” I ventured, “I’m not sure whether Cezar will think this a good idea. He has all our funds at present. He’s approving our expenses one by one.”
Her brows shot up. “Really? He can hardly raise any objections to this, as long as it has my approval. Don’t worry about the cost, Jena. Nicolae would have been happy to do this for you. Think of it as his farewell gift.” Abruptly, her brisk manner turned to tears, and I got up to put my arm around her shoulders. “You’re a good girl, Jena,” my aunt said. “Perhaps a little unusual, like poor dear Teodor, but your heart is in the right place. I’m all right, my dear. This will give me something with which to occupy myself. We can start the guest list now.
Daniela, make a note of this, will you? Judge Rinaldo, of course, and his son Lucian . . .”
I had never seen Tati so angry. When I told her we weren’t going across at next Full Moon, at first she thought I was joking. Then, when she saw I meant it, she shouted at me. I had closed the bedchamber door; I’d warned the others to stay away. Tati paced up and down, using all the arguments she could think of, one by one. We couldn’t have a party now, she 164
insisted, it was too soon since Uncle Nicolae’s death. I told her that both Aunt Bogdana and Cezar had agreed to it, as long as we kept it sedate. Then she said, “But we always go. The others will be upset.”
“I’ve already told them, and they’ve accepted this. It makes perfect sense after what happened to Ivona. It’s logical for us to stay away until we know the valley is safe again.” I struggled to sound calm and controlled. I would not let her know the compulsion I felt to cross over at Dark of the Moon, to confront Tadeusz and make him understand that I did not want his help—not at such a cost. “And we don’t always go.
What about the times when one of us was ill or away from home? We’ve certainly missed a few over the years. Ileana and the others are unlikely to be upset if we don’t make an appearance. It’s not their way to trouble themselves about such things.”
“What about Sorrow? He’ll be upset. He’ll think I’m staying away because I believe he did it—that he’s capable of killing someone in cold blood. I must go, Jena. I must explain it to him!”
“He mightn’t even be there anymore,” I told her. “Ileana’s probably sent the Night People away by now. Their crimes must put her own people in danger. You weren’t there when Cezar and the others stormed out of Piscul Dracului with their pitchforks and crossbows.”
“Sorrow won’t go,” Tati declared. Her pale cheeks were flushed a hectic red; she looked as if she had a fever. “Not even if Ileana banishes them. He won’t leave me.”
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“This is stupid! You’ve only seen him a couple of times, Tati!
You know what it means for a human woman to ally herself with someone from the Other Kingdom. You’d go and you’d never be able to come back. You’d get older and he wouldn’t. One day you’d be an old woman, all wrinkles and toothless gums, and he’d still be a lovely young man. You’d never see any of us again.
Is that really what you want?”
“It might not be like that.” Her voice was very quiet. She bowed her head; her ebony hair hung down like silken curtains, shielding her face. “Stories don’t tell the whole truth.”
“It might be worse. If he’s one of the Night People, you might not last beyond a single bite.”
“Don’t say that, Jena!”
“I’m sorry. But it’s true. I’m not asking much. Only that you miss one Full Moon visit.”
“That’s not really all you’re asking, Jena.” Tati turned her big eyes on me; their expression was cool now. “Anyway, you aren’t asking, are you? You’re telling. I can’t go through the portal if you won’t help open it. What you really want is that I never see Sorrow again. You think the moment I get up and dance with some fellow Aunt Bogdana’s dredged up for me, I’ll forget all about him. Well, I won’t. And I won’t go to your stupid party. You don’t understand.”
She was right. Whatever Tati was feeling, it was something new to me, something I couldn’t comprehend: powerful, mysterious, and frightening. I began to wonder whether I had this all wrong—whether I had meddled in something I could not hope to control.
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“Tell me, then.” I sat down beside her on the bed. “It might help if I did understand.”
“You’re just trying to be nice to wheedle me into agreeing.”
“No, I’m not. I’m finding it hard to believe this has happened so quickly and made you change so much. I feel as if you’ve gone away from me—that I can’t rely on you anymore.”
“You know how you felt last time, when you lost Gogu?
When you really thought he’d been trampled to death, but you wouldn’t say so?”
I nodded, surprised that she had noticed: she had seemed entirely wrapped up in her own woes.
“Multiply that by a thousand, and you know how I feel when I think about never seeing Sorrow again. It’s the most awful feeling in the world—like having part of your heart torn away.”
“A thousand? Isn’t that rather extreme?” I thought the way I’d felt that night was about as wretched as I could possibly get. Gogu had been my constant companion—an unusual one, true, but no less loved for that—for more than nine years. She barely knew Sorrow.
“Well, after all, Gogu’s a frog. Sorrow is a man.”
It was just as well I’d left Gogu with Paula while I spoke to Tati. I was certain he’d have been offended by this, even though it was half true. “That’s the point, isn’t it? Sorrow isn’t a man. I want you to answer a question, Tati.”
“What?”
“Have you asked him straight out if he’s one of the Night People?”
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“We’ve talked about it, of course. He couldn’t tell me.”
“Couldn’t? What do you mean?”
“It’s something he can’t talk about. I don’t know why. It seems to be somehow forbidden. He wants to, but it’s not allowed. He seems so alone, Jena.”
“They’re all like that. Tadeusz said, ‘We all walk alone.’
Maybe Sorrow’s mother was a human woman.” I shivered. “A victim. Only instead of dying, like that girl, she changed into one of them.”
“He’s not at all like the other Night People, Jena. He’s so sweet and thoughtful.”
“Just a ploy to win your affections.” Sweet and thoughtful would work with Tati. For me, Tadeusz had held out the heady prospect of perception beyond my wildest imaginings.
He had flattered me, too, and I was forced to admit that I had liked that. His words of admiration had stirred something in me—they’d made me realize I would have liked to be a beauty.
Tadeusz had known how to tempt me, and Sorrow knew how to work his wiles on my sister.
“Tati,” I said, “what do you and Sorrow talk about? Do you actually have anything in common?”
Tati stared into space, smiling. “We talk about everything.
And nothing.”
“Everything. And you still can’t tell me what he is. How about his teeth? You’ve had a good chance to see those up close.
Are they like yours and mine?”
Tati hesitated.
“Well?”
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“Not exactly.” She spoke with some reluctance. “They are a little odd. He’s very self-conscious about it. But they’re not fangs.”
“Nor are Tadeusz’s teeth,” I said. “And he makes no secret of what he is.”
“Jena, I’m not just playing at this, you know, and neither is Sorrow. Do what you like. Have your party. Let Aunt Bogdana trot out her eligible young men. Bar me from Full Moon dancing. I’ll find Sorrow anyway, somehow. Or he’ll find me.
Whatever you do, we’ll be together. You can’t stop us.”
“Ileana can,” I said, chilled by my sister’s certainty. “If she banishes the Night People, you’ll have no way of finding him.”
“I will find him,” Tati said. “Wherever he goes, however far away she sends him, we’ll find each other.”
It was then that I noticed what she was wearing around her neck: a very fine cord, black in color—just a thread, really—
and on it, a tiny amulet that caught the light. I was certain I had never seen it before.
“What’s that?” I asked her, intrigued. Tati’s hand shot up to cover it. “Show me, Tati.”
Slowly she drew her fingers away, revealing the little charm, dark against her creamy skin—a piece of glass shaped like a teardrop, and red as blood.
“Did he give you this?” I hardly needed to ask. Such an item had Sorrow written all over it.
“We exchanged.”
“You exchanged? What did you give him?”
“My silver chain,” Tati said in a whisper.
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“Mother’s chain? You gave it away?” It had been a gift from our father to his sweetheart on the day she agreed to marry him.
It had never left Mother’s neck, until death took her from us. I suppose my horror sounded in my voice. Tati flinched away from me, but her eyes were steady.
“I’m the eldest,” my sister said. “It was mine to give.”
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Chapter Eight
My idea grew sudden wings and drew the whole community along in its wake. Aunt Bogdana worked behind the scenes.
Subtly, she made it evident that I was in charge, under her guiding hand, and that the purpose of the evening was to give heart to the valley in time of trouble. She bullied Cezar into releasing sufficient funds for an excellent supper: the band was hired and helpers recruited for the occasion. As my aunt had anticipated, the folk were all too willing to assist in return for a payment in coppers, fuel, or leftover food—provided that they were not expected to cross open ground between dusk and dawn.
Meanwhile, alongside the cleaning of chambers to accommodate our houseguests, the planning of a menu, and the dispatch of invitations, the grim work of hunting down the Night People went on. Cezar had assembled a ferocious-looking band of helpers for his nightly sorties. Many of them were men from 171
beyond our area. Petru had come back to tend to the farm, muttering one morning over breakfast that he’d had enough of hunting. We did not speak about the fences.
There had been no further word from Father; nothing even from Gabriel. I sat in the workroom with Gogu, staring at Father’s empty chair, wondering whether the whole idea for a Full Moon party had been a ghastly mistake. Was it conceived only to keep myself from the peril of wanting? Even one wrong thought might bring Tadeusz to me at Dark of the Moon: a wondrous temptation with a hideous price. That had been the most disturbing part of his invitation—the idea that simply wishing something to be, even for one unguarded moment, might make it happen. My instincts told me it was all wrong, yet I could not keep his voice out of my head.
I had a new concern as well. Cezar had moved himself into Piscul Dracului. He had ordered Florica to prepare Father’s bedchamber for him and to accommodate R˘azvan and Daniel, as well. It was far easier, he declared, to coordinate his hunting parties from here—and besides, he was worried about us. We needed men in the castle: strong protectors. Aunt Bogdana had a houseful of loyal servants. He thought she could do well enough without him.
“There’s no privacy, Gogu,” I said, crossing my arms on Father’s desk and laying down my head. “Everywhere I turn, there’s one of them in the way. And it’s making extra work for Florica, on top of the party. I want to write to Father again, but I can’t tell him a bunch of lies. And I can’t tell Father that Cezar’s gradually easing himself into his place, that the valley 172
