Sleeping Helena (20 page)

Helena suddenly found herself grateful for Hope’s steady presence. Hope had taught her so much without saying a word, though Helena was only now coming to see it. Love did not sit well with Helena, but it was an insistent guest and seemed determined to stay.

She put all thoughts of Hope out of her mind. Hope could not help her now. She made her way to the shore of the lake, the grounds left behind without further notice. She was too busy ordering her thoughts. The house had disoriented her, but the fresh air was restoring Helena’s balance. Louis was there and he was alive. Somehow he had to be woken. Helena needed answers, but only Katza had them. In this state, she did not see how she’d be able to rouse any one of them.

Helena did not think of Louis as another girl might. He was no handsome young man whose attention she desired. Instead, every bit of her rose up to his song, as though he was what all eight gifts craved and what she’d fed them so far was a morsel. The song was so sweet as to be sickening. She had to have him, had to make him her own. She looked up. The shore was before her.

There were waves on the lake, the first sign of movement she’d seen outside of the house. Her relief was overpowering. An old twisted tree grew beside the water. A wooden swing had been tied to one of its outstretched limbs. She wondered how it would feel to propel herself up and wing away like a bird. A silly thought, but she was weak and the seat looked inviting. She rested her legs; the ropes held her weight. Helena swung as the waves gently spread on the shore. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she was flying.

Air rushed past her face as she swung even higher. It was so good to feel something move alongside her; not one breath had stirred the air inside the house. She had no idea how much time had passed since she’d woken to find the mirror smashed around her, or if time had passed at all.

It had been a beautiful mirror—the only one privileged enough to remain in the house when Thekla had banned all the others—and then she had come along and destroyed it. She hadn’t meant to break it; remorse knocked on the door at the thought. Helena shook her head and pumped her legs even harder. She would not hear such thoughts. They were not of her, but despite her denial, remorse found a crevice in her heart and there it stayed.

She could have danced in the still night, or sang to the cloud-covered stars, or offered a simple smile were she at home. All would be resolved around her; it was a gift. Eight gifts, she thought, most of them useless now. Helena recalled the way Aunt Thekla’s face only softened when she heard music. Thekla must have given me music, she mused. The twins, of course, were of song and dance, and Zilli’s gift had to be grace. Ingeburg, witty and clever, must have given her intelligence.

That left Eva and Kitty, but which of the two had given her the gift of death?

She’d believed all along that Kitty’s gift had been life, which left Eva to have given her death. But that made no sense at all, not as she now understood it. The others had given something of themselves, but there was no hint of death in Eva. Kitty was the one who stank of that.

Helena brought the swing slowly to a halt. She had figured this out years ago but never made the connection. Life and death were inseparable. She turned eight parts around in her mind and inspected each one as best as she could. If Kitty’s gift was death, life went with it, which meant that Eva’s gift of life had been there all along
—
as had been Kitty’s. If that was the case, what did her aunts think they had been hiding? The lake before her offered no ready answer.

Helena’s mind worked in a fury. She was thrown back to those childish days when her eighth part had plagued her, and finding its name had been all that mattered. She remembered her face in the mirror. It could not now be denied that she was, in fact, complete—the difference in her was obvious. The new additions, those emotions that crept in through the door when she wasn’t paying attention, reminded her of their presence.

I am more than complete, she thought. The swing began to rock again as her legs pushed her back and forth of their own volition.

She let the swing’s movements lull her. She listened to the rustle of the rushes as they washed to and fro in the waves lapping the shore. As she watched the ripples on the water, a strange vision parted the fog in the center of the lake. A large, red swan pulled a boat with a prow made of golden filigree toward the shore. Helena’s stomach lurched, the swing twisted and she spun around. She clung to the coarse ropes as though they were her only tethers to sanity. There was a man at the helm, his bulk mantled in moonlight, standing as motionless as the guests at the party. A
V
of waves spread open behind the swan as it swept silently toward her across the water. The palms of her hands were scraped raw and her strength fled. Helena slid to the ground, ill and feverish, as her gifts began to shriek.

The grass was cool against Helena’s cheek. She watched from an angle as the little craft stopped at the shore. The swan flapped away from the water and the man climbed out of the boat. His boots filled her vision; they had no eyelets to count. He was dressed in kingly garb and bore himself proudly, despite the odd method of his arrival. The swan stretched its great wings and then settled and turned its head to the side. Its black eye looked directly at Helena. Her body violently reacted; she coughed and spit on the ground.

The man reached his hand out to Helena as she gazed up at him with reddened eyes. His smile somehow calmed her. She took his hand and felt strength flow through her body. She climbed to her feet with ease.

“You do not belong here,” he said.

“I could say the same about you.”

A burst of laughter erupted from him. “I live here, Helena, though you are correct. This is not my home.”

“How do you know my name?” Helena felt like her old self again, though her gifts were unusually silent and only moved listlessly inside her.

He answered her questions by asking another. “Do you know where you are?” He looked down on her kindly, a patient teacher in front of a potentially difficult student.

Helena wanted to say
beside the lake
, but somehow she could not bring herself to treat him as she had her tutors. He imposed his presence upon her as they never did and he expected an answer in honesty.

“No. Not really. I think I’ve gone back in time.” She had to admit it.

Maybe he could help her get out of this place, or knew how she could bring it to life.

The man smiled, but it was more of a child’s grin. “This is my land and I was king of it, but it is no land as you understand it.”

“You are mad.”

“So it is said.” He did not seem disturbed by her accusation.

Helena found something familiar about him; she checked her memory for clues. It could take time for less important things to surface from her vast store of knowledge, but she finally placed him and practically in her own garden.

“You’re Ludwig the Second,” she said. “I’ve seen pictures of you.”

The king nodded. “I am more the memory of Ludwig, but yes, that is my name.”

“Where am I?” She was unimpressed by royalty. If he had any answers, she wanted to know them.

“You have not gone back in time, as you think. You have entered into memory. Here time stands still.”

His words confused Helena. “Memory? Whose memory?”

“It belongs to a woman named Katza. I think you might know who I mean.”

“My aunt? How do you know Kitty?”

“I’ve known her many times over,” he said, which only confused Helena more. “She remembers what she will of me. I’ve been here for many long years.”

Helena did not like contradictions. “If time does not flow here, how can you measure it?”

“It is measured by Katza’s life.”

The stories were right; he was out of his mind. She didn’t have time for this. “How do we get out?”

“One of you must wake.”

“Wake?” Helena was not sleeping.

“You or Katza must wake into time. Both of you may not. You must make the choice that Katza cannot.”

She thought of the tomb-like house and the guests, trapped in both past and future, and of Louis, who was so close she could almost taste him. Helena’s forehead creased as she puzzled this out.

“If only one of us can wake, what happens to the other?”

That king said nothing as within Helena, death begged for satisfaction. Helena found herself suddenly unwilling to feed that particular gift. She did not like ultimatums, but suspected the king was right; she had no reason not to believe him. One of them must wake or none of them would, not even Louis.

She considered each of Kitty’s possible futures. Helena needed no special sight to predict what would happen should she awake in front of the mirror she had broken. She saw Thekla aiming the rifle, clear as glass, at Kitty, who would die within seconds of Thekla pulling the trigger. Helena saw, too, the cold body on the flagstones. Here and now Katza was already dead. She would not wake either way.

Helena considered her own possible future. Her return meant the death of the only woman who could help her restore Louis. How could she manage it without Kitty? And yet, here and now, Helena had not yet been born, though this was where Louis lived and was alive. There was no other option.

It seemed no choice at all, but Helena refused to settle. She was burning now. Her bones sang with power and she felt like a finely honed blade, sharp and deadly. She refused to live without Louis. It came to Helena, then, in the midst of the flames.

Aunt Kitty has a past.

Though Helena had seen Kitty dead on the flagstones, Helena knew Kitty had lived to a very old age. She must have woken at some point. Helena glanced over the lake, still dark and calm. The swan fluttered its feathers. Kitty wakes and then it comes to this, one hundred years later, and then I make the choice and she wakes again. This could have happened a million times over and none would be the wiser. Helena looked at Ludwig helplessly. Maybe that is what he meant when he said he’d been here for years. Everyone knows it
—
the past cannot be changed.

The king put his finger to his lips as if to silence her. “How did you come to be in this place?”

Helena revealed her suspicions. “I saw myself in a mirror. I fainted and woke up here.”

Ludwig gazed at her sadly and said nothing.

“I broke the mirror. Did I somehow enter her memory through it?”

“It would appear to be so.”

“What did she do to that mirror?”

“Katza did nothing but have you use it.”

Helena did not have to ask why. She remembered the letter. Kitty wanted to change the past and thought she had found a way to do it.

“I think she meant for me to be here.”

“No, she never does. Katza only means for you to look into the mirror. You are the vehicle through which she plans her own return. Somehow time stops and you arrive in her stead.”

One of us must wake.

It has happened before, Ludwig’s words proved it. What happens to Helena? Nothing, she said to herself, until I am born. And then I live for a while, and then I end up here. What kind of life is that?

No. I will have Louis. Aunt Kitty must not wake, nor does she deserve to. Anger at the old woman’s manipulations seared her.
The vehicle.
She spat upon the ground. The king coughed. The swan did not move.

The scent of fresh bread came on the wind. It reminded Helena of Hope, rolling out dough. Her mood shifted again. She missed Hope, she thought with surprise, and the comfort of the kitchen where Hope kept all in order.

That life, Helena realized upon slow reflection, was a motion Helena made, day after day, as she walked the halls of the house in endless circles. There was no joy in it. As she understood joy, it bunkered down inside her and made itself at home.

Stop, she said to herself. I don’t want any more parts. Eight is more than enough. Let me just use the gifts I was made with. The important thing here is Louis. The gifts were individually silent, but their need was somehow united. They all cried for Louis from the deep muscles of Helena’s heart.

If Katza wakes in the past, the past will repeat. Louis will die, and he was what Helena wanted. The past has repeated, she reminded herself. How could she possibly change it? A war of desires erupted. Louis’ life was what Kitty wanted, but Helena had to accept that in this, their wishes were one.

Helena darted a quick glance at the king. He was patiently waiting while the swan seemed to sleep at his side.

It all came down to Louis; she had to restore him to life. It was what Kitty wanted. It was what Helena wanted. If she had to guess, Helena would say it was what all of the sisters wanted. There must somehow be a way. Helena recalled the sad, dead lump on the flagstones as a slow but thrilling idea began to form.

Katza was dead on the flagstones. In order for everything following to happen, she had to come back to life.

I must have the power. It must be me who restores her.

And,
Helena thought with excitement,
if I can do it for her, I can do it for Louis.
Katza could stay dead on the flagstones forever, for all Helena cared. Helena would wake and Louis would live. Helena’s face turned red as blood rushed through her body. She grabbed Ludwig by his sleeves and began to dance around him. The swan fluffed out its feathers, startled, and then settled down again on the grass. The king let Helena have her moment. He’d seen it all before.

Into her frenzy a stray thought spun.

Unless Katza wakes now, I have no time to return to.

Her body stopped moving. She stared across the lake as though her answer lay under its waves.

This is why she makes the choice she does, time and time again. The only hope is for Katza to live and finally succeed in her own attempt to save Louis. There was nothing Helena could do but this. Katza must have the chance to keep Louis from dying and for that, Katza must live. Helena sighed and hung her head. Need filled her as the swan fell into her line of vision. Its calm eye gazed into hers blankly, too opaque to read. She doubled over and her knees hit the ground.