Wildwood Dancing (28 page)

“All right. As long as we go across at next Full Moon.”

“I think,” I said grimly, “that’s going to depend on Cezar. Good night, Tati. Sweet dreams, Gogu.” I did not tell my sister
how much Sorrow’s leap from the wall had troubled me; how it seemed to me that if he could do that, he was no longer so different from the folk who had captured him as a child. I wondered what they ate in the realm of the Night People, he and his poor sister. I fell asleep with dark images in my mind. My dreams were a chaotic jumble of angry voices and violent hands.

Cezar didn’t say a word about what had happened. In fact, he seemed to be on his best behavior with all of us. Still, I was suspicious. It wasn’t like Cezar to forgive and forget.

The conduct of the business had been taken right out of my hands. Cezar claimed Father’s desk and told me, politely enough, that for the rest of winter there would be no figures for me to reconcile since his own people at Vǎrful cu Negurǎ would deal with everything. In short, there was nothing for me to do, and no reason for me to be in the workroom. He didn’t actually say this last part, perhaps knowing the explosion it would generate, but he made the message clear.

I protested, but not for long. To tell the truth, after the night of our party, I could hardly bear to talk to my cousin. I was finding it hard to sleep. When I did, my dreams were tangled and distressing. I’d be dancing with a young man: not Cezar, or the odious Vlad of the frog experiments, or any of the folk from Ileana’s glade, but a man with green eyes and unkempt dark hair, who held me firmly but gently and smiled his funny smile as he looked at me. I’d feel radiant with happiness, full of a contentment I had never known before, not even on the most thrilling of all our nights of Full Moon dancing. Then the man would bend his head to say something—perhaps
Trust me, Jena
—and
his face would change to the grotesquely ugly thing I had seen in Drǎguţa’s mirror. Around me, the bright chamber would fade away. The light would become livid, green and purple, and sounds of screaming would fill my ears. My partner’s sweet smile would become a grimace—all long, sharp teeth and pale, flicking tongue. I would wake up covered in cold sweat, my heart racing in terror. Sometimes I shouted and woke my sisters. Sometimes my dream was different: in this one, I was chasing Tati through the forest as someone led her away. Whether it was Sorrow or Tadeusz I could not see. I ran and ran, and the harder I tried the farther ahead they moved, until they reached a cliff top looking out over a great ravine filled with mist.
Jump
, said the man, and as I tried to reach her, my sister leaped out to be swallowed up by the vapor.

I kept these dreams to myself, but the memory of them was with me even in waking hours. To keep the nightmares at bay, I tried to make plans. I must get a letter to Father somehow, without Cezar knowing. A truthful letter, perhaps addressed to Gabriel, in which I set out what I could about our problems and let them know how badly we needed help. Who would take it? The snow still lay in heavy drifts, piled up against walls, blanketing roofs, burdening trees. Winters were long in the Carpathians. A possible solution presented itself—but I did not write the letter, not yet. Cezar had a habit of reading anything left lying around.

The days passed. The young men helped Petru with the farm chores, which was a good thing. They also accompanied us girls anywhere we went outside the castle, which was not
so good. Cezar had tightened his watchfulness, and it became near-impossible for any of us to slip away for a solitary walk. I spent a lot of time in the tower room, a favorite haunt for me and Gogu. Piscul Dracului was full of nooks and crannies. I liked the notion that however long we lived here, there would always be new ones to discover. This particular tower had seven arched windows with views out over snowy woodland, and the ceiling was blue, with stars on it. A long time ago I had brought an old fur rug up here and a pile of threadbare cushions.

I was lying on my back on the rug, looking up at the painted stars and doing my best not to think of our problems. Gogu was perched on my midriff, unusually still.

“We’re not going to talk about anything bad today, Gogu,” I told him. “We’re going to discuss only things we like. You start.”

It was your idea. You start
.

“Paddling in the stream in springtime,” I said. “Making pancakes. The smell of a wood fire. The sound of a waterfall.”

Gogu made no response.

“Come on,” I said, a little disheartened. “You must be able to think of one good thing.”

Sleeping on our pillow, side by side
.

“Mmm-hm.” His choice surprised me. “If I go a long way back, my memory’s full of good things. We used to fill up the day with adventures. Skating in winter—not on the Deadwash, of course—and swimming in summer, though we weren’t actually supposed to, not when we were playing with Costi
and Cezar. Aunt Bogdana had the idea that it wasn’t appropriate for boys and girls to strip off their clothes and swim together, even though we were only little.”

She thought you’d catch cold
.

“How could you know that? I bet you weren’t even born then.”

No response.

“Actually,” I told him, “you’re probably right. Aunt Bogdana adored Costi. I suppose I was lucky she let him out to play at all.”

Green
.

“What?”

Nice things. Green is nice. Your green gown with the deep pocket
.

I smiled and stroked his back with my finger. “Gogu,” I asked him, “do you think I’ve been unfair to Cezar? He was all right as a little boy. But he’s grown up so obnoxious and so sure of himself and … well, I am actually quite scared of him. He’s so much bigger and stronger than any of us, and people don’t stand up to him when they should.”

A pause, then:
I thought we were only talking about things we like. Your brown hair, so soft—lovely to hide in
.

“Hmm,” I murmured, surprised again. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this description, which would have been apt for a favorite bit of undergrowth. “Father coming home. That’ll be the best thing of all. Father coming home fit and well—and
soon
.”

True love
.

I lifted my head off the musty cushion and stared at him. “True love is looking less and less likely, if it’s my future you’re
talking about,” I said. “Or do you mean Tati and Sorrow? That’s not a good thing—it’s a disaster waiting to happen. We weren’t meant to be talking about that.”

True love is the best thing. It’s the thing that makes troubles go away
.

“Even for frogs?” I couldn’t help asking.

Gogu’s eyes closed to slits, and he went silent on me.

“Gogu, I was joking,” I said, sitting up and, in the process, dislodging him onto the fur rug. “I know you’re not an ordinary frog. It’s just that …”

He hopped off the rug and concealed himself somewhere on the elaborate mosaic floor, which was patterned with tiny dragons. In the muted blues and greens and grays of the tiling, I could see nothing of him.

“Gogu,” I said, “come out, please. There’s enough trouble right now without you and me getting cross with each other. If I upset you, I’m sorry.”

Not a twitch.

“Gogu,” I said, kneeling on the tiles and waiting for him to move so I could pounce, “if you would tell me what you are and where you come from, it might make things between us far easier. You’ve never said. You’ve never given me even the tiniest clue. We’re supposed to trust each other better than anyone, aren’t we? Surely it would be easy enough just to
say
. I always tell
you
the truth.” I realized that this was no longer accurate: I had not told him much at all about my visit to Tadeusz’s dark revels. I had not told him about the young man in the mirror, or about what Anastasia had said to me. He’d been too upset and too angry with me to hear it. As for what he
really was, I had long ago given up trying to guess. To me he was simply Gogu, and perfect just as he was. It was a shame he was increasingly unhappy with that. “If you don’t like it when I treat you as a frog,” I went on, “maybe you should be honest with me and tell me exactly what you are.”

He made no appearance. His mind remained shut tight against me. Gogu was expert at camouflage. It took a hammering at the door to startle him into moving; I picked him up, my heart thumping, and went to open it. Paula was standing outside, her expression anxious.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said. “I know you probably came up here to be by yourself. But Florica’s crying. I know Cezar’s been asking her questions. She’s really upset, Jena. I heard her say something about leaving Piscul Dracului. I think you’d better come.”

In the kitchen, Florica was shaping rolls on the table while Stela made little dogs and gnomes and trees out of the scraps. Our housekeeper’s distress was obvious. Her eyes were red and swollen and she would not look up at me, even when I spoke to her by name. As she lifted a roll from the table to the tray, I could see her hands shaking. Iulia, who was feeding wood into the stove, gave me a meaningful look as I came in. They were all expecting me to put things right. It was alarming that my family still had such faith in my ability to solve problems—thus far, I had been a woeful failure.

“Florica,” I said, coming over to sit at the table, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Mistress Jenica.” The formality of this address told me that something was badly amiss.

“Come on, Florica, tell me. You’ve been crying. It
is
something.”

Florica muttered a few words about not getting us into trouble and not making things any worse. A moment later she sat down abruptly, her shoulders shaking.

“He said …”

“What, Florica?”

“Master Cezar’s been asking questions around the valley—trying to find out about things so he can go ahead with these plans of his. Someone mentioned Full Moon to him, Jena—told him that was a time when barriers were open. He’s taken it into his head that you and Mistress Tati know something you’re not telling him.”

“Why would this upset you so much, Florica?” I had taken over the task of forming the dough into rolls while Iulia had started brewing tea. Stela put a small arm around Florica’s shoulders.

“He said if we didn’t tell him everything we knew, he’d see that we lost our places here. He said we were too old to work. I’ve been here since I was fifteen, Mistress Jena. Petru’s been in the valley even longer. We’ve given good service all our lives. Piscul Dracului is our home. And Ivan has enough mouths to feed already—we can’t expect him to take us in as well. Master Cezar wouldn’t really send us away, would he?”

“Father’s still the head of this household,” I told her firmly. “You know he’d never send you or Petru away. You belong here. Florica, if you’ve told Cezar something, you’d better let us know what it was.”

“He asked about Full Moon: whether you went out at
night, whether there had been folk hanging about in the woods, odd folk. I said no, that Full Moon was a night when you girls kept to your bedchamber, and that there was never a peep out of you, although you always seemed tired the next morning. I shouldn’t have told him that. I could see the look on his face. He’s going to use it against you—against all of us. Such men have no understanding of the old things.”

“Florica?” asked Paula in a whisper. “You know, don’t you?”

“Hush,” I said quickly, seeing the look on our housekeeper’s face, a look of sheer terror. “We won’t speak of that. Florica, what’s done is done: don’t feel guilty about it. If there’s anyone who should feel guilty it’s Cezar, for browbeating you like that. Tell Petru that if Cezar tries to make you leave, it’ll be over my dead body.”

“You’re only a young thing, Jena. How can you do it? If your father never comes back—”

“He will come back.” I had seen Stela’s face. “He’s just not sending letters, because of the winter. In springtime everything will be back to normal. And I will stop Cezar from doing what he threatened. He can’t send you away. It’s not right.”

I went straight to find Cezar, knowing that the longer I delayed the confrontation, the harder it was going to be. He was in Father’s workroom, but he did not seem to be doing anything in particular. He was simply sitting at the desk, brooding. I could not look at him without remembering that kiss—and before I had even begun to speak, I was afraid.

“Jena,” Cezar said coolly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Pleasure? Not for us
. Gogu was sitting on my shoulder. Not wanting to draw undue attention to him, I left him there.

“I need to ask you about something, Cezar.”

“Sit down, Jena. What is it?” There was a little smile on his face, as if he had a secret.

“I’ve just spoken to Florica. She and Petru say you threatened to turn them out of Piscul Dracului if they didn’t answer your questions—questions about me and my sisters. Is that true?”

Cezar leaned back in his chair, arms folded, eyes on my face. “You need younger staff here,” he said mildly. “No wonder you got into such difficulty this winter. I know girls are softhearted and become attached to their old servants, but really, Jena, those two are long past being useful to you. They should be retired, like worn-out horses put to pasture. Don’t look like that; it’s a perfectly practical suggestion. They’ve a grandson in the settlement, haven’t they? Let their own provide for them.”

“If it
is
only a suggestion, not an order, that’s all right,” I said. “Florica and Petru are part of our family. They’re not going anywhere—not while I’m in charge here.”

He looked at me as if waiting for me to realize that I was speaking nonsense.

“Do I need to tell you again that my father has not died, and that he asked me and Tati to oversee things at Piscul Dracului until he came back?” I tried to keep my voice calm. “You don’t seem to have recognized that yet, Cezar. Nobody asked you to take over the funds. Nobody asked you to move in here. Nobody asked you to ban me from having anything to do with the
business. And nobody asked you to browbeat Florica and Petru. If you have questions about Full Moon, I’m the one you need to speak to. Leave the others alone.”