The Sisters of the Crescent Empress Read online

  Because she’s being very unfair! I only told her what I know and what I’ve been taught. But something in her tone makes me control mine. “Why?”

  Sibilia holds out for Elise the mint green box that once must have contained hard sugar candies, but much to her disappointment proved to hide only sewing supplies. We don’t talk with the guards in any case, not even with Captain Janlav, unless we absolutely must. But Elise does so out of her own will, and she might have learned something useful.

  Elise gingerly picks up a pin from the box and glances at Celestia. Her eyes turn steel gray as if she decided to go on regardless of whether or not our oldest sister is listening to us. “For the guards, joining the imperial army, signing their very lives to be the subject of our late mother’s whims, was the only way out to a better life. Imagine that, Merile, how wretched your life must be for you to willingly give it away in exchange for a few coins and a full belly. No, you can’t even imagine what a hard life our people, even children younger than you, lead in the distant corners of this vast empire.”

  I don’t know what to reply. She makes it sound as if being a soldier were a terrible fate. She also talks as if I were somehow very ignorant. Though that I’m not. I really am not.

  “It’s an honor to serve in the colors of the Moon,” Sibilia replies before I can. It’s a good thing she did so, because compared to her, I might have sounded just a little spiteful.

  “Honor?” Elise shakes her head, the movement enviably graceful. “Dear Sibs, you clearly have no idea how rough life is outside the palace grounds, how the empire treats its veterans!”

  “Tell us about the guards,” Sibilia says, completely missing the anger and urgency in Elise’s tone. It surprises me that Celestia has either chosen not to take part in this conversation or then she is too immersed in her own thoughts to really hear what we are talking about. We never really even broach these darker things when Alina and I are present.

  Elise speaks very fast, very quietly, as if she were suddenly pressed for time but simply had to get the words out, off her chest. “Before Boots had a name, he worked in a mine up in the north, deep underground, pushing carts of ore until he fell down from exhaustion, being whipped to push more even after that.”

  I can’t even think of her words, that’s how fast she speaks. I commit them to my memory, to ponder about them later, during the nights I shiver next to Alina despite my companions snoring between us.

  “Boy’s mother cried for joy when he enlisted in the army, though none of the men in his village that went to war ever returned. But she was relieved to see him go because the previous winter two of his sisters starved to death when their lord did not leave them enough of the harvest to last through the long, dark months.”

  Sibilia clicks her tongue, tasting the flavor of the stories. I don’t know what she makes of all this. Elise is saying such strange things.

  “And Tabard . . .” Elise swallows as if holding back tears, though that can’t be right. “Poor Tabard—”

  “Elise.” Celestia’s voice is mellow and soft, and yet it cuts like a soldier’s sword. “That is quite enough of such evocative tales. I agree we should not forget that the lower classes form the backbone of our empire. But neither should we dwell on the failures of a few personages.”

  Elise’s right brow arches as it always does when she’s about to disagree. But before she can say another word, the grandfather clock chimes three times. The swan on the pendulum paddles back and forth, neck straightened, beak tilted up for the silver song.

  A mere moment later, the door of the bedroom I share with Alina flings open and Rafa and Mufu burst out, wagging their tails, and I’m so happy to see them, though we were apart for mere hours. Oh, my lovely companions are so very pretty! Their furs positively shine from the dedicated care Aline and I have bestowed on them. We brush them from tail to top after every breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

  Alina darts to us. She leans over Elise’s shoulder, panting. Rafa and Mufu poke at our older sister’s hem with their glistening black noses. “Is it ready yet?”

  Elise’s expression draws blank as she reaches out for another pin. I realize the moment for darker truths is over, and we must pretend together that nothing else is going on than her trying to make my coat less hideous.

  “Oh my dear darlings,” I coo at Rafa and Mufu. Rafa stares at me with her big, chocolate brown eyes. Mufu sniffs my knees, her nose wonderfully wet. Both seem just a bit suspicious. “Of course I missed you! I missed you so much!”

  Elise shakes her head, but whether at me or at the abrupt end of the conversation, I have no idea. She rises up to her full height, and she’s tall. Not as tall as Celestia, but even so I reach only up to her chest. She takes a step back, and eyes me critically, head cocked to the right. Though sewing usually makes her happy, she doesn’t look that way now.

  “Well, will it take long?” Alina shifts her weight, wringing her hands as if she needed to use the pot-pot right at this instant. Though she’s old enough not to need help when it comes to that. She doesn’t look like she’s distraught, either. I’m not sure what’s going on. I need to find out what it is the soonest. My sister’s mind is weak, and nightmares pester her almost every night.

  The machine. She insists the gagargi intends to feed her soul to the Great Thinking Machine, no matter how I tell her again and again that there’s nothing to fear. I’ll keep her safe. Rafa and Mufu will keep her safe. Celestia would never allow anyone to harm her!

  “A moment more still,” Elise replies. She picks up from the table the slices of velvet that originated from the decorative pillows we brought with us from the train. She places them against my neck. She might be planning on creating a collar of sorts, but I can but bravely persist.

  I click my tongue again, and Rafa and Mufu rush to Alina. They think whatever she has in mind concerns them. Which distracts her, and off she goes with them, to play before the fireplace. Sibilia follows them to the divan there and picks up the book of scriptures. But she keeps on glancing at them from over the book’s edge. Worried. She’s worried about Alina, too.

  I want something else to think about than the gagargi and his horrid machine. But what could that be? There are days and nights when everything in this house that has fallen in disrepair reminds me of him!

  “Coats,” I whisper. Yes. That’s a better topic. “Why don’t we simply ask for coats? Or why don’t we ask mute Millie to sew them?”

  “Huh.” Elise lowers the piece of velvet back on the table as if she’d changed her mind about the collar after all. “It’s not polite to call people names.”

  I wasn’t calling Millie names, just pointing out the obvious. Maybe Elise is simply having one of those days that she has to know everything better. Maybe that’s what her earlier comments were all about. “‘Mute’ isn’t a bad word.”

  “And she isn’t mute!” Alina calls at us from before the fireplace, and then she’s already scampering up. She bounces back to me like a day-old foal. My companions yap at her, wonderful, high-pitched barks. Alina falls on her knees on the undusted carpet, and they roll onto their backs, to be scratched more. “She’s got her tongue still!”

  Celestia lifts up her right hand, a sign that we should talk no more. But the routines we followed aboard the train are broken. We’ve reached our destination. We’re where the gagargi wants us to be. The guards no longer rush to investigate every sound and shout. Which is a good thing.

  “And how under the Moon do you know that?” Sibilia asks. Her lazily combed red hair shines dully compared to Elise’s, even though she’s the one sitting before the fire.

  “I asked her to show it to me.” Alina looks a bit sheepish, and I can tell she’s lying and that my older sisters don’t notice that. Liar. Alina has grown to be a very good liar.

  Celestia and Elise merely look aghast, but Sibilia rolls her eyes at Alina. I fidget with my new coat’s front. Worn. The wool feels thin and worn and smells like imprisonment.

>   “Now, is it ready?” Alina asks, her brown eyes lit with excitement.

  I meet Elise’s gaze. My older sister shrugs, if you can call the elegant movement that. She can’t concentrate on her sewing anymore. “That it is not, but you can take it off now. Do go and play with Alina.”

  “Preferably in your room,” Sibilia adds. “With the door shut.”

  * * *

  The mirror. Sibilia’s silver hand mirror lies facedown on the gold-embroidered blanket Elise snatched from the sled. There’s something ominous in the way it glows in the light of the ceiling lamp, the one powered by an unreliable osprey soul.

  “Come,” Alina squeals as she jumps onto the bed we share. She roams on all fours across it, to sit with her back against the musty pillows. She pats the mattress, inviting both me and my dear companions to join her. “Up here!”

  Rafa and Mufu glance at me, corner teeth peeking out. Odd. I smell something odd in the room. It’s not the dank of a house kept cold for too long, only recently warmed, not the stink of cigarettes and frost that still clings to the embroidered blanket. No. It’s neither of those, but something thicker and sharper. Ever since we arrived at this house, Alina has been acting strange. Sure, she’s talked to herself—or to the shadows if you believe her claims—often enough in the past. But I’ve heard her talking as if someone were replying to her. That, along with this smell I can’t name, gives me chills.

  Mad. I’m not going mad, even though my sister is that already.

  “Up here, silly dogs.” Alina pats the blanket so hard it coughs dust. “Rafa, Mufu, there’s no need to be afraid!”

  Rafa and Mufu stay still, though I limp a step closer. The ankle I hurt months and months back still jolts. With the door closed, I can’t hear what our older sisters say in the drawing room and I don’t think they can hear what happens in this room either. I’m not sure if I prefer or detest that with Alina acting as she does. “What. Don’t be afraid of what exactly?”

  Alina gazes past me. That is, to my sides. But there’s nothing there, only a vanity desk with a cracked oval mirror and an armchair so worn that if you sit down on it, you need someone to pull you up from amidst the cushions. The dank smell—is it that of a cellar? I’ve never been in one and hope to never visit one—intensifies. Maybe I should call for Celestia or Elise. Definitely not Sibilia, because she teases me already more than is fair! Elise might be upset for one reason or another. And Celestia is occupied by . . . I don’t know what she’s doing. Now that I think of it, she seems intent on running her fingers over every wall and panel of the drawing room.

  “Alina, it’s all right to tell me,” I say, and still the mirror glints facedown on the blanket, Rafa and Mufu refuse to move. “Tell me what it is!”

  Alina stares at the mirror as if tempted to flip it around.

  “I can’t. I can’t. You’re older than me.” Her lower lip trembles, but at least she isn’t crying. I bet that if she were to burst into tears once more, Elise and Sibilia would find a way to blame me for that, too. They’ve always been like that, pulling the same rope. “I can’t tell you. They forbid it. But I can show you.”

  What should I do? What can I do? I sigh, and then I climb onto the bed, to her left side, with Sibilia’s mirror remaining between us. It’s after all just a mirror, not a rifle or a knife that Alina could hurt either me or herself with.

  “Will you ask Rafa and Mufu to join us, too?”

  I realize only then that my companions didn’t trail after me. Mufu whimpers, black tail pulled between her hind legs. Rafa growls, floppy brown ears pulled back, teeth bared. I pat the blanket, and still they don’t jump up.

  “Oh, they’re silly.” I attempt a laugh, but I’m not exactly amused. Rafa and Mufu never disobey me. “Cold. Then, stay there on the cold floor. Yes. Cruelly on the cold floor.”

  They lie down and hide their heads under their crossed paws. What under the Moon is going on? I nudge Alina with my elbow. “Well?”

  My little sister flicks the mirror over.

  At first, I see nothing else but the reflection of the flaking ceiling plastering and the chipped dome of the osprey soul lamp. I can also see my face, and it’s a pretty face. The winter hasn’t paled me, and my black hair is as gorgeously wild as ever.

  “Well?” I ask, relieved, but also annoyed. As usual, Alina was just imagining things. I should have known better than to let her lure me into believing her.

  “You can show yourself now,” Alina says.

  A heartbeat later, two women lean toward us, their faces reflected in the mirror. They’re not exactly old, but weary beyond any age, I guess. And there’s something familiar in their bold faces and bolder gazes. The scent of the root cellar grows almost unbearable, and it has a vicious edge to it now. A bitter scent of . . . betrayal. Though I don’t know where that thought came from.

  “Merile,” Alina says, and her voice doesn’t tremble at all. “Meet Irina”—she nods at the woman on the left—“and Olesia.”

  I sit there frozen, with my back against the pillows. What is this that I’m seeing? It can’t be real. Really, it can’t.

  I yank my gaze up, frantically glancing at my left and right. There’s no one there. Rafa and Mufu spring up, leap to the door, nails scratching the floor. Their eyes bulge with fear. They whine heart-wrenching short whimpers. If I weren’t almost twelve, I’d run to them and out of the room. But because I am, I mustn’t be afraid, not even if we’re in the presence of ghosts.

  “Well?” Alina whispers, anxious to hear what I think.

  I peek again at the mirror, just to be sure. The women stare back at me, unblinking. Their gray-white hair is gathered atop their heads in onionlike buns. Their faces are graying, too. Their gray dresses have puffy sleeves and multilayered lace fronts. Gray. No, they’re not gray all over but . . . “They’re fading.”

  The two women smile at me, but it’s a cruel and calculating look that chills me to the core. Does Alina not see that? No, she doesn’t, because she’s still so young and gullible.

  “Out.” I prod the mirror facedown with my forefinger, for I don’t really want to touch ghost-things. I grab Alina’s arm. “Let’s go out. Now.”

  Despite Alina’s weak protests, I haul her with me onto the floor. Rafa and Mufu rush to me, to flank us as if they were guards assigned to protect us. My dear, darling companions!

  “Why?” Alina squirms, trying to break free from my hold. “You didn’t even listen to what they have to say! You won’t believe how long it took me to get them to agree to meet you!”

  Of all things! I prod her toward the door. “Rafa and Mufu . . . Rafa and Mufu need to pee. That’s why.”

  * * *

  Dying. The day is already dying when Rafa and Mufu leap through the snowbanks, sending white clouds up in the crisp air. I run after them, though my fur-trimmed cloak flaps against my sides like floppy wings. Though we’re allowed out only in the garden, after the weeks in the train my companions cherish every outing.

  “Wait, Merile,” Alina calls after me. “Wait!”

  I don’t. I’m not like her. I don’t see shadows. I don’t want to see ghosts. I need to get as far away as possible from both her and the house, from everything that’s not how it should be.

  Soon, I’m but steps away from the barren rosebushes framing the stone steps that lead down to the orchard and the lake beyond. Snow floods my sabots, chafes my ankles and toes, but I don’t care. I have much bigger worries.

  “Rafa, Mufu,” Alina pleads with my companions. And being soft-hearted sillies, they stop. They keep trotting in place, though. Despite their coats, they’re freezing.

  “You want to wait for her?” I ask, annoyed that they’ve decided to side with Alina and not with me. No one ever sides with me these days!

  My companions look anxiously at the house, at Alina. I realize they did sense the ghosts, and they’re definitely not mad. Well then, I’m not mad either! “Fine then.”

  Alina scampers the rest of
the way to us, her ugly gray coat open, her bootlaces undone. Frailer. Somehow, she’s smaller and frailer each day, though she’s the one who should be growing. It hurts to look at her, and so I look past her.

  The house the color of a bruised peach looms behind my sister. Snow covers the black roof and makes the white sills even more so. Tabard smokes on the porch, his makeshift cloak barely shifting in the lazy wind. He’s not alone for long. Elise and Captain Janlav join him. Neither our older sisters nor the guards ever let us out of their sight for long.

  “Merile, the ghosts . . .” Icky yellow snot runs down Alina’s thin lips. She sniffs, but it’s too late. She brushes her nose on her sleeve.

  “Later.” I nod toward the porch. Our voices might still carry over. “And aren’t you cold?”

  Alina glances down at her open coat. She’s wearing her woolen dress, but nothing else to keep her warm. Snow clots her hem up to her knees. “Yes. A little. Maybe.”

  “Let me,” I say, swiftly buttoning her coat. My dear little sister, when she gets distraught, she forgets to take care of herself. I don’t know what would happen to her if she didn’t have us older sisters looking after her. “And if you don’t tie the laces, you’ll trip on those icy steps. Here, I’ll do it for you, but just this once. All right?”

  But once I’m done, it’s darker already. The sky above the frozen lake is bleak blue and dull yellow. The garden walls cast shadows over the untended orchard. The iron gate has never looked as rigid, the stone steps leading down there as treacherous.

  “Maybe we’ll take another path?” Alina offers as if reading my thoughts.

  “Yes,” I whisper. We’ll walk a bit along one of the other trails leading down. There’s no reason to go all the way to the gate. We just need to find a place where we can talk.

  We stroll in silence on the path that winds down the left side of the slope. The crisp snow cracks under our feet and my companions’ paws. A bird of some sort croaks and cackles. The barren oaks and maples rustle, their shadows taller with each moment. I hold on to Alina’s hand. I need to know what my sister knows, even if it means walking deeper into the darkness.