The Sisters of the Crescent Empress Read online

  Soul and shadow. A person becomes a ghost when both their soul and shadow remain behind to sort out unfinished business. What caused these ghosts, Irina and Olesia, to decide to linger? Why are they being nice to Alina and attempting to be nice to me? What do they want from us? Why did Alina say it took her a long time to get them to agree to meet with me? As if we didn’t have enough worries of our own already! Thinking of the things Elise said makes my head ache!

  The path turns to the right, and we enter the orchard. My eyes have grown accustomed to the dimmer light, and though the garden wall is high and its shadow thick, I’m no longer that confused or nervous. Not even when I hear the croak. For it’s but a magpie sitting on a branch of the hollow apple tree, right by the gate as black as true night.

  “The white-sided one,” I say, even as Rafa and Mufu pause. They lift their forepaws at the exact same moment. They want to give the bird a chase.

  I smile despite myself. My companions are getting plump from lack of exercise. Soon they’ll be as round as Sibilia once was. There would be more to cuddle then, but lifting them would become tricky. “Go!”

  Alina and I admire them running, a brown and a gray arrow, a flurry of legs and tails. I have to remind myself we came down here for a reason. Alina must tell me everything she knows about the ghosts, for I don’t trust for even a moment that they’d have our best interests in mind.

  I’m just about to demand that Alina do so, when something even stranger happens. Rafa and Mufu skid to a halt by the tree, barking. The magpie takes to the air, the white-striped wings spreading wide, the mighty black tail straightening. It swoops toward my companions—no, back toward the apple tree—and between two eyeblinks, it simply disappears.

  And then, a hunched shadow of a woman steps out of the hollow trunk.

  “A ghost,” I gasp.

  Alina giggles. “No, she’s not!”

  Where my companions refused to approach the ghosts, they’re not afraid of this woman in black who appeared seemingly out of nowhere. They bounce to her, heads bent low, ears pulled back in joy as if she were a trusted neighbor. And maybe she is something akin to that. “Can that be the Witch at the End of the Lane?”

  “Yes!” Alina nods vigorously, and if I weren’t holding on to her hand, she’d run to the witch at once.

  “Unexpected.” This is unexpected. Though I can’t remember much of our visit to the witch’s cottage, Celestia, Elise, and Sibilia all insist that the witch helped Alina when she was ill. I’m more prone to believe them than her. Or at least Celestia, because she never jokes.

  “Let’s go and greet her.” Alina tugs toward the witch and my companions.

  The witch must have heard her, because she turns to wave at us. Her black robes shift, not with the wind or because of her movement, but on their own. Rafa and Mufu poke at her hem, curious of the very same thing.

  Should we? I glance over my shoulder, toward the house. Elise and Captain Janlav huddle at the top of the stone steps. They’re not really looking at us, rather at what passes for the sunset here. They talk in low voices, immersed in some topic of their own. I don’t think they have noticed the witch. It’s quite dark already. “Fine.”

  But it’s Alina who leads the way, pulling me behind her. And when we reach the witch, my sister speaks before I have the chance. “What are you doing here?”

  The witch cackles. Though she’s not much taller than me, she seems much more so as she leans toward us, watching us—no, our feet—down her beaky nose. Her breathing, it doesn’t form clouds like ours do, and her pupils are white as if she were blind. Which makes her next words even more peculiar. “Me come see you.”

  Rafa and Mufu fall completely still. They don’t even shift weight, though the ground must still chill their paws. Stop. It’s as if the witch could make time stop for them. I wonder if this is why I can’t remember much of her cottage. That would be unfair, for her to have that much power.

  “Why?” I ask because I really don’t know that much about the witch and her motives. People don’t visit these Moon-forgotten lands without a very good reason. And I don’t think anyone would come here voluntarily. Even Captain Ansalov and his soldiers left as soon as they could, and of that I’m very glad indeed.

  The witch shrugs. Her bundled gray hair and layered dress shift as if she were caught in between two gusts that don’t know which way to blow. The dress is made of something gray-black and see-through, and yet she doesn’t seem to be suffering from the cold like I do. Which is also unfair. “When me help, me take interest.”

  Allies. My sisters and I don’t exactly have that many allies left, not with Celestia’s previous plan going wrong and her seed being left behind at that desolate town to face the consequences. My seed. I don’t know what has become of my seed, whom I miss so very much! Celestia says we have to do with what we have. Since the witch is here now, I might as well let her help us. For I can’t tell my older sisters about what I saw earlier today or they’ll think me as mad as Alina is. “There’s ghosts in the house.”

  “Ghosts.” The witch cranes her head toward the hill and the house. She sucks in the air, her pale blue lips pressing tight against her parted teeth. Smell. Can she smell the root cellar and old perfume? “Good? Bad?”

  Alina gushes in, “Good, of course! They’re very nice old ladies!”

  I think of their hungry eyes, Alina keeping them secret from everyone for who knows how long. “I’m not at all sure about that.”

  “Wise,” the witch replies. Her nostrils flare wide. “Trust no ghost. Trust me.”

  Which is a kind of foolish thing for her to say. I glance over my shoulder again. Elise and Captain Janlav seem to be arguing whether or not to descend the steps. Regardless of what they decide, there can’t be much time to talk with the witch before they’ll hear us.

  “Why are you really here?” I ask.

  “Moon, me, friends,” the witch replies, meeting my eyes with her white gaze. Truth. I think she’s telling the truth, but there’s no way to be sure before Papa rises to the sky. “Come summer, you flee.”

  For a moment, my heart pounds so hard that I can’t form a single word, let alone a sentence. I often dream of leaving the house for good, but since we have no horses and Captain Ansalov’s hounds have our scent, even Celestia hasn’t been able to come up with a plan. Or if she has, she hasn’t shared it with us. Which would be so typical of her.

  “How?” I ask, squeezing Alina’s hand. Things that sound too good are usually not what they seem.

  The witch smiles, blue lips drawing back. Her teeth are big, barely fitting in her mouth. “Me help.”

  Can I, should I trust the witch? It wouldn’t hurt to know more. Up in the sky, the faintest round shape yellows in the horizon. Can Papa already see us? Would the witch dare to lie in his presence?

  But before I can ask the witch for more details, Elise’s voice carries through what may now be called night. “Alina, Merile!”

  I dare not to move. Has my sister glimpsed the witch? Or did she hear us talking with her? Or even worse, did Captain Janlav notice her? That wouldn’t be good. I force myself to merely glance at my sister’s direction, rather than to spin around as if I were indeed doing something forbidden.

  “Come inside, will you?” Elise waves at us, clinging to Captain Janlav for balance, halfway down the stone steps. I realize she doesn’t want to descend the rest of the way any more than I want to return to the house when I still have so many questions left to ask both the witch and Alina.

  “Soon,” I call back at Elise, then turn back toward the witch.

  But there’s no sign of her anywhere. If you don’t count the lonely magpie perched on the gnarliest branch of the old apple tree.

  Chapter 3: Sibilia

  No, Scribs, I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet, in any case, and not before I understand what happened today. As if I didn’t have enough things to worry about already . . . What things, you might ask. Seriously, Scribs, you’re a
book of scriptures! There’s absolutely no excuse for you to always act so dumb!

  There’s only four months exact left before my debut. We’ve huddled in this house for almost four weeks already, and it seems to me that we’ll be here for many more not-so-splendid months to come. If we haven’t left this house by the end of the last spring week, we won’t make it back to the Summer Palace in time for the ceremony. Though I don’t know if there’s anything left of the city to return to, if the gagargi ordered the palaces torn down, if the people who once filled them fled or if they stayed and chose to serve him instead. Perhaps nothing changed or only very little did. Something as grand and glorious as our home can’t simply cease to be, coup or no coup.

  Spilled ink. Can’t be bothered to even try and wipe it. I should get on with it, shouldn’t I? Even though Celestia found me a new pen while rummaging through the rooms, there probably aren’t that many more simply lying around.

  Very well, then. Here goes.

  This morning, as is our routine, after the breakfast we lingered in the drawing room. Celestia and Elise stylished our coats by the oval table, though I don’t know if any amount of velvet ribbons (also known as former pillowcases) or decorative stitching (we’ll have to do with stars, as Celestia forbade crescent motifs) will ever transform them into anything else than tortured blankets. I didn’t offer my help because, to be entirely honest, I absolutely loathe everything that has to do with altering yarn or fabric with any sort of shape of wood or metal. Yes, this includes crocheting, knitting, and the apparently most-beloved pastime of all highborn ladies: embroidery. Though Celestia and Elise are bound to run out of things to stitch soon. I’m thinking, if reporting to you keeps me sane, what will my sisters do once they’re ready with the coats? At times we’re already at each other’s throats! There are moments when I seriously think of strangling Merile, especially when she becomes obsessed with repeating everything she can recall of Nurse Nookes’s lectures.

  No, I would never really hurt any of my sisters. Not even Merile. Note: pinching her or tugging her hair doesn’t count. Applied in right measures, it keeps her properly in tow.

  Yes. I’m prattling. Putting off the inevitable. How observant of you, Scribs. But I have way too much time on my hands. If I were to write in a short and compact form of all that came to pass today, I would then have nothing else to do. Apart from reading the scriptures and dreaming of K. Though I don’t want to write about K now. It might be that I won’t see him ever again, and that would be the MOST HORRIBLE THING, worse than the gagargi betraying Mama and . . .

  Let’s not go down that path. Also, let’s not think about K (but please feel free to refer to pages 1, 3–4, 7–9, 12–17, etc. for a reference of what those thoughts might entail). Huh, a terrible thought just occurred to me. If anyone ever gets their hands on your pages, I will die of shame.

  I don’t want to think about that either. Onward to yet another topic.

  Consider this when you get a chance, Scribs: we’re stranded in a house in the middle of nowhere. It’s decently enough furnished, though it seems that at some point someone snatched everything that could be taken with ease and hastily brought back what they thought we’d most urgently need. In any case, this is one of those places where people like us have been sent to exile for as long as there has been a Crescent Empire. Under the circumstances, it’s wise to assume that no one is coming to take us home anytime soon. We must flee, and that’s what Celestia no doubt has in mind. This far up in the north, the winter will last for a month or more still. Yet, I bet she’s got a plan forming in her mind already. Celestia being Celestia, she won’t share it with any of us. And who can blame her, given that even though she kept her previous plan a secret from everyone, including her own sisters, somehow the gagargi still found out about it and as a result, she lost her seed!

  No, I’m not worried about mine any more than I’m hoping that he’d dash to my rescue either. General Kravakiv has been off fighting for the empire from even before the day I was born. Sure, Celestia says that he’s been defeated, but that doesn’t change a thing. Back when Mama (the Moon bless her poor soul) still lived, he would have never dared to switch sides. But I wouldn’t put it beyond Gagargi Prataslav to manipulate my seed into thinking he’s actually serving the empire better by siding with him. The gagargi is pure evil.

  Argh. This is no good, Scribs. It seems like whenever I try to avoid writing about a specific topic my mind drifts off to even more miserable ones. Brace yourself. And don’t you dare to even hint that I might be going a little soft in my head, because what I’m about to write next is true, every single word of it.

  Today, the strangest—well, considering what we’ve been through before, perhaps this categorizes only as strange—thing happened. I was sitting on the sofa by the arching windows so that I don’t have to squint at the pages (freckles I don’t mind, but I’m really too young for wrinkles). Alina and Merile were playing in their room with the rats. Lately, they’ve been acting, I don’t know, or that is, I do know: suspiciously. As if they had imaginary friends. I’ve heard the names “Irina” and “Olesia” whispered, though the only servant around here is called Millie. I can believe Alina coming up with that sort of thing, but for Merile to encourage that when she knows how vulnerable our little sister’s mind is to begin with! Note to self: talk with Merile. Even if she seems to detest me almost as much as I loathe her peeing, pooping rats, I should be able to sort this out. I don’t want to bother Celestia and Elise. They need to be able to concentrate . . . Well, not in their sewing, but in forming a plan that will help us get away from this place for once and for good—and preferably in time for my debut!

  Getting sidetracked. I swear, Scribs, this isn’t intentional on my part.

  As mentioned, I was once more reading through the scriptures (and yes, it’s a bit challenging now, because I’ve written sideways over half of your pages already). I don’t know if it was because of me lacking anything else to do or because it was blessedly silent in the house for once, but I got really immersed in the passages, and before I knew it, the letters floated off the pages, and just hung there, over the paper. And as I stared at them, they morphed into glyphs I’d never seen before. The hairs on the back of my neck jumped up, and I got goose bumps all over!

  These glyphs were of a foreign language, and if I were to have tried to pronounce them, I think the sounds would have been guttural, something between a croak of a bird whose beak has been glued shut and a howl of a wolf that has lost its voice. Yet I knew what each meant instantly. They formed incantations, summoning our heavenly father’s attention.

  I barely dared to breathe, let alone move. I sat there, with the book open on my lap, with the slanting morning light wrapping around each glyph. I think the only movement was that of my mouth a-gaping.

  Really, who am I to blame Alina and Merile for making up imaginary friends when I’m seeing things myself? Except that I’m not. The glyphs are real. They make sense to me.

  “Sibs, are you dreaming of chocolate once more?” Elise’s question made me blink, and the glyphs fled back onto the pages, there to completely fade away. My sister studied me from across the table, her embroidery on her lap, smiling mischievously.

  “I . . .” I stammered, staring at what now was completely ordinary text. I fanned the page, hoping to somehow coax the glyphs forth again. But they wouldn’t reappear. And what was it that Elise had asked? Scribs, you know it, there’s one magic word that every older sister is always happy to hear when they’re waiting for an answer. “Yes.”

  I’m pretty sure she mentioned chocolate, though. We haven’t come across any since we left the Summer Palace. Though Millie seems to like us (at least much more so than the ever-changing servants that attended us during the train journey), the meals we eat are simple and there’s rarely any desserts. And if there’s dessert, it’s lingonberry kissel or at rare occasions butter rolls with NO sugar sprinkled on top.

  Luckily, the grandfather cl
ock decided to strike eleven then. With the paddling swan that heralds every new hour with a different song, I find it very beautiful. Celestia says it’s purely mechanical, which makes it even more marvelous to me. Speaking of Celestia, she swiftly rose up from her sofa chair, set the coat down on the table, and clapped her hands twice. “It is time.”

  And you know what eleven o’clock means in this house, Scribs! But today, I was so puzzled by the glyphs that I forgot all about the best part of the day, the dance practice! Can you imagine that?

  I know I’ve said many things about Celestia in the past and not all of them have been exactly flattering. Back in our old lives, she was distant and cold toward us younger sisters. But now that I think on it, perhaps it wasn’t entirely her fault—I suspect that back at the Summer City she may have been under Gagargi Prataslav’s spell! In any case, now I’ve got my sister back, and she’s a very good sister. We share the same room, and though we don’t exactly talk the nights through, she’s always there, ready to listen to my worries and comfort me, even if she doesn’t exactly confide in me. Also, the dance practices were her idea.

  “Gather around!” Celestia clapped her hands again, the movement smooth and graceful, even though I’m absolutely certain that, unlike Elise, she’s never ever practiced anything before her mirrors, and I know for sure she hasn’t done so since we arrived here. Yes, Scribs, perhaps I once swore that I would start practicing myself, but I haven’t. Not even when I seem to have all the time under the Moon. “Elise, please help me move the furniture. Sibilia, would you be so kind as to fetch Merile and Alina?”

  Herding in our little sisters is always better than hauling the furniture around (I’m pretty sure I would get bruised from even thinking of pushing a chair aside or moving the table against the wall). Yet, Elise never complains about the tasking. I wonder what’s got into her. She claims she enjoys sewing, and she even partakes in setting up the table for the simple dinners we eat every night with the guards in the sparsely furnished second-floor hall. That, if anything, is peculiar.