فصل 34

34.

In Which Luna Meets a Woman in the Wood

The paper birds roosted on branches and stones and the remains of chimneys and walls and old buildings. They made no sound outside the rustle of paper and the scritch of folds. They quieted their bodies and turned their faces toward the girl on the ground. They had no eyes. But they watched her all the same. Luna could feel it.

“Hello,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say. The paper birds said nothing. The crow, on the other hand, couldn’t keep himself quiet. He spiraled upward and sped into a cluster gathered on the extended arm of an ancient oak tree, shouting all the while.

“Caw, caw, caw, caw,” the crow screeched.

“Hush,” Luna admonished. She had her eyes on the paper birds. They tilted their heads in unison, first pointing their beaks at the girl on the ground, then following the crazed crow, then looking back at the girl.

“Caw,” said the crow. “I’m frightened.”

“Me, too,” Luna said as she stared at the birds. They scattered, then massed again, hovering over her like a great, undulating cloud before settling back onto the branches of the oak tree.

They know me, Luna thought.

How do they know me?

The birds, the map, the woman in my dreams. She is here, she is here, she is here.

It was too much to think about. The world had too many things to know in it, and Luna’s mind was full. She had a pain in her skull, right in the middle of her forehead.

The paper birds stared at her.

“What do you want from me?” Luna demanded. The paper birds rested on their roosts. There were too many to count. They were waiting. But for what?

“Caw,” the crow said. “Who cares what they want? Paper birds are creepy.”

They were creepy, of course. But they were also beautiful and strange. They were looking for something. They wanted to tell her something.

Luna sat down on the dirt. She kept her eye on the birds. She let the crow nestle on her lap. She closed her eyes and took out her book and a pencil stub. Once, she had let her mind wander as she thought about the woman in her dreams. And then she had drawn a map. And the map was correct. Or at least it had been so far. “She is here, she is here, she is here,” her map said, and Luna could only assume that it was telling the truth. But now she needed to make something else happen. She needed to know where her grandmother was.

“Caw,” said the crow.

“Hush,” Luna said without opening her eyes. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

The paper birds watched her. She could feel them watching. Luna felt her hand move across the page. She tried to keep her mind on her grandmother’s face. The touch of her hand. The smell of her skin. Luna felt worry grip her heart in its fist, and two hot tears came tumbling down, hitting the paper with a splat.

“Caw,” the crow said. “Bird,” it meant.

Luna opened her eyes. The crow was right. She hadn’t drawn her grandmother at all. She had drawn a stupid bird. One that was sitting in a man’s hand.

“Well, what on earth?” Luna grumbled, her heart sinking into her boots. How could she find her grandmother? How indeed?

“Caw,” the crow said. “Tiger.”

Luna scrambled to her feet, keeping her knees bent in a low crouch.

“Stay close,” she whispered to the crow. She wished the birds were made of something more substantial than paper. Rock, maybe. Or sharp steel.

“Well,” said a voice. “What have we here?”

“Caw,” said the crow. “Tiger.”

But it wasn’t a tiger at all. It was a woman.

So why do I feel so afraid?

Ethyne stood as the Grand Elder arrived, flanked by two heavily armed Sisters of the Star. She was, by all appearances, utterly unafraid. It was galling, really. The Grand Elder knitted his eyebrows in a way that he assumed was imposing. This had no effect. To make it worse, it seemed that she not only knew the two soldiers to the right and left of him but was friends with them as well. She brightened as she saw the ruthless soldiers arrive, and they smiled back.

“Lillienz!” she said, smiling at the soldier on his left. “And my dear, dear Mae,” she said, blowing a kiss to the soldier on his right.

This was not the entrance that the Grand Elder had hoped for. He cleared his throat. The women in the room seemed not to have noticed that he was there. It was infuriating.

“Welcome, Uncle Gherland,” Ethyne said with a gentle bow. “I was just heating some water in the kettle, and I have fresh mint from the garden. Can I make you some tea?”

Grand Elder Gherland wrinkled his nose. “Most housewives, madam,” he said acidly, “would not bother with herbal trifles in their garden when there are mouths to feed and neighbors to look after. Why not grow something more substantial?”

Ethyne was unruffled as she moved about the kitchen. The baby was strapped to her body with a pretty cloth, which she had embroidered herself, no doubt. Everything in the house was clever and beautified. Industrious, creative, and canny. Gherland had seen that combination before, and he did not like it. She poured hot water into two handmade cups stuffed with mint, and sweetened it with honey from her hive outside. Bees and flowers and even singing birds surrounded the house. Gherland shifted uncomfortably. He took his cup of tea and thanked his hostess, though he was certain that he would despise it. He took a sip. The tea, he realized peevishly, was the most delicious thing he had ever drunk.

“Oh, Uncle Gherland,” Ethyne sighed happily, leaning into her sling to kiss the head of her baby. “Surely you know that a productive garden is a well-­balanced garden. There are plants that eat the soil and plants that feed the soil. We grow more than we could ever eat, of course, and much of it is given away. As you know, your nephew is always willing to give of himself to help others.”

If the mention of her husband hurt her at all, she did not show it. The girl seemed incapable of sorrow, foolish thing. Indeed, she seemed to glow with pride. Gherland was baffled. He did his best to contain himself.

“As you know, child, the Day of Sacrifice is rapidly approaching.” He expected her to grow pale at this pronouncement. He was mistaken.

“I am aware, Uncle,” she said, kissing her baby again. She looked up and met his gaze, her expression so assured of her own equality with the Grand Elder that he found himself speechless in the face of such blind insolence.

“Dear Uncle,” Ethyne continued gently, “why are you here? Of course you are welcome in my home whenever you choose to stop by, and of course my husband and I are always pleased to see you. Usually it is the Head Sister who comes to intimidate the families of the doomed children. I have been expecting her all day.”

“Well,” Gherland said. “The Head Sister is not available. I have come instead.”

Ethyne gave the old man a piercing look. “What do you mean ‘not available’? Where is Sister Ignatia?”

The Grand Elder cleared his throat. People did not question him. Indeed, people did not question much in the Protectorate—they were a people who accepted their lot in life, as they should. This young woman—this child . . . Well, Gherland thought. One can only hope she will go mad like the other one did so long ago. Locked in the Tower was far preferable to insolent questioning at family dinners, that much was certain. He cleared his throat again. “Sister Ignatia is away,” he said slowly. “On business.”

“What kind of business?” the girl asked with a narrowed eye.

“Her own, I suspect,” Gherland replied.

Ethyne stood and approached the two soldiers. They had been trained, of course, to not make eye contact with the citizenry, and to instead gaze past them impassively. They were supposed to look as a stone looks and feel as a stone feels. This was the mark of a good soldier, and all of the Sisters were good soldiers. But these soldiers began to flush as the girl approached them. They tilted their gaze to the ground.

“Ethyne,” one of them whispered. “No.”

“Mae,” Ethyne said. “Look at my face. You, too, Lillienz.” Gherland’s jaw fell open. He’d never seen anything like it in all his life. Ethyne was smaller than both of the soldiers. And yet. She seemed to tower before them both.

“Well,” he sputtered. “I must object—”

Ethyne ignored him. “Does the tiger prowl?”

The soldiers were silent.

“I feel we are moving away from the subject of the conversation—” Gherland began.

Ethyne held up her hand, silencing her uncle-­in-­law. And he was, remarkably, silent. He couldn’t believe it. “At night, Mae,” the young woman continued. “Answer me. Does the tiger prowl?”

The soldier pressed her lips together, as though trying to force her words inside. She winced.

“What on earth could you possibly mean?” Gherland sputtered. “Tigers? You are too old for girlish games!”

“Silence,” Ethyne ordered. And once again, incomprehensibly, Gherland fell silent. He was astonished.

The soldier bit her lip and hesitated for a moment. She leaned in toward Ethyne. “Well, I never thought about it as you did, but yes. No padded paws stalk the hallways of the Tower. Nothing growls. Not for days. We all”—the soldier closed her eyes—“sleep easy. For the first time in years.”

Ethyne wrapped her arms around the infant in his sling. The boy sighed in his dreaming. “So. Sister Ignatia is not in the Tower. She is in not in the Protectorate, or I would have heard of it. She must be in the forest. And she no doubt means to kill him,” Ethyne murmured.

She walked over to Gherland. He squinted. Everything in this house was bright. Though the rest of the town was submerged in fog, this house was bathed in light. Sunlight streamed in the windows. The surfaces gleamed. Even Ethyne seemed to shine, like an enraged star.

“My dear—”

“YOU.” Ethyne’s voice was somewhere between a bellow and a hiss.

“I mean to say,” Gherland said, feeling himself crumple and burn, like paper.

“YOU SENT MY HUSBAND INTO THE WOODS TO DIE.” Her eyes were flames. Her hair was flame. Even her skin was on fire. Gherland felt his eyelashes begin to singe.

“What? Oh. What a silly thing to say. I mean—”

“YOUR OWN NEPHEW.” She spat on the ground—an uncouth gesture that seemed strangely lovely when she did it. And Gherland, for the first time in his life, felt ashamed. “YOU SENT A MURDERER AFTER HIM. THE FIRST SON OF YOUR ONLY SISTER AND YOUR BEST FRIEND. Oh, Uncle. How could you?”

“It isn’t what you think, my dear. Please. Sit. We’re family. Let’s discuss—” But Gherland felt himself crumble inside. His soul succumbed to a thousand cracks.

She strode past him and returned to the soldiers.

“Ladies,” she said. “If either of you have ever held me in any modicum of affection or respect, I must humbly ask for your assistance. I have things that I would like to accomplish before the Day of Sacrifice, which, as we all know”—she gave Gherland a poisonous look—“waits for no man.” She let that hang in the air for a moment. “I think I need to visit with my former Sisters. The cat’s away. And the mice shall play. And there is much that a mouse can do, after all.”

“Oh Ethyne,” the Sister named Mae said, linking arms with the young mother. “How I’ve missed you.” And the two women left, arm in arm, with the other soldier hesitating, glancing at the Elder, and then hurrying behind.

“I must say,” the Grand Elder said, “this is highly—” He looked around. “I mean. There are rules, you know.” He drew himself up and gave a haughty expression to no one at all. “Rules.”

The paper birds didn’t move. The crow didn’t move. Luna didn’t move, either.

The woman, though, stepped quietly closer. Luna couldn’t tell how old she was. One moment she looked very young. Another moment she looked impossibly old.

Luna said nothing. The woman’s gaze drifted up to the birds in the branches. Her eyes narrowed.

“I’ve seen that trick before,” she said. “Did you make them?”

She returned her gaze to Luna, who felt the woman’s vision pierce her, right through the middle. She cried out in pain.

The woman gave a broad smile. “No,” she said. “Not your magic.”

The word, said out loud, made Luna’s skull feel as though it was about to split in half. She pressed her hands to her forehead.

“Pain?” the woman said. “It’s a sorrowful thing, don’t you think?” There was an odd, hopeful note in her voice. Luna remained crouched on the ground.

“No,” she said, her voice tight and ready, like a set spring. “Not sorrow. It’s just annoying.”

The woman’s smile soured into a frown. She looked back up at the paper birds. She gave them a sidelong smile. “They’re lovely,” she said. “Those birds, are they yours? Were they a gift?”

Luna shrugged.

The woman tilted her head to the side. “Look how they hang on you, waiting for you to speak. Still. They’re not your magic.”

“Nothing’s my magic,” Luna said. The birds behind her rustled their wings. Luna would have turned to look, but she would have to break eye contact with the stranger, and something told her she didn’t want to do that. “I don’t have any magic. Why would I?”

The woman laughed, and not nicely. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, you silly thing.” Luna decided to hate this woman. “I’d say several things are your magic. And more things coming, if I’m not mistaken. Though it does look as though someone has attempted to hide your magic from you.” She leaned forward and squinted. “Interesting. That spellwork. I recognize it. But my, my, it has been years.”

The paper birds, as if by some signal, lifted in one great flutter of wings and roosted next to the girl. They kept their beaks faced toward the stranger, and Luna felt for sure that they had somehow become harder, sharper, and more dangerous than before. The woman gave a little start and took a step or two backward.

“Caw,” said the crow. “Keep walking.”

The rocks under Luna’s hands began to shimmy and shudder. They seemed to shake the very air. Even the ground shook.

“I wouldn’t trust them if I were you. They’ve been known to attack,” the woman said.

Luna gave her a skeptical expression.

“Oh, you don’t believe me? Well. The woman who made them is a wicked thing. And broken. She sorrowed until she could sorrow no more, and now she is quite mad.” She shrugged. “And useless.”

Luna didn’t know why the woman angered her so. But she had to resist everything in her that told her to leap to her feet and kick the woman as hard as she could in the shins.

“Ah.” The stranger gave her a wide smile. “Anger. Very nice. Useless to me, alas, but as it is so often a precursor to sorrow, I confess that I do like it.” She licked her lips. “I like it quite a bit.”

“I don’t think we are going to be friends,” Luna growled. A weapon, she thought. I think I need a weapon.

“No,” the woman said. “I wouldn’t think so. I am just here to collect what is mine, and I’ll be on my way. I—” She paused. Held up one hand. “Wait a moment.” The woman turned and walked into the ruined village. A tower stood in the center of the ruin—though it didn’t look as if it would be standing much longer. There was a broad gash in its foundation on one side, like an open, surprised mouth. “They were in the Tower,” the woman said, mostly to herself. “I put them there myself. I remember now.” She ran to the opening and skidded on her knees across the ground. She peered into the darkness.

“Where are my boots?” the woman whispered. “Come to me, my darlings.”

Luna stared. She had had a dream once, not very long ago. Surely it was a dream, wasn’t it? And Fyrian had reached into a hole in a broken tower and pulled out a pair of boots. It must have been a dream, because Fyrian had been strangely large. And then he had brought the boots to her. And she had put them in a trunk.

Her trunk!

She hadn’t thought about it again until this moment.

She shook her head to clear the thought away.

“WHERE ARE MY BOOTS?” the woman bellowed. Luna shrank back.

The stranger stood, her loose gown billowing about her. She raised her hands wide overhead and with a broad, swooping motion, pushed the air in front of her body. And just like that, the Tower fell. Luna tumbled onto the rocks with a yelp. The crow, terrified by the noise and dust and commotion, sprang skyward. He circled the air, cursing all the while.

“It was about to fall,” Luna whispered, trying to make sense of what she had been seeing. She stared into the cloud of dust and mold and grit at the pile of rubble and the hunched figure of the robed woman holding her arms outward as though she was about to catch the sky. No one could have that much power, she thought. Could they?

“GONE!” the woman shrieked. “THEY ARE GONE!”

She turned and stalked toward the girl. With a flick of her left wrist, she bent the air in front of her, forcing Luna to her feet. The woman kept her left hand out, pinching the air with clawed fingers, keeping Luna in place from several yards away.

“I don’t have them!” Luna whimpered. The woman’s grip hurt. Luna felt her fear expand inside her, like a storm cloud. And as her fear grew, so did the woman’s smile. Luna did her best to stay calm. “I just got here.”

“But you have touched them,” the woman whispered. “I can see the residue on your hands.”

“No I haven’t!” Luna said, thrusting her hands into her pockets. She tried to force away any memory of the dream.

“You will tell me where they are.” The woman raised her right hand, and even from far away, Luna could feel the fingers on her throat. She began to choke. “You will tell me right now,” the woman said.

“Go away!” Luna gasped.

And suddenly, everything moved. The birds lifted from their roost and massed behind the girl.

“Oh, you silly thing.” The woman laughed. “Do you think your silly parlor tricks can—” And the birds attacked, swirling like a cyclone. They shook the air. They made the rocks tremble. They bent the torsos of the trees.

“GET THEM OFF ME!” the woman shrieked, waving her hands. The birds cut her hands. They cut her forehead. They attacked without mercy.

Luna held her crow close to her chest and ran as fast as she could.