Wildwood Dancing

by Juliet Marillier

  “Hurry up!” urged Iulia, who was at the front of the line.

  Our slippers whispered on the stone floor as we glided along under the carved extravagance of the roof. Here, there were enough gargoyles and dragons and strange beasts to decorate the grandest building in all Transylvania. They clung to the corners and crept around the pillars and dripped from the arches, watching us with bright, unwavering eyes. Subterranean mosses crawled over their heads and shoulders, softening their angular forms with little capes of green and gray and brown. The first time we saw this Gallery of Beasts, Tati had whispered, “They’re not real, are they?” and I had whispered back, “Just nod your head to them, and keep on walking.” I had sensed, even then, that respect and courtesy could go a long way to keeping a person safe in a place such as this.

  As we passed now, I felt something jump onto my shoulder—the one not occupied by Gogu—and cling there, its needle claws pricking my skin through the soft fabric of the green gown. It was doing its best to look like a frog, rolling up its long tail and bulging its eyes, while casting surreptitious glances at Gogu.

  The frog tensed. Interloper.

  The little creature poked out a forked tongue, hissing.

  “Lights out!” ordered Iulia, and we each covered our lanterns in turn. As our eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness, a pale expanse came into view ahead of us: the mist-wreathed waters of a broad lake, illuminated by the moon. Through the vaporous cloud we could see the bobbing torches of those who were waiting to escort us on the last part of our journey.

  “Ooo-oo!” Iulia called in a falling cadence. “Ooo-oo!”

  The little boats came, one by one, out of the tendrils of mist—high-prowed and graceful, each shaped in the form of a creature: swan, wyvern, phoenix, wood duck, and salamander. In each stood a figure, propelling the craft by means of a slender pole: push and lift, push and lift. The response to Iulia’s call came in five voices, each different, each as uncanny as the others. Our guides were what they were; the only human creatures in this midnight realm were ourselves.

  The boats pulled in to the shore. The boatmen stepped out to help us board. The next part, my frog didn’t like. He began to quiver in fright, a rapid trembling that went right through his body. I was used to this; he did it every time. I held him against my breast and, as I climbed into the boat, I murmured, “It’s all right, Gogu, I’ve got you. We’ll be there soon.”

  Tǎul Ielelor: the Deadwash. This was the place where Costi had drowned. Our mother had warned us about it, over and over: we should never go there, for to do so was to risk harm at the hands of the vengeful fairy folk who had robbed us of our cousin. And yet, since the very first time the portal had opened for us, the realm that lay beyond had shown us warmth and kindness, open arms, and welcoming smiles. I was still cautious; I did not have it in me to trust unconditionally. All the same, it was impossible to believe that the person who had drowned our cousin was one of those greeting us on our nocturnal journeys.

  The folk of the Other Kingdom had their own name for this expanse of shining water—at Full Moon, they called it the Bright Between. The lake waters spanned the distance between their world and ours. Once we set foot in their boats, we were caught in the magic of their realm.

  Time and distance were not what they seemed in the Other Kingdom. It was a long walk from Piscul Dracului to the Deadwash in our world—an expedition. Gogu and I had made that forbidden trip often, for the lake drew us despite ourselves. At Full Moon, the walk to Tǎul Ielelor was far shorter. At Full Moon, everything was different, everything was upside down and back to front. Doors opened that were closed on other days, and those whom the human world feared became friends. The Bright Between was a gateway: not a threat, but a promise.

  It was all too easy to lose track of time in the Other Kingdom—to forget where you were and where you had come from. This might be the familiar forest, the same one in which Petru farmed our smallholding, and Uncle Nicolae harvested pines to sell for timber, and Cousin Cezar went out hunting in autumn. It was the same and not the same. When we crossed the Bright Between, we entered a realm that existed at the same time and place as ours, with the same trees and hillsides and rocks. But it was not open to humankind, except for those lucky few who found a portal and its key. And the folk who lived there lived by their own laws, laws not at all like those of the human world. Any aged man or woman with stories to tell knew that. There were tales about men who’d gone through a portal and spent a night among the forest folk, and when they’d come back again, a hundred years had passed, and their wives and children were dead and buried. There were stories about people who had visited the fairy revels and been driven right out of their minds. When they returned to the human world, all they did was wander around the forest in a daze, until they perished from cold or hunger or thirst. There were still more accounts of folk who had gone into the forest and simply disappeared.

  So, although we believed such misfortunes would never befall us—for we were constantly assured by the folk of the Other Kingdom that they loved and welcomed us—we had made a set of rules to keep us safe. If anything went wrong, the others were to come to Tati or me immediately: they were to do as we told them, without question. There was no eating or drinking while we were in the Other Kingdom, except sips from the water bottle one of us always brought from home. There was no leaving the glade where the dancing took place, however tempted we might be to wander off down beguiling pathways into the moonlit forest. We must keep an eye on one another, keep one another safe. And when Tati or I said it was time to go home, everyone must go without argument. Those rules had protected us through nine years of Full Moons. They had become second nature.

  The boats swept across the Bright Between. As we passed a certain point, the air filled with a sweet, whispering music. Swarms of small bright creatures that were not quite birds or insects or fairy folk swooped and rose, hovered and dived around us, making a living banner to salute our arrival. Underwater beings swam beside our craft, creatures with large, luminous eyes, long hands, fronded tails, and glowing green-blue skin. Many dwelled in or on Tǎul Ielelor: ragged swimmers resembling weedy plants, their gaze turned always up, up to the surface; the beguiling pale figures of the Iele, from whom the lake got its name, reaching out graceful white arms from bank or islet or overhanging willow. Should an unwary man from our world be passing, they would seek to entice him from his path forever. As we neared the opposite shore, an assortment of tiny folk rowed out from the miniature islands to join us, in a bobbing flotilla of boats made from nutshells and dried leaves and the discarded carapaces of beetles. We reached the far shore, and my escort—who was three feet high and almost as wide, with a scarlet beard down to his boot tops—handed me out. He made a low bow.

  “Thank you,” I said as the gargoyle made a flying leap from my shoulder, then scampered off into the undergrowth.

  “Delighted to be of service, Mistress Jenica. I’ll expect you to return the favor, mind.”

  “You shall have the first dance, of course, Master Anatolie,” I told him.

  The dwarf grinned, revealing a set of jeweled studs in his front teeth. “I’ll match you step for step, young lady. You’ll find me a more satisfactory partner than that slippery green friend of yours. He’s shaking like a jelly—wouldn’t know a jig if it jumped up and bit him.”

  Gogu stopped shivering instantly. I could feel bunched-up irritation in every part of him.

  “You’ve upset him,” I said. “Frogs have feelings, too, you know.”

  The dwarf bowed again. “No offense,” he said, his eyes on Gogu. “It should be an interesting night. We’ve got visitors. Night People from the forests of the east.”

  A bolt of horror shot through me and I stopped walking. Ahead of us, my sisters and their assorted escorts were disappearing along the broad, leaf-carpeted track that led away under tall trees, following the sweet call of a flute. The branches were festooned with colored lights shaped like birds and beetles and
flowers. “Night People?” I echoed, and heard the tremor in my voice. Fragments of dark stories crept into my mind: tales of blood and violence, of evil deeds and terrible retribution.

  “Nothing to worry about,” said Anatolie offhand.

  “Yes, it is!” I protested. “Florica, who works for us, says they come at night and bite people in their beds. She says the only thing they drink is human blood.” My sisters were too far ahead to be called back.

  “This would be the same Florica who said all dwarves were liars and thieves?” Anatolie asked, feet planted apart and hands on hips. His cloak was ankle length and lined with what appeared to be bear skin.

  “Well, yes,” I said.

  “The same Florica who told you not to go too close to the Deadwash or you’d be scooped up in the magic fishing net of Drǎguţa, the witch of the wood?”

  “Yes, but … but Night People, everyone says—” I stopped myself. Anatolie was right. If I had never met one, it was unfair to judge on the basis of stories.

  “You and your sisters are quite safe here,” the dwarf said as we started walking again. “Hasn’t the forest queen herself allowed you to visit her revels these nine years of Full Moons? Believe me, if her protection did not stretch out over the five of you, you would not be here now.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that at all,” I said, wondering whether he meant we would have met the same fate as the foolish folk in the stories: dead, mad, or vanished.

  “The Night People will not touch you while Ileana is queen of the wildwood,” Anatolie said. “You have my word.”

  “Thank you,” I said, but I was full of doubt. I could not remember hearing a single good thing about the Night People, and I had no wish to meet even one of them. They’d never been to Dancing Glade before; at least, not when we were there. I thought about garlic, and silver crosses, and everything else folk used to keep such dangerous forces at bay. I hadn’t brought a thing to protect myself or my sisters.

  When we reached the glade, the festivities were in full swing. A circle of autumn-clad trees sheltered the grassy sward, their branches hung with still more lanterns. These cast a warm light over the brightly clad revelers, whose gowns and masks, robes and jewels filled the open space with a swirling mass of color. Above them, creatures performed aerial dances of their own, some borne on delicate, diaphanous wings, some on leathery, creaking membranes. Some of the guests were tall enough to bump their heads on the lanterns; some were so tiny, one had to take care not to step on them. I saw my gargoyle perched on the branch of a holly bush, waving its paws in time with the music and beaming beatifically.

  The musicians sat on a raised platform at the far end, under the biggest oak. The instruments were the same as the ones in the village band—flute, drum, goat-pipes, fiddle—and yet they were not quite the same. Each possessed a strangeness that set it apart. What ordinary drum cries out poetry when beaten? What flute plays three tunes at once, each blending perfectly with the others? As for the goat-pipes, they had something of the voice of the creature whose skin had provided their air bag, plaintive and piercing. The fiddle soared like a lark.

  The sound of this band was intoxicating to the ears, the kind of felicitous blend a village musician aspires to and may achieve once in a lifetime. It made feet move faster, pulses race, faces flush. It set hearts thumping and coaxed smiles from the most somber mouths. It was a music we would keep on hearing in our dreams, days after Full Moon was over and we were gone from the Other Kingdom.

  Iulia was already out there, dark hair flying, her face wreathed in smiles. Tati danced more sedately, her hand in that of tall Grigori, an imposing figure with long, twisted dark hair. It was said he was a kinsman of Drǎguţa, the witch of the wood.

  Paula was not dancing, but had gone straight to her usual group of friends, a clutch of witches, astronomers, and soothsayers clad in long, raggedy robes and swathing, vaporous cloaks. All wore hats—I saw tall pointed structures decorated with stars, and scholarly felt caps, and here and there a mysterious shadowy hood. They were gathered around a table under the trees, deep in debate as always, their arguments fueled by a continuous supply of ţuicǎ. Paula was seated among them, waving her hands about as she expounded some theory.

  Stela was with the smallest folk, down near the musicians. There was a double ring of them, weaving in and out and around about in a dance of their own. Some had wings, some horns, some feathers, and some shining, jewel-bright scales. They were chattering like a mob of little birds as they pranced to and fro, and still managing to get every step perfect. We’d all started here; as we grew older, we had been welcomed by different folk, collected by different ferrymen, and permitted to mix more widely. Dancing Glade had its own set of rules.

  “Hello, Jena!” my little sister called, waving wildly. Then she plunged back into the circle.

  The pattern of the night was always the same. The revels would begin with chain dances, circle dances, devised so everyone could join in, the big and small, the clumsy and dainty, side by side. We sisters had been part of this since the first time we came across to the Other Kingdom, when kindly folk of all shapes used to take our small hands and guide us through the steps. We needed no guidance now, for we were skilled in all the dances. The first was always done with our boatmen by our sides—it was their privilege to lead us onto the sward. At some point in the evening the queen of the forest would hold formal court; this was the opportunity for newcomers to be greeted, petitions made, questions asked. Later on, the music would change, and with it the mood of the crowd. That was the time for couples to dance slow measures in each other’s arms, floating in their own small worlds. By then my youngest sisters would be getting tired, and we would all sit under the trees and watch until it was time for the last dance—a grand gathering of the entire crowd, in celebration of Full Moon. Then we would pass across the Bright Between once more, and go home to another month of hard work and dreaming.

  The music was making my feet move even before I trod on the sward. I took the dwarf’s hand and we threw ourselves into a jig. The drumbeat made my heart race; the goat-pipes seemed to speak to something deep inside me, saying, Faster, faster! You’re alive! Anatolie gripped my hand tightly as we ran and jumped, as we turned, and swayed, and pointed our toes. Gogu had retreated to the pocket, where he was safe from falling and being trampled by the multitude of stamping, hopping, kicking feet. When the dance was over, I fished him out and set him on my shoulder once more.

  “All right?” I whispered.

  If you could call being shaken about like a feather duster “all right,” I suppose so.

  I was looking around the glade as my heartbeat slowly returned to normal. “Where are the Night People?” I asked Anatolie.

  “They will come. Wait until the moon moves higher; wait until you see her between the branches of the tallest oaks. Then you’ll catch a glimpse of them, around the edges.”

  “Don’t they dance?”

  Anatolie grinned. “I’ll bet you a silver piece to a lump of coal that you can’t get one of them to step up and partner you,” he said. “They stick to their own kind, those black-cloaked streaks of melancholy. They don’t come to enjoy themselves, but to observe—to take stock.”

  Out of long habit, because I was the sensible sister, I checked on the others, one by one, to make sure they were safe. Over at the far side of the sward I saw Stela, now playing a chasing game with her bevy of small companions. Those that could fly had a distinct advantage. Iulia was with a circle of young forest men and women. When I had first seen such folk, I had thought of them as fairies—though they were far taller and more elegant than the tiny figures of my childhood imagination—with their garments constructed of leaves and cobwebs, vines, bark, and feathers, and their features unsettlingly not quite human. There was no sign of Paula, but she would still be at the scholars’ table.

  There was a ripple of movement. A fanfare rang out and the crowd parted before an imposing figure clad in a gown that
seemed fashioned of iridescent gossamer. It was Ileana, the hostess of these celebrations and queen of the forest people, sweeping across Dancing Glade. Folk said every bird of the wildwood had given one feather to make up her crown, which rose from her head in an exuberant crest. Her golden-haired consort, Marin, was a step behind her. This grand entrance was a feature of every Full Moon’s revels. Walking behind the queen and her partner tonight was a group of folk I had never seen before.

  “That’s them,” Anatolie hissed. “Sour-faced individuals, aren’t they?”

  I did not think the Night People were sour-faced, just rather sad-looking. They were extremely pale, their skin almost waxen in appearance, their eyes deep set, dark, and intense. All were clad in jet-black. The pair who led them was especially striking. The woman’s lips were narrow and bright crimson in color, whether by nature or artifice I could not tell. Her fingernails had been dyed to match. Both she and the man had bony, aristocratic features: well-defined cheeks and jaws; jutting, arrogant noses; and dark, winged brows. They made a handsome couple—he in billowing shirt, tight trousers, and high boots, she in a formfitting gown whose plunging neckline left little to the imagination.

  I spotted Tati, standing in the crowd close by Ileana, her dark hair shining under the colored lights of the glade. The forest queen beckoned; my sister stepped forward and dropped into a low, graceful curtsy. A moment later Tati was being introduced to the new arrivals. I felt a sudden chill. If Ileana singled out anyone for this kind of attention, it was not the little human girls from Piscul Dracului but the most formidable of her own folk, such as the tall Grigori or the most powerful of the soothsayers. I saw the black-booted stranger lift Tati’s hand and kiss it in a cool gesture of greeting. Then the Night People seemed to drift away into the shadows under the trees.

  Ileana and Marin were not the real power in the Other Kingdom. They presided over the revels and sorted out minor disputes between the forest folk. They made sure the daily life of the wildwood went on in its usual pattern. The folk of the Other Kingdom were often less than forthcoming when questioned about their realm and its rules, but Paula had picked up a great deal at the scholars’ table. We knew that the one who was the heart of it all—the one who held the ancient secrets and wove the powerful magic—was Drǎguţa, the witch of the wood. Drǎguţa had been in the forest since before the castle of Piscul Dracului sprang to life in the imagination of the eccentric voivode who built it. She had dwelt in the depths of the woods since these great oaks were mere sprouting acorns. Drǎguţa did not come to Full Moon dancing. She stayed in her lair, somewhere out in the wildest and least accessible part of the woods. If folk needed to ask her something, they had to go and find her, for she wouldn’t come to them.