The Beholder

by Anna Bright

  My vision adjusted slowly as we descended. “This is the lower deck,” he announced. “Crew’s cabins are at the far end. Stores are here and in the hold, below.”

  I squinted, just able to make out an aisle lined with benches. “There’s another level below this one?”

  “Yes, and don’t go poking around,” Lang said sharply. I stared at him, and he hesitated. “The ladder’s not quite right, and you’re liable to get hurt. Besides, it’s dark below.”

  I crossed my arms, a bit taken aback. “Fine.”

  Lang fumbled with the knob in the door beside him. “Good. And here’s your room.”

  The door swung open, and I winced at the daylight streaming in through the portholes on the far wall. By the early morning sunlight, I could see the room was plain—a little bunk with a blank white quilt and bedside table, a worn leather chair, an armoire beside all my trunks. Its open cabinet and drawers looked like an empty face.

  I thought of my room in Potomac, of my own bed and my bookshelves and the walls I’d scribbled on when I was three, and felt my chest go tight.

  “All your things have been brought down. You should be comfortable enough here.” Lang stuffed his hands into his pockets again, eyes trained on my luggage. “I’ll leave you be.” He nodded, sparing me a single, searching glance, and ducked into the hall.

  And then I was alone.

  I sank onto the floor, fiddling idly with the brass fastenings of my luggage, and began with a sigh to unpack.

  I found my trunks full mostly with new clothes—gowns, more casual dresses, shirts, and pants. The process of smoothing and sorting and fitting them into my wardrobe should have been comforting, but I grew more and more apprehensive at their endlessness, at the rising expense I calculated in every layer of finery.

  How far was I going? How long would I be gone? And at what cost to Potomac?

  I thought of Perrault on deck with Alessandra, my folder in his hands.

  I wanted to seek him out, to pore over its pages and make a plan.

  I wanted to find the folder and fling it overboard, and let salt and water have their way with paper and ink and Alessandra’s plans.

  Two-thirds of the way through my first trunk, I heard something shifting between a green lace gown and my favorite old waterproof boots. Curious, I paused.

  Beneath the impractical dress was a blond wooden box. As I took it from its resting place, its contents made a rustling sound, like fingertips on pages.

  Inside the box was a tiny library of rattling white packets. I lifted them against the light streaming through the portholes, one after another; some held curling shoots; others, black seeds small as pinpricks.

  Taped inside the box’s lid was a note in Godmother Althea’s handwriting.

  I sneaked bags of soil onboard for you. Go find them.

  Stay muddy, sweet girl.

  A lump formed in my throat.

  “Gardening?” I asked her, giving a laugh that was half a sob. “On a ship?”

  But my godmother was miles away. Too far away to hear. Too far away to answer.

  A wave of exhaustion and misery collapsed over me at the scent of the box, of Potomac’s kitchen garden and home.

  My heart missed it all already.

  My hands kept unpacking.

  Godmother Althea’s last gift I found cocooned in a soft yellow sweater that had been Daddy’s. I lifted it to my face to breathe him in, worrying for him so badly it hurt, then stared at what was left in my lap.

  It was a book, a foot tall and a foot wide, as big as the Bible on the altar at Saint Christopher’s and bound thickly in green leather. Pages thin as butterflies’ wings were covered with spidery handwriting and illuminated with blossom-bright colors and gold leaf. The table of contents listed epics, myths, legends, and fairy tales from countries far and near.

  My heart caught in my throat.

  This book had been my mother’s. I hadn’t seen it in seven years. I had thought it had been lost after she died.

  I pulled Daddy’s sweater on, my fingers tracing the book’s supple cover. The scent of the fabric and the leather drew me back to warm days beneath the shade tree with Momma. To starlit nights on my parents’ balcony. To Momma reading its stories aloud, and Daddy acting out the parts of witches and kings and brave tailors. Momma would always laugh and warn him not to rile me up so much I couldn’t sleep. Afterward, they’d carry me to bed, take off my shoes, and tuck me in, and dreams would claim me.

  I loved stories of all sorts, but somehow I always came home to these. Alessandra had never understood my taste—“Aren’t those for children?” she’d ask—but I didn’t care. Though not for lack of searching, I’d never met an elf or a witch or found a magic kingdom in the woods. But though the stories weren’t real, they were fundamentally true. I’d learned firsthand.

  In the old stories, change came in waves, quick as lightning or a gathering storm. And when the skies turned black, the heroes and heroines had to stand on their feet and their wits and find their way back home with what friends they met on their way.

  I turned to the back of the book. The last page and the page glued to the binding, the endpaper, were covered in script that told the tale of a girl who for her father’s sake became prisoner to a ferocious beast in a magic castle. One of Momma’s favorites.

  I found a pencil in my trunk and put a single tick mark in the top left corner of the page, above the illuminated start of the story.

  Mark one. Day one.

  Once upon a time, there was a man with three daughters. The youngest was called Beauty.

  My fingers traced the illustration of a girl reaching out to her father on horseback, their hands not quite touching, his eyes already on the road ahead.

  I was lost out here on the ocean. But somehow, I’d found a map.

  10

  Perrault was waiting for me when I stumbled onto the deck, squinting into the setting sun. Homer stood at the helm, his shadow streaming out before him.

  “There you are!” Perrault’s dark eyes studied me, evidently approving my change of clothes. I’d fallen asleep after unpacking. When I awoke, I’d washed my face and put on a cozy gray dress and Daddy’s sweater, apparently just in time to wobble to the galley after the rest of the crew.

  “I was tired,” I said, not looking at the protocol officer.

  “Hmm. Well, we have a lot to discuss.” Perrault opened the galley door and pointed at a table along the wall. “Sit there and wait for me.”

  Dumbly, I watched his retreating back, then shuffled inside the galley.

  A few lamps swung from the low ceiling, illuminating a room divided by a counter. To one side sat the crew, eating and talking over one another; to the other, a stocky brunet boy rushed around cooking, clanging pots on the stove, clattering loaf pans against oven racks.

  I wasn’t sure how many sailors crewed the Beholder. But as the door banged shut behind us, it felt like a hundred eyes darted my way.

  The sturdy, square-faced brunet boy stopped hurrying around the kitchen and hauled an enamel pot out to a sideboard as I approached. “Good evening, Seneschal-elect,” he said with a nervous dip of his head. “Will Grimm. I’m the steward. I cook and manage our stores.” He gestured behind him, at a tanned girl in black leaning against the galley counter and stabbing at her soup bowl as if it annoyed her. “And that’s my sister, Cobie. She’s the ship’s rigger.”

  “Pleasure to meet you,” I said, trying to smile.

  Cobie didn’t look pleased to meet me. She didn’t look anything.

  I took a bowl of soup from the counter, conscious of being watched. Anxiety simmered in my stomach as I glanced around, trying to take everyone in at once: a thin, jumpy old man with graying tawny hair sat between Lang and a boy in his early teens with a cap pulled low on his brow. Skop and an East Asian man of about sixty with silver hair and a round face sat across from them; he and Cobie had been working on deck this morning when I’d come to the harbor. Skop and the old m
an both smiled at me in greeting.

  I sat quietly to eat, grateful when Perrault bustled in and attention shifted to him. He placed a folder on the table. “Your appointments,” he said crisply. I reached for the first sheet inside, but Perrault rapped my hand with his pencil. “You can peruse the profiles at greater length later. I need to talk you through our journey now, and I don’t want to waste time while you dawdle over your suitors’ portraits.” I blushed. At the sailors’ table, Skop rolled his eyes at Perrault.

  I crossed my arms, forcing my embarrassment into irritation. “Waste time?” I frowned, leaning forward to whisper at him. “Sir Perrault, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but we’re on a ship. On the Atlantic. You have no meetings to attend. No nobles to look after. It’s just the—” I glanced around, trying to count.

  “Fourteen,” supplied Lang’s neighbor, the fidgety older gentleman. He nodded at me, slurping his soup, pushing long gray-gold hair out of his face. An origami ship sat beside his plate, half-folded, and his accent was Savannah-soft, like my mother’s had been.

  “I’m Andersen.” He nodded at his silver-haired neighbor, the older East Asian gentleman with the full cheeks and the kind eyes. “That’s Yasumaro.”

  Yasumaro beamed. “Hello, young lady.”

  “If you please, Sailor Andersen,” Perrault snapped. “I’m attempting to do my job.”

  I turned back to Perrault. “The fourteen of us.”

  “Seneschal-elect, do you want to know where you are going or not?” Perrault cocked his head elegantly.

  I crossed my arms, determined not to jump and plead like a puppy.

  Perrault opened the folder and produced the first profile.

  “Your first suitor is Bertilak, a prince of England and the Duke of Exeter,” he intoned.

  My jaw dropped. “Prince?”

  I’d anticipated courting well-to-do sons of great houses. Wealthy boys from prosperous families. Royal hangers-on, even, or minor nobles.

  I had not expected to be courting princes.

  Perrault eyed me severely, and I stilled. “Prince Bertilak, firstborn son of the king of England, is well-known for his intellect, having studied both at Eton and Oxford. We will meet the prince at Winchester Castle, where the court is currently convened.”

  I schooled my expression. I didn’t know anything about this man—fancy degrees aside. I’d probably have nothing in common with him.

  Still. England. I was going to England.

  I’d read a lot about England.

  Something hungry and curious stirred inside me.

  Sir Perrault switched pages. “Your next appointment will convey us to Den Norden—specifically, to Norge.”

  I took a sip of water, shrinking a little inside Daddy’s sweater, grateful suddenly for its weight and warmth. Den Norden, a too-small cluster of still-unconquered countries, was the region northwest of the Imperiya Yotne.

  “Prins Torden Asgard is nineteen, son of Konge Alfödr of Norge. He is reputedly”—Perrault rolled his eyes—“extremely handsome. Red hair, brown eyes, muscular, and six feet four inches tall.”

  “Are they selling me a horse or introducing a suitor?” I swallowed a spoonful of soup. “I’m surprised they didn’t give his height in hands.” Someone in the galley snickered—Cobie, I thought. Skop seemed to be stifling a laugh, as well.

  Perrault glared at me. He straightened his papers, breathing hard through his nose. “Your next suitor is Reichsfürst Fritz of the Neukatzenelnbogen. He’s twenty-seven.”

  “Twenty-seven?” I burst out. “Meaning he was nine when I was born?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And he was finishing secondary school when I was still playing with dolls?”

  “You were still playing with dolls when you were nine?” Perrault asked. I glanced away and found Lang and the rest of the sailors staring at us. The boy in the hat had soup on his shirt.

  “J.J.,” Andersen sighed, passing the boy a napkin. J.J. dabbed unselfconsciously at the stain, hazel eyes big in his thin little face as he gawked at me.

  I flushed and turned back to my bowl. Perrault sighed. “Reichsfürst Fritz is supposedly very clever. He is the oldest son of Hertsoh Maximilian of the Imperiya, Reichsfürst of Terytoriya Shvartsval’d, and has a number of sisters you may find enjoyable companions. . . .”

  But whatever Perrault said next, I wasn’t listening.

  Shvartsval’d. Terytoriya Shvartsval’d.

  The terytoriy were the conquered lands of the Imperiya Yotne. Each country they conquered was resegmented, renamed, its rulers replaced with loyal followers of the tsarytsya.

  “The Imperiya?” My voice was a breath, ragged and insubstantial. I pulled my hands inside the sleeves of Daddy’s sweater, wishing I could hide the rest of me as easily. Wishing he were here to hide me—though if he were here, he’d be in no condition to take care of me.

  Worry for him, and for me, flooded my thoughts.

  Alessandra was sending me into the Imperiya.

  A shiver ran up my spine. “No,” I said, shaking my head. I pushed back from the table, my chair screeching against the floor.

  Perrault looked down at the rest of his papers, affronted. “We’ve still to cover Prínkipas Theodore of Páfos, as well as all of your alternates—”

  “No, I can’t,” I said. My voice was awkward, too loud. “I don’t want to go there.”

  “Your stepmother has kindly negotiated appointments with multiple royal courts on your behalf, and you will honor those appointments as Potomac’s representative,” Perrault said, affronted.

  The Imperiya.

  Tears rose behind my eyes. I stood, nearly knocking my chair over.

  Most of the sailors were distracted, laughing at a story Skop was telling, but Lang watched me, brow furrowed.

  I pushed through the galley door without wishing any of them a good night. It wasn’t as though my wishes counted.

  11

  I wobbled away from the galley, avoiding the eyes of the few sailors still on deck, making my way toward the two doors in the stern. One of them led downstairs, I remembered. To my room, and to quiet. To safety from Perrault’s harassment.

  I chose the wrong door.

  I found myself inside a cabin, sparse but not cheerless, furnished with a rough bedstead, a shelf lined with beat-up atlases and journals, and a scrubby table, with a map pinned to its surface.

  Glittering at the edge of the map was my lost shoe.

  I drew closer.

  The map was broad and suffused with color, penciled with intersecting lines like spiderwebs. Amid borders and topographical designations were markers for the paths the wind blew, the roll of the currents, the depth of the water and obstacles beneath its surface. Here and there someone had scratched handwritten notes.

  I traced the route drawn on the thick paper—over the blue Atlantic, to the land marked Alba, England, Cymru. The word Sidhe rounded the southeastern edge of the deep green island. I wondered what the name meant as my fingers wandered on to Norge’s capital of Asgard, and then on to . . .

  My hands shook as I skimmed the borders of the gray mass labeled Imperiya Yotne.

  England had been the last empire to fall in Europe. But it was not the last to rise.

  Some time after England’s struggle in the south for Bharat’s ports and people had ended, war broke out on another front in the north.

  As trade ground to a halt and economies collapsed and countries retreated within themselves and stomachs went empty, a headwoman in the little country of Yotunkheym grew hungry.

  She made herself tsarytsya, and when she found her own larder empty, she made Europe her table. The tsarytsya—the young headwoman who became the ravenous old crone they called Baba Yaga—devoured her neighbors to the north and the south and the east and the west, hungry as a Wolf.

  Or so went the story. I’d found the book—a newer one—in the Roots, at the Council table. Momma had taken it away from me, but not before I’d read th
e tale whose memory still left me cold.

  A boy and a girl once upon a time wandered into the woods. Brother and sister they were, hungry and orphaned and defenseless. They hoped to find roots or birds’ eggs or berries to eat. But though they wandered for days and days, they found nothing.

  The house, you see, found them.

  The house was in the woods, waiting, when they were hungriest and thirstiest, tiredest and saddest.

  The little boy frowned at the house, tall and spindly as if it stood on bird’s legs, its face away from them, toward the forest.

  “Yzbushka!” he called. “Little house! Turn away from the woods and look upon us.”

  “And be kind,” said his little sister. She was a tiny thing, bones straining against her cheeks, her face dirty. “Please, please be kind, for all that our village has lost.”

  All their villages, and all others. All the children in all the towns around them had been disappearing, and they knew not where. Perhaps they were somewhere better. Perhaps they were somewhere safer. Perhaps they had plenty of food to eat.

  Perhaps not.

  The spindle-legged house stalked over to them, shrieking and groaning on rusty old joints, then dropped as if to its knees to let them inside. An old woman welcomed them from its threshold.

  “Hello, Grandmother,” said the little girl.

  (She was not their grandmother; they called her so out of respect.)

  “Hello, Grandmother,” said the little boy.

  (Her name was Baba Yaga.)

  “Come you here of your own accord, or are you compelled?” asked Baba Yaga.

  “We come here of need,” said the little boy. His teeth were chattering.

  The old woman welcomed them inside, beckoning to them with her long, bony arms and smiling across her long, bony face beneath her long, bony nose. Her teeth and fingernails were sharp. “Come and warm yourselves, children,” cooed Baba Yaga. She ushered them to a rug before the fire and gave them potato pancakes heaped with sour cream, and they ate and ate.

  It was only when their bellies were full and their bodies were warm that the little girl looked in the corner.