The Sisters of the Crescent Empress

by Leena Likitalo

  “Rats,” Boy laughs as he strides beside us. I stare at him in horror. What will he do to my sister’s companions?

  Nothing evil. He picks up Rafa under one arm, Mufu under the other. He does so with ease, though my sister’s companions struggle and squirm. “Can’t stay here the whole night.”

  Merile sniffs. She doesn’t want the guards touching her dogs. But I don’t see it as a bad thing that the guards we’ve traveled with for six weeks turn out to be . . . kind of nice. Or perhaps they seem nice only because now we can compare them to Captain Ansalov and his soldiers.

  Boy escorts Merile and me the rest of the way to our sisters, and once more, we gather into a crescent, this time before the troikas. The hounds study us with hungry eyes, leashes taut. They’re brutes with clipped ears and clipped tails, their leather collars studded with spikes.

  “Here you go.” Boy hands Mufu over to Merile and Rafa to me. I clutch the still-growling dog against my chest. Though her kin is much bigger, grimmer, she’d protect me against them with all her might.

  “What?” Merile tilts her chin up. She pats Mufu repeatedly, but her companion won’t calm down. “What are we waiting for?”

  Boy trots aside, avoiding the question. Maybe he has a soft spot for animals only, not for us. And then I see why he didn’t linger. Captain Ansalov is marching toward us, through the knee-deep snow, ice crackling under each step. He brings his ungloved hand to his lips and lets out a whistle so shrill I want to cover my ears, but can’t as then I’d have to let go of Rafa.

  “Here, boys,” Captain Ansalov calls. The soldiers quickly unleash the hounds, and the horrid creatures dart to their master. I’m sure he doesn’t keep them for company, but for . . .

  I glance at Celestia, at Elise and Sibilia, but they stand as still as ever, even as Captain Ansalov approaches us with his ugly dogs. If Captain Janlav and the train guards weren’t with us, I would run. That’s how threatened I feel. Rafa must sense this, for she nudges me, as if to tell me that everything will be all right.

  “Your hunting dogs?” Captain Janlav notes, more for our benefit than for him to have doubted this for even a moment.

  “Excellent dogs. Bred them myself. You can’t find a hound with a sharper nose anywhere in the whole empire.” Captain Ansalov pats one of the dogs on the side. No, it’s not a pat, but more like a slap. “There’s a good boy! There’s a good, smart boy.”

  He straightens his back and faces me and my sisters. He smiles at us, but it’s a wicked sort of smile, then whistles a short note. The hounds scamper to form a neat line before him. He addresses us. “Attention. Stay still. Unless you want to lose a limb.”

  He sets the dogs free with another shrill whistle.

  I tremble as the hounds circle me and my sisters, their black nostrils flaring, yellowing fangs bared. If it weren’t for Rafa, her warm breath against my neck, her paws against my shoulder, I couldn’t remain unmoving as the hounds sniff my boots and hem. One of them, a dog leaner than the rest, seems particularly intelligent. As if it could count what it must keep track of.

  “All right. That’s enough.” Captain Ansalov chuckles. He whistles once more, and the hounds scatter and regroup behind the last troika.

  “You may board the sleds,” Captain Janlav says. He doesn’t have to tell us that Captain Ansalov’s hounds have our scent now. Even I realize that any attempt to run away would end up in their teeth.

  * * *

  I wake up to a wail so cruel that my stomach knots up. Rafa snaps awake on my lap, but Merile and Mufu continue snoring. Elise, who sits on my other side, stares blankly ahead, though maybe it’s because her lashes and eyebrows glitter with frost. As Celestia and Sibilia travel on the sled before us, I can only see their backs.

  “What was that?” I ask. Amongst the sounds of the snow crunching under the runners, the horses’ heavy breathing, and the riders’ occasional muttering, my voice sounds terribly tiny and frail.

  Another wail comes from the dark forest lining what might or mightn’t be a road. The guards gallop onward as though they’d heard nothing. I crane over my shoulder, only to glimpse Captain Ansalov’s hounds sprinting from one rider to the other as though all this was just a game for them.

  “Wolves,” Elise says, wrapping an arm around me. My blanket makes a cracking sound. It’s frozen into a hard shell around me, but I know it’s not thick enough to ward off the hounds’ teeth. “But don’t worry about them, my dear Alina. They won’t dare to approach this many people.”

  Even as she speaks, two of the hounds take off. They leap through the snowbanks with ease, clipped ears pulled back, and disappear amongst the white-cloaked firs. The next cruel howl comes from farther away. Even the wolves are afraid of Captain Ansalov’s hounds.

  I pet Rafa both to warm my hands and remain calm. There are stars in the sky at last, so it must be night. The forest is dense and full of shadows. Though I can’t know for sure, I think most of them belong to living animals. Yet I don’t dare to close my eyes again. I’m afraid of Captain Ansalov. I don’t think he’ll ever turn out to be a nice man, any more than his hounds could turn out to be anyone’s companions. I’m sure he doesn’t have any friends, only enemies and those he commands.

  Elise adjusts the gold-embroidered blanket that covers our laps. “We will be at the house soon.”

  I don’t know how she can tell that. I’m pretty sure she’s never been this far up in the north or away from home either. To me, the firs with branches bent under snow and the rare white clearings that the winter wind has combed hard all look the same in the light that’s not our father’s.

  The hounds return behind our troika, panting, yapping. Captain Ansalov barks praises at them. He sounds too cheerful.

  I lean against Elise, because I don’t want him to hear what I have to say. “I don’t think he’s here to keep us safe.”

  “That’s why you have sisters,” Elise replies. But then she suddenly leans forward and raises her arm to point straight ahead. The wind pushes its way under the blankets. Rafa shivers on my lap. “Now, look!”

  The forest ends, and then I do see it, our destination still so far away. A house standing on a steep hill, with a walled garden facing what might be a frozen lake. It does look very pretty, but terribly lonely, all at the same time.

  “The Angefort House,” Elise whispers, awed, but there’s a trace of something else in her voice, too. She’s heard of this place. But hers are grown-up secrets, and if she hasn’t chosen to share them with me before, I don’t think she’ll do so now either.

  The guards and soldiers whip the horses to gallop faster on the last, long stretch, but when we reach the steep hill, they let them slow down to a walk. Merile stirs only when we curve onto the snowy yard flanked by two smaller houses, maybe a stable and servants’ quarters? Mufu twists her head to lick what’s visible of my sister’s face from under the gray blanket, the angry red cheeks and redder nose. “Are we there yet?”

  Elise laughs, and it’s the most beautiful sound ever. She reaches past me to nudge Merile’s shoulder. “Yes, we are there.”

  Even as she speaks, Captain Janlav and Captain Ansalov dismount their snorting horses. Frost immediately forms on the necks and flanks, where the animals sweated. The men stride with Beard and Tabard and two garrison soldiers through the untended yard to the wide stone steps leading to the white double doors. Captain Janlav and the guards have their rifles at hand. Captain Ansalov is more at ease as he reaches out for the ring-shaped knocker. The sound it makes is heavy and lonely. Then again, who would live in a place like this?

  “What do we do next?” I ask Elise, hugging Rafa.

  She tilts her head minutely and studies the door, the six men waiting before it, then the troikas and horses and soldiers and even the hounds. Celestia and Sibilia sit quiet in their sled. My sister says, “We wait.”

  And that’s what we do.

  At last, the door opens, but it does so hesitantly and slowly. Captain Janlav wagers a st
ep back, just to give it space to fully open and not for any other reason. A pale, bony face that’s framed by a frilly cap peeks out. And there stands a woman as old as Nurse Nookes, in a servant’s simple black and white dress, her eyes wide and gaze darting from side to side, gripping an iron poker in her hand.

  I immediately know this servant is afraid, not planning to harm us. Which is good.

  In the other sled, Celestia whispers something to Sibilia. Merile fidgets with her blanket, as curious as I am. Elise notices this. She says in a low voice, “She wasn’t expecting company.”

  Beard brushes in past the servant. The two captains exchange hushed words with her. Or that is, the men speak. The servant’s lips don’t move. She eyes the horses and hounds, doesn’t lower the poker. No, she does so only when she notices me and my sisters. Her expression draws blank as she stares at us in disbelief, as if she were seeing a gathering of ghosts.

  Beard returns from inside the house. He nods curtly at Captain Janlav, who then turns to face me and my sisters and shouts, “Escort them in.”

  “Now we get up.” Elise pulls the embroidered blanket aside from our laps. She eyes it longingly and then quickly bundles it up and pushes it atop our other belongings. “It’s safe.”

  It hurts so much to get up! My teeth chatter. My body is numb and useless once more. Even though the buildings shelter us from the wind, the cold claws at me worse now than before we boarded the sled, though I don’t know how that’s possible. Yet Elise seems unaffected. She climbs out first, then helps both me and Merile down. By the time we’re ready, Celestia and Sibilia have been so for a while.

  Tabard points toward the open door. The guards don’t like talking to us when they can avoid doing so. Celestia and Sibilia obey the wordless command and go first, which is wrong, because we should be seen in the order of our ages!

  “Elise . . .” I whisper, confused.

  “Hush.” She holds my and Merile’s hand as we follow our sisters’ path. Rafa and Mufu trot beside us, lifting their paws high, but there’s no escaping the winter. “Don’t worry about that now.”

  But it feels exactly the sort of thing that we should worry about. For us, the Daughters of the Moon, the right order is very important. Nurse Nookes always said that the very future of the Crescent Empire depends on it, though I never quite understood why and how.

  We enter the house, and Belly closes the door behind us. Inside, the old servant studies us in the faint light of a very old duck soul lantern. Though me and my sisters are wrapped in gray blankets and ruffled by our long journey, it’s as if the servant knows already who we are, but not because someone has told her, but because she recognizes us as our father’s daughters. I like her, though still she doesn’t say a word. Is she mute? I try not to stare at her.

  As we tramp snow from our sabots and boots and brush it off the blankets, I hear a snippet of conversation coming from a room next to the hall, from what might be a library. The door is ajar.

  “Once your men have unpacked the sleds, we will not be requiring further assistance,” Captain Janlav says. “Though do make sure nothing disappears in their pockets, will you?”

  Captain Ansalov chuckles, and how I hate that sound! “We will try our very best.”

  Captain Janlav grunts something under his breath. He may or may not have mentioned the gagargi’s name. Hrr! Thinking of him makes me shiver worse than the winter.

  The two captains emerge from the room.

  “Follow me,” Captain Janlav says. He takes us through the hall, past what indeed is a library, toward a wide, wooden stairway. I catch a glimpse of narrower stairs leading down, to the cellar. The simple, dark door gives me chills. Rafa and Mufu must have sensed the same, for they yap, but only once.

  “Sillies,” Merile laughs, but the laugh is forced. “Up. Up we go!”

  Though the stairs creak like a forest of hollow trees, I remind myself that I shouldn’t be afraid. Beard checked the house. Captain Janlav is tasked to protect us. He wouldn’t have brought us here, led us upstairs, if he weren’t sure.

  And yet, with each step, I’m more terrified.

  We don’t stop at the second floor, not in the big room that might be a dining room. We hurry along the long hallway. We continue onward to the third floor, there to at last enter a drawing room.

  No curtains cover the tall, arching windows, and the night floods in unhindered. On the far side of the room, three doors hide what might be bedrooms. A grandfather clock strikes time, with a fireplace facing it from the opposite side. There’s no embers there, no flames, but the two chandeliers gleam silvery. I blink, and then I see more. In the light of the stars and the chandeliers, two elderly, pale ladies sit behind the oval table, facing the door, their faces sharp, eyes hungry.

  “Olesia, you were right,” the older one says. “We have visitors, imagine that!”

  I gasp and stumble back, straight into Elise’s arms. She looks around in alarm, and though she seems to be taking in everything in the room, her gaze slides right past the women. “What is it, Alina?”

  I can’t reply to her. For it’s then that I realize, the light goes through the women. This house is haunted.

  Chapter 2: Merile

  Lambs. The gray blanket smells of wet lambs as Elise pokes it with the long, sturdy needle. She hums a light tune that fails to fill the drawing room with cheer. She can’t fool me this easily. The coat will be ugly.

  “Peasants,” I mutter. We’ve stayed at this house for a full week already, but the winter here will no doubt persist for months still. Enough time for Elise to finish sewing coats for all of us. “We’ll look like peasants.”

  Elise pauses both humming and sewing. She glances past me at Celestia, who stares out of the tall, arching window, into the walled garden beyond. She’s only half visible from behind the no-longer-so-white curtains we brought with us from the train. Her face is pale in the light of the day that still doesn’t last long enough to be of any use. The crown of her hair is paler, almost the color of swan feathers. She’s present, but away. No doubt she’s looking into the world beyond this one.

  “And would that be such a bad thing?” Elise asks me, tapping the point of the needle with her finger. Once. Twice.

  How can she even ask? Does she not realize how wrong that would be? We’re only ever supposed to wear white!

  “Yes. Yes it would,” I reply, glad that Alina is taking her afternoon nap in our room with my dear companions and that for once I don’t have to shy away from an argument. We’re here to stay, though my older sisters won’t admit it aloud. But even if apart from the guards and the mute old servant, Millie, there’s no one around for miles, that’s no reason to forget who we are. “We’re the Daughters of the Moon.”

  Sibilia has paused reading on the divan before the fireplace. Her shoulders are hunched from the hours spent over the book of scriptures. She’s intently listening to my conversation with Elise. Is this again one of those times they try and gauge if I paid any attention during Nurse Nookes’s monotonous lectures back at the Summer City, ready to tease me if I reveal that I didn’t?

  Well, I did pay attention! I’ll set them right!

  “Our power comes from the Moon himself. When the oldest of us marries him, she becomes the Crescent Empress. Papa will then send the men he’s blessed to her, and those men will become the seeds of her daughters, and then they’ll be appointed as generals and court officials and to other high positions.” There. Oh, wait, that wasn’t everything. “And then she’ll also tell the lords and ladies what to do. And then they’ll tell their landowners and mine owners and factory foremen what they need to produce and how much and when.”

  Elise sighs as she kneels before me to check the front piece. Knowing my sister, there was nothing accidental about the sigh. But looking at the front piece, she’s holding it higher against my chest than the one she already finished attaching. As my sister reaches out for the mint green tin box perched on the edge of the oval table, I realize
she’s somehow still unsatisfied with my answer.

  “Simple. It’s really all quite simple,” I add, because really, it is, and I don’t want the coat to be any uglier than it has to be. Once it’s ready, I bet Elise will force me to wear it every single time I go out to play with my sillies, and I’ll have no choice but to obey her. I don’t know who lived in this house before us, but the only clothes they left behind are tattered summer dresses, ridiculously wide-brimmed hats with thinning plumes, and worn ankle shoes too big for anyone other than Celestia. No muffs or furs or anything else useful.

  Elise attaches the front piece in place with two stitches. She eyes it critically. “Things are rarely simple in life.”

  I, if anyone, know that. Our lives haven’t been particularly easy lately, not with the gagargi turning against Mama, not with Celestia’s previous escape plan failing, not with us ending up here in the middle of nowhere in a house so sparsely furnished that our bedrooms don’t even have carpets. It’s very difficult to be a Daughter of the Moon when you have to consider not only yourself but also how things happening to your family affect everyone else! “Peasant. When you’re a peasant, your lord makes sure there’s food on your table and clothes on your back and you really don’t need to think about anything at all. Being a peasant is really quite an easy life.”

  The front piece slips from Elise’s fingers as she flinches away from me. It tangles against my belly, held back by the loosening stitches. I’ve never seen her gray eyes this wide.

  “What?” I ask even as Sibilia lowers the book of scriptures on the divan and strolls to us. This is no longer about her waiting and wanting to tease me about something, I’m sure of that. And yet Celestia remains by the window, staring out. No, she’s not only staring out, but ever so slowly brushing her fingers over every inch of the sill. What is she doing?

  “Don’t ever say that sort of thing aloud when the guards can hear you!” Elise’s chastisement gives me other, more urgent things to think about.