Revenant Eve

by Sherwood Smith

  I ended with, “And so, at least, the timeline is preserved, because all they knew of me was that I was a ghost. They thought I was English, because there was no record of me in Dobrenica’s history.”

  “Actually,” Beka said, “that’s not true.”

  My turn to be surprised. “You’re kidding! You mean I went to all that trouble to preserve the timeline for nothing?”

  “Not quite.” Beka grinned, her light brown eyes narrowed with sardonic humor. “The ghost named Kim who closed the Esplumoir is a legend among the Salfmattas, a well-known, extremely well kept secret. Your sudden appearance, your name, your ability to see the past worried people quite a bit. We didn’t know what it meant, you see: the young English ghost named Kim.” Her smile faded. “Over New Year’s, when you told me about your visions, I figured it might be you, though no one could explain the English connection, since no one in your family had ever been to England until you went for your first visit. I was afraid it meant you would not survive the year, because how else would you become a ghost? But I didn’t dare tell you that. It would be horrible, especially if we were wrong.”

  “That definitely would have been horrible,” I said feelingly. “And that convinces me more than anything that I was right not to tell Aurélie who I was, or what I knew about her life. But I am really glad I didn’t know when she dies.”

  “She lived a good life. They both did. Their three daughters married into the Ysvorods, the Trasyemovas, and the von Mecklundburgs respectively. It was the son of the eldest daughter who brought the crown back to the Ysvorods, and in turn their grandson who was Alexander IV.”

  “Did Mord and Elisheva have kids?”

  “Oh, yes. Three. Their sons both moved away from Dobrenica. One died as a revolutionary in one of the eighteen forty-eight uprisings, the other went on to a career in Vienna, playing for the royal orchestra. Their daughter took over the school.”

  “Did Aurélie’s family ever show up?”

  “No, and now I understand some odd context.” Beka smiled. “They wrote many letters back and forth. Burned by the Soviets when the archive went up in flames, but someone somewhere had copied out portions of them, and that is what we have. Anyway, her mother kept putting off the visit, then finally admitted she couldn’t stick going anywhere away from the sea, especially corseted. I remember debate in my royal history class about what that might have meant.”

  “It meant she couldn’t stand corsets,” I said, laughing.

  Beka flashed a smile. “The last letter made it clear that they were settled in San Francisco, having established a trading enterprise. They were bringing in gold miners when the letters ceased.”

  “Okay, here’s my last question. If the Salfmattas knew that I, as a ghost, closed the Esplumoir back then, why were we struggling so hard over New Year’s find out what and where it was?”

  Her nose wrinkled in a quick grimace. “Remember that I told you knowledge was passed verbally to novices one at a time, according to internal standards? The knowledge about the Esplumoir, which had not been opened for all those generations, was only known to the Elders. The oldest was a victim of the Gestapo fairly early on. You know that the Nazis were secretly seeking information about magic in any form.”

  “Yes, that’s generally known. There are even TV shows about the Nazis and their crackpot theories about supernatural powers.”

  “I have been told that real mages often saw to it that false facts were passed to them, to keep them haring off down the paths of superstition and futility and bypassing real power, because their intent was evil from the beginning. But anyway, we Dobreni lost a lot of knowledge, and so we were trying to reconstruct it all last year. I suspect that Aurélie’s necklace lies somewhere inside that mountain.”

  “Or it’s caught somewhere in the Nasdrafus.”

  “I think some of the present Elders hope that their Elders are somewhere in the Nasdrafus, but that is not known. Grandmother Ziglieri, whom you have met, said her Elders feared demons were working on the Esplumoir to open it again, while the war raged all around. We didn’t know that Jerzy von Mecklundburg’s mother, Maritza the Stone mason’s daughter, was the one helping them by gleaning what information she could get. Your encounter with Duke Armandros has cleared up some mysteries. He must’ve overheard her, or maybe she even bragged to him, not realizing that she would stir his latent loyalties.”

  “I wonder if we’ll ever see him again,” I said.

  “You,” Beka said, getting to her feet. “Not we. You are the one who sees ghosts.”

  “I hope I was the one to see ghosts,” I corrected. “I am ready for a nice, boring, ghost-free and Vrajhus-free life now.”

  I said that, but it wasn’t really true. What I wanted was no more surprises, magical or ghostly. When I got out of the car on the 15th, on the top of the mountain near the Roman church, shivering in my white gown, I did have ghosts in mind, but my experiment was one of intent.

  August is usually a beautiful month in Dobrenica. Seldom hot, and that only for a few hours in the day. If there is rain, it’s generally an afternoon thunderstorm, well-behaved enough to roll over the mountains by sunset, leaving a clean-washed sky.

  The morning was chilly but promised warmth when the sun came up behind us. There I found a dozen or so girls and young women waiting, some in elaborate white dresses that they had made themselves or that had been handed down for generations. Everyone had a wreath of white flowers on her head.

  The March of the Innocents was usually brides-to-be but could be any young woman at a milestone: someone going into a religious vocation, or these days, who had been promoted from journeyman to full-fledged artisan in her chosen career. There was no equivalent for the guys, as in the past, public parades of any kind had been a male thing, excepting only nobles and royalty on their way to festivals. There was only this one exception for the females.

  My white gown had been bought the day before, the wreath made from flowers plucked in the Ysvorod garden by Madam Emilio, the household steward. The important object was the braided candle in my hand. Soul candles, Beka had told me, were a Jewish custom that had been adopted long ago by Dobrenica at large. A soul candle was three wicks braided during a lovely ritual, adapted to be distinctly Dobreni.

  The eastern sky blued gently, blanketing the stars one by one. The blue had turned peach when the girls began to sing “Xanpia’s Wreath.”

  Beka had told me that I, as the soon-to-be-princess, would be expected to light my candle first and touch the flame to the next girl’s. So I did, meeting the smiling face of someone I didn’t know. Her singing voice was pretty (as mine isn’t), and strong enough to keep everybody around her on the right pitch.

  From one to the next multiplied the flames, casting a glow over smiling faces, and then we started down the mountain path. The wildflowers, trees, and shrubs were in full bloom. There was the plateau where Alec and I had spent the night before I fled back to Los Angeles.

  I waited until my walking rhythm was well established, and then it was time for my experiment. For some reason I existed in liminal space, so I meant to learn how to control it. I reached back a couple of centuries, to this very morning…

  And there they were.

  For Aurélie and Elisheva, Margit and Irena, it was a foggy morning. Their candles were much bigger than ours, and they walked arm in arm, their gowns silken, tied high in Empire style. They were not singing “Xanpia’s Wreath” but a round that blended perfectly—a Jewish hymn, something Russian, and something in Latin. I wondered if Mord had found the music and made it match like that.

  Aurélie walked with her face lifted, full of joy.

  And then they were gone, and I was back, nearly stumbling over a rock. I hopped just in time, my candle flickering and splattering wax down my front. Ow.

  It was full morning when we reached the palace garden, and a short while later the square, where families waited. Some separated off to go to church, basilica, or temple, others to
be fêted at family breakfasts.

  My breakfast was at the palace, with my parents, Gran, Alec, and soon-to-be-King Milo, Alec’s father, whose health was frail these days. Also present were all the cousins: tall, stylish Phaedra Danilov and her brother, descendants of Captain Danilov of the King’s Guard; Honoré de Vauban, baron, whose new house was nearly finished. I wondered how much he knew about his one-eyed diplomat forebear. Oh yes, he was an archivist. He’d know if anyone did.

  The von Mecklundburgs were all there. Tony lounged in the background while watching me narrow-eyed, as though trying to figure out the mystery. Even Cerisette was there. She was blond again, perfectly turned out in the latest French fashion.

  Her only comment was, “I trust you are well enough to favor me with a long overdue consultation. Unless you want your wedding to be a surprise?”

  “I’ll be there tomorrow,” I said.

  Tony cornered me at the end of breakfast, when everyone was talking to everyone else. “Cold feet?” he asked, one brow aslant.

  I looked into his tilted black eyes, throwbacks to Aurélie’s beautiful family. I don’t know what he saw in my expression, but his altered to inquiry, and I said, “I saw Ruli.”

  That he did not expect. “And?”

  “She was in Paris. I think she likes her new state. She seemed more self-assured.”

  He whistled softly. “You ran away to Paris?”

  “I was sent there,” I said. “No choice. And it was not the Paris you are accustomed to.”

  “I don’t know whether to be relieved or terrified. About my sister, I mean.”

  “Both, I expect,” I said, grinning.

  After that, things became a whirl of activity: fittings, inspections, shifting belongings, tastings with Mom presiding. Everybody wanted to talk, and I rejoiced in all the details of daily life, from brushing snarls out of my hair (my ordinary hair, that needed some serious conditioning) to smelling wet grass after a rain. Even tired feet made me happy, because I was me again, and any time I wanted a hug and kiss, I could find Alec, and he dropped everything to offer them.

  So I woke up on my wedding day, glad to find myself in my body, and in my time.

  The problem with a perfect wedding is that superlatives seem to cancel one another out. The intensity of bliss was so poignant it was almost painful when I walked into the cathedral on my father’s arm, his wild hair actually combed, and his usual aging-hippie clothes replaced by a tailored tux. “Look like Cary Grant, don’t I?” he muttered out of the side of his mouth as we started down the aisle, which was decorated with flowers from the palace garden.

  “Better,” I whispered back. “A better Cary Grant. With a beard.”

  Alec looked fantastic in his elegant suit with the vaguely Edwardian line. My gown was a copy of my great-grandmother’s, taken from her portrait: lace over silk, with white pearls embroidered at the neck and tight sleeves.

  Memory comes in shards after that: Alec’s tight grip on my hands, as if to keep me anchored; Gran wiping her eyes; Tony flashed his challenging grin from the first pew. Tania, wearing sea green velvet, in the first row with her younger sister Teresa and her best friend Miriam. Those teenage girls had been a great help to me, and I’d insisted they sit up front. Next to Tania was Natalie Miller, giving me a private thumbs up when our eyes met.

  Then the choir began one of the songs that Mord had adapted, and flash! I saw the past. They were all there, not just Jaska and Aurélie kneeling at the altar side by side, but faint and shimmering Queen Sofia, who was the first ghost I had ever seen. She seemed to be looking right at me, her smile benevolent.

  But I did not want to slip into the past. I blinked, willed them back into their time, and I was safely restored to mine.

  After the wedding came the coronation part. It was a simple ceremony, involving hereditary crowns for Milo, Alec, Gran, and me, worn only for the duration of the ceremony. We each had vows to make, echoed back by the nobles, the Council, and then representatives of various professional guilds. The vows were much the same as they had been for many years. Probably Jaska had said the same words. Though monarchy was officially re-established after all those years of occupation, the agreement by the citizenry was an active thing, not passive: it was a conspiracy to invent the fiction of nobility, with all its constraints and obligations as well as the perks.

  And then it was done.

  We exited following King Milo, who walked with straight back, his hand tight on his cane, Gran at his side. Alec had gone in as Statthalter, but walked out as Crown Prince, arm in arm with me in my newly minted Princess Aurelia persona.

  We stopped in a side room and shed the crowns, which would go back to live in their vault until the next special occasion.

  Then came the parade. Mom and Tony had gotten the Bugatti cleaned up and running, and there it was, second in line, a dashingly handsome car. You could only call it archeo-modern, as it was so old-fashioned it was cool.

  Milo and Gran led the parade in the huge car I thought of as the Kingmobile, a ’36 Mercedes-Benz Special Roadster. We drove in a circle along Riev’s four biggest streets, which had been decorated with flowers of every hue by the citizens. People flung flowers into our open car until Alec and I sat in a sweet-smelling moat of blossoms. At various streets, representatives of guilds—mostly little kids in their very best clothes—presented us with symbolic gifts, and we gave them symbolic bags of coins, the speeches pretty much the same over and over, but at least they were short.

  We started off from the cathedral going south, so we did not reach Xanpia’s Fountain until near the end of our loop. It was then, with the light just so, and the angle one I seldom took, that I happened to glance up at the statue itself. Usually I paid attention to the ghost shapes of animals and figures dancing in and out of liminal space around the fountain. Now it was Xanpia who drew my attention, though she didn’t do anything unnerving. The stone was just that, a carved smiling face, the lines blurred by ten centuries.

  “What is it?” Alec asked, instantly concerned. I hadn’t been aware until that moment how intently he’d been observing me, and it struck me again that my long absence had been much harder on him than on me.

  “Xanpia seemed really nice, but I hope I never meet her again.”

  He reached for my hand. Our fingers laced, and tightened.

  When we got back to the palace we changed out of our wedding clothes for the reception for the Five Families and the Council, after which everybody took a break to change into their evening clothes for the grand ball.

  It came off brilliantly. The weather was perfect. I couldn’t help remembering the last time I’d danced on that marble floor, and of course Tony had to tease me about it. I made sure (from a distance) that Cerisette, looking impossibly elegant in her favorite Balenciaga, got the compliments she deserved for masterminding the entire day. At least we could work professionally, I thought, which was a step in the right direction. When she arrived home after the ball, she’d find my thanks in the form of a trip for two to Paris, a stay in her favorite hotel, the Renaissance Paris Vendôme, and tickets to what Phaedra said were her favorite places.

  Alec and I danced together six times.

  “Not too shabby,” Nat said to us during one of those dances, as she and her current sweetheart twirled by.

  I looked across the crowded ballroom, where everyone seemed to be having a good time, to the cluster of teen girls in their new finery. A weed of a boy who couldn’t have been more than seventeen, obviously in his first tux, was tentatively approaching the girls, his huskier best bud at his shoulder. From the way the girls were whispering and poking at red-haired Miriam, she seemed to be embarking on the deep waters of a first dance.

  Then we spun away.

  An hour or so before dawn everybody started for home. This palace was now to be my home, Milo and Gran taking over Ysvorod House. The restoration work wasn’t completely done upstairs in the palace, but that was okay, because we wouldn’t be there.
>
  I thought about Aurélie and Jaska on their way up to Sedania, the Dsaret hunting lodge back in those days, for their honeymoon.

  I had no idea where we were going. This was Alec’s surprise for me. We changed one more time and then climbed into his new Daimler, suitcases already in the back. Alec slid into the driver’s seat and I next to him. I looked at him. He looked at me.

  Next thing I knew we were in each other’s arms. For a while it seemed like we weren’t going to get out of the driveway, but eventually we pried ourselves apart, and he started driving. “You’re going to like this,” he said, grinning.

  “As long it doesn’t involve ghosts, powerful artifacts, portals, or duels, I’m easy.”

  “Maybe a duel. But only one.”

  “Oh, well, I can handle that. Did you remember to pack swords, or is it dueling pistols?”

  “Trunk is an arsenal. You can take your pick.”

  It was going to take a while to extricate my thoughts from the past. “The truth is, I kind of liked popping demons. I totally agree with what Aurélie said, and I’m glad she freed them, even if they didn’t seem to know what to do with freedom. But…the cause seemed so right, and fighting them was fun. Does that make me a bad person?”

  Alec said, “It means you are human, with all that implies, good and bad. I have to confess that when you told me about it, my strongest reaction was the wish that I could have been fighting demons at your side.”

  “Oh, I love that image.”

  “Fighting demons?” He cast me an amused glance.

  “No! Us. Side by side.”