“A pocket world,” Heloise whispered. She listened to Evette’s peaceful breathing, as peaceful as though she had not just been rescued from Faerie enslavers and bizarre other worlds. So everything was restored. Everything would return to normal.
“Dragon’s teeth!” Heloise hissed, and sat upright. She hugged her knees in the darkness and listened to her sister, listened to the rats, listened to all the familiar sounds of her life around her. She reached into her pocket and drew out the three-part branch.
The silver, gold, and diamond gleamed in her hands. As she gazed upon it, she saw a forest of silver, a forest of gold, a forest of shining diamond. She saw monsters and visions, and she felt ideas she had never before known. She heard Le Sacre play, and the greater, majestic Song of the Spheres to which she had danced. She heard the roar of the Final Water, the splash of the boatman’s pole as he guided his craft, and she saw Hélène standing in its prow.
She saw Benedict seated in his chair by the fire, giving orders to his guardsmen and looking much improved. Looking like a lord’s son. Looking like a young man who would have no time in his life for peasant girls and peasant concerns . . .
“Dragon’s teeth,” she said again, more softly this time. Then she tossed aside her blanket, stood up, brushed straw from her hair and skirt, and slid swiftly down the loft ladder. Still clutching the branch in one hand, she stepped soundlessly around her brothers on their sleeping pallets near the fire and hastened out into the yard.
The moon was bright, the sky was clear. The night was cold, but with the cold of new spring, not the cold of lingering winter. Her breath made no clouds in the air before her face. She moved like a phantom across the yard, splashed across the stream, and ran for the hillside dotted over with little half-rotted wooden markers.
The wind moved through the trees, through the grass. Then it laughed, and Heloise knew it wasn’t a wind at all. The laughter was catching, and before Heloise reached the top of the hill, she was laughing as well. When she reached the summit, the sylph was with her, darting through her hair, whirling around her in a breezy dance, and she laughed with it at the moonlight, at the starlight, at the mortality all around them.
“Mortal child, are you happy?” the sylph asked amid its giggles.
Heloise did not answer, for though she laughed, she did not know the answer. So, still smiling, she moved through the markers to the smallest one over the small mound. She knelt in the moonlight upon Hélène’s grave.
“Perhaps I’ll tell her,” she said, and she couldn’t say if she spoke to herself, to the sylph, or to Hélène. “Perhaps someday I’ll tell Meme what I saw. But not yet. Not now.”
She bowed down, placed her face close to the grass-grown turf, and whispered, “I love you. Always.” Using her hands and the end of the three-part branch, she dug up a shallow layer of dirt, careful not to break the grass roots. Then she placed the three-part branch inside and very carefully buried it. Let it rest with Hélène. Let it be kept safe and close.
This task complete, she stood and flung wide her arms, and the sylph wrapped itself around her like a rich, whirling, invisible gown.
“Would you like to see?” the sylph asked. “Would you like to see the princess?”
“Yes,” said Heloise. “Show me the princess.”
The sylph held her tight, and she felt the centuries fly past her with incredible speed. She saw the shifting of the landscape, of forests, of buildings, of fields.
Then she saw Centrecœur, and it was not a house but a fortified castle with many tall towers and high, stern walls. Out through the castle gates rode a horseman on a tall red charger, almost as red as himself. At his side galloped a black steed bearing a tall, tall woman whose masses of hair billowed behind her like a banner. They raced each other, neck and neck, laughing with mingled madness and gladness.
In their wake Heloise saw four other horsemen riding. A young girl, on the brink of womanhood and so beautiful it would stop the heart to look at her. Then a boy and another girl, and behind them their sister, the youngest child, another dark-skinned maid riding an eager pony and shouting to the others that she would catch them all.
“Rufus,” Heloise said. “Alala. Ayodele. Adanna . . .”
They were happy. In that moment of mortal time, they were together and they were happy, truly happy. Heloise, as she stood on that hill, wondered if in that moment she had glimpsed the truth of the unseen Farthestshore.
She whispered:
“Beyond the Final Water Falling
The Songs of Spheres recalling
When the sun descends beyond the twilit sky
I will remember you.”
The sylph held her tight in its arms. It seemed to listen to her song and was, for a sylph at least, solemn. When she finished singing the final note in her rough, unlovely mortal voice, the sylph sighed as though it had just heard the most beautiful of arias.
Carefully it bore her back across the years and set her down on the hilltop beside Hélène’s small grave. “Thank you,” Heloise said, then bowed her head and let two tears run down her face. “Thank you for everything.”
“You are welcome, mortal child,” said the sylph. With an extra twirl and gust, it darted away across the moonlit grounds, muttering, moaning, and singing to itself. Heloise, as she watched the movement in the grass and trees that marked its passing, thought it made its way up to the Oakwood, perhaps back to its own world. Perhaps never to return.
Why, when everything was restored to what it should be, did she feel so heavy-hearted?
With a sigh she turned and gazed down upon the silver-lined cottage and cottage yard. The pig pen where Gutrund snored and dreamed piggish dreams. The chicken coop where Rufus the rooster and his wives roosted comfortably. The spinning shed where tomorrow she would help her mother cut and prepare the retted flax—
“There are few indeed who would allow a sylph to carry them back and forth through time as you have just done,” said a strange voice from the shadows right beside her. “Indeed, you must have more power than I thought to direct such a wild being so easily.”
Heloise didn’t scream. She didn’t move until she was ready. She held perfectly still and counted breaths up to ten. Then, with absolute control, she turned her head to one side and addressed herself to the darkness. “Who are you?” she asked.
The shadows parted as though they had been a cloak. Light shone from a gleaming flower like a star, and this light illuminated a lovely face, the face of a young woman with old, old eyes. She wore the starflower in her hair, which was long and black and straight. At her waist she wore a knife in a sheath, but her hands made no move to draw it, for in one hand she held a quill pen and in the other a parchment scroll.
“I am the Dame of the Haven, Imraldera by name,” said she, “though some still call me Starflower. I have come to find you, even as I promised.”
For a breathless moment Heloise did not speak. Then in a rush she exclaimed, “You’re the one who sent me the message! Starflower! You’re the one who told me . . . who told me . . .”
“That you are stronger than you think?” the Dame finished for her then nodded in assent. “And that remains true. You are stronger than you think and, I suspect, stronger than I think as well. Now that I see you in person, I believe there is more of Nivien in your veins than I first guessed.”
At this, Heloise shook her head. “Whatever Faerie powers I had are gone,” she said. “Mother took them. She stole away my mirror magic.”
At this the Dame nearly laughed, and her eyes were bright in the light of the flower she wore. “The Queen of Night took your mirror magic, yes. But you are possessed of far more power than that! She could not take it all even had she thought her law would permit her to do so.”
Heloise stared at her. A whole host of new thoughts and ideas pushed around inside her head, and for the moment she couldn’t find a way to fit them all, couldn’t even think them. So she stood and stared, her mouth hanging open, and looked
for all the world like a simple peasant urchin without a brain in her head.
The Dame frowned and tsked but without malice. “Your powers have only just begun to manifest,” she said. “Do you think any but one born of Faerie graces could command a sylph? Could be carried to and fro in time and not be lost? The sylph itself cares nothing for time, and were you not able, even unconsciously, to direct it, it would have misplaced you along the way and never realized its error.”
“I—I didn’t know,” Heloise whispered.
The Dame narrowed her eyes, considering the girl before her. “I see you have much to learn. And small wonder! This is a remote corner of the mortal world, and you have seen little enough, even with your recent adventures. Perhaps I was wrong to come here. But I rather doubt . . .” Her voice trailed off. She had a look about her face as though she listened to some inner voice which Heloise could not hear. Or perhaps not an inner voice; perhaps a far, far, far outer voice, so distant that only one with carefully trained ears could hope to discern it.
However it was, the Dame paused as though to listen for some time. Then, coming to a decision, she nodded. “I have an offer for you, mortal child.”
“Heloise. My name is Heloise.”
The Dame nodded. “Yes, that may well be. But don’t be giving your name away too freely! Names have power in the Faerie world, and you don’t want yours to fall into the wrong hands.”
“You gave me your name,” Heloise pointed out. “I didn’t ask for it.”
“Yes,” said the Dame. “But I have the knowing of names. Rarely do I meet a soul whose name I cannot discern. So long as I hold the names of my friends and my enemies, they cannot hold mine against me. It is the way of Faerie. The balance, the dance. It is a good, if dangerous, dance. I will teach it to you.”
Heloise felt her heart begin to leap in awkward, painful jumps, like a fawn suddenly aware that it has long legs, that it might indeed run if it wished. “You . . . will teach me?” she repeated, scarcely daring to hope for that which followed.
“Indeed,” said the Dame. “You have a gift, and your land has a need. Though the curse of the Family of Night is indeed broken, there are yet many gates opened into this part of your world. Beings from the Far may creep into the Near, and the mortals of this realm need someone to protect them. A gate-guarder, if you will. Someone with the ability to understand both mortal and immortal plights. Someone, in short, like you.
“I want to take you away with me. For a short while. I propose that you join me at the Haven of my Lord, which is deep in the Wood Between the Worlds. There I will teach you of Faerie—the writing, the language, the history, and the many, many peoples. There you will learn to harness your Faerie blood, to control it, to discover what powers remain to you beyond the mirror magic you have lost. I suspect they are plentiful and varied—as plentiful and varied as those of any among the Nivien. I will teach you until you are well prepared then return you here. And you will protect your people, your land, your nation even, from all that might try to pass through the gates.”
Her words filled Heloise’s head and heart. At first she thought she might smother under the weight of them; the next moment she thought she might fly upon the freedom they offered. She was terrified and enraptured all at once. To leave Canneberges! To leave her family! To leave her peasant life, the world she knew, and learn of worlds beyond! She could not say whether these ideas pleased or frightened or sickened her, for she felt all of these emotions and then some at the same time.
“One thing you must understand,” the Dame continued, “is that your time is limited. In the Between, days, hours, and years will pass differently than they do here in your own world. But when you return, you will have but a few years remaining to you before you must make a choice.”
“What choice?” Heloise asked.
“The powers of your blood are not powers you may keep forever and still retain your mortality,” said the Dame. “Upon the dawning of your eighteenth birthday, you will have to decide either to keep your Faerie gifts and become immortal . . . or to give up those gifts and remain among your own kind. To remain mortal.”
To consider such a weighty choice just then was impossible. To consider it would be to fear it, and Heloise wasn’t prepared for that. She felt the importance and the dread plucking at the edges of her heart, but she shoved them both back and said only, “I am just fourteen. I have time to decide.”
“Four years.” The Dame’s mouth turned up in a wry smile. “Not so much time as you think.” She reached out and took hold of Heloise’s right hand. “Heloise, tell me, will you pledge me your service? Will you train with me? Will you learn to harness these incredible powers with which you have been both blessed and cursed, learn how to channel them into the protection of those you love?”
Heloise’s heart thrilled with terror and with, if she was honest with herself, joy. Her fear was great, but greater still was the fear of staying here. The fear that this strange woman would leave and Heloise would face the new day knowing she had denied her one great chance. Her chance to be what she was supposed to be.
“Yes,” said Heloise, her voice a choking whisper. She coughed and repeated the word with more confidence. “Yes. I will train with you. I will go with you to the Wood Between.”
Afterward she wondered if she should have dithered and considered and dragged her feet, out of pure principle if nothing else. But she knew she could make no other decision. She had seen too much. She had done too much.
She would never go back to the life she’d known before.
FORTY-THREE
The next morning, just as the Flaxman family finished off their bowls of pottage, and Papa took up his wide-brimmed hat, ready for a day in the fields, Grandmem appeared at the door and announced without preamble: “My sister, Cateline, needs a wedding gown. May she borrow yours, Berthe? It should fit her right enough.”
Thus Meme’s prediction of a wedding in the family before the end of spring proved true after all, though certainly not in the way anyone might have expected. Less than a week later Heloise and Evette helped their great-aunt into Meme’s soft white gown. Evette braided wildflowers into Cateline’s grey hair and wrapped it in a crown of braids on top of her head. Heloise loaned her own hairpins for the task—no one wanted to bother with Heloise’s tangle of curls on such a day in any case.
Before the sun was high in the sky, a lot of people gathered at the Flaxman cottage, a number of old folks in particular who, strangely enough, all knew and remembered Cateline from long ago. No one bothered to ask her where she’d been. No one required explanations or excuses. Heloise had wondered how her great-aunt’s reappearance would play out, but it was much like Evette’s own return; if anyone suspected anything strange, no one wanted to acknowledge it. So nothing was asked, nothing was said, and everyone smiled.
Marcel Millerman, proud in a new red linen vest over his brown work shirt, his beard and hair combed, drew his bent body almost straight in the center of the yard as Cateline joined him. They stood in the middle of a small circle made up of maidens, including Heloise and Evette (and that wretched Alphonsine Millerman, who as Marcel’s granddaughter was obliged to be present, much to Heloise’s disgust). The maidens danced the dance-of-joining around the couple. Once this dance ended, others joined the circle, expanded it, and added more circles until Cateline and her reclaimed love were in the very center of an enormous, turning wheel of dance.
Heloise caught glimpses of the couple as the dance progressed. She wondered if perhaps her Faerie sight played tricks on her, for it seemed to her that at every second glimpse she saw them not as the old, gray couple they were but as a young man and a young woman holding hands and beaming with the joy of new love. Perhaps that’s what they were at heart. Perhaps this was part of mortal magic and had nothing to do with Faerie blood or Faerie sight.
Grandmem did not join the dance. She was too tired, so she sat on a stool provided for her and smiled and clutched her ragged shawl abou
t her. Heloise, seeing her, recognized a certain sorrow on her grandmother’s face. But she also saw a certain contentment that had never been there as long as Heloise had known her.
After all, had the girl Grandmem once was not turned away from the Night Hunt when she did . . . well, Cateline might not have found true love to come back to, even late in their lives as it was. Yes, there was failure in Grandmem’s past, but there was triumph as well. Now there could be peace.
When this dance was complete, Marcel and Cateline were declared married. Then the real celebration began, including what passed for a feast among the peasants of Canneberges and, of course, more dancing.
This is how such stories should end, Heloise decided as she caught the hands of her brother Claude and whirled round and round with him. He was so tall, he could swing her right off her feet and make her scream with pretend fear. Stories like this one—with Faeries and kidnappings and daring escapes—should always end with a wedding.
At one point she thought she glimpsed Evette talking with Briant, the young guard from the Great House. Another dance later and Evette slipped to Heloise’s side. “I’ve been offered a position,” she whispered. “Briant says Madame Leblanc has invited me to join the girls at Centrecœur, to train as a housemaid.”
“Is that what you want to do?” Heloise asked.
She and Evette had scarcely spoken in the last several days. Not in words. They had exchanged glances now and then, and each of them glimpsed strange sights in the other’s eyes, strange sights and strange memories. But though Evette saw restlessness in Heloise’s gaze, Heloise saw, as she always saw, Evette’s quiet contentment, which may have been the same as resignation or may have been the same as peace. It was hard to say. Evette was not an easy one to understand.
“I think I would like it,” Evette said. “It’s an excellent opportunity. If I do well, I may one day be able to travel to other great houses, to see more of our kingdom.”
A Branch of Silver, a Branch of Gold Page 39
