Wildwood Dancing

by Juliet Marillier

  “Terrified, Mistress Jena.”

  “Terrified is good,” I said. “That’s just how I feel. Hurry, please.”

  I sat on the old seat, shivering with anticipation. With every rustle and creak from the forest, with every drone of passing insect or peep of home-winging bird, I glanced across the orchard toward the house. I tried to guess what Costi would say first and how I might answer.

  He didn’t take long. I suppose my using his groom as my messenger made guessing where I was easy. He was carrying a lantern, something I had assumed I would not need, for I had not expected to wait here for so long, nor to be walking home after dusk. We didn’t have much time. But I couldn’t think of that. Here was Costi, coming across the orchard toward me, the firelight dancing over his face. His expression was terribly serious. He had cut his hair again—it curled around his ears and exposed the back of his neck, a spot my fingers might find rather nice to stroke. He wore plain, good clothes: a white shirt, trousers in a muted green, serviceable boots, a warm cloak. He looked as nervous as a miscreant about to face judgment. I had absolutely no idea what he would say.

  Some three paces away from me, he halted and extended his hand toward me. “Would you c-care to d-dance, Jena?” he asked, summoning a ghost of a smile.

  “I’d be glad to,” I said in a woefully unsteady voice, and put my hand in his. His touch warmed my whole body. I was longing to throw my arms around him and hold him close, but the magic of this moment was like a single, lovely strand of cobweb, fragile and delicate. One wrong move and it would snap beyond mending.

  “Can you hear the music?” Costi murmured as he put his hand on my waist. I put mine on his shoulder, and we began a slow, circling measure that took us to this side and that between the trees.

  “Mmm,” I said, moving in a little closer, and I could hear it: out in the forest birds were singing, and a stream was flowing, and the wind was whispering secrets. His heart and mine added a rhythm all their own. We turned and turned, and with every turning we breathed a little more quickly and held on a little more tightly, and when we came back to the place where we’d started, we stopped dancing and stood with our arms around each other, holding on as if we would never let go, not if the sky fell and the whole world came to an end. And even though there were still things to say, and decisions to make, and apologies to get through, I could feel a delicious happiness spreading through me, starting in my heart and moving outward.

  “Costi?”

  “Mmm?”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you. More sorry than I can say. I can’t believe I didn’t know you instantly.”

  “I’m sorry I was so cruel that day. After what happened with Cezar, I hardly knew what I was saying. I was trying so hard to sound assured and capable, and underneath I was a quivering mess. I should have tried to talk to you—to understand why you’d been so afraid of me. When you turned your back on me, when you accused me of lying, I felt … I felt shattered. As if part of me had been torn away. That day, I suppose I let that all spill out.”

  “It’s all right, Costi. As long as we forgive each other now, we can put all that behind us.”

  “Are you sure you forgive me, Jena?” His tone was quite wobbly. I was not the only one for whom this game had been difficult.

  “Completely,” I said.

  “Then can I have my third gift now?”

  I took a step back. “Shut your eyes,” I told him.

  He obeyed. But when I put my palms against his cheeks and stood on tiptoe, his eyes snapped open again. “Wait! Jena—”

  “You don’t want a kiss?”

  “It’s just that … What if—?”

  The same idea had occurred to me. “I don’t think you’ll turn back into a frog,” I said. “That wasn’t the first time I’d ever kissed you, after all. I think we had to wait until Drǎguţa decided we’d learned our lessons. It sounded to me as if she wanted you to be a man from now on.”

  Costi shut his eyes again. “I’m willing to risk it if you are,” he said with a lopsided smile.

  So I kissed him, and he kissed me back. There was no explosion. There was no blinding light. Costi’s arms came around me again, strong and warm, and I pressed against him, stroking the back of his neck. The touch of his lips made me feel safe and loved, and at the same time it made every part of me tremble with excitement. The memory of Cezar’s uncouth effort was instantly wiped away. This was my first proper kiss, and it was everything I had always dreamed it would be. When, after a long time, we paused to draw breath, Costi showed no signs of becoming a frog.

  “Costi,” I said breathlessly, “I hate to say this, but—”

  “But it’s Full Moon and you have to get home?”

  “Tati’s terribly ill. We’re scared she may not even survive until Sorrow gets here—if he does. I should start for home now. You took ages to get here.”

  “I’ll walk you to Piscul Dracului, Jena. We’ll go in a minute. I have something to do first.…” I felt his hand lift my hair away from my neck, and then his lips brushed the place where he had so often sat in frog form, below my left ear. “I’ve been wanting to do that for years,” he whispered. “It’s just as nice as I expected. You can’t imagine what thoughts your little frog had, Jena. Far more than he ever dared share with you.”

  “I’ll look forward to hearing them,” I said. “We have to go, Costi. The light’s fading.”

  Costi went over to the stables, where Geza was hovering with a grin on his face. He gave the groom some kind of instruction, then we set off down the hill through the forest.

  “Is it true there was a spell of silence on you all the time you were a frog?” I asked Costi. Questions were bursting out of me, now that we were together again. “A ban on telling me who you really were?”

  “Drǎguţa never actually told me so; I never even saw her. The closest I came was that time you left me at Dancing Glade. A fox carried me across the ice on its back. I guessed it was hers. Somehow I always knew about the silence spell. I knew I had to wait.”

  “It was a long time. A terribly long time.”

  “I’m just sad Father never knew I was still here.”

  “He knows, Costi. He’s here somewhere, watching. He was a lovely man, so kind and good. Like you.”

  “You think that, Jena? Really? I haven’t b-been much of a friend to you, this last month. It was a big change—it took a lot of getting used to. And there was Cezar … I’ve gone over and over what happened, wondering how I could have handled it better. And … I wasn’t sure you’d feel the same about me, now that I wasn’t Gogu anymore. I was afraid to ask you. I couldn’t b-bear it if you said no.”

  “Costi, I don’t remember you stammering like this when you were a boy.”

  “I don’t think I did. It’s just when I’m scared. Back then, I wasn’t afraid of anything.”

  “You’re scared now? Why?”

  “Because this is new and good and so p-precious I’m afraid it’s just a dream. I had a lot of d-dreams when I was a frog, and I hated waking up.”

  I stopped walking, took both his hands in mine, and looked him in the eye. It was dark in the forest, but not so dark I could not see that here was my childhood playmate, my beloved companion of nine years, and the man of my dreams—miraculously rolled into one. Suddenly this wasn’t difficult at all. “I love you, Costi,” I said. “That’s the truest truth I ever said. Forever and always. There’s no need to be afraid anymore.”

  “I love you, Jena. I always did. When you couldn’t trust me, you broke my heart.”

  Tears spilled from my eyes. He leaned forward and kissed them away.

  “Me too,” I said. “But it looks as if broken hearts can mend. It’s quite remarkable. A phenomenon, Paula would say.”

  “I suppose,” said Costi, “it is no more remarkable than boys turning into frogs, and frogs into men. Oh, Jena … When we’re married—that’s if you’ll have me—I want to keep on coming out here, and sitting by a campfire, and doing
all the things we love doing.”

  “Was that a proposal?” I asked, smiling through my tears.

  “I can do better with practice,” Costi said, a little abashed. “Shall I try again tomorrow?”

  “If you want. I plan to say yes. It’s best if I tell you that now, so you won’t get anxious and go off to hide in the leaves. I hope Aunt Bogdana will approve.”

  “Mother will be delighted. She’s been nagging me ever since we got home to go down and mend things with you; she could see how miserable I was. But I couldn’t make myself do it. You were braver than I was.”

  “I was petrified,” I said, slipping my arm around his waist. “But it was worth the effort. You played my game very well.”

  “You know,” said Costi, “I did think I smelled pancakes the moment I got off my horse. But I dismissed it as wishful thinking.” He was suddenly serious. “Jena, what’s going to happen tonight? Sorrow and Tati, I mean?”

  “I don’t know.” As we walked on I explained how weak and dispirited Tati was, and what she had dreamed about Sorrow’s journey. Then we fell silent, thinking about what might happen if Sorrow didn’t come back. If Tati was prevented from being with her sweetheart, she might actually allow herself to die of a broken heart. It hardly seemed worth considering such practical questions as how we could get her across. Now that I had taken back my little crown and given up my free entry to the Other Kingdom, I did not think the old way would work anymore. Drǎguţa had granted Costi, Cezar, and me our wishes for a purpose, and that purpose was achieved now. Still, there must be some way for Sorrow to win his reward if he completed the quest. Let him reach us first, and perhaps the issue of a portal would take care of itself.

  “You’re shivering,” Costi said, wrapping his arm around me. “Not far to go now.”

  Then we froze. Someone was coming up the path through the forest. A small light bobbed into view, accompanied by scrabbling, hurried footsteps and the gasping breaths of someone who has run a long way in the cold. Costi moved me behind him. A moment later we could see a cloaked figure, face white and pinched, with lantern in hand.

  “Paula!” I exclaimed. “What is it? What’s happened? Is Tati—?” I could not say it.

  My sister was bent double, trying to catch her breath. She had set the lantern down.

  “Take it slowly, Paula,” said Costi. “We’re here, and we’ll help, whatever it is. Deep breaths if you can.”

  “Sorrow—” she gasped. “Someone saw Sorrow in the woods. Now the men from the village are out after him—scythes and pitchforks—come now, quickly!”

  “Where are they?” I asked as terror filled my heart.

  “I saw them … I hid while they went past. They were saying … they were saying”—Paula hugged her arms around herself—“horrible things, Jena.… I heard what they’ll do to him if they catch him—”

  “Which direction, Paula?” Costi had put a reassuring hand on her arm.

  “Over toward the Deadwash, northeast of Piscul Dracului. Jena … Costi, I …”

  “What, Paula?”

  “I know where Sorrow is,” she whispered. “I saw him on the way here. I know where he’s hiding.”

  “Tell us while we’re walking,” I said. “Are you all right? Can you manage to take us there right away?”

  As we headed down the steep track under a stand of old oaks, Paula told us what had happened. Ivan had come to the door near dusk to fetch Petru. The villagers had assembled farther down the hill and were heading up past Piscul Dracului to the northeast, where a farmer bringing his pigs out of the forest had spotted the pale young man in the black coat. Petru had refused to go—he was too old, he said. Iulia and Paula had been in the kitchen and had overheard.

  “And Sorrow? How did you find him?”

  “He called out to me.” Paula was doing her best to keep up with us; in the lantern light her face was wan and exhausted. We could not run. The moon had not yet risen, and to try for haste in the growing darkness would be to risk broken limbs. “He’s in a little cave not far from here. He asked me for help.”

  “Why didn’t he wait near the castle? Tati’s much too weak to come out into the forest.”

  “He went down to Piscul Dracului to try to find Tati, and Petru saw him. So Sorrow ran. He’d heard those others crashing about in the woods.”

  “What about the quest?” I asked. “Has he—?”

  “He had the things with him. But he won’t go back to the Other Kingdom without Tati. He’s hurt his leg and he seemed … desperate. As if he might do something foolish. We have to help them, Jena.”

  I looked at Costi, and he returned my look with a question in his eyes. I didn’t want Tati to go. I loved her. If I helped this to happen, I’d probably never see her again. Father would be distraught. And how would we explain Tati’s disappearance to Aunt Bogdana, and to Florica and Petru, and to all the folk of the valley? Besides, I still didn’t really know what Sorrow was, or what he might do. But this argument hardly seemed to matter anymore.

  “Of course we’ll help them,” I said as we followed Paula down a little branching track to the east. Scared as I was for Sorrow and for Tati, a deep joy still warmed me. I had Costi by my side and my world was back to rights again. How could I deny my sister the same chance of happiness? If I really loved her, I was going to have to let her go. In my heart, I recognized that I had been making this decision, gradually, ever since our visit to Tadeusz’s realm at Dark of the Moon. On that night, I had begun to see that Sorrow wanted only good for those he loved: for his sister, and for mine. “How much farther, Paula?”

  “I’m here.” A white-faced figure stepped out of the bushes, making me gasp with fright. His eyes were wild. He had a bundle slung over one shoulder, and in his right hand he balanced a dark metal cup, so full of water the surface seemed to curve upward. There were scratches on his pale skin, and here and there the fabric of the black coat was rent, as if by great thorns or the claws of savage animals. “We must go quickly.”

  “Where?” I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper. Distantly, I thought I could hear the hysterical barking of dogs and the voices of men driven on by fear and anger. “I think our portal is closed now. Anyway, I can’t get you into the house past Florica and Petru.”

  “There is another way,” Sorrow said. “Bring Tatiana to me at a certain place in the forest, and I can take her across. But we must hurry—I’m afraid I cannot run much farther.” He moved forward and I saw that he was limping. “My leg is damaged. I have traveled a long way thus injured—I am paying the cost now.” He struggled to keep the cup level, and I remembered Marin’s words: filled to the very brim, but not overflowing. This was cruel.

  “Tati’s very weak,” I said. “She’s been seriously ill.”

  Sorrow went still whiter. The cup shook. I regretted telling him.

  “She won’t be able to walk; she shouldn’t even be moved,” I went on. “Where should we meet you?”

  “I will show you.”

  We went back the way we had come, then along the valley toward Piscul Dracului. I began to wonder, as Sorrow put one flagging foot before the other, whether midnight would come and go before we got as far as our own courtyard. Then there was a rustling in the bushes. A little voice hissed, “Dark! Quick!”

  “Cover up the lanterns,” whispered Paula, and we did. A moment later we heard the voices of the hunting party not far up the hill. As they came into view between the trees, the light of their flaring torches glinted on well-honed scythe and deadly pitchfork, on crossbow and cudgel and long serrated knife. One man was armed with a sharpened stake. A dog barked, and someone shouted.

  “Fox, away!” said the same odd little voice that had warned us. There was a sudden pattering in the undergrowth, making steady progress straight toward the huntsmen. An owl hooted. A flock of high-voiced, creaking things passed over, making Costi duck.

  “It looks as if we’ve got help,” I murmured. “We’ll have to keep going in the dark.
”

  “I will walk first,” Sorrow said. “I need no lamp.”

  So we followed him, and I thought his ability to find his way in the dark was yet another indication that over the years in the Other Kingdom, he had steadily become more fey and less human. Farther up the hill there was a clamor of hounds and an outcry of excited voices, and the hunt took off in a different direction, following what I was sure was Drǎguţa on her little white creature. It was a night of surprises, a night of magic. My mind shied away from what might happen to the witch if they caught her.

  The moon rose; a cold light began to filter through the woods.

  “Here,” Sorrow said suddenly, halting by a round pond under a rock wall latticed with juniper. It was a place that Gogu and I had visited often, a good spot for gathering watercress. Beyond that, I had never thought it particularly special. “This is the crossing. Be quick! My strength is waning. Will you bring her, Jena?” He sank to the ground, the cup still balanced in his hand, not a single drop allowed to trickle down its curiously patterned exterior.

  “I’ll do my best,” I said, wondering how Tati could possibly manage such a journey in the cold. Costi and I were both looking at Sorrow, who was plainly at the last point of weariness. It seemed to me that before we had any chance of reaching home, he would be sprawled on the ground in an exhausted stupor—the cup would be spilled, the quest lost. Besides, he must stay alert or the hunters would surely find him.

  “I’ll stay here,” Paula said, squatting down beside him. “Be as quick as you can, please. It’s not the warmest of nights.” She was shivering; I knew it was not only from cold.

  “We’ll run,” I said, taking Costi’s hand. And we did. “I must be mad,” I gasped.

  “It’ll be all right, Jena,” panted Costi. I took heart, for there was no trace of a stammer in his voice.

  We ran along the track and down the hill to Piscul Dracului. We sprinted across the courtyard and into the castle. As we passed the kitchen doorway, Iulia stepped out and hastily closed the door behind her, blocking anyone inside from seeing us.