The Sisters Mederos

by Patrice Sarath

  A slight breeze stirred against her cheek, and Tesara started back to the present day. The sweet-smelling oil in the lamps wafted over her. The glow of the lamplight was mesmerizing as the lamps swayed slightly on the end of the long chains that suspended them over the altar. It had the singular effect of making the mosaic over the altar of ships at sea under the blessing hands of Saint Frey, look as if it moved, the dark waves rolling the tiny ships.

  The ships were moving. Tesara stared, afraid to blink. The singing chant and the swaying lamps kept on, the old ladies swayed peacefully in time, and it looked as if only she could see the moving waves. She could hear the sound of the ocean and the creaking of the rigging, even though the harbor was so far off and the Cathedral closed from the outside world. She stared until her eyes burned and her vision wavered, and when she was forced to blink, the mosaic was just a mosaic again.

  Strangely disappointed, she looked down at her hands, and got another surprise. They were tingling again, and this time little sparks were flying all about them, popping and shocking her through her dress. She felt a buildup in intensity such that she knew that something – anything – was about to happen. At first she stared with fascination. This was beyond anything she had ever done. Even the young man at the Fleurenze party had not received anything like this. Then she came to her senses. Not here, Tesara thought. Not here. If she did anything in church – she stumbled to her feet and walked as fast as she could toward the entrance, feeling all eyes on her. For a second the ceremony faltered behind her, and then she pulled open the massive door, throwing all of her weight against it, and slipped through into the bright cold air.

  She leaned back against the door and breathed deeply, trying to calm herself, trying not to look down at her hands.

  “Tesara!”

  She looked up. It was Mirandine and Jone, arm in arm, dressed for walking out. Mirandine looked very fine in her elegant and warm dark red walking outfit. They both looked splendid, as if they had not spent all night at a riotous masked ball the night before. She felt a surge of anger, and put her hands behind her. Even so, a discharge of energy caused the giant door to rattle in its frame. The others looked startled but made no mention of the oddness.

  “Have you been in church? Atoning for your gambling habit?” Mirandine nudged her archly.

  “I’m not the only one who needs to atone,” Tesara said furiously. How dare she? Here Mirandine was, acting as if nothing had happened. And Jone – She turned to Jone. “Where were you?!”

  “Where was I? I stayed until six in the morning looking for you!” he said. “What happened to you? Mira said you went upstairs. I looked everywhere for you! Finally, I figured out that you must have gone home.”

  “Yes, I was looking for you. You both left. Mirandine was off with the Fleurenze boy–”

  “Good God, Tesara, you can’t possibly be shocked by that,” Mirandine said. “Even you aren’t that provincial.”

  “I’m shocked by your bad taste,” Tesara snapped. A part of her marveled that she could be so angry and yet she maintained enough equilibrium to keep her hands from firing off. She wasn’t sure how long she could keep it up. As if balancing on a knife edge, for the moment she had control.

  At that instant an acolyte pushed open the door, put his fingers to his lips, and hushed them with all the fervor a ten year-old could muster. Abashed, they looked each other, and as one they moved away from the door down to the square, scattering pigeons and gulls on the cobblestones. The breeze freshened off the harbor, bringing the smell of brine and fish.

  Jone turned to Mirandine. “Really, Mira? Ermunde Fleurenze?”

  She shrugged, sulkily. “It was just a bit of fun. God, you two. You’re worse than Mama. And what about you, Jone? You weren’t an altar boy yourself last night. You went upstairs, didn’t you?”

  The girls turned to look at Jone. He reddened slightly over his sparse, elegant beard. “I didn’t go upstairs. Whoever told you that lied. Actually, I left the party for another engagement when I couldn’t find either of you. I apologize, Tesara. I should have known better than to leave you in the hands of my cousin. I did come back, as I said.”

  “You left?” Tesara said. All that time she had been looking for him, and he hadn’t even been there. Mirandine was shocked too, but for a different reason.

  “Jone!” She pointed at him dramatically. “You went to the schoolboys’ party!”

  “They aren’t schoolboys. They’re mates from the academy. And yes, since we were across the street, I went to the Maiden of Dawn public house. Where, if you must know, we were robbed at gunpoint.”

  “That was in the Gazette this morning!” Tesara said. “You were there?”

  He nodded. “The Gentleman Bandit strikes again. I thought it was somebody’s stupid stunt from the Fleurenze masked ball, but apparently not. He shot a pistol into the air, aimed another one right at Pierret Iderci, and cleared everyone of their cash. The constables came but it was such a crush he got clean away.”

  “Oh my God,” Tesara said. It was all coming together. They looked at her. “I think I saw him. Upstairs at the Fleurenze’s. I was looking for you and heard the commotion outside. So, I looked out the window, and as I did I heard someone running up the stairs. He stopped when he saw me and went the other way. He was slender, carrying a satchel. That must have been him.”

  Jone nodded grimly. “Clever lad, getting lost in the big house. Probably picked up a few more bits of silver on the way. Well, I came back too and I looked for you.”

  Tesara felt a pang. “I went home not long after that.”

  “I’m not surprised. I should never have left you alone.” Jone took her hand, and she pressed his.

  Mirandine rolled her eyes. “Jone, she’s not an infant. Now, have we all made up? I say, a bit of the sea air will do me good. I’ve got a terrible aching head.”

  “Serves you right,” Jone snapped, but it was clear he was no longer angry.

  Neither was Tesara. She realized it just as she registered the waning of the energy in her fingers. I think I’m learning to govern it, she thought. It’s starting to respond to my reason, not just my emotions. To test that, she focused on causing the energy to resurge, clasping her fingers together and releasing them slightly. Sure enough, the power came to life just before she tamped it down again.

  Tesara felt exultant. She had control. She had a weapon.

  She was no longer powerless against the Guild.

  Unaware of any of that, Mirandine was sunny again, her mood lighting up now that she was no longer the object of their anger. “Come on, then,” she said, jumping up and down a little. “Can we go? Please?”

  “Yes, we should go now,” Tesara said, casting a practiced eye toward the harbor. “The tide’s coming in, so we won’t have much time. We should go before it’s all under water.”

  Accordingly, they started down the steep hill, taking the Staircase Street.

  “You see? What expertise you have, growing up in a seafaring family. I long to go on a sea voyage. You’re a merchant – have you been out to sea?” Mirandine asked.

  “Yes, but only once and I got terribly seasick,” Tesara said. “It was horrible. My sister loved it. I think she would be a sea captain if she could.”

  The air grew colder and sharper here, and she wrapped herself more tightly in her shawl, wishing she had her pelisse.

  “I told my mother once that I wanted to be a sailor,” Jone said. He was still smiling, but his smile was muted, his expression far away. “She didn’t take it well.”

  Mirandine snorted a laugh. “Don’t tell me – she took to her bed and sent for the advocate to revise her will again.”

  He gave a strained grimace. “Anyway, it was just a boy’s fancy. I can’t imagine it now. Too dangerous – storms and shipwrecks, and sea monsters, and who knows what else that can break a ship apart.”

  Like a bratty child, from her bedroom window.

  “There are no such things as sea mo
nsters,” Mirandine scolded. She jumped down the last step to the strand. The docks were to their left and she led the way toward the beach. The waves were rolling in now, and there were only a few beachcombers remaining. Tesara grew dizzy again watching the waves, as if she were getting seasick even though she was on dry land, and turned away. In response, her hands grew rich and fat with energy. Instead of panicking, she soothed the energy and it quieted, and with that came a new awareness, and a sudden thought.

  Waves have something to do with it.

  It was a revelation. She felt she was coming closer than ever to understanding what she could do. To distract herself, she pushed over a pile of drying seaweed with the toe of her rough boot, causing some crabs to scuttle at top speed toward the incoming tide, and asked idly, “Are you going to the Scarlanti salon next week?”

  “Not I,” Jone said, his hands tucked in the pocket of his overcoat. He looked miserable. “I am not at all the thing.” He sounded disinterested.

  “Neither are the Scarlantis,” Mirandine said with a laugh. “Worse than the Fleurenzes. I never received an invitation, but I can’t imagine how they would know me anyway.”

  All the better, Tesara told herself staunchly. With Yvienne’s plan in play, it was better that Jone and Mirandine were not her co-conspirators this time. She felt a pang of regret anyway.

  “They invited me, you see,” she said. “I thought perhaps you were going too.”

  “I’d rather go to the Scarlantis than the Kerrill salon,” Jone said. He stooped to pick up a wet stone, and then threw it far out along the shore.

  Tesara felt another pang, this time of jealousy, then thought, how foolish. She disliked Amos Kerrill, and the Kerrills had been avidly anti-Mederos. That was one salon she would not be invited to. Despite all that, it felt dreadful to be left out.

  “How is Amos?” she asked, picking up her own stone, and lobbing it after Jone’s. Mirandine gave them a sidelong glance, but said nothing.

  “Do you remember when he was twelve? A bully and a coward?”

  She nodded. How could either of them forget Elenor Sansieri’s birthday party? Amos had been the ringleader bullying all the children, especially Elenor’s little brother, Marley. Tesara and Jone had stood up for Marley, Tesara ready to use her powers on Amos if she had to.

  “Hasn’t changed.”

  “So why–” It was puzzling. Why did Jone have to continue liking Amos? She felt the same confusion she felt when they were children – the same confusion and sense of betrayal.

  He gave another grimace. “It’s complicated. I don’t know how to explain.”

  “It’s all right,” Tesara said stoutly. She squeezed his hand. “Believe me, I understand complicated.”

  He laughed and his plain face transformed into a handsome one. What a difference a smile could make, she thought. He squeezed her hand back and then didn’t let it go right away. She liked the feel of it.

  “Look!” Mirandine ran forward and picked up something glinting on the brown sand at the edge of the foamy wave. She held it up. “Sea glass!”

  They clustered around. The piece of glass had been worn down by the waves and the sand, and it glowed pearlescent in the bright sunshine. “I wonder what it was.” She tipped it into Tesara’s palm, and she caressed it with her thumbs, then held it up to the air. With a start, she saw the faint etching of a large M still visible, though the glass had been worn by the sea and by time.

  “A lamp glass from the captain’s quarters,” Tesara said, barely breathing. The Main Chance, the flagship of the Mederos fleet, had lamps etched with the family sigil, an M circled with a complicated square sailor’s knot. How strange that a piece of the ship had come back to her in this way. It gleamed reproachfully at her. Avenge me.

  I destroyed you.

  Silence.

  “Tesara?” Mirandine said. “Are you all right?”

  “We should go. The tide’s coming in.”

  She made to turn around and go back to the boardwalk. She knew her tone was sharp, but she couldn’t help it. She struck off, not waiting for them.

  They were the last people on the strand, and the tide was already licking at the pilings of the nearest dock, jammed haphazardly into the heaps of sea-racked rock on shore. Jone’s long legs carried him swiftly and it was hard to keep up. Mirandine strode along with her skirts lifted almost to her knees, striding like a man. The girls’ skirts and petticoats were deep in mud and sand. Tesara wrinkled her nose at the thought of how much blotting and brushing was in store for her.

  And I have better uses for my hands.

  A few weeks ago, she would have thought of the sea glass as a warning as from a lighthouse: Stay away. Rocks ahead. And a few weeks ago, she would have been terrified of going down this path of sure destruction. But not now, she thought. Not when she was close to discovering how to gain control over her mischievous fingers. The lighthouse warned of dangerous shoals but it also beckoned.

  You’re almost home.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  It was a rare clear night over Port Saint Frey. In the attic at the top of the TreMondi townhouse, Yvienne delicately adjusted the lenses of the fine telescope owned by Mr TreMondi, while the children waited with barely concealed excitement. The lenses were from Qin and were very expensive; Mr TreMondi had told her that several times, including admonitions to not let the children touch them. Only when she had made knowledgeable observations about lenses, telescopes, and astronomy did he relax. She didn’t tell Mr TreMondi that his telescope, while quite good, was not as good as the one she had as a child. She suspected he would not take it well.

  Satisfied, Yvienne stepped back. “Ready,” she said. “We’ll go oldest first. Maje.”

  “Good,” Idina said, having clearly taken in her father’s stern remarks about touching the telescope. “I’m sure I’ll break it. I don’t even want to touch it.”

  The girl stepped up, put her eye to the eyepiece, and gasped in delight at the view of the heavens spread before her.

  “What is it, Miss Mederos? Why, it has rings! Lovely rings!”

  “I want to see!” Dubre demanded. “Let me see! You’re hogging it!”

  “Patience, Dubbi,” Yvienne told him. “Saturnus will be there for you.” She began her lecture.

  Hours later, when the children’s interest in the majesty of the heavens had flagged and the excitement of being allowed to stay up so late past their bedtime had waned, Yvienne and their nurse put them to bed. Nurse showed her to her room for the night and she sat down on the bed in the small, cramped room off the children’s wing, grateful to be alone albeit in a musty nook in the attic. The TreMondis had agreed to put her up after the astronomy lesson. When told, Alinesse had been irked at what she felt was an overreach on the TreMondis’ part. Brevart simply said he could not like it, that she did not sleep under her own roof. Samwell, on the other hand, was delighted – “This is your chance, Vivi. Talk to TreMondi. Remind him of the Mederos reputation for business acumen.”

  While it had been a delight to have her hands on a telescope again, Yvienne’s true goal had been to get her parents used to her being out of the house at night. She would have more freedom on those nights. Instead of having to get back and into bed before Tesara came home from a salon, she could have the entire night for her plans.

  She undressed by the light of a small candle and got into her nightgown, stuffed for the day in her carpetbag. As she unbraided her hair, she heard a creak in the hallway. Yvienne froze. This was the children’s wing. Did Nurse need her? Was someone sleepwalking, Dubre or the girls? She got up to investigate, when the creak happened again, and this time she could detect a heavy tread. That was no child’s footfall.

  Her blood ran cold. No. It could not be possible. Yvienne went to lock the door and was shocked to discover there was no way to lock the door from the inside. She was vulnerable to whoever came down this hall, and she had a terrible idea of who it was.

  She looked around for inspira
tion, and her eyes lit on the bed itself. She couldn’t move the iron bedstead. Instead she dragged the mattress off it, and put it at the base of the door. It sagged, rather as if it were a dead animal, and she crammed it between the door and the bed. Anyone trying to open the door would only wedge it in further. She prayed it would be enough to discourage him from trying to enter. She had no other weapon.

  She stood back against the opposite wall and waited tensely.

  The footfalls stopped outside her door. Someone jiggled the doorknob. Yvienne licked her lips.

  “Yes?” she called out.

  If he entered the room, she would have to scream and fight. It would be her word against his, and a Mederos would not prevail against a TreMondi, not in Port Saint Frey, not under the continuing cloud.

  The door pushed slightly, and she could have sworn she heard a grunt as the door met with resistance. Then,

  “Miss Mederos?”

  “Yes, Mr TreMondi?”

  She said it as a challenge. She hoped he heard the challenge in her voice. Sack me, she thought. Turn me out of this house. But do not think for one moment I’ll not fight back.

  After a pause he said smoothly, “I checked upstairs, and I did not see that you put the protective cloth back on the telescope. I most expressly desired you to do so, Miss Mederos.”

  She had covered the telescope, of course. He wished her to come to the door, to take him to the attic and show him, and thus put herself in his power.

  She laughed. It wasn’t loud. It was even a little sad. But she knew he heard her. She said nothing.

  After a moment Alve TreMondi walked away.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  It was almost like old times, Tesara reflected, yawning behind her hand as she slid into her seat at the breakfast table the next morning. Brevart and Alinesse read the paper, Uncle slumped over his coffee, and Yvienne sat over her porridge, clearly absorbed in her thoughts. Her sister had stayed up late at the TreMondis’ teaching astronomy, and as a consequence had been given the day off.