The Starlit Wood

by Dominik Parisien

  “I’ll come with you,” said Raven, taking her by the arm. The stag-headed man and the ivy-haired woman followed them out, as did Dr. Patel before Thea could say hello as a fellow Miss Lavender’s alum.

  “He always takes her side,” said Morgan. “I guess I can’t blame him. They’ve been together for what, a thousand years? But I really wanted Mom to just do something for once.”

  “So where do you think we’ll find her?” asked Thea. “The shadow, I mean.”

  “Oh, Mom’s right. She’ll be at the ball. She wouldn’t miss a party, and I have to admit, she is a good dancer. Come on, we need to find clothes to wear. We can’t go to the ball looking like this—at least, you can’t.” Thea looked down at her jeans and gray Gap shirt. No, she couldn’t. Could Morgan really have put a finger through her? She looked solid enough. Tentatively, she poked herself in the stomach. She felt solid. But both Morgan and Mrs. Moth had talked about her fading at the edges, slowly becoming transparent. She wished she didn’t have to worry so much—about herself, and the shadow Thea. She was going to a ball in Mother Night’s castle! Shoshana was going to freak out. Even Lily might be impressed. Which reminded her . . .

  As she followed Morgan down a series of twisting stone hallways, she took out her iPhone. No reception here, of course, but she could take photos and share them later with Shoshana and Lily in their private Facebook group.

  Morgan’s room was the entire top of a tower. Out of a large wardrobe she drew dresses and suits of silk and velvet and lace, tossing them on her bed, which was shaped like a swan with its neck curved to form a backboard, while Thea walked around, looking through all the windows. Below she could see the castle and gardens. In one direction, hills and fields stretched away into the distance, until she could see a darkness that must be the sea. In the other, the lake reflected the setting sun, which was just beginning to touch the tops of the mountains with pink and orange.

  “What else is there beside the castle?” asked Thea. “I mean, we only ever visited here. Are there—towns in the Other Country? If I went out there, what would I find?”

  “All the stories you ever heard of,” said Morgan. “And a whole lot you haven’t. What about this?” This was a dress of green velvet that looked as though it had come from a museum exhibit or a Hollywood red carpet. “You can wear it with this.” The second this was a mask of peacock feathers. Morgan rummaged among the clothes she had thrown on the bed.

  “What are you going to wear?” asked Thea.

  Morgan held up a black leather coat just like Raven’s and put a hat just like his on her head. “With this,” she said, holding a mask of black feathers to her face. The smile beneath it was mocking.

  “You’re still mad at him, aren’t you?”

  “I just don’t like him telling me what to do. He’s not my father. And he’s, what, as old as civilization itself? That’s nothing.” Morgan shrugged. “That’s like a moment in time.”

  “But your mother also said . . .”

  “Well yeah, Mom. That’s different. But Mom’s never stopped me from doing anything I want to. She doesn’t, you know—interfere. She knows what’s on the front of the tapestry, the fate of every person in every world as it’s being woven. Sometimes I wish she would step in and act, especially when you otherworlders are doing something dreadful, like having another war. But she says that’s what we’re here for—you and me and Emily Gray. We’re the ones responsible for changing things. That’s why places like Miss Lavender’s exist. Come on, it’s getting dark. You can get dressed in the bathroom.”

  When Thea emerged from what turned out to be a surprisingly normal bathroom—but she figured people in Mother Night’s castle needed to pee just like everyone else—she looked as though she had stepped out of a painting. Green velvet fell to the floor, covering her red Keds. Morgan’s shoes had all been too small for her.

  “I suppose you could magic your feet smaller,” said Morgan, but at the beginning of junior year Mrs. Moth had told Thea’s class, “If I discover that any of you have used magic for such a vain, trivial purpose as changing your physical dimensions, you will come to my office and have a serious talk with me.” That had been enough to deter experimentation. Anyway, Thea wanted to feel at least a little like herself, underneath the dress and mask.

  Before they left, she took two selfies in the wardrobe mirror: one by herself and one with the Morningstar, in which Morgan held up two fingers in a peace sign. What would Lily and Shoshana think of that? And then she followed Morgan back down through the castle corridors, passing what were obviously partygoers because they wore black tie or fantastical robes and gowns. Most of them wore masks, although sometimes she could not tell whether the masks were simply their faces.

  In the great hall, it was twilight. The moon hung directly overhead, surrounded by constellations Thea did not recognize. The hall was illuminated by bubbles of light that floated through the air, seemingly wherever they wished. Earlier the hall had been bare stone, but now between the columns grew a forest of slender birch trees, with leaves that shone silver in the light of the floating bubbles. Thea reached up to touch a leaf and found that it was, indeed, made of pliable metal.

  Beneath this forest moved the strangest, most fantastical people Thea had ever seen. There was the stag man, with flowers draped over his antlers. A woman with scaled blue skin was talking to what looked like a large owl. Three young girls with pig snouts were slipping in and out between the trees, playing tag. A satyr was bowing to a woman whose dress seemed to be made of butterflies—not just bowing but asking her to dance, because now the music was starting. The butterflies fluttered as she took his hand. In the center of the hall was a dance floor that looked like a forest glade, with mossy rocks at its edges to sit on. A small stream ran through it, so dancers had to be nimble to avoid stepping in the water.

  “I’ll take it as a compliment.” Thea turned around. There was Raven, looking Morgan up and down critically. “You could be me as a beardless boy, a thousand years ago.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be mistaken for you tonight,” said Morgan, then burst out laughing. But who could blame her? The dashing pirate of that afternoon now had the head of a fox, with the same expression of sly humor under the tricorne hat. “Are you showing your true face, Monsieur Renard?”

  “One of them, at any rate. Hola, I hear a sarabande! Shall we dance, Lady Morgan?”

  “I’ll be back,” said Morgan to Thea. “The refreshments table is over against the wall. You’ll be all right, right?” Thea barely had time to nod before Morgan was swept away by the fox man. She took off her mask, which felt hot and strange. What was she doing here anyway? Suddenly, she felt lost and alone.

  “How are you, my dear?” Thea turned toward the voice—it was Mother Night. She looked completely different than she had that afternoon. Now her skin was dark, almost blue-black, and she had a nimbus of short white curls around her head. She was wearing a silver dress, very simply cut, that could have come from ancient Egypt or a modern fashion magazine.

  “I’m all right, I guess,” said Thea. But she didn’t feel all right. Instead, she felt as though she might throw up.

  “You haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, not even the apple in your backpack. You forgot about it, didn’t you? You have half a chocolate bar in there too, in the front pocket. So of course you’re going to feel sick. You need to take better care of yourself.”

  “I’m not very good at that,” said Thea. “Taking care of myself, I mean.”

  “No, you’re not. But you don’t have anyone else to do it, so you’ll have to get better at it. Why don’t you practice right now? Go over to the refreshments table and get yourself some of the fish pie, which is very good. And there’s asparagus with hollandaise, and ice cream. But meat and vegetables first! Not just ice cream, you know.” Thea nodded. It had been a long time since anyone had told her to eat healthily, and the fact that Mother Night was doing it made her feel like laughing, despite her
nausea.

  “I’m serious,” said Mother Night. She put her hands, cool and dry, on either side of Thea’s face. Her eyes were black, with stars in them. For a moment, Thea felt as though she were floating in space. “Try to remember that you’re also one of my daughters.” And then, with a soft pat on the cheek, of both affection and admonition, Mother Night was gone. Thea shook her head as though to clear it, then walked around the dance floor, weaving between the birch trees and mossy stones, stepping over the stream, to the refreshments table.

  She hung the peacock mask over her arm by its ribbons, then took a plate and some cutlery that looked like forks and knives on one end, and birch branches on the other. That must be fish pie—at least the crust was baked in the shape of a fish. She did not like asparagus but took some anyway, as well as some scalloped potatoes. A potato was a vegetable, right?

  “What do you think that is?” asked the person ahead of her in line. Suddenly, she realized who she had been standing behind.

  “Dr. Patel?” she said. The professor was wearing an ordinary black evening dress, with pearls. “I don’t know, it looks sort of like a fern; you know, those fiddlehead ferns they sell at the farmers’ market, except those aren’t usually purple, are they? I’m Thea Graves. I graduated from Miss Lavender’s last spring. I think you lectured to one of my classes. On magic and physics?”

  “Oh, hello,” said Dr. Patel, smiling the way people do when they’re trying to remember who you are. “Call me Anita. It’s always nice to see a fellow alumna. Have you tried those little cakes? The ones in all different shapes and colors. They have marzipan inside.”

  Thea took several of the cakes. She did like marzipan. “It’s weird seeing someone I know—I mean, sort of know—here in the Other Country. Are you . . . just visiting?”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice!” said Dr. Patel. “Sometimes I think only students get real vacations. No, I’m afraid that I’m here on business . . . Mother Night’s business, of course. And you?”

  “Oh, um, yeah. Me too, business.”

  “Emily used to say, ‘We are all on Mother Night’s business, no matter what we’re doing.’ I bet she still says that to her students. How is everyone at Miss Lavender’s? It’s been so long since I visited—Homecoming, I think.”

  Suddenly, Thea had a vision of Miss Emily Gray, and Dr. Patel, and Morgan Morningstar, all going about Mother Night’s business, whatever that might be.

  “I’m really just here to find my shadow,” she confessed. She didn’t want Dr. Patel to think that she was taking too much credit, making her business out to be grander than it was. . . .

  “Unless it finds you first!”

  Thea turned around. There stood a girl, as tall as her, shaped like her, with her red hair. She wore a black catsuit and a mask that looked like a cat’s face, with cat ears and whiskers.

  “Asparagus? Seriously?”

  “What?” said Thea.

  “Asparagus? You like asparagus?”

  “What . . . no. You’re her. Me. You’re me. You need to go home with me. We’re supposed to be together.” Could she sound any more inane?

  The shadow took off her mask. Even though Thea had been expecting it, when she saw her own face she stepped back into the table and almost knocked over the tray of little cakes.

  Dr. Patel was farther down the table now, and there was no one behind her in line. She and the shadow were as alone as they could be, in a ballroom.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” said the shadow. Her face was subtly wrong. Thea wondered why, then realized that for the first time she was looking at herself the way other people saw her, not reflected in a mirror. “Why should I? You put me in a box for twelve years! A shadow in a dark box—I barely existed. But here I’m as real as you are. Probably realer—you look sort of faded around the edges. In fact, why don’t you stay here and be my shadow? That would be amusing!”

  No, it wouldn’t. “First of all, I didn’t put you in a box for twelve years. My grandmother did. And second of all—”

  “Well, you didn’t take me out, did you? I’m not going anywhere with you, no way, nohow. I just wanted to see you in person. When I saw you in the Seeing Ball with Morgan Boringstar, I thought, I wonder what she’s like. Well, let me tell you, I am not impressed. Except for the shoes—I do like the shoes, but that’s it. And you can tell Morgan that she should find herself another Seeing Ball, because I’m not giving this one back!”

  “Well, well, so you’ve found Thea, Thea!” The satyr Thea had seen dancing with the butterfly woman put his arms around the shadow. She laughed and yanked his long hair, then kissed him loudly on the mouth.

  “Come on, Oryx,” she said. “Let’s go somewhere interesting. This party’s lame!” He laughed and swung her onto the dance floor. As they capered away, over the stream and across the moonlit room, Thea heard, “I saw you talking to her! Did she have my Seeing Ball?”

  “No,” said Thea. She turned around. Morgan was a little out of breath, still wearing her mask of black feathers. “She said to tell you that she wasn’t giving it back.”

  “That little . . . When I find her, I’m going to put her back in a box. A sewing box—a cigar box—a matchbox. Let’s see how she likes that!”

  “I’m sorry, I need to sit down.” How faint her voice sounded! Still clutching her plate, Thea turned away from Morgan and walked as steadily as she could to one of the doors, leaning for a moment against the frame, then down a torch-lit hall until she reached a stone arch through which she could see the garden. She stumbled out into the night and sat on one of the benches, putting her plate on her lap.

  She could not eat. The nausea was even stronger than before. Was it because she had encountered her shadow? She looked down at the plate and almost cried out in fear. Its porcelain edges were visible through her hands. She held one hand up in front of her. Through it she could see the moonlit garden, with its topiaries black in the moonlight, its trellises on which white flowers bloomed in the darkness. Through her hand she could see the moon and constellations. Why was she fading so quickly? Mrs. Moth has said it would take time, but here in the Other Country, it was taking no time at all.

  She had no idea what to do.

  A small voice, her own although it sounded suspiciously like Mother Night’s, said, You must take care of yourself. Step one: fish pie. Step two: scalloped potatoes. Step three: asparagus, ugh. But she ate every stalk.

  “Finally you’re doing something sensible,” said Cordelia. The cat was sitting on the bench beside her, yellow eyes shining in the moonlight. “When you’re done, I want to lick your plate. I mean the fish part of it.”

  “Where have you been all day?” said Thea, finishing the little marzipan cakes. She did not feel better, exactly. But at least she did not feel quite so hollow.

  “On cat business, which is Mother Night’s business, of course,” said the cat. Thea put her plate on the bench, and Cordelia licked the remains of the fish and potatoes.

  “I found my shadow, or she found me, but Cordy, it’s hopeless.” Thea looked down at her ghostly, almost transparent hands. “She blames me for putting her in that box. She doesn’t want anything to do with me, unless I become her shadow. And everyone says this is something I have to figure out myself—Mother Night won’t help me, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Well,” said the cat, licking her paws and washing her face with them, “you can start by thinking like a witch instead of a whiny twelve-year-old. Remember the day you arrived at Miss Lavender’s?”

  “I’m not that girl anymore,” said Thea. That small, scared girl, scarcely larger than the trunk she had lugged through the airport and then onto the train from Boston. She wasn’t like that, was she?

  “You could have fooled me.”

  Think like a witch. No, she wasn’t that girl anymore. She was a graduate of Miss Lavender’s, and even if she didn’t know what to do right now, she would figure it out.

  Thea took a deep breath. �
�Cordy, I bet she’s still in the castle. She’s the part of me that my grandmother cut away, the bad part. Or, you know, rebellious. Angry. She’s teasing us now, showing us that she’s smarter, better than we are. She likes doing that. So she’s still here.”

  “Then let’s go find her,” said the cat.

  “She stole Raven’s cloak of invisibility. I think that’s why Morgan hasn’t been able to find her all this time. So we need another way to find her. Can you find her by smell?”

  “How would I do that?” said Cordelia, looking at her incredulously. “Do you have any idea how big the castle is? I don’t think even the castle itself knows! We could look for years.”

  “I think I know where to start. She’s so confident, but it’s all on the surface—she doesn’t belong here any more than I do. She’s lost, just like me. I think she’s been hiding in the Library of Lost Books. That’s what I would do, hide among the lost things. I think that’s why she was toasting marshmallows in the library fireplace. Of course if she looks in the Seeing Ball, she can see us coming, in which case we’re out of luck. But she didn’t have it earlier—I would have noticed it on her, in that cat outfit. We have to take the chance that she’s too occupied or distracted to check. Anyway, this is the only plan I can think of right now. Will you help me?”

  “All right,” said Cordelia. “I’ll even let you carry me, as long as you don’t turn me on my back. I’m not a human infant, you know!”

  Thea put the cat over her shoulder. She didn’t have time to return her plate and cutlery to the ballroom—hopefully someone would find them. “To a witch, any door is every door.” Senator Warren had said that, speaking at her graduation. It was probably supposed to be a metaphor, but metaphorical language was poetry, right? And poetry was magic. She walked back to the stone arch that led into the castle. She stood in front of it, clutching Cordelia, and said,