The Five Daughters of the Moon

by Leena Likitalo

  “Then it sounds like Papa shouldn’t turn us into deer,” I reply, too weary to tell her to stop, too weary of this journey that seems to never end. The guards haven’t told us where we’re going. “To safety, Mama said,” Celestia repeats time after time. I miss Mama. Papa Moon, can you tell her that when you shine upon her? I’m sure she already worries about what became of us!

  “That’s what I thought, too. Now, a mouse is smaller. And nimbler. I think I could hide from the owls and hawks, in snow tunnels or in hollow logs.”

  I pretend to merely shift into a more comfortable position, but actually glance at Celestia. The sideways tilt of her chin reveals she’s listening, though she continues her mysterious sewing. She must have thought of fleeing too. She might be thinking about it at this very moment.

  “What about a dog?” I ask, though I shouldn’t entertain Alina’s ideas. Many things are in Papa’s power, but turning people into animals happens only in stories. Yet, it can’t hurt to give her hope. Even if there’s some, Celestia refused to give us any, though she must have a plan. She’s the one who’ll marry the Moon one day and become the empress after Mama!

  The plan. I want so badly to ask her about the plan, but I don’t dare to bring up the topic. Though the guards spend the days in their own day carriage, playing cards and smoking, they’re never far away. We can hear the jagged echoes of their jesting, which means they might be able to hear us too. And there’s always a guard positioned behind the locked door leading to our sleeping carriage.

  “That might work.” Alina nods to herself, and Rafa nods with her. Though not as if she were agreeing, but in a way that states she’s hoping my little sister will eventually slip her a treat. “If Papa were to turn us into such fine dogs as Rafa and Mufu, I’m sure no one could catch us.”

  Ridiculous. It’s a ridiculous idea, of course. But I decide to entertain Alina. Her eyelids seem heavier now. Let her fall asleep while thinking of my companions, not the night we had to leave home. “They have been bred for speed . . .”

  “But their coats are so very thin.” Alina yawns. She giggles at herself, for failing to cover her mouth with her palm. She tugs the hem of her dress around Rafa. My companion doesn’t mind. “We’d need coats.”

  My cloak. I shuffle out of my fur-lined cloak, the one my seed gave me what feels like so long ago. I miss him, though even when I was free, we didn’t see each other that often. Where is he now? Why is no one helping us? Where is Celestia’s seed, the great one-eyed General Monzanov? Where is the mighty General Kravakiv that Mama favored twice? Is Alina’s seed still in the south?

  Unease swells in my throat. The Poet, even if he does care about me, about us, as much as he claims, he’d be powerless to help. A pen is no weapon against a man as twisted as Gagargi Prataslav.

  “Coats . . .” Alina yawns once more. She keels over on the sofa. Rafa curls next to her. My sister wraps her twiggy arms around her. “I feel so sleepy.”

  “Sleep,” I say, carefully pushing myself up from the sofa. Though it’s been months already since I sprained my left ankle, a dull ache climbs up my leg. I hide the pain the best I can as I shuffle to Alina. I blanket her with my cloak to keep her warm, and sit beside her. I’m not sure she sleeps during the nights. Though Celestia has requested so on multiple occasions, we’re not allowed to share the cabins. If that doesn’t make us prisoners, then what will? “You should sleep.”

  Alina smiles as Mufu jumps onto her sofa. My companion curls on top of her feet. I reposition the cloak so that only her black nose peeks out. Alina closes her eyes, and her breathing deepens. I wait by her side patiently. She might not have consumed the full portion of her medicine, but once she does fall asleep, the dream is thick and lasts long. Thank the Moon for that!

  Once I’m sure Alina is asleep, I leave her in the care of my companions and approach my sisters. It’s curious how soon we found our own places in this carriage. Alina and I always sit on the same sofas, the ones by the door that leads to the cloakroom and then into the guards’ day carriage. Celestia, Elise, and Sibilia always remain by the oval dining table, the oldest on the heavily padded chairs, Sibilia on the divan by the window. Routine. I guess it’s a routine of sorts.

  “She’s asleep, then?” Sibilia pauses her scribbling and glances up at me. Her hands bear ink stains. Some of them are more than a day old.

  I really miss bathing. In this train, we must clean ourselves with small towels and a bowl of lukewarm water that the servant brings with her each morning. “Safe and sound with Rafa and Mufu.”

  “Good for her,” Sibilia mutters. There’s more she wants to say, but won’t. It annoys me nevertheless. Behave. At least I know how to behave, even in these most trying circumstances. I merely sway my hem in protest as I limp past Celestia and Elise to the silver samovar perched on the cupboard to the right of the door.

  Cold. The white porcelain cup is cold. I pour myself a thick layer of the golden zavarka tea. I inhale the malty, smoky scent before I draw steaming water for myself. It’s drafty in the carriage, but Alina needs my cloak more than I do, for she won’t sleep well if she’s cold. I poke at the sugar with a silver spoon. Humidity has turned it lumpy. I’d never known that sort of thing could happen.

  I limp back with the cup, careful not to spill, as the train sways in that unpredictable way that is in its nature. I take the last free seat, the one at the end of the oval table, and cradle the cup in my hands. But before I can taste the tea, Sibilia crawls to the far end of the divan. “Ugh, you stink of the rats.”

  Drop. Can she just not let it drop? Apparently not. I growl at her, “You stink.”

  Elise glares at both of us, scissors glimmering in the light of the osprey chandelier. I sip my tea to prevent myself from saying words I might later regret. Though our meals are bland, apparently the same as those that the guards and servants eat, the tea is of the imperial brand. It reminds me of home, of the days when we could go wherever we pleased, of the days when I could take my companions on long walks in the gardens, of days when they didn’t have to pee indoors.

  “Whatever,” Sibilia sighs, turning a page loudly as if what she’d read had somehow offended her. But that’s all for show.

  I set the cup down on the saucer with a clink. How dare she continue insulting me! “Unfair. You’re so very unfair. It wasn’t Rafa’s fault! You should look where you step!”

  “Your rat peed on the carpet.” Sibilia glares at me from over the book, then looks pointedly at the slightly yellow spot at the exact center of the thick white carpet covering the carriage’s floor.

  “She was frightened and confused,” I hiss back at her. We were all frightened and confused during the first days! I bet that if it had been I who’d had the accident, my sister would have already forgiven and forgotten it.

  “Enough,” Celestia says, waving curtly at us. The movement is strange, like a broken wing’s flap, and she seems equally confused by it. “Sibilia, no permanent harm was done. Shoes and socks can be washed.”

  “Thank you.” I beam at Celestia. That will teach Sibilia to insult my dear companions!

  “Merile—” Celestia turns her full attention to me, and how I hate her for doing so. For hers is a gaze as blue as the skies we haven’t seen in days. Hers is the skill in disapproval that almost rivals that of Nurse Nookes. No, one that surpasses that by a wide berth. “We are in this train together. Try not to get insulted over every single little thing. Try to remember that other people might get equally upset about something you say or do.”

  Blaming. Now she’s blaming me. She’s not on my side after all! “I’m not getting mad over everything. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Point proven.” Sibilia clasps the book of scriptures shut.

  “Stop it,” Elise says. “Both of you.”

  I stick my tongue out at them. Then I sip my tea in a sullen silence for what feels like hours, but could very well be mere minutes. Slowly, it gets darker. Though the curtains are drawn
shut, evening enters the carriage. It’s dark and bleak.

  “My fingers hurt,” Elise says at last, dropping her needlework on the table. She pushes it away from her. It’s only then that I realize what she was working on. It’s a sleeve of the ball gown she wore the night we boarded the train, and she’s removed half of the sequins and beads already. “And my back cramps.”

  Celestia merely glances up at Elise from her own needlework. The thread she works coils heavy on her lap. She slips another sequin onto the string. I recognize the beads and sequins. They’re from Elise’s dress, too.

  “Why are you destroying the dress?” I ask. And why Elise’s dress and not the one Celestia wore? Does this imply my oldest sister thinks that she might still need it later?

  “We aren’t destroying it,” Elise replies, even as the proof lies there before her, on the table. “We are altering it.”

  How dare she lie to me! Altering means taking in a seam or adding more pearls in the neckline. The two of them are dismantling the most beautiful of Elise’s ball gowns. Why would they do so when all we have to wear are the plain woolen dresses that no one even washes for us?

  “Stop treating me like a child,” I snap at them. “You two have a plan. I want to know what it is!”

  Celestia shakes her head as if she were disappointed in me, and that does feel more horrible than any evil thing Sibilia has ever said about my companions. But it’s Elise who speaks. “Dear Merile, you are eleven. As far as I’m concerned, that falls within the definition of a child. And as far as your behavior is concerned, you still act very much like one.”

  I push myself up from the chair. Pain. Pain lances through my left leg. I pick up the empty teacup and weigh it in my hand. Only Celestia’s sad expression, the promise of utter disappointment, keeps me from tossing the cup at Elise. I slam it against the plate.

  “Merile.” Celestia addresses me very, very sternly.

  I can’t bear to face her, and so I stare down at the cup. As I shift my hand, the gilded handle remains around my forefinger like a ring. Did I really break the cup?

  “Stop it. Stop it now,” I shriek, tugging at the ear. It won’t come off. “Stop pretending like I’m not present. Tell me what’s really happening!”

  My voice lashes through the dim carriage, undampened by the curtains. Rafa and Mufu stir under my cloak. I realize only then how loud my voice must have been. I stare back at them, praying I haven’t woken up little Alina. Her eyes stay closed. Bless Papa Moon!

  Clatter. Clatter of boots comes from the direction of the guards’ day carriage.

  “Quick,” Elise whispers to Celestia even as she snatches her needlework from the table and promptly sits on top of it. “They are coming.”

  Celestia stares at the door, akin to a deer who has heard a hunter’s horn blown. She quickly loops the sequined thread around her hand. The thread is very long. It will take her too long to hide it.

  Squeal of a key turning in the lock. My gaze darts from the door to little Alina. She sleeps unknowing of everything under my cloak, on the sofa closest to the door. Abandoned. I feel like I’ve abandoned her in a storm of my own making.

  Celestia tugs the thread under her hem just as the door swings open. The scissors remain on the table. She doesn’t have time to hide them.

  “What’s happening here?” Captain Janlav strides in, his midnight blue coat halfway donned, gripping a rifle. He doesn’t have his hat on, and his brown topknot is hastily tied. His jaw muscles are tense as if he’s come prepared for a battle.

  “Nothing,” I reply before I realize that’s the most condemning thing I could have possibly said. I don’t have to look at my older sisters to sense their utter disappointment in me.

  Captain Janlav takes in the scene with military precision, and I’m sure no detail can escape him. He doesn’t find anything amiss with the sleeping Alina, nor Sibilia, who clutches the book of scriptures against her chest. We’ve been provided with the needles and scissors so that we can darn our clothes—the servants won’t do even that for us—and seeing them on the table doesn’t alarm him. Gradually, his hold on the rifle relaxes, but he doesn’t loop the strap around his shoulder.

  “I . . .” Shame stings my tongue. I brought his attention upon us. If Celestia and Elise really have a plan, for the time being we need to appear harmless and subdued. At risk. I’ve placed my sisters at risk. Why under the Moon did I do so?

  “Yes?” Captain Janlav asks, and I’m still not sure what he thinks of us. His brown eyes reveal nothing. Not whether he’s alarmed or amused by us.

  “I broke a cup,” I mutter, flush-faced. Then inspiration strikes me. I point a blaming finger at Elise. The teacup’s separated ear glints under the light of the slowly swinging chandelier. “She called me a child!”

  Captain Janlav drifts three steps toward my sister, past the sofa where Alina sleeps. He looks Elise in the eye. There’s something in that gaze. Not recognition, but . . . I don’t know what to call it. Though he’s served my family for years, though he betrayed us, it’s as if he constantly keeps on forgetting who my sister is.

  “Captain Janlav.” Elise nods at him. She should get up from the chair, properly greet him. But she can’t, not when she’s sitting on top of the disassembled sleeve. Why did I have to point him in her direction? Fool. What a fool I was!

  “You must understand . . .” Elise smiles at him in the way she does when she wants people to think that obeying her was their own idea. “Sometimes Merile acts rash. She’s only eleven, after all.”

  Captain Janlav’s eyelids droop. It’s as if he’s hearing the sweetest music, as if he’s seeing the most beautiful of sights. And yet, at the same time, it’s as if he’s forgetting everything Elise has ever said to him, including the very words he must have just heard. “I . . .”

  “Can you tell the servant to bring us dinner?” Celestia asks, as if we’d summoned him here for that very purpose. “I believe it is the time soon.”

  Captain Janlav nods curtly at her. He swirls around, heels clicking together, and returns to the door leading to the cloakroom. The thick carpeting muffles his passage. When he closes the door, he does so softly and carefully, as if not to frighten us with the sound.

  Elise springs up from the chair as if a needle had stung her in the very backside. She paces the length of the carriage, rubbing her temple with both hands. “It’s as if he has never seen me before.” She turns at the door, strides back to Celestia. “Is it really within the gagargi’s power to make a man forget love?”

  Celestia glances at Sibilia and me. She doesn’t reply a word. So little. Elise has said so little, and yet too much, I sense.

  Once Elise loved Captain Janlav. What this means, I really don’t know.

  Chapter 8: Sibilia

  Hello, Scribs.

  Yes, it’s still just plain hello for you. “Dear” is a precious title that you must earn by listening to my secrets and guarding them. We’ve known each other for three weeks only. That’s quite many days, and yet not that many at all. Dear Notes, whom I miss so very much, was my companion and confidante for two years, seven months, and eleven days, ever since I started keeping a diary.

  I don’t know you well enough yet to trust you, and you can’t know me that well either. Perhaps you can tell from my handwriting which days have been good and which beyond terrible. See how scrawny and shaky, borderline unreadable, my handwriting is now? There’s no need to remark on that. It’s been such an awful two days that, to begin with, I don’t even want to write about them. But I suspect that writing might make me feel better, and at this point I’m willing to resort to absolutely anything.

  By the way, Scribs. This dialog with you, it doesn’t flow naturally yet. It’s not fair of me to continually compare you to Notes. I must give you a chance to prove your worth. Very well then. Here goes.

  Argh. Why is this so difficult? Scribs, a little help here would be much appreciated!

  Yesterday, after the silent servant depar
ted with the lunch dishes, I immersed myself in the exciting world of the scriptures, as has become my habit. Yes, Scribs, contrary to what you might think, I do read the scriptures before I write sideways over them. It’s not exactly my fault that I had to abandon Notes that night the guards escorted us to the train with me wearing nothing but my nightgown (and since thinking of that still makes me want to die of shame, from now on we shall simply pretend that it never happened). It’s curious that there are no notebooks or letter paper on this train, but that the guards forgot to unclip this fountain pen from your side. Then again, there are many things I don’t understand when it comes to this journey’s peculiar arrangements. For example, we have only one hairbrush and comb between the five of us—and since Merile so kindly decided to steal the brush for her rats, the rest of us have to do with one comb. One. Comb.

  My head started to ache after an hour or so, and I simply couldn’t continue reading. I closed my eyes and tried to dream of K, of how he’d gallop to our rescue, and then sweep me up in his arms. Well, I dreamed of more than that, but those thoughts are so intimate that I don’t feel comfortable sharing them with you. Not yet in any case.

  It was then that I heard the strange conversation between Merile and Alina. No, I wasn’t eavesdropping. As such. There’s just no privacy to be had when you’re forced to share one carriage with your sisters every single day. We’re lucky, though, to have our own cabins for the nights. I can’t imagine having to share a room with any one of them. Don’t get me wrong, Scribs, I love my sisters above anything else. But there’s a limit to how long I can listen to Celestia’s rational reasoning, Elise pining after that captain who’s clearly forgotten everything about her, or worse, talking of how the revolution isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And Merile, dear Papa help me, she either throws hissy fits or prattles on about her rats that pee on the carpets and poo on the floor (well, perhaps the latter hasn’t yet happened, but it’s only a matter of time, if you ask me). But even so, the worst is Alina, because sometimes her mind wanders down paths that lead to unsettling places.