The Five Daughters of the Moon

by Leena Likitalo

  Can the gagargi’s spell be somehow undone? I glance up at the Moon. My father gazes back at me kindly. He helped Celestia to break the spell the gagargi had cast on her. Will he help me?

  “You took me to a hospital,” I say, silently praying for my father to come to my aid. “We saw the halls crammed with beds. We walked through the long corridors. We heard the involuntary whimpers, the escaped sobs and sniffs. We greeted the men who had once been so proud, who had marched to war in their prime. They were that no more, but forgotten; out of sight, out of mind.”

  “Stop it.” He tugs his hand—once, twice—as if yearning to be released. But I can’t let go of him now, can’t heed his plea. I can remember everything as if it had happened mere heartbeats earlier, not in another time and age.

  “You led me down the aisle into a vast, white hall. There lay the ones who suffered the most. The fathers and sons, the uncles and cousins, every single one equal in their pain. Men that had faced cannons, who now missed a leg or an arm. Or more. Men with bandages wrapped around their heads, over their unseeing eyes and unhearing ears. Men with wounds that . . . stank of rot, their bandages dirty, unchanged. You took me to the very men who went to war because my mother so demanded, the very men she forgot once they were no longer of use to her.”

  “No!” He yanks his hand back with such force that I lose him. I have gone too far, or perhaps then not far enough. And yet, I don’t dare to touch him again. What if he was even partially right? What if my father or even I do indeed possess a power to make people act as benefits us? If I were to take further advantage of that . . . I would be no better than the gagargi.

  I wait patiently, dreading that he will never speak to me again. I don’t know how long we have been out already. I don’t know when the train will depart. Perhaps soon. But I can’t hurry him, not now, even though this may be the only opportunity we have for this conversation.

  “You can’t know this.” His voice is hoarse, that of a frightened boy. “You can’t. How could you? You’ve lived a sheltered life of leisure, in the halls and hallways of the finest palaces. How could you have ever even wanted to know the truth?”

  I tilt my chin up, a gesture Celestia resorts to when argued against. How infuriatingly can a man act? How can I still care for him this much? “Because you showed it to me.” He flinches, and I regret my harshness. It’s not his fault he doesn’t remember. I add out of remorse, “Silly.”

  He reaches out for me, and I’m acutely aware of the silver pressing against my skin. I shift minutely, so that his fingers come to rest against my shoulder, not my neck. I meet his eyes with a questioning gaze. His eyes are the same as before, the brown of young pines. And yet, the gaze is different. But I think . . . Is there a flicker of recollection there?

  His lips part, and I lean toward him. Because I miss him. I miss being with him.

  “No,” he says, pulling his hand away. Again. “We must not. It would interfere with my duty.”

  I feel like laughing and crying, both at the same time. My lips burn with the cold, not with his kiss. My voice trembles with what may be chagrin. “Your duty?”

  “To see you safely to our destination.” It sounds as if he were repeating a mantra, something enforced in his mind by foul means. He crosses his hands behind his back and nods toward the carriage. He wants us to return. “If you must know, it isn’t exactly easy, to keep another human being contained for an extended period of time, even if it’s for their own safety and to ensure the future of the Crescent Empire.”

  This lie . . . I want to laugh maniacally, I want to argue, but I bite my tongue. He sounds so serious, proud even. Perhaps it’s not a lie to him. Perhaps that’s why the other guards avoid us, so that they won’t have to remember why the doors are locked and curtains drawn, why one of them has to sit in the corridor ready to spring into action while the others play cards and smoke cigarettes.

  “I never assumed it would be,” I reply at last. My father still gazes kindly at us. If he doesn’t feel anger, neither should I.

  “It’s not only that,” he says, chin pressed against his chest, but not to keep himself warm. Something weighs heavy on his mind. It’s curious that I know him though he doesn’t know me.

  It strikes me then. He’s a captain, the one in the lead. He has no one else to confide in than the very person he thinks he’s tasked to guard. “What is it, then?”

  He glances over his shoulder, at the rails—no, onward—at the plains we have crossed, into the towns we have left behind. In his eyes lives regret, longing to change a decision made or perhaps an act done in haste. “When Alina fell ill, when we halted in that town . . .”

  “Yes?” I prompt, dreading the answer, every slipping step that carries us closer to the carriage and silence. The witch, no matter that she helped us, frightens me. She saw things in our shadows, shapes she wouldn’t speak of, and the bargain she made with Celestia left my sister weak.

  “You hate us already,” Captain Janlav says. “Don’t you?”

  I don’t say a word. So that’s it, then. He has done something so despicable that he expects to be called a monster.

  “You would hate us even more if you knew the lengths to which we have gone to protect you and your sisters.”

  “Try me,” I reply more dryly than I had intended. The cold air has chafed my throat sore. I might catch my death because of this excursion, but I’m past caring about that.

  “Perhaps I will.” He glances at the carriage, at the door he left unlocked, as if to measure how many words he has time to say before all talk must cease. “After you’d boarded the train, we argued about it long and hard. I didn’t want to do it, but what choice did we have? Even as blind as she was, what if she somehow recognized you? What if she’d tell someone? Not that she seemed the type. But what if those who wish to harm you caught her in their hands and interrogated her. People speak when they’re in pain. They’ll do anything to make the agony stop.”

  I had practically betrayed my family to escape the darkness of my own mind. What he’s saying . . . As I shake my head, my blanket shifts. Cold gnaws at my throat, down my back, into my belly. “No . . .”

  “I had to send Beardard back.”

  He doesn’t need to tell me more. I can see the sad scene unfolding before my eyes. Beard wading through the snow banks, rifle swinging against his back. The small cottage at the end of the lane. The witch hearing the approaching sounds, the snow crunching under his boots. He wasn’t there to ask her to remain silent, but to unsling his rifle and make sure that she would take what she had seen and heard to her grave.

  At that moment, I can’t imagine how I ever could have loved this ruthless man.

  “The thing is,” Captain Janlav says when we are but ten steps away from the carriage, “when he came to the end of the lane, to the very spot where we’d smoked a pack of cigarettes mere hours earlier, he found nothing. Nothing at all.”

  I glance at him from the corner of my eye. His serious gaze is riveted on the train. I can’t decipher if he’s lying to me in a futile attempt to soothe me. A part of me doesn’t even want to try.

  “Our footprints led to an abandoned yard. But there was nothing there. No trace of the old woman. No trace of the wee cottage. Not even a shadow remained.”

  He meets my gaze at last. His eyes gleam with . . . earnestness. Does he really believe he’s serving me, not the gagargi? Does he really speak the truth?

  “Beardard returned, ashen-faced. We thought he’d been drinking. Or smoking dusk. I took two good men with me and retraced our earlier path. Only to find out that Beardard hadn’t been mistaken. Where I’d expected to find the witch, I found but a magpie staring accusingly at us.”

  As he escorts me back to the train, I decide he isn’t lying, at least not consciously. But can I ever forgive this? The witch may have escaped, but that doesn’t change the fact that he ordered her silenced.

  When we reach the steps leading to the platform, he offers me his hand, to
help me climb the steep metal steps. But I’d rather scorch my hand again than accept his help, and that’s what I do. Once I’m up, I glance at him from over my shoulder. His expression is one of utter confusion, and I do feel as if I should be the one apologizing. “I . . .”

  But we are saved from further awkwardness by a shrill hoot that pierces the night.

  He stills. His posture tenses, and his gaze glazes over. When he looks up at me, he no longer sees me, but someone else. A Daughter of the Moon. Whatever I might have been tempted to say no longer matters.

  “The guards are done with the snow.” He quickly climbs up after me. As if nothing had changed. And yet everything has. “Time to return inside.”

  I brush past him, into the confinement that has become home for my sisters and me.

  Chapter 10: Celestia

  I know every town and city, their names and exact coordinates. I know every stretch of railroad, every junction and station. I have flown from north to south, over the mountains and tundras. I know the face of the Crescent Empire, for I am the empress-to-be.

  The pearl bracelets weigh on my gown’s two pockets, through the wool, against my thighs. There are no clocks in the carriage. I measure the passing of time by the beat of my heart and the rhythm of the train clacking against the tracks. Today is the day I have been waiting for patiently for five weeks and two days.

  I sip tea from the earless teacup, studying my sisters from over the gilded brim. They know I have a plan. They know I haven’t shared it with them. It is for their own good. What they don’t know, they can’t reveal. I count the clacks. The train’s speed is constant, but eventually it will slow down. When it does so, my sisters and I will flee.

  Elise combs her red-gold hair, one long stroke at a time. She studies her reflection in the silver hand mirror, lush lips pursed, gray eyes narrowed. I want to tell her to hurry, but it isn’t yet the time. I must remain in full control of myself. I can’t afford to act hastily.

  Sibilia reads the scriptures, elbows leaning against the marble-topped table. Her hair is braided against her scalp, her fingers buried in between the strands as if she is struggling to understand the passages. I don’t blame her. I know the scriptures by heart, but our father’s wisdom evades me. Perhaps when I marry him, he will reveal to me the secrets no mere mortal may possess, what he has seen from the sky.

  That is one of the reasons why we ended up here. It was I who failed the empire when I fell under Gagargi Prataslav’s spell. If I had been wiser, it would have never happened. I think.

  “Jump here, Rafa,” Merile calls at her dog from her usual spot on the sofa at the other end of the carriage. “Up here.”

  The brown dog jumps. It lands on the sofa, tail wagging wildly. My sister laughs.

  “No, here.” Alina pats the cushion on the sofa opposite to Merile’s. “Come back here, silly dog.”

  And the dog lands on the floor, and then up it goes again.

  My smile is a faint crescent, one I want to cherish, one I don’t want anyone else to see. My sisters, they are the future of the empire. Once I thought this role was for me to fill. Now I know that it will not be. Not for long.

  If my plan works today . . . No, not if, but when. When my plan works, we will be free, but there will be a lot of work to be done, to bring my people together, to repair the damage the gagargi’s plot has brought unto the empire.

  “You look thoughtful,” Elise says between two long strokes. The golden strands caught between the comb’s spikes glimmer under the timid light of the osprey chandelier.

  I lower the half-empty cup and reply, “It occurred to me that you understand well indeed this empire: what we need, what the people need.”

  Elise’s hand pauses mid-stroke. Her head cants to the right. Her lips part as if she wanted to say something, but then changed her mind. She isn’t the same girl who she was before, at the palace. The weeks in the train have changed her. “Perhaps I once thought I knew it. Now, I’m not so sure.”

  Mother, the Moon bless her soul, always said that a wise person is the one who can admit that they don’t know everything. That is why even the empresses have advisors. But mother, oh mother, you chose your advisors poorly. You should have never let Gagargi Prataslav stay at the court, not when it became so obvious, so soon, that he could influence everyone he spoke to.

  But mother is dead, and hence beyond blame. If anyone should be blamed, it is me. It was I who fell under the gagargi’s spell. It was I who . . .

  I have rid myself of him. I have bled myself off his seed. I am no longer under his spell. Today, I will soar across the blue skies, over the frozen lakes.

  “Sibs, won’t you close that terribly boring book and come and braid my hair?” Elise calls at our sister.

  Sibilia stirs from her thoughts. She uncurls her fingers from her hair and tenderly presses the book of holy scriptures shut. “Sure. I need a break anyway. The thing is, I have this nagging feeling that some of the passages contain genuinely important knowledge. But I just can’t figure out which ones.”

  “Oh, Sibs!” Elise’s laughter chimes like silver bells. “I’m sure that no one aside from the gagargis can.”

  Sibilia bangs her knee against the table’s leg as she gets up. She curses under her breath, then blushes. She is neither in full control of her body nor her mind.

  “What sort of braid would you like to have?” Sibilia inquires once she stands behind Elise.

  Elise glances at me, as if asking how much time we have left. The clacks still come regularly. I nod minutely.

  “Try something new, will you?” Elise replies. Though I haven’t told her that today is the day, she senses that the time has come. Soon we will fly free.

  Fly. That is my swan-self’s thought. No matter how I pretend, I am not in full control of myself either. The gagargi still holds a strand of my soul, what he managed to breathe in that night I shattered the bead. What I shelter in my body contains traces of the swan he killed that night.

  That swan has become my companion. I have lost some of my own memories, but gained ones that aren’t mine. At times I imagine I have wings and remember only when I move my arms that I will never be able to take to the air again. At times I tilt my head, only to find my neck too short. At times I think of nesting.

  I lift the teacup to my lips and close my eyes. It was my own choice to swallow the witch’s potion, though she warned me of the price. I will not cry. I will not fret. It was I who made the decision. No one else.

  “The train is slowing speed,” Sibilia says.

  I realize it then, too. How long did I dwell on my thoughts, in my regrets? Elise’s braid is complete, a red-gold crown circling her head. Too long.

  I take a deep breath and lower the cup onto the saucer. The moment we have awaited for weeks is upon us at last. That is all that matters. “Gather around me, my sisters. Come and hear my plan.”

  For a moment, they just stare at me. Gray eyes, brown eyes, dark eyes. Elise quickly picks up the silver mirror and slips it inside her dress. Sibilia pockets the comb and claims the book of scriptures with the fountain pen clipped against its spine. Merile dashes to me, Alina at her heels, the dogs bouncing after them.

  “Finally!” Merile gasps, beaming at me. The rest of us have paled during our confinement, but her skin still bears the hue of endless summer days. “I thought you’d never tell us.”

  I smile at her despite myself. She is eleven and impatient. She deserves to run through meadows with her dogs, unguarded, unrestricted. “But now I will.”

  My sisters listen in unwavering silence as I outline my plan to them. It is based on the routines we have established during our weeks of imprisonment. Since Alina’s seizure, we have been allowed out to stretch our legs while the train is refueled and watered. There are three reasons for this: the guards think us docile now; the unrests never reached this far north; and, finally, they fear how the gagargi would react if we were to succumb to the ill health that I hinted might follow if
we were kept indoors for too long. Elise has a fourth reason, one I am not quite sure I believe. She claims the guards think that they are keeping us contained for our own safety, that they are . . . protecting us. Could the gagargi really enforce such by tampering with a man’s mind? If that is the case, there is even more reason for us to abandon this train today.

  “I have something for each of you.” I pull the pearl bracelets out from the pockets I added to my gown the night before. What once was Elise’s ball gown is now our means for funding our escape. “Keep them hidden. Use them only when you must.”

  Elise knew of this part of my plan. There is more: the necklaces made of silver sequins. She raises her right eyebrow at me, but doesn’t ask aloud. She can guess the answer. I am saving the sequins and my dress in case . . . No, we shall not fail. But a wise empress always has a contingency plan.

  Alina snatches her bracelet and loops it twice around her thin wrist. She raises her hand up and admires it, beaming. “It’s very pretty!”

  Sibilia turns the bracelet in her hands. Ink stains her pale skin, but doesn’t dim the sheen of the pearls. “What is one pearl worth?”

  “We are the Daughters of the Moon. There are those who revere us and will refuse to take any payment. But there are also those who seek to gain profit from the distress of others, even ours. We may be able to count on goodwill, but we must prepare ourselves to also act cunningly when the need arises. One pearl is worth as much as those willing to help us decide.”

  The train shrieks a steamy hiss. Sibilia climbs on the divan, on her knees, and peeks out through the crack between the once-white curtains. As I am sitting opposite to her, I catch a glimpse as well.

  This town of Fornavav is as I have read from the notes of the imperial messengers. Here houses beaten gray by the winds border the one narrow street. Farther away, small farms dot the flat fields that snow covers for half of the year. The sky is blue, cloudless. It is a cold and quiet day outside.