by Sarah Zettel
Manefa stood in the center of the yard, holding up the blanketed form of their son. He saw no movement under the blanket. No, no, their son could not be dead.
“Manefa!” He ran forward, dropping his ax, his arms outstretched, thinking only to embrace his wife and son.
They were gone. Sidor skidded to halt, kicking up snow under his boots. He blinked in confusion. He stood alone in the courtyard. Manefa was nowhere to be seen. There was only the empty night and the snow. Sidor looked down at where he had thought Manefa had stood. There, among the bootprints of the night patrols, he saw a set of footprints that belonged a fox.
• • •
Help me.
Bridget sat up at once, blinking in confusion. The room around her was pitch black, except for the orange glow from a single uncovered brazier. She could just make out the dim figure of Richikha drowsing in a chair.
Not you then. Bridget laid her hand on her own throat and then on her forehead. It took her a moment to remember why she lay on a couch instead of in a bed, but gradually the events of the previous afternoon returned. Was that earlier weakness making her hear voices?
Bridget listened, holding her breath. Her dizziness had subsided, and for all the hour was obviously late, her head felt remarkably clear. She heard Richikha’s soft snores and the crackle of the brazier, but nothing else.
A dream? thought Bridget. A ghost?
Help me.
Bridget stared around the dark room. Richikha slept on and the brazier burned without interruption. There was no other movement, no other presence. Yet Bridget felt deep in her bones that the voice was as real as the dim fire in front of her.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
I know you, came the answer. Please, let me go.
The voice was pleading, desperate. It went straight to Bridget’s heart and she felt she could not lie still a moment longer. She threw the rug back, straightened her shawl around her shoulders and planted her shoes on the carpet. Richikha shifted in her chair with a soft sigh.
Should I wake her? she thought toward Richikha. No. For this once, I’ll leave my shepherds behind.
A lamp waited beside the brazier. Putting her body between the light and Richikha, Bridget checked to make sure it still held oil, and then kindled the wick with a taper lit from the brazier’s smoldering coals.
But her hand was not quick enough to cover the new flame and Richikha stirred.
“Mistress …” The lady-in-waiting pulled herself upright.
“It’s all right, Richikha,” said Bridget soothingly. “Go back to sleep.”
“But you … I am …” Richikha began, gathering up her skirts so she could stand.
“You’re exhausted and I’m oppressed by the dark.” Bridget pushed her gently back into the chair and its nest of pillows. “Sleep, Richikha. Let me sit up on my own a bit. I won’t tell anyone.”
Richikha sucked on her lower lip, torn between her desires and her duty. “If you so wish, mistress, but …”
“I so wish.”
Richikha subsided then, and Bridget sat back down on the divan, placing the lamp on the floor where it would be at least somewhat sheltered from Richikha’s line of sight. It was not long before the girl’s eyes drooped shut and her gentle snores began again.
Bridget, on the other hand, only felt more awake. A happy mischief spread through her, leaving her feeling like a child with the prospect of some nocturnal adventure. As soon as she was certain Richikha was truly asleep, Bridget stood and picked up her lamp again, sheltering the flame with her torso and her hand. The carpet muffled her footfalls and the well-tended door opened without a sound. Bridget slipped through it before any strange draft could rouse Richikha again.
The corridor outside was so utterly silent, the whole world might have been holding its breath. The deafening stillness reminded Bridget disconcertingly of the Land of Death and Spirit. She had to stand a moment biting her lip to resist the urge to drop the lamp, just to make sure it would clatter against the floor and assure her that she remained in the living world.
“Where are you?” she asked the darkness, but her whisper did not seem to reach beyond the boundaries of her light, and the darkness returned no answer.
Despite that, Bridget felt no inclination to return to her couch. She looked left and right as far as the little circle of light cast by her lamp would permit her to see and tried to think which way to go. To the left waited the empress’s rooms, so Bridget turned to the right, one hand catching up her hems so she wouldn’t trip over them as she lengthened her stride. She wanted to get well out of sight in case Richikha woke up and came looking for her. There were secrets in this place, and this was her chance to find them out.
It was not so much a corridor she passed through as a series of interlocking chambers. The light flashed on gilding here and there, on bits of murals, patterned moldings and ripples of tapestry that fluttered with the gentle breeze her passage created. The floor under her feet alternated patterns of stars, diamonds and interlocking rings. Her soft shoes made no noise, and she smelled nothing but wood polish, dust and cold.
Footsteps sounded up ahead. Bridget froze, her eyes darting this way and that. This was a narrow, curtain-hung stretch of corridor opening into a wider chamber on either end. The footsteps hurried closer, accompanied by a mix of voices. Bridget picked the nearest curtain and ducked behind it.
Behind her was a window, and the tiny panes coated her back with pure cold. Bridget shivered and set her lamp on the floor so that her trembling would not shake the flame and call attention to it.
The footsteps reached her little hallway, bringing with them lights and voices.
“Please, Majesty Imperial,” said one. “Let us return.”
“He can’t hear you,” said another. “Why do you bother?”
“Because he is our anointed emperor and you will remember that!”
The emperor? Bridget’s breath caught in her throat as the footsteps hurried by.
“I hear you,” said another voice. “Where are you?”
He heard? Heard what? The same voice that called to her? Cautiously, Bridget set her eye to the edge of the curtain.
A bevy of brightly liveried servants and armored house guards surrounded a slight, pale figure in a plain grey coat. Between their shoulders, she saw that Grey Coat was turning in place.
“I hear you,” someone said. “I hear you.”
“Please, Majesty Imperial.” One man with a gold sash around his livery reached forward to the grey coat. “It is time to return to bed.”
But if the emperor — Mikkel was his name, wasn’t it? — heard, he gave no sign. Instead, he knelt, pawing at the inlaid floor.
“Here,” he said, or did he say “Hear”?
Gold Sash knelt beside him. “Come, Majesty Imperial.” He took the emperor’s restless hands. “You must come with us now?”
Bridget could not see well, squinting between a forest of legs. “Must I?” said the emperor, his voice sounding small and lost.
“You must.” Gold Sash stood, straightening up the emperor with him.
“Must I.” The emperor turned the words into a flat statement.
With that, the mob of guards and servants moved away, amid the sounds of boots, shoes and shuffling cloth.
Only when doors closed behind the lights and noises did Bridget emerge from the curtain, lamp in hand. She hurried to the spot where the emperor had knelt, and bent swiftly to touch the floor. Nothing but cold wood, cunningly pieced together. No telltale blurring or shimmer reached her.
She straightened. Whatever the emperor heard, whatever she heard, it was not here.
So, no point in dawdling. Bridget tightened her grip on the lamp and continued up the hallway.
The final chamber opened up into a balcony and a broad staircase flanked by pillars of pale, speckled stone slashed through with dark veins. Without pausing to think, Bridget descended the stairs, holding the lamp up high to see her way. In front of the stairs waite
d a pair of tall, carved doors that must have needed three men each to open, and on either side of them were narrow windows running from the floor to the ceiling, which was lost in the shadows. Bridget longed to look outside, but she did not. The dozens of windowpanes would reflect her light and there was too much chance of being seen, and being stopped.
And she must not be stopped. She knew that now. Now was her chance to find out the truth for herself. That was what mattered. The truth. The truth about herself, the truth about the dowager, Ananda, Sakra and Kalami. Especially the truth about Kalami. And the voice. That truth as well.
The floor down here was flagstones laid out in patterns at least as complicated as the wooden floor upstairs. Corridors opened to the left and to the right. Bridget turned left again, acting on the vague supposition that important things in such a place as this might be kept clustered together, so whatever waited under the empress’s rooms might be useful.
Or it might be only the kitchens, she smiled to herself. You are “below stairs” now.
The closed doors came out of the shadows so suddenly Bridget had to pull herself up short to keep from running into them. She covered her mouth to stifle the sound, something between a gasp and a giggle that tried to bubble out of her.
Her lamp’s faint light drew out the shapes in the carvings. Eagles, spread out wing tip to wing tip, made a row in front of her eyes, but under that was a row of oblongs. No. Bridget bent down and peered closer, trailing her fingertips over the cool carvings. They were not simple oblongs, they were books.
Library!
Bridget brushed the doors with her palms, seeking a knob or handle and finding none. At last, she just leaned her shoulder against the wood and pushed.
Slowly, reluctantly, the door swung back, and Bridget stepped through.
The library was a long, slanting hall of a place that ran along one of the courtyard walls. Moonlight streamed through windows made up of hundreds of diamond panes so thick and uneven the light rippled and blurred as if it shined through water. So much glass also let in the abundant cold, and Bridget shivered, grateful for her thick dress and warm shawl.
Stripes of shadow and faint diamonds of light decorated the inner wall, illuminating bookshelves three times as tall as Bridget. Toward the windows waited a row of steeply slanted desks, each of which looked like a cross between a writing table and a drafting table. Some were empty; others had books resting on them, ready for consultation, or perhaps for copying.
Bridget stepped gingerly into the room as if she were afraid of disturbing its stillness. Patterns of moonlight and yet more shadow laid themselves across her skin and she could have sworn she felt colder for their touch.
What am I doing here? It’s not as if I could read a single one of these.
But then, perhaps she could. The idea stopped her in her tracks. She had already done so much she would have considered impossible only a few days ago, who was to say what else she could do?
Bridget laughed soundlessly at herself. Yes, she thought, pausing in front of one of the copy desks, lifting her lamp to look at the text inside the open book, all spelled out in indigo, scarlet, black and gold. I am going to lay my hand on this book and say reveal to me your secrets!
But just as she was about to laugh again, the ink on the page shifted, flowing as if suddenly liquid and re-forming into new words.
You could.
Astonishment loosened Bridget’s grasp of the lamp and it crashed to the floor, the glass chimney shattered against the stone and fragrant oil poured from the reservoir. The flame from the wick tasted the spreading pool of oil and at once began to lap it up hungrily, spreading itself out to encompass the whole puddle. Bridget gasped and threw down her shawl, stamping on it to try to smother the greedy flames and at the same time looking wildly around for something better but seeing only all the wood and paper surrounding her.
But then, a painfully icy breeze blew past her ankles. Bridget gasped again and the fire winked out.
Bridget stared at the mess of soaked shawl, oil and broken glass. It had grown colder, so cold that all the hairs on the back of her neck had risen. The silence too had deepened, muffling even her own harsh breathing. She stared at the shawl, darkened with oil that had not burned. She stared at the broken glass and the way the moonlight glinted on the jagged edges. She did not want to look up. She did not want to see what else was in the room with her.
But even as that thought flickered through her mind, a sensation of gentle sorrow filled her. Its touch was familiar. She had felt it before in the Land of Death and Spirit, when she had seen the woman in the black dress with her hair pulled away from her face. When she had seen …
Momma.
Trembling, Bridget lifted her eyes. Momma stood beside the copy desk. Her presence caused no interruption in the silver flow of the moonlight and she left no shadow on the floor, nor did any of the room’s shadows lie against her skin.
Bridget couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak. It was Momma, as she had seen her in the mirror, as she had seen her in the Land of Death and Spirit, as she had seen her every day of her life in Poppa’s photograph. The apparition before Bridget now was all those images, apart and together, shifting from one to the other, like a reflection in running water and blurred moonlight.
Momma, Bridget tried to say, but no sound came from her mouth. Momma.
In answer, Momma turned toward the book on the copy desk. The ink curdled on the page and formed itself into yet more new words.
Bridget, my dear.
“How?” Bridget managed to get that one word out. “How …?”
Momma smiled gently. Bridget felt the expression rather than saw it. She couldn’t focus clearly on Momma’s face. It shifted too rapidly to leave more than an impression against her mind. It was like looking at a distant memory.
This is the time of change, said the new words that formed in the book. When all things are influx between the light and the dark, life and death. This is the time when we may move lightly from world to world, especially in answer to the calls of blood or need.
Bridget swallowed. “Need?”
I have special permission to be here. The guardians of this place have need.
“I …” Bridget’s mind was awhirl. Her thoughts refused to be composed and skittered from her grasp. She groped for the stool in front of the desk and sat, tucking her feet onto the rail, and trying to put all the questions battering against the inside of her head into some kind of order.
“Why won’t you speak to me?” was the first that came to her. It sounded plaintive, like a little girl wanting to know why sweets were being withheld.
It made Momma cock her head and smile fondly, but Bridget felt pride at the same time. The words in the book changed again.
Your sight is your gift, my dear. Without the aid of some magic, it is through that alone I may reach you.
“But I do hear a voice, or I did. Someone’s calling for help.”
The ink pooled on the page and spread out again. This time, instead of words, it left a drawing behind. The bird of flame in the golden cage, its wings arching high over its head, its neck stretched out long and thin and its white beak open. Bridget knew at once that the bird did not sing. It screamed against its confinement, pouring out its rage and hoping against hope that rage alone would burst apart the bars.
“The dowager’s Phoenix.” Bridget touched the page hesitantly, as if she thought the drawing alone would burn her. The page was cool and dry.
Ink swallowed up the drawing and re-formed into fresh words without her fingers feeling any trace of dampness.
Medeoan’s captive. With my help, God forgive me, but it was the only thing we could do then.
“Do you know where it is?”
No. Many rooms here are dark to me.
Despite everything, Bridget laughed. “Which makes one wonder what the point of being a ghost is.”
Momma laughed too, soundlessly, but Bridget saw her shoulders shake with
mirth. Had I blood ties to the family of the house I would know more, said the book for her when she grew serious again. But the only tie here is between you and me.
Which led to the next question. The important question. Bridget could not bring the words out, no matter how she longed to, but she couldn’t stay silent either. “Is … Poppa with you?” she asked, hoping her meaning would be understood.
Sorrow poured over Bridget, thickening the air around her until she could scarcely breathe. No. Everett is bound to the shores of the world where he died.
“But you’re not?” The question slipped out before Bridget could stop it. Take it back, her own mind told her instantly. Don’t do this. You can keep believing. You don’t want to know.
The words softened and blurred, turning into a pen-and-ink sketch that Bridget recognized at once. It showed the small foursquare house in Eastbay that had been home before the lighthouse opened. Before Poppa had taken the job that had become his calling. It was a quiet night in that drawing, for the lake was gentle by the shore.
A man stood on the water, looking up at the house. Tears glistened in his eyes.
Another sketch formed and yet another beside it. Perhaps they moved themselves, perhaps it was only Bridget’s fancy, but she saw it all. She saw the master bedroom and Momma in the bed, her knees raised. She saw Mrs. Henderson at the foot of the bed, her hands red with blood and her face grave. Poppa paced in the hallway outside, his face turned toward the window as if he knew something watched the house, but Poppa could not see the man who stood on the water and cried for the pain inside the house.
A baby was laid on Momma’s breast. The baby was slick with birth and Momma’s face was slick with sweat. Poppa lifted the baby gently, cradling it in its clean blankets, and Momma’s face turned toward the window. She knew there was someone out there too, and Bridget knew that if Momma had been able to rise and walk to the window she would have seen him out there, because it was for her he yearned.
Hours, days passed and the fever did not fade. The doctor came, and the doctor went, and the man stayed outside, balanced on the waves, crying silent tears. Inside Momma fought her illness, her exhaustion and her sorrow. Poppa stayed beside the bed, laying the baby, laying Bridget, beside her so Momma would know what there was to live for here. But the illness was too much, and Momma begged Everett Lederle to care for her child, and she died.