by Diane Zahler
“I feel just as I did in the forest yesterday. There’s a chill, and a sense of being watched. What else could it be?”
Luna spun about so quickly that I nearly tripped over her. “Where is she?”
“Hush!” I hissed. “I can’t see her, but I’m sure that she’s close by. Please be careful what you say.”
“I wish she would show herself,” Luna said in a low voice. “If I could just get my hands on her . . .” I wanted to laugh, imagining Luna against the might of our wicked fairy cousin, but I was also touched. She was like a fierce little banty rooster, my sister, pecking at anything that threatened.
As Symon turned away from us toward his own cottage, Madame Mathilde called, “Lad, come to my house when your repairs are done. I’ll have supper for you, and your cousins can bide the night with us. There’s room for all.”
“I will, Madame Mathilde!” Symon waved and ran down a dirt lane toward a small, neat dwelling.
We soon reached Madame Mathilde’s oaken door, which she pushed open to reveal a snug parlor with comfortable chairs and settees. A veritable crowd of people rose and came to greet us. Despite the commotion, I could not keep from yawning hugely. I felt myself drooping, and Madame Mathilde’s keen eyes noticed. She did not bother with introductions but simply said, “These are three of my children, and two of their children. Oh, and the baby. We will be more formal when you are dried. Gaby, take these folk upstairs and find them some dry clothes. They’ve had a bit of a spill, boating.”
“I can see that!” the girl, Gaby, said, smiling and hooking her arm through mine. “Come with me, you two, and we’ll set you right.”
Under the eaves upstairs, we took the bundles of clothes Gaby handed us. I paused as she opened a bedroom door and said, “You can change in here.” Should I take Luna into the room with me? After all, she was pretending to be a boy. But we were saved having to choose when Gaby pointed Luna toward another room, and she darted inside.
I stripped off my soaked clothes and brushed the sand from my skin as well as I could. I had just pulled a dry shift over my head when a quick knock sounded and the door opened.
Madame Mathilde stood in the doorway, holding a towel, her lips pursed. “I brought you this, lass,” she said. “And I’ve one for the lad. Or should I say the other lass?”
I blushed and looked at the floor. “Yes, the other lass,” I admitted, and she nodded.
“And not just lasses, but princesses both, eh?”
I stared at her, dumbstruck. How did she know?
“I thought as much,” she said, shaking her head. “And you should not be surprised to hear that people are looking for you. You and your sister will make things clear to me, I hope.”
She left the room as briskly as she’d entered, and I pulled on the dress Gaby had given me and dried my hair with the towel, braided it, and covered it again with the kerchief. Then I hurried down the stairs to the parlor and sat before the fire, tickling the baby as he lay kicking on the floor while Gaby and the others looked on curiously.
Luna descended, and I could see from her uncomfortable expression that Madame Mathilde had spoken to her too. Madame Mathilde ordered her children and grandchildren to leave us, and they obeyed as meekly as we had when we followed her home.
After the rest of the family was gone, I pulled out the vial of devil’s shrub, which luckily had survived the voyage. I gave it to Madame Mathilde, asking if she would make tea, and she quickly did. We sat at the rough table as I sipped and revived. Then the questions began.
“Do you know your father’s guards have been searching through the town?” Madame Mathilde demanded. We shook our heads, cowed. “Have you heard that your dear royal mother has taken to her bed, sick with fear and desperation?”
“Oh no!” I cried.
“And that your tutor has been questioned and accused of engineering your disappearance? Soldiers took him from the main square and dragged him away. He may well be in the palace dungeon already.”
“Poor Mama,” I breathed. “Poor Master Julien! Oh, Madame Mathilde, can’t we send a message to the castle to let them know we’re all right?”
“If we do, they’ll be here before you can blink,” Luna pointed out. “And we’ll be back in our rooms, under lock and key. And you’ll be asleep!”
I dropped my head into my hands in dismay. Again, Luna was right. It was really quite maddening, how often she’d been right in the last two days.
“Your Highnesses, you must explain yourselves,” Madame Mathilde commanded, not at all afraid to tell a princess what to do. She was surely the bossiest woman I had ever met, but I believed she could be trusted.
I raised my head and replied, “Yes, Madame Mathilde, I’ll disclose everything. But we must tell our story to Symon as well, for he knows nothing of it. Please let me wait until he comes.”
Madame Mathilde frowned, but then she nodded. “In the meantime, we will eat,” she said. She brought us more tea—berry tea, this time—and bread and cheese and meat pasties, and we ate ravenously. Before very long, Symon and Albert returned and joined us at the table.
“That’s done!” Albert reported cheerfully. “The mast is up, the sail’s replaced, and the weakened boards are patched.”
“I’m very grateful,” Symon said soberly to him and Madame Mathilde. “I will pay you back when I can.”
“Don’t be foolish, boy,” Madame Mathilde chided him. “Bring us ten fat fish and we’ll call it even.” Symon shook his head, but I could see that he knew better than to argue with her.
“I’ve told Albert what it is that you seek,” Symon informed us. “We can set out again in the morning.” He helped himself to the food that Madame Mathilde handed around.
Albert looked doubtful. “I know you’ve always had the urge in ye to explore, lad,” he said, “but those waters is deep, and your boat small. Might be your cousins should find another to take ’em—someone with a hardier vessel.”
“And there is something you must know first,” I said to Symon, before he could object. “We haven’t told you everything. And some of what we have told you isn’t entirely true.”
I proceeded to explain who we were and what had happened to us, recounting the tale of enchantment old and new, of good fairy and bad. Symon’s and Albert’s and Madame Mathilde’s eyes grew wide with surprise and alarm.
At the story’s end, Symon let out a low whistle, much as Albert had done on the strand. “So you’re under a curse, and you seek a cure,” he said to me, as if trying the idea out.
“Yes,” I said softly, and he shook his head in wonder.
Then he turned to Luna. “And you are indeed a girl,” he said.
“You knew?” she asked, surprised.
“I guessed—but not that you were a princess.” He turned back. “You should have told me.” He gave me a look I could not read.
“I don’t see why it matters,” Luna protested. “Would you have treated us differently if you had known?”
He thought before he answered. “I doubt it,” he said at last. “But you should have allowed me to make the choice. My boat was nearly destroyed, and it’s my livelihood—though you’d know nothing of that.”
His words were harsh, but they were no more than we deserved. “Forgive us,” I pleaded. “We were wrong not to tell you. We didn’t think we’d be putting you in such danger. I promise, we won’t keep secrets from you again.”
Symon’s furrowed brow smoothed at my apology, and he gave me a tiny, crooked smile. “Very well, Your Highness,” he said, and I smiled back, hearing the teasing behind the title.
“A woman selling quill pens,” Madame Mathilde mused. “I remember seeing such a woman, this market day past. She was new to the town and wouldn’t mingle with the rest of us. It could well have been that Manon. I didn’t like the looks of her—and now I know why.”
“Have you seen her since?” I asked.
“I have indeed,” she said. “She was in the group that gathered rou
nd you on the beach. She saw you come into the harbor. I don’t doubt that she knows you are with me now.”
I thought of the strange feeling I’d had walking up from the harbor and exchanged a horrified glance with Luna. We leaped up and ran to the front window, expecting to see a wizened, foul face staring in at us. The view showed only laden wagons in the street and the townspeople going about their business, but I knew Manon had to be somewhere near.
“We must flee!” I cried, turning back to the others.
Madame Mathilde agreed. “You should go as soon as you can, but I believe that we have something that may help you on your journey.” She conferred with Albert, who went to a wooden trunk in the corner of the room and opened it, pulling out a sheaf of parchment. Symon joined him, and they spread the papers out on the floor.
“Maps!” Symon exclaimed, smoothing out one, then another.
“This one, I think,” Albert said, pointing. Luna and I peered over Symon’s shoulder, trying to make sense of it. The lower right side of the map showed a town, and I realized it was Vittray, its streets and lanes marked and named. To the left was the harbor, and the rest of the map seemed a vast blue emptiness, dotted with a few brown patches.
“Those dots—are they islands?” Symon asked.
“Aye,” Albert replied. “Though it’s anyone’s guess how true the map is. None of us fisherfolk have been out so far. ’Twere my great-uncle Luc who drew it. He were an explorer—as mad as a box of frogs. The sea got to him, I always said.”
I imagined sailing through the expanse of blue on the map. All that sameness, all that wind and sun and water, might make a person mad. Then I looked more closely at the islands. They were not just dots. One was shaped like a sickle moon, another had jagged edges that looked sharp and forbidding. A third had a long piece of land that stuck out into the sea like a pointing finger.
Along the top and left-hand side of the map, where it was all ocean, there were drawings of strange, snakelike figures and elegant writing. I crouched over the parchment to see them more clearly and traced the intricate words with my finger. “Does this say, ‘Here Be Dragons’?” I asked nervously.
“Mapmakers’ language,” Albert explained. “It means those parts be unknown.”
“So there are really no dragons?”
“Nay,” Albert replied with a gap-toothed smile. “I never heard tell of them in all my years on the sea.”
“How can we know which of these islands is Emmeline’s?” I asked.
“We cannot,” Symon said regretfully. “We’ll have to guess. Perhaps we’ll be lucky. But even an inaccurate map is better than no map at all.”
“You don’t need to take us,” I assured him. “In fact, you must not. It’s too dangerous. But if you could help us find a boat of our own—”
Symon snorted. “And you’ll sail yourselves? Begging your pardon, Princess, but you don’t know port from starboard. You’d be lost—or worse—in no time.”
Luna took offense at his words. “We can surely sail a boat,” she insisted. “If you can do it, I’m certain that most anyone can. We don’t need you to help us.”
“Luna!” I scolded.
“It’s the job of a lifetime, to learn to sail on these waters.” Madame Mathilde’s tone was not at all kind.
“And of course I’ll take you, Princess,” Symon said to me, ignoring Luna completely. “We’ve made a bargain, and I’ll stick to it.”
I was greatly relieved, and thanked him sincerely. “But you must not address me as ‘Princess’ or ‘Your Highness,’” I said. “We’re friends, just as when you thought we were common travelers.”
Symon grinned. “All right then, Deckhand,” he said. “But it’s clear that we must go at once.”
“Are we to sail at night then?” Luna asked eagerly. I shivered with fear and anticipation, thinking of how dark the waters would be, how cold the wind.
“Do we have a choice?” Symon replied. “Otherwise, we’d just be waiting for your cousin Manon to find us, like beasts ready for slaughter. I don’t think I’d get much sleep under those circumstances.”
So it was decided. We gathered our things together. Madame Mathilde gave us food and clean clothes, and Albert and Symon pored over the map and chose one island of the three to aim for. They picked the sickle-shaped one, as it was closest and might have a safe harbor at its protected center. Then Symon rolled up the parchment and stowed it with the food. Albert bowed to us, and Madame Mathilde tried to curtsy, but I raised her up and took her hands.
“We’ll be back soon,” I said fiercely, “and then my father will reward you for your kind assistance.”
“Only come back safe and wide awake,” Madame Mathilde replied, enfolding me in her strong arms. In her embrace, breathing in her warm cinnamon scent, I felt more secure than I had since I had pricked my finger. How I wished I could rest there for a while!
“When we’re safely away, will you get word to our parents that we are well?” I asked her. “I can’t bear thinking that Mama suffers over us—or that Master Julien might be punished for our disappearance.”
“As soon as you go,” she vowed. Then she released me with a final pat. “Now, let’s be sure that no one watches you as you leave.”
The house had a back door, and we crept out of it into a narrow alleyway, checking first to be certain no one lurked there. Albert led us through twisting lanes down to the harbor, where the repaired Cateline rested at the water’s edge, its mast once more rising high.
We clambered into the boat and took seats, and Albert pushed it off the sand into the water. “Good luck to ye,” he said gruffly. “Sail straight, lad!”
“I will, Albert,” Symon promised. He pulled the ropes to raise the sail and the wind caught it, pushing us westward, toward the sinking sun. Then he gave the lines to me and clambered back into the stern to tend the tiller. As we eased our way out of the harbor, I looked back at Vittray. Shading my eyes with my hand, I gazed at the red-tiled roofs, at the anchored boats and the long pier, wondering when I would see the town again. And then I gasped in shock.
At the very end of the pier stood a woman, dressed all in black, cloaked and hooded. As I watched, the wind snatched her hood and pulled it back. I saw a wrinkled face, a deep scowl, and piercing eyes that seemed to bore into my own. It was Manon.
10
Of a Legend Come to Life
I felt her gaze on me as the wind whipped her long gray hair back from her face. I had known she was near, but to see her cruel expression was a terrible shock. Her dark eyes stared into mine with a hatred that chilled me far more than my fear of the shadowy water before and below us. Why should she loathe me so? Was it all because of a love thwarted more than a century ago?
I fully expected Manon to raise another storm, to push us back onto the beach with gale winds, but she did not. She simply watched as we sailed away from the lights of town and into the dimming evening. I shivered, and Symon reached forward and patted my hand, his touch warm and comforting. Of course Luna, who saw everything, turned and noticed this, but she managed to refrain from making a rude comment.
“I suppose,” Symon said, “that was Manon?”
Luna called back, “It must have been. I don’t know what she has in mind for us.”
“Well,” Symon said, “she knows we’re going. So I expect she will do something to try to stop us.”
“Perhaps she just believes we will drown ourselves, and she won’t have to lift a finger.” The wind swallowed my words, yet Symon heard them. He gave me a sympathetic smile. I tried to smile back, but I could not. I was bruised from our wild ride onto the sand, and frightened by the great expanse of ocean before us. I was worried about my mother. And I was so terribly tired. The tea could control my desire to slumber for a time, but always it crept back. I longed to curl up on the hard wooden bench of the Cateline and close my eyes. At that moment, I wished that I could sleep for a hundred years.
A wave of drowsiness came over me. No,
no! I thought in desperation. I didn’t mean it! I want to stay awake! I grabbed for Luna. When she felt my touch she looked back, and at the sight of my panicked expression, she spun around.
“I cannot stay awake!” I cried.
“But you just had tea,” Luna reminded me.
“It doesn’t matter! I thought . . . oh, it was so stupid! I wished to fall asleep, and suddenly the urge was so much stronger. Oh, help me, please!”
In one quick move, Luna leaned over the side, scooped up a palmful of water, and flung it into my face. “There you are,” she said obligingly.
I gasped and sputtered and blinked the salt from my eyes. For a moment I was angry, but I was wide awake again.
“Thank you,” I said grudgingly, and Luna laughed and replied, “Any time, Sister!”
We sailed on as the sun gave up its light, and no unnatural storm came to push us back to land. On Symon’s command, Luna climbed back to join him in the stern, and he handed her a strange little box that he called a compass. Then he instructed her on how to use it.
“You see,” he said, “this needle always points to the north.” I leaned toward them and watched as he turned the compass box. Indeed, there was a needle inside, mounted on a pin, and as the box turned the needle swiveled as well, always pointing in the same direction. Symon went on, “We’re going to turn due north, so you want to be sure we are aimed this way.” He showed Luna a little mark on the compass box.
“How does it work?” I asked, intrigued. “Is it magic?”
Symon laughed. “The magic of science,” he said. “The compass needle is attracted to the magnetism of the earth, which is strongest in the north.” I puzzled over this as Luna twirled the compass, pleased with the constancy of the needle pointing north.
“Let me know if we veer off course,” Symon told Luna. “We should see the island before morning—that is, if we don’t miss it completely.”
“Oh, we won’t miss it,” Luna assured him. “This map reading isn’t so hard. We’re right on course, I’m pretty certain.” I rolled my eyes. I wouldn’t have put Luna in charge of navigation, but I did have faith in Symon and his skill with tiller and sail.