Celestina patted her back. She regained some control, breathing in a strange way, and sank back on the pillows.
Erris looked around the room. “Well, it’s obvious what the trouble is. There should be plants here. And flowers. Fairies grow sick without exposure to nature. She should be outside. That will help her heal.”
“Mr. Valdana knows she needs plants and trees around her,” Celestina said. “But how can we take her outside when it’s cold half the year? And what plants could live in her room?”
“When the snow comes, we’ll cut boughs from the evergreens,” Erris said. “That’s what we did back home. And what is she eating? Bread and milk, you say?”
“Yes. Good food. Sausages. Fish stew. We don’t have much fresh meat, but we have eggs sometimes.”
“Meat should be sparing,” Erris said. “She needs food from the forest. And no bread and milk.”
“What will she eat, then?” Celestina said, a hint of skepticism creeping in. “What on earth is wrong with meat and bread?”
“Well, we have rules about meat, where I’m from,” Erris said. “It has to be hunted in a certain manner that is respectful to the forest and the animal. When I was sick, my mother fed me fresh fruits and vegetables.” He sighed. “Knowing Mel, I suppose it’s no surprise she didn’t think to tell him how to raise a fairy baby in case something happened to her. Planning never was her strong suit.”
He suddenly reached for the girl, scooping her up as if she were a little child and gathering up her blankets around her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and settled her head against his chest, where I knew she would hear his clockwork innards ticking.
Celestina glanced at me and followed Erris out. Violet seemed to trust him instantly. She must’ve been deeply comforted by the familiarity in his face. Indeed, the two of them looked very much alike.
Maybe it would make Erris happy to nurse her back to health. Yet, even if Ordorio knew some way to restore Erris to a real body, where did that leave me? Would Erris be interested in me when his old life returned? If he was to be a fairy king, I was no fairy, and no queen. Just a dancing girl from halfway around the world, with nothing and no one to call my own.
No. I could not pity myself. We had too much to do first.
Chapter 4
Celestina spread a blanket across the lawn, and Erris laid Violet down upon it. It seemed a very strange introduction to a new house, to have barely exchanged names and proceed to spreading oneself upon the grass, but perhaps fairies did much of their entertaining out-of-doors. Celestina pulled Violet’s blankets closer around her body, nodded with satisfaction, and walked away.
“I’m so happy,” Violet said breathlessly. “My uncle! You can tell me all about my mother. Father doesn’t like to speak of her. She was awfully pretty. I’ll be prettier when I’m well.” She rattled all this off, oblivious to the increasingly pained look on Erris’s face until he waved a hand at her.
“Oh… I’ve said something wrong, haven’t I?” She glanced at me.
“We’ve had a long journey,” I said. Even without the thin cheeks and sallow skin, her features reminded me of a little woodland animal’s, like a sparrow’s or a vole’s-cute, perhaps, but not a great beauty.
“Violet, how long have you been sick?” Erris asked.
“Oh, always. Sometimes I feel better in the summer, and then I get sick again.”
“Hmm,” Erris said. “You must be outside more in the summer.”
“I suppose everybody is,” Violet said. She didn’t sound especially interested in her sickness or the outdoors.
Celestina returned with a plate heaping with moist bread studded with blueberries, and two pillows, which she positioned beneath an oblivious Violet.
“But, Erris-
He handed it back to Celestina. “This isn’t good for her, I said. No bread at all.”
“What!” Violet cried, her voice hoarse with coughing. “What’s wrong with bread? I never heard such a stupid thing!” She started to get up, but Celestina pressed on her shoulder.
I was starting to think Violet was a girl quite used to having her way.
“It looks delicious,” said Erris. “But I suppose my mother knew what she was doing, since she brought up ten children to adulthood. She would have said no to that if I was in your condition.” He paused, lowering the plate again. “You remind me so much of Mel.”
Violet stopped fighting Celestina’s grasp at that. “Was Mother much like me at my age?”
“Very.” He smiled at her. “She asked impertinent questions to our visitors at court, and my mother finally told her she was not allowed to say a word except ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”
Celestina started to go again, and I got up to follow her. “Do you need any help?” I asked, ignoring Erris calling after me, and my own horrible thoughts. I couldn’t take another moment of him coddling Violet and talking of his sister, but if I told him that, I would seem quite the villain.
“There is always plenty to do, before the snow comes,” Celestina said. “Besides, I think we should leave the two of them alone.”
I tried not to stare at the scar on her cheek. She didn’t seem at all self-conscious, which made it easier. “Yes,” I said, trying to sound as if I was happy to leave them alone myself. “It’s wonderful that Erris still has family.”
Celestina marched along the path, where weeds sprung up between the stones. “Your arrival is all such a surprise.” She stopped at a small door at the side of the house, handed me the plate of bread, and took keys from her pocket. But instead of unlocking the door, she met my eyes.
“Will you consider staying the winter?” she asked. “I know the place is a bit run-down, but we have abundant stores of jam and delicious pickles. I make really wonderful pickles. Erris could help Violet so much, I can tell. I hardly know what to do with her.”
One would imagine that I was used to abrupt changes of residence. So many times had my life been pulled out from under me, only to be replaced by something vastly different-from my childhood in the royal court of Tiansher, to my uncle’s farm, to a cheap dancing show in Lorinar, to Hollin Parry’s fine mansion. Now I found myself invited by a stranger to spend a cold winter eating pickles in a lonely house. But it remained as strange a feeling as on the day my father had entered my room and started throwing my clothes into a traveling sack, spitting out three frustrated words: “We’re leaving, Nim.”
I wanted to tell her that we ought to go back to Karstor’s apartment in New Sweeling, where I could pretend Karstor would take care of everything. But, truthfully, I feared we were in his way. And I knew he couldn’t take care of everything.
“We need to see Ordorio, one way or another,” I told her. “If you don’t know where he’s gone, I suppose we will have to wait for him.”
She nodded, the slightest smile crossing her lips. “I’ll show you what I’ve put up,” she said, unlocking the kitchen door.
When my father lost the family fortune to gambling debt, we had moved to the farm where my uncle grew fat root vegetables, along with a handful of fruit trees, and a few goats for milk and cheese. I had been surprised to see how poor and plain my cousins appeared compared to the children at court. Most of my fine things had been sold, but what was left still made their eyes bug, and I had shown it all proudly. They introduced me to their friends as “Nimira, from the royal palace,” their voices full of wonder.
That had lasted less than a week. I was asked to do more and more chores, and I did a poor job of most of them. They laughed when I complained about my dirty hands. They teased me mercilessly when I was afraid to milk a goat. They told all their friends I was snooty and mean, and at night I would cry silently for the dancing and the food and the servants at the royal court, hating the farm, hating my cousins, hating my mother for dying and my father for getting us into this mess.
That was why, when I was thirteen, I jumped at the chance to come to Lorinar, where I thought my singing and dancing would bring me fame and fortune.
