grid with thirty squares, then began to copy the shapes with a twig, filling each square with one of the small patterns, trying to place them in the way he had envisaged would form the trunk, branches, and leaves of a tree. I tried to note which ones he had used so he didn’t double up or leave any out. For a long time, we murmured instructions and suggestions to each other as he crouched by the table, making a line here, rubbing out a squiggle there, doing his best to make it work.
“If this theory proves correct,” Stoyan said, erasing several images with a sigh and examining the notebook page again, “where does it take us?”
“I don’t know. I stumbled on the manuscript at random when I was browsing through a box of bits and pieces that hadn’t been sorted out. It’s too much of a coincidence for me to find these, unless it’s a trail I’m supposed to follow. I’m sure Irene didn’t know what was in the box, nor did her assistant. Neither of them took much interest in exactly what I was studying. Stoyan, when I looked at the little picture of Cybele…” My words died away as he completed the last few pieces of the puzzle. He’d been right. The tiny shapes formed a spreading tree bearing flowers and fruit at the same time, with all sorts of creatures flying and roosting and foraging around the roots. A tree with a heart, for that was the way its sturdy trunk looked, and a crown of verdant foliage. “How was it you saw that so quickly,” I asked him, “and I spent days thinking about it and getting nowhere?”
“Perhaps you were looking for a more complex solution. A simple man sees a simple answer.”
“Simple? You? I doubt that.”
“You did not finish what you were saying.” He regarded me gravely. “When you found this image of the old goddess, something happened.”
“I heard a voice. Not Tati’s; another voice, a deep one. It was like a command: ‘I am the beginning. Make me whole.’ There was another girl in the library, and she didn’t seem to have heard it, nor did she see Tati when she appeared and disappeared. I wonder if you’d be able to see her?”
“I do not know. Paula, your past must make you a perfect choice to be entrusted with such a secret. I am unsurprised that clues have been laid for you to follow. A scholar by nature and training, and already a visitor to this kingdom of the shadows…. So someone has chosen you to be the holder of knowledge. This troubles me. I know you wish to visit Kyria Irene’s library in the morning. I am not content to wait for you outside. Not this time.”
“That won’t work anyway,” I said, impressed by his insight. “I want to show you the manuscript. Perhaps there’s a way around Irene’s rule. Let me think about it.”
“Should you speak of these manifestations to Master Teodor? He fears attack by commercial rivals. He is unaware that other, more unusual forces are also at work.”
“It’s best that he doesn’t know,” I said. “We did tell him the truth about Tati, about why she was gone when he came home that winter, but not all of it. Not that she and Jena had met the Night People and…Well, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you someday. If Father knew that Tati had been here and that I might have a quest to fulfill, he’d probably send me straight home. He doesn’t realize I can deal with these things.”
“I believe you,” said Stoyan. “It seems you have grown up with a knowledge of the uncanny and have less fear of it than most folk might. It is the more worldly dangers that give me pause.”
“I thought you were going to teach me unarmed combat.” I managed a smile.
“The same as the reading: enough to get you started,” he said. “It cannot be sufficient to allay my fears for you. Not so quickly.”
“You don’t need to worry about me, Stoyan.”
“You are a woman of spirited views, of independence and courage. I wish I could say you are right. But how can I do that when you wake suddenly and I hear terror in your voice? It cuts me to the quick that I cannot be there by your side in your dreams to lead you to safety.”
I could think of absolutely nothing to say. His last remark had been deeply personal and seemed quite inappropriate from a hired guard. My cheeks were hot, and I was glad the dim light concealed this from my companion. Eventually I said, “They’re only dreams.” Perhaps I had misunderstood what he meant. After my earlier blunder, I was probably overreacting.
“My mother would say a dream is the key that unlocks the mysteries of the waking world.”
“You seem remarkably ready to accept the eldritch and supernatural,” I told him, steering the conversation away from the perilous track that seemed to be opening up with alarming frequency tonight. “You don’t seem at all shocked by what I’ve told you. Unless you’re just humoring me.”
“I would not do that. I respect you.”
“Does this openness come from your mother? At home, the mountain people distrust and fear the Other Kingdom. They hang talismans on the trees and erect crucifixes to keep out not just the devil’s minions but fairies and dwarves and Night People as well. It’s not that they don’t believe. It’s more that they hope those forces will set a wide berth around them and their loved ones.”
“My mother’s mother was a
“I want to study that second page more closely tomorrow, the one with Cybele’s picture on it. Maybe there are more clues there. I think it’s important that we work them out before the supper.” A yawn overtook me. I looked out over the rooftops and thought I could see a faint lightening of the sky. “That’s if either of us can stay awake,” I added.
“You have time to sleep a little before your father rises,” said Stoyan. “What shall we do with this small work of art? Should we preserve it?”
I looked down at the little tray with its neat image in the sand, the squiggly lines that had resolved themselves into a pattern of trunk and branches, the parts I had thought only blobs and smears that were now, quite obviously, leaves, buds, birds, creatures. I wondered if too much learning had blinded me to what was right and true. “I don’t think that’s practical,” I told him. “But we should try to remember it. There has to be a reason we were shown this.”
“I will study it further before dawn, commit it to memory.”
