done the job. I had taken that to indicate it was a question the old man thought better not asked, and had offered him no explanation. “Petru was busy when the workers were here,” I said, knowing I must say something. “Then you all rushed off after the Night People.
I didn’t get the chance to tell him.”
178
“
“No, Cezar.” I was shaking; I stuffed my hands into my pockets, not wanting him to see how nervous he was making me. “They did something terrible. I know you believe it’s the right thing to hunt them down. Many people would agree with you.”
“But you do not?” His tone was incredulous.
“I wouldn’t attempt to pass judgment on such an issue. I understand the desire for vengeance—I imagine that Ivona’s family is feeling that right now. But folk say it’s dangerous to meddle with the powers of the wildwood. That it’s wiser simply to set up wards and take preventive measures. If Father Sandu had been here—”
“Oh, it’s that again, is it? Your resentment at my action regarding the wayward priest clouds your judgment once more.
This is petty, Jena.”
“I’m not a child, Cezar, as you yourself seem keen to point out whenever you get the opportunity. I think taking violent action may only make things worse. That’s all I’m trying to say to you.” I could not tell him what I really believed: that the miller’s daughter had died as payment for the mending of my fences, and that in the accounting of the Night People, the ledger was now balanced. That made a hideous kind of sense.
“If we waited and all worked together to protect the settlement, in time this menace would pass us by. The Night People would move on. That’s what they do.”
He looked at me. Seeing another question in his eyes, I made a desperate attempt to fend it off. “I’m worried about you,” I 179
told him, putting a hand on his arm. “You’re not safe out there after dark.” That was not a lie, either; none of them was safe.
Though my cousin was a bully, I had no wish to see him fall victim to Night People or anything else that might be out in the forest by night. That this was a minor worry against so many more weighty problems, I did not say.
Cezar’s hand came up over mine. I remembered, vividly, the touch of Tadeusz’s chilly fingers and the feeling that had aroused in me. I could not help shivering.
“I’m sorry I upset you, Jena.” My cousin’s voice had changed. I liked this softer tone even less than his hectoring one. “Believe me, it gives me no pleasure at all to have to reprimand you. Your distress troubles me. As for the Night People, have no fear for me. I’m an expert hunter. We’ll track this villain down, believe me. If fortune favors us, we’ll have him before Full Moon.”
It was a strange time at Piscul Dracului. On the one hand, preparations for our party were in full swing. A stream of women came up the hill each day to help Florica with cleaning and cooking, to lend a special jug or a strip of embroidered linen to cover a bare shelf. The kitchen was full of chatter.
Down in the village, the band could be heard seizing any spare moment for a little practice. Against this, every dusk saw Cezar’s group of grim-faced hunters setting out up the track toward the forest in their woolen cloaks, their fur-lined hats and heavy boots—some armed with such weapons as a crossbow or knife, others shouldering the implements of farm or 180
forge; it was known that the folk of the Other Kingdom feared iron. The hunters would return at dawn, frozen, exhausted, and thus far, empty-handed. I feared to see them come back triumphant, for my heart told me that more spilling of blood might well plunge the whole valley into chaos and darkness.
Perhaps that was what the Night People had wanted all along: to set their terrible mark on Ileana’s court and on our peaceful community.
Cezar and his friends snatched sleep in the mornings. It was the only time we did not have their large presences dominating our house and stifling natural conversation. The party and the hunt did not seem like things that could exist comfortably in the same world, yet both were designed to keep the valley safe.
I hoped our celebration would be seen by Tadeusz and his dark henchmen for what it was: a gesture of defiance, of independence. A message that I would not listen to them, and that I de-spised what they had done.
Tati had become eerily quiet. Her appetite had vanished; she found all kinds of excuses not to eat, and I was deeply concerned. She had never been a big girl, and I saw how her clothes hung on her now, as if they had been made for someone far healthier. She made no further attempts to argue with me about going across to the Other Kingdom. Instead, she wandered about the narrow hallways and crooked staircases of Piscul Dracului like a pale ghost. When she managed to evade the watchful eyes of Cezar and his friends, she disappeared for long, solitary walks in the forest. She would come home trembling with cold, with boots and hemline soaking wet and eyes 181
full of a desperate emotion that was somewhere between grief and fury. I took to looking out for her return so I could smuggle her in without Cezar noticing.
Two days short of Dark of the Moon, Aunt Bogdana visited Piscul Dracului with her seamstress, and we gathered in the formal dining room after breakfast for another fitting. Iulia stood on the table in her stockings while the seamstress pinned up the hem of the decorous dove-gray creation. My sister was scowling. She plucked at the high-cut neckline, experimenting to see whether it could be rendered just a little more revealing.
“Iulia, I can see you don’t care for this,” Aunt said, not un-kindly. “Believe me, it’s not the young men you need to impress, it’s their mothers, and you won’t do that if you’re falling out of your bodice, dear. Leave that alone, it’s the appropriate cut for you at thirteen. We might add a bow at the back: that will look girlish while showing off your pretty figure. I wonder if we can have just a little dancing. . . . It seems rather silly to refrain on Nicolae’s account, when he enjoyed it so much himself. . . .”
“We’ll do whatever you think proper, Aunt Bogdana,” I said.
The seamstress straightened up; she had finished adjusting Iulia’s hem.
“Very well, Iulia, you’re done,” said Aunt Bogdana. “Step down. Carefully—mind those pins. Stela! You’re next!”
I heard a commotion, voices, footsteps, from the hallway outside. One of the voices was Cezar’s. “A
