Wildwood Dancing

“Goodbye, Gogu,” I whispered, then turned my back and fled.

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Chapter Twelve

I arrived home freezing, exhausted, and utterly miserable. Petru smuggled me inside. All around the place there were men with clubs or crossbows or knives, some whom I recognized from Varful cu Negur?a and some who were strangers. I spotted Cezar giving them stern instructions. All I could think of was the horrible thing Dr?agu?ta had done to me—the cruel trick that had turned my world upside down.

My sisters bundled me out of my damp clothes and into warm, dry ones. Stela brought a stone hot water bottle for my feet. Iulia fetched a jug of tea from the kitchen, with a little dish of bread and pickled eggs, but I could not eat.

“Let’s go through this again, Jena,” Paula said carefully, as if humoring a hysterical child. By this stage I’d stammered out the story, more or less, including a brief account of the young man I had seen in Dr?agu?ta’s mirror and what he had become. I had not given them details of the scene in which the monstrous figure had pursued and hurt them; there was no need for them to share 292

my nightmares. I had shown them Dr?agu?ta’s sleeping potion. I couldn’t expect them to understand how I was feeling. If anyone said, Oh well, it was only a frog , I’d scream. “You did actually kiss Gogu? That was what made him change?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Maybe Gogu was just an ordinary boy once,” suggested Stela solemnly. “Until Dr?agu?ta enchanted him.”

“There’s nothing ordinary about him. He belongs in the world of the Night People. He looks good on the outside and he’s all bad on the inside. I saw it.”

“And you believe it.” Paula sounded doubtful.

“I heard Dr?agu?ta laughing after she’d done it. Paula, there’s no point in talking about this. He’s gone. I was wrong about him all those years—stupidly wrong. Instead of a friend and companion, I was carrying about some”—I shuddered—“some thing that belonged in the dark, out of sight. How could I have made such a mistake?”

“Or perhaps she changed him,” suggested Iulia. “It’s hard to believe that Gogu was an evil creature, Jena. Maybe she took him and left you this other thing in his place. To teach you a lesson.”

“So it was true, then.” Paula was looking thoughtful.

“About you being able to hear Gogu’s thoughts, I mean. When she transformed him into a frog, Dr?agu?ta probably gave him that voice to make up for not being able to talk. Otherwise he’d have gone crazy.”

Tati had been silent so far. Now she gave the others a particular kind of look, and the three of them retreated to sit on Paula’s bed.

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“Jena,” said Tati. “Jena, look at me.”

She hadn’t sounded so sensible for quite a while. I looked at her, and she reached out her fingers to wipe the tears from my cheeks. Her hand was all skin and bone. “Surely this can’t be the first time you ever gave Gogu a kiss,” she said.

“It’s not. I don’t think that’s what made him change.

Dr?agu?ta just wanted a dramatic moment to do it, and that’s the one she chose. Maybe I deserve punishing, Tati. I’ve messed up everything, and now he’s gone, and I don’t have any answers, and Cezar’s down there, putting armed guards all around the castle.” The tears flowed faster. “Sorry,” I hiccuped. “I just can’t believe I’ve lost him. It’s even crueler than it seems. . . .”

No, I would not tell her that the young man with green eyes had appeared nightly in my dreams. That I had considered him far nicer than any of the young men at the party. That I had imagined dancing with him, and had wished he could be real.

That meant nothing: every single time, the dream had ended with his changing to reveal the monster beneath.

“Jena,” said Tati softly, “we can go across at Full Moon.

Dr?agu?ta’s potion will put Cezar’s man to sleep. You can ask Ileana about this, and I can ask about Sorrow. Maybe it can still be set right, all of it. I’m going to ask her whether she will let Sorrow and his sister live in her realm, away from the Night People. You’ve done something really brave, getting the potion for us. Don’t cry, Jena, please.”

“Do you think Gogu will remember the way home?” asked Stela, whose mind was dwelling on the fact that, unaccountably, I had left my friend on his own out in the forest. If she had missed the point about exactly what he was, I was glad of it. “I 294

hope he doesn’t freeze to death, like birds that fall out of the trees in winter.”

“Shh!” hissed Tati. “Don’t upset Jena. She did give him her cloak.”

“If this was one of those old tales,” said Iulia, “he’d turn up on the doorstep here, and Jena would have to grovel to get him back.”

“Hush, Iulia!” Tati’s arm tightened around my shoulders.

“Don’t make this any worse. Until you lose someone you love, you can’t understand what Jena’s feeling.”

“You know,” Paula said, “it would really be more sensible not to go, this Full Moon—even if there are questions you want to ask. If we never opened the portal again, Cezar couldn’t find it.”

Tati and I both looked at her.

“We can’t not go,” Stela said, all big eyes and drooping mouth.

“You’re saying we should never go to the Other Kingdom again?” Iulia had understood what lay behind Paula’s words, and her voice was hushed. “Not ever?”

“That’s common sense,” said Paula. “I don’t like it any more than you do. Where else am I going to be able to