Wildwood Dancing

have to work them out.

You can help me. I don’t believe it’s farewell forever.”

Stela dashed the tears from her cheeks, took a deep, unsteady breath, and stepped away from her friend. “Goodbye, Ildephonsus,” she said, hiccuping. Her expression told me she had suddenly grown up rather more than she wanted to. “We’ll 329

come back sometime. Paula knows these things.” She kissed him on his long pink snout. Ildephonsus wrung his paws and began a high, eldritch wailing. The dwarf bundled him back in the boat and, with a shout of farewell, bore him away.

Sten lifted Iulia out onto the shore. “Of course,” he said, “we can come across if we’re careful, so it’s not really goodbye forever. But we’ll sorely miss you at Full Moon. You make lovely partners.” He planted a smacking kiss on my sister’s cheek.

“Don’t go marrying a heavy-footed man now, will you?”

“I’ll see you soon, Jena,” said Grigori. He had brought Tati to land. She was conscious again, though shaky— between us, Iulia and I supported her. “I’ll be back with your father’s answer as quick as I can.”

“Be careful. Cezar’s hunting parties are still going out from time to time.”

“I will. Farewell, then.”

“Farewell, Grigori. Thank you for everything.”

“My advice to you,” he said with a grin, “is to seek out my great-aunt before you go home. I don’t think you’ve asked her all the questions you might.” He stepped back into the boat and dug in the pole. Within a count of three, the vessel had disappeared through the shrouds of mist, and we were alone on the shore. Or not quite alone, for another boat was approaching through the vapor—a flat little craft that bobbed on the surface, the ice shards jingling around it. On it stood a familiar figure: thin arms wielding the pole, green eyes set on the shore ahead, hair tumbling wildly over his brow. His jaw was set tight; he looked every bit as angry and upset as Cezar on one of 330

his worst days. As we watched, he maneuvered his craft to the shore and stepped off it. A raft. A raft made of weathered timbers, bound together with twists of flax and fragments of fraying rope.

“I’m sorry,” Iulia said, staring. “We should have offered you a lift in one of our boats.”

“As you see,” said the young man, “I have my own.”

“You—” I managed. “You—” But my tongue would not deliver the words. I’d been foolish before, letting myself be taken in by Tadeusz and his coaxing. I’d been so foolish that I’d nearly let him take Tati while my attention was all on my own concerns. I would not give way to such foolishness now.

“That could have been here all the time,” I said. “Anyone could have found it and used it. You’re lying. You’re not Costi. You can’t be.”

He looked as if I’d just smacked him in the face. The green eyes went bleak. The thin lips were not humorous now, but set in a tight line. “If you can’t trust, you can’t trust,” he said.

“Goodbye. I’m going home now.” Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away along the lakeshore.

The five of us stood in silence, watching him, until he vanished into the darkness of the wildwood. He still had my cloak on.

“We need to get Tati home, Jena,” said Paula. “It’s cold out here.”

“You can’t just let him go like that,” objected Iulia. “He was upset. He was really sad. Jena, he does look quite a lot like Cezar. And even more like that old picture of Uncle Nicolae, 331

the one Aunt Bogdana has hanging in her hallway. Are you sure—?”

“Run after him, Jena.” Stela was shivering with cold.

“Run after him? In the forest at night? I don’t think so.” My feet were on the verge of doing just that. How could I let him walk off with that expression on his face?

“Go on, Jena.” Tati’s voice was a thread. “We’ll wait for you at the top of the steps. He can’t have gone far.”

I ran. I did not allow myself to think of Night People, or of wolves, or of any other dangers that might be lurking in the darkness. I ran along the shore of T?aul Ielelor, and as I went I spotted something shining in the undergrowth—a little crown of wire and beads, ribbon and braid. Following my instincts, I grabbed it as I passed. “Gogu!” I shouted. “Wait for me!” But there was no response, save the hooting of an owl and the patter of a small creature in the bushes.

At the spot where the track branched away from the water I halted, my chest heaving in the chill air. I would not attempt the walk through the woods, the long way home to Piscul Dracului. The others were waiting; without me, they could not open the portal. How had he managed to vanish so quickly?

Perhaps he had slipped away to Tadeusz’s world—perhaps, if I tried too hard to follow, I, too, would find myself in that dark realm. “Gogu?” I said, my voice shrunk to a little, fearful thing in the immensity of the shadowy forest.

“Gone,” someone said from down below. “Gone for good.

Foolish girl. Why didn’t you listen?”

I looked down. She was there, green cloak wound around her small body, broad hat partly concealing the gooseberry eyes 332

and the wrinkled, canny old features. Not far away, the white snake twined in a bush, its forked tongue flickering.

“Gone where?” I asked her, my mind searching for the right questions, not to waste the opportunity as I had before.

“Home. Varful cu Negur?a. Where else?”

“You’re talking as if he is Costi. But he can’t be. Costi drowned. Cezar and I saw it. One moment he was swimming, the next he was gone.”

“Think, Jena. You’re on the raft. You’ve just given up your treasure and received a gift of great power in return.