The Five Daughters of the Moon

Chapter 6: Alina

As soon as Nurse Nookes closes the door behind her, I open my eyes, as I have done on every single night since my name day. I will stay awake for as long as I can and longer. At some point, I might fall asleep. Though I’ve asked my sisters and even Nurse Nookes how to distinguish dreams from reality, I’m still unsure of what happens in my room after the lights go out, and I don’t dare to ask more questions, lest they start worrying even more about me.

Shadows live in the world beyond this one. As I’m the youngest, it’s impossible for me to see there. And yet, the shadows arrive mere moments later.

I lie very quiet under my down-feather duvet as they shift in the corners of the room, as their forms strengthen. The shadows are smaller here than in life. Diminished. I can’t yet name who has come to visit me tonight. Usually it’s birds, but sometimes animals I’ve never met in life.

Tonight I’m visited by a swan, an owl, and a hairy creature that stoops on two legs. It’s a monkey. No, it’s bigger. An ape. I nod a greeting to the animals, but I don’t dare to speak, lest someone may hear me and alert Nurse Nookes. I can still taste the sugary mixture she urged me to swallow before tugging me to bed. I spat it out when she had her back turned to me. I know she means well, everyone does, but I hate how her potions cloud my mind.

As always, my animal visitors play out scenes from their lives. Their shadows dance dark against the white wall opposite my bed. I watch each of their performances, stifling yawns, forcing my eyes to stay open.

The swan flies, flies to faraway lands, to nest and raise its hatchlings on the shores of a clear-watered lake.

The owl hunts. It swoops over glittering snowfields, toward the sounds it hears from under the snow banks. Then it dives, talons spread. Its beak pierces the ice-crusted snow. The scene ends in the owl’s victory. In a mouse’s death.

The ape leads a slow life. It clings to a tree and munches leaves of plants I don’t recognize. It scratches its friends, and they scratch it in return.

Though I can’t know for sure, I think these might be the best moments of the animals’ lives. It’s well possible that some of my visitors have shown me what they wished they’d done differently. In any case, be it memories or regrets, it’s my duty to watch, since if I don’t watch then I fear that no one else will do so.

After the ape retreats back into the corner, I nod again at the shadows. They nod back at me. It’s so hard not to yawn, to remain awake. Sometimes each animal has only one scene to play. Sometimes several. Sometimes they share with me what might be their nightmares. I don’t know for sure.

The shadows slip onto the wall together. Each performs the same story. They’re caught and caged. They’re taken to a house I don’t want to name for fear of somehow summoning his attention. Their cages are carried down a steep staircase, into a long, narrow room and… after that the animals cease to be as they were and only their shadows remain as their own.

“How can I help you?” I whisper as loudly as I dare. I’ve asked this before. They never reply, just stare back at me. Maybe I’m the only one willing to hear of their fates. To remember rather than to ignore and forget.

The swan stirs from its posture of defeat. It unfolds its wings from against its sides and raises its head high. The beak parts, and…

“Alina?”

I scramble back on my bed. The swan spoke to me. It knows my name.

The owl and ape stare at me. They seem as confused as I feel.

“Alina?” the voice asks again. It doesn’t belong to the swan but to Nurse Nookes.

“Hide,” I whisper to the animals.

The swan tilts its head. The owl looks as if it were about to hoot. The ape merely scratches its armpit.

“I’m coming in,” Nurse Nookes calls through the door, even though she received no reply.

“Hide!” I command the stubborn animals, even as I slip farther under my fluffy duvet and pat it smooth around me.

But only as the door creaks open, the shadows scatter back into the corners. Relief eases the knot in my stomach. If you don’t know where to look, you won’t see them. I learned of their presence only after I got my name.

“It’s me…” Nurse Nookes slips into my room, shading a duck-soul lantern. Her low heels tap softly against the carpet though she’s round like the plumpest of summer apples. I think she could move silently if she so wanted, but she makes sounds so as not to frighten me in case I’d stir to her entrance. “Nurse Nookes.”

I quickly close my eyes before she notices I never went to sleep in the first place. What is she doing in my room when I’ve done nothing to warrant anyone’s attention? I haven’t cried or shouted in my sleep, I’m sure of it! And it can’t be morning yet. I’ve stayed awake through so many nights that I know the hours that lie between this moment and the relief that dawn brings in its wake.

Maybe I did fall asleep. This might be a dream. It’s also well possible this is a nightmare. If it is, I hope that it won’t be one of those where the gagargi threatens to feed me to his Great Thinking Machine.

“You must wake up.” Nurse Nookes shakes my shoulder, voice shaded by worry, of all things. But something is off. I’ve known her since I was born, and tonight her concern has nothing to do with me.

Be this a dream or a nightmare, I can’t leave her facing it alone. She’s always been there for me, even if it’s been with her potions. I turn to my side, to face her, and rub my eyes as if she’d woken me up. “What is it?”

Nurse Nookes peels the duvet off me. She doesn’t look at me when she speaks. “The Crescent Empress has summoned you and your sisters to the sacred observatory.”

This is… This might still be a dream. It certainly doesn’t feel like reality. Nurse Nookes is never afraid of anything. Mama has never summoned me or my sisters to the sacred observatory in the middle of the night. Dreams, on the other hand, are full of people acting out of order, and other pure impossibilities. Running, but never reaching your destination. Packing, but never remembering everything. Those sort of things.

I hide a small smile. When you realize you’re in a dream, sometimes it’s possible to control it. I crawl to sit on the bed and dangle my legs over the edge.

Nurse Nookes squats down before me, as she always does. She looks me squarely in the eye, frowns like drapes drawn apart. “Do you need to use the pot-pot?”

I shake my head, though rather to hide my secrets from her than in reply. In any case, I don’t feel like I’d need to pee anytime soon. Either not enough hours have passed since she tugged me into bed or this is indeed a dream.

“Can you take off the nightgown while I fetch your clothes?”

My insides squirm as the wrongness sharpens. A Daughter of the Moon never dresses or undresses by herself. Of course I shouldn’t keep Mama waiting. But this need for haste… Nurse Nookes wouldn’t ask this of me unless we’re in a great hurry.

I tug the nightgown over my head while Nurse Nookes rummages in the clothes room.

“Something warm. Something…” she mutters in the dark. Why she hasn’t switched on the lights, I can’t guess. “Can’t waste more time. This will have to do.”

I jump down from the bed as she waddles to me. She clutches a thick winter dress against her very round bosom. It’s not the kind of dress I’d usually wear for an audience with Mama. But rather…

“Are we going somewhere?” In my ears, the question rings like a squeal.

“Perhaps” is all that Nurse Nookes replies.

Nurse Nookes rushes through the buttons. Then she orders me to sit down, and quickly pulls fur-lined boots on my feet. She squats down before me again. I look past her, at the shadows hiding in the corners.

“There, there.” She gently pinches my cheeks. Her voice is cheery, but I don’t think she feels that way. “I believe you are ready.”

Before I can reply, a knock comes from the door. There is nothing cheery or timid about this one. Rather, it sounds… furious. I know it then for sure. This is a nightmare.

“We’re coming!” Nurse Nookes shouts, but it seems to me she’d prefer to curse. She strides to the door and waves at me to follow.

The shadows hover hesitantly in the corners. They want to come with me. I don’t know what to do.

Nurse Nookes is about to open the door just as whatever horrendous creature waiting behind it knocks again, louder. At the moment that she’s not looking at me, I lift my hem and beckon to the shadows. “Quick, now.”

“Yes, quick.” Nurse Nookes pulls the door open.

The shadows dash to hide in my hem. They settle against the wool in an eyeblink, becoming mere darker patches. After all, shadows don’t have bodies.

I rush out from my chambers and step into the nightmare.

Six soldiers in midnight blue guard both ends of the hallway. I don’t recognize any of the men, whose faces are hard as if chiseled with an ax and whose gazes dart from door to door as if they were expecting trouble. They clutch at the straps of their rifles or the pommels of their viciously curving swords. Curiously, their gloves are red.

As I rub my eyes, a bearded guard strides the length of the corridor. He’s the furious knocker, and there is no mercy in his knuckles as he pounds in turn on the doors of Merile, Sibilia, and Elise. He stops by Elise’s door, doesn’t continue to knock on Celestia’s. Why?

One by one, my sisters emerge from their rooms, but not one of them bears the same expression.

Elise waltzes to the hallway in a gleaming white ball gown that glitters with sequins and pearls. Her smile is the widest I’ve ever seen, and as she dances toward me she’s akin to a dove released from its cage.

Sibilia pushes her head through the door crack. Her red-gold hair, though braided, sticks out in all directions, and her cheeks glow. “What under the Moon is happening here?”

Elise pulls the door open and grabs Sibilia by the elbow. “It’s the time, at last. Come!”

Sibilia stumbles after her, a silver hand mirror in her free hand. She’s still in her nightgown. Her feet are bare.

None of this makes sense. If this isn’t a nightmare, then nothing is. I pinch my arm before Nurse Nookes can stop me. It doesn’t help, and Nurse Nookes doesn’t notice me trying again either. Two of the soldiers have formed a barrier behind Elise and Sibilia. There is no turning back, no returning to our rooms.

Merile’s door swings open last. Her beautiful dogs burst out, unclothed still. My sister dashes after them in her gorgeous fur-trimmed cloak, a dog coat in each hand. “Rafa, Mufu, stop! My darling dears, you’ll catch a cold!”

“Rafa…” I kneel before I remember the shadows hiding in my hem. As I embrace Rafa, the shadows shy away from her. Mufu bounces to lick my face. “Oh, Mufu!”

Then Merile is there, tugging the coats over their heads and fastening them under their bellies. Rafa and Mufu must have smelled the shadows at last, for they sniff at my hem and their thin tails wag wildly.

“Let’s get going, then,” the bearded soldier grunts. I glare at him. Who does he think he is to order a Daughter of the Moon!

I’m not the only one who is shocked. Sibilia’s face flushes with fury. She brandishes the mirror at the soldier. “In my nightgown?”

But Elise flings an arm around Sibilia. She whispers something I can’t quite hear in her ear. All color drains from Sibilia’s face. She says, “But of course. We shouldn’t keep Mama waiting.”

The guards lead us through the silent palace. Down the stairs to the second floor. Through corridors lit by duck-soul lanterns. Past curtained windows. I tremble, want to turn back, want to wake up. But Nurse Nookes ushers me onward.

We make it halfway to the sacred observatory without a word said. If you don’t count Rafa’s and Mufu’s occasional barking and Nurse Nookes’s heavy breathing. This silence weighs my steps like a wet cloak with its hood pulled up. I want to toss it aside.

“Sibs…” I tug at the sleeve of my sister’s nightgown. “Why do you have a mirror with you?”

Elise giggles, the only one of us who’s merry. “Yes, do tell us why?”

Color rises to Sibilia’s cheeks in tides of red. “I was practicing… No, what do you think? I woke up to this wretched knocking, and it was the first thing I found in the dark.”

“Be quiet,” the guard striding behind us orders. His breath smells of raw onions.

Sibilia glares daggers at him, irritated. “Why?”

The guard runs his fingers down the strap of his rifle. “For your own safety.”

Nurse Nookes hastens to my side to shield me from the guard, and seeing her afraid makes me even more so.

We walk the rest of the way in utter, frozen silence. Even Rafa and Mufu refrain from yapping.

The guards halt as we come to the white crescent stairs leading to the sacred observatory. Elise strides up the stairs without hesitation, dragging Sibilia with her. Merile limps after them with her dogs. But I hesitate to follow.

“Nookes…” I tug at her arm, so strong and familiar amidst all the strangeness. This doesn’t feel like a dream anymore, not even like a nightmare. Everything feels too real. “Nurse Nookes, I’m afraid.”

Elise draws to a halt, and so do my other sisters. They stare at me. Are they embarrassed of me, or just worried?

“Don’t be,” Nurse Nookes replies. “I’ll come with you.”

But the bearded guard that smells of raw onions places a heavy hand on her round shoulder. He, too, wears a glove as red as if it were dipped in blood. “Only the daughters may enter. That is the order we follow.”

I burst into tears then. “I want to wake up! I want to wake up now!”

“Oh dear…” Nurse Nookes glares at the bearded guard. The rest of the soldiers have formed a chain around us. The only way out is up the stairs. This can’t have escaped Nurse Nookes, but she doesn’t seem to care about that. She embraces me with both wobbly arms. “Little Alina, listen to me: sometimes in life you must be very brave. And tonight is one of those nights. You are a Daughter of the Moon. You are blessed by his wisdom and strength. As long as you remember that, nothing in this world can harm you.”

But it sounds to me as if she’s the one swallowing tears. And suddenly I don’t want to be comforted by her, but to comfort her! Her heart knows only kindness. But, I fear, after tonight, it will be full of sorrow.

“Nothing can harm me,” I whisper in Nurse Nookes’s ear. My skirts shift, I feel it. One of the shadow animals, the owl, is moving. It slips out from under my hem, against Nurse Nookes. I know, just know, that it will look after my… my friend. “Nothing can harm you.”

A clack of boots against marble comes from the direction of the stairs. I let go of Nurse Nookes just in time to see a soldier I at last recognize by name. Captain Janlav halts on the second-to-last step and lashes a question at the guards. “What is the meaning of this delay?”

The guards all stare at me. I’m an excuse for them. I… I will not be afraid. I wipe the tears from my eyes. I won’t cry more. No matter what.

I hurry up the stairs, past the soldier to my sister, without as much as glancing over my shoulder. I can feel Nurse Nookes watching me, her gentle heart swelling with sadness and pride.

White silk folds like snow banks against the windows that reach to the ceiling. I stumble on my own feet when I realize that every single curtain of the celestial observatory has been torn down. The Moon fills the vast crescent room with pure, silvery light. My father is blessing us with his presence. He’s watching and seeing, listening and hearing.

“My daughters,” Mama greets us. She glitters and shines at the very center of the room, on the circular stage under the round glass dome. In her eyes live the ocean and skies, for she’s the empire. Celestia waits next to her, as white as our mother, but her right cheek is burning red.

“Come here,” Mama summons me and my sisters.

Somehow I know, just know this moment is immeasurably valuable, something to cherish rather than to rush over. My sisters realize this, too. We shuffle slowly and solemnly into an arc before her. The guards remain back even then, at the top of the staircase. That is the only shadowy place left, the only way in and out of the room that has windows for walls.

“Mama.” Elise curtsies deep and remains with her sequined skirts spread wide, head bent down. Her red-gold hair glows under our father’s gaze. He loves us dearly.

Mama glides to her and kisses her forehead. She loves us too. “My beautiful Elise.”

Sibilia curtsies next, not as effortlessly as Elise, but the Moon winds around her nevertheless. She blushes when she receives her kiss and praise. Then it’s Merile’s turn.

We rarely receive this much attention from Mama, but when she approaches me, I tremble. This isn’t a dream. There’s no waking up. The Moon’s light blooms around me. The shadows still hide in my hem. He will do what is in his power. I’ll do what’s in mine.

“My little Alina,” Mama whispers as she seals her lips against my temple.

I feel the warmth of her breath, the waver in her voice. And I also feel… the swan detaching from my hem. I hold my breath as it folds against Mama’s white dress. She doesn’t notice a thing, even though she’s the empress and thus she should see into the world beyond this one.

I rise from the curtsy, feeling better now that I know the swan’s shadows will look after Mama. A thought comes to me, and it comforts me. Maybe it was the Moon who sent the animals to me, to us. If that is so, whom will the ape look after, or will it stay with me?

“My daughters,” Mama addresses us again, having climbed up to the circular stage, to Celestia. I realize it then. There was no kiss for my oldest sister. Why? “I have grave news for you. The unrests that have plagued my empire have spread here, to the streets and plazas of the Summer City.”

“Are we in danger?” Merile squeals, swooping Rafa up. She tries desperately to also pick up Mufu, but her arms are nowhere near long enough. Mufu, having sensed her mistress’s distress, dives to hide under the heavy hem of her cloak.

“Of course we aren’t,” Elise replies, craning over her shoulder at the soldiers lingering at the top of the stairs. It’s almost as if she’s expecting Captain Janlav to acknowledge her words, for there is no way for him or any of the other guards to not have heard our conversation. And yet, he stares right past her, as if he’d never seen her in his life.

“How can you be so sure?” Sibilia cries out. She brushes her nightgown’s hem. Then slaps Elise’s arm with the hand mirror. “To be lured from my bed in the middle of the night! To be ushered through the palace in my nightgown! The shame alone will kill me for sure!”

The faintest of smiles plays on Mama’s lips. Elise opens her mouth as if to protest, but clenches it shut at the last possible moment.

“My daughters, I need you to listen to me very, very carefully. It is no longer safe in the Summer City. The guards here will take you via tunnels to the train station. There you will board an imperial train that will take you to a safe place. You shall wait until the unrests have been… dealt with. Do you understand this?”

I cling to my braveness, though coldness spreads through my body. Soon my fingers and toes and arms and legs all shake. I fold my arms across my chest. I can’t stop the tears.

“Oh, Alina!” Celestia covers her parted lips with her hand. Then she rushes down the stage to me, graceful akin to a swan diving. Her cheek, however she hurt it, glows red, and it must pain her to speak. And yet she says to me, “Here, please take my shawl.”

She’s too kind. I’m only too afraid. I tremble horribly as she wraps her shawl around my shoulders. She hugs me before heading back. But when she turns around, I notice three things that are so very wrong.

Two buttons midway up her back are unfastened.

She returns to Mama rather than taking her customary place to the right of Elise.

But most worryingly, her shadow is faint, much fainter than those of my other sisters, or even Mama’s.

“Celestia.” Mama addresses my sister only when she’s again next to her. There’s a tightness in her voice. Tiredness too. Maybe even a trace of disappointment. But that must be just my imagination, for Celestia has always been Mama’s favorite.

Celestia bends her head down as if she’d done something bad. “Yes, Mama.”

“I entrust your sisters into your care,” Mama says. There’s no blame in her voice. How could there be? What could Celestia ever do to deserve such? But what Mama says next resembles a plea terribly, terribly much. “Guard them from any possible harm, regardless of the cost.”

Celestia lifts her head up high, and addresses us with confidence that warms me more than her shawl. “I will. This I solemnly swear under the Moon, who shines as my witness.”

Mama closes her eyes and exhales deeply. Then a rattle of boots comes from behind us, from the stairs. Mama’s eyes fling open. Her forehead creases with a frown, as does Celestia’s. My sisters and I spin around just in time to see the guards parting to let a man pass.

And not just any man, but the most terrible and dangerous one of them all.

“Celestia.” Gagargi Prataslav halts on the highest step, at the edge of the shadows, as if he belongs with them. He takes in the pulled-down curtains, us basking in the Moon’s light. He doesn’t seem that interested in Mama or Elise, Sibilia or Merile. But there is still something disturbingly hungry in the way he studies Celestia… and me. “Crescent Empress.”

“Gagargi Prataslav,” Celestia replies, boldly meeting his gaze. It’s as if she and he had been opponents in a game, and against all odds my sister had emerged victorious. This is how the scene seems to me. “The winter equinox is here.”

The gagargi laughs a throaty chuckle as if Celestia had told a joke. Her pose tenses, and she cranes her neck, her chin up. Maybe I don’t know what they’re really talking about. Sometimes adults talk of two or more things at once. But this much is clear to me: even if Celestia and Gagargi Prataslav have been playing together, they aren’t friends anymore. How this came to pass, I don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to find out.

“That it is.” Gagargi Prataslav’s words form a grim lullaby that summons me to dark currents. I can see them winding around everyone present. It’s the same spell he’s cast so many times before. The soldiers stiffen as if turning into stone. Elise, Sibilia, and Merile fall still, too. Only Mama, Celestia, and I remain unaffected.

But I pretend stillness. For I know he meant the spell to touch me as well.

Celestia—I can see she must force herself to do so—steps down from the stage and strolls to the gagargi. Her white hem sways in rhythm with her steps, and she shines radiantly under the light of our blessed father. This must give her the strength she so dearly needs, for when she speaks, her voice bears no hint of fear or anger. “Thank you for coming, though it is past midnight.”

Mama nods at the words. The veins on her neck stick out, as if drawn with a blue pencil. “Celestia will see the daughters to the train and into safety.”

It’s a practiced conversation, I realize. Mama and Celestia know more about the unrests than they’ve shared with me and my sisters. The gagargi, on the other hand… he plays some part in all this. I just don’t know what part that might be. I don’t even know if he’s on our side. What a frightening thought…

“Is that so?” The gagargi’s question only confirms my doubts. His words stick to my ears like honey. I distrust everything sweet for a reason. It’s not the gagargi’s right to challenge Mama’s decisions. He’s only an advisor.

“For their own safety.” Mama gazes up at the dome and the sky beyond. Can she see what the future holds in store for us? Or is she holding our father accountable for our fates? Mama nods to herself, then faces the gagargi with a faraway gaze that bears the light of the stars. “Celestia, and my younger daughters, are the future of the empire. If any harm were to fall on them, this would endanger what little hope of stability we have for the years to come.”

Mama is bargaining. Things aren’t going as she planned. But they aren’t going as the gagargi planned either. He’s in control of the soldiers, but he didn’t want them to witness this conversation. This conversation is dangerous to him as well.

Gagargi Prataslav runs his fingers along his shaggy beard as if he really did have the right to consider a command. His bony knuckles crack. The sound echoes in the observatory for a too-long time.

“I will remain here and face the anger of my people,” Mama says, folding her arms across her chest. Her back is very straight. Her voice is very even. “People need to know there is a future for them, even if they rebel.”

“Besides,” Celestia remarks, standing on the edge of the shadows, so close to the gagargi that I wouldn’t dare to do so. The Moon’s light forms a bright ring around her. She’s terribly white and terribly pale, and her cheek is very red. “There is nothing to be done tonight. My father knows.”

I can only barely hold still. Something bad, worse than unrests, has happened. Something between the gagargi and my sister. I’m not sure I want to find out what that might be. I fear that eventually I will.

“I gathered as much.” Gagargi Prataslav grunts, a sound of acknowledgment rather than disappointment. He gazes first at Celestia, who stands right before him, then past her at Mama. “Then so be it.”

With that, the spell lifts. Beside me Merile gasps, drawing in a long breath that spooks both Rafa and Mufu. Sibilia blinks as though she’d just woken up from a nightmare. Elise flutters her long lashes and rubs her forehead. I realize I should do something, too. I yawn.

“Go.” From the gagargi’s thin lips, the word is like a whiplash. His tight smile bears a hint of cruel amusement, and I know, just know, that that smile is targeted at me. It says: Run, run if you want to, but you can never flee from me.

A tremble runs through my body. I can’t, won’t turn away from him. He’s not the kind of man you let stand behind your back.

“Go now then.” The gagargi steps aside, and as he motions at the stairs his voluminous black sleeve spreads like a bat’s wing. “But I will send for you when the time is right.”

Elise, Sibilia, and Merile are still too confused to understand that though the gagargi seemingly addresses us all, the words are meant for Celestia.

“And I will return,” Celestia replies, unswayed by threats, by anything. “Once my sisters are safe.”

“Elise, Sibilia, Merile, Alina,” Mama calls to us. She has made a deal of some sort. What did it cost her and Celestia? The price must be terrible beyond naming. “It is settled. You must go now.”

As my sisters are just stirring from the spell, it takes a moment for them to understand that we are to leave the observatory, the Summer Palace, the whole city. Elise looks excited, Sibilia flushed as she fidgets with her nightgown’s sleeves, while Merile merely picks up Rafa and Mufu in turns, unable to decide which one to carry.

“Mama…” Celestia calls softly over her shoulder as she prepares to leave. It’s a good-bye of sorts. Or that’s what I think, at least.

Mama stares at Celestia, her expression impossible to interpret. She glances at the gagargi, at Celestia. Celestia bites her upper lip.

“Wait,” Mama orders, though we can’t have much time to lose. The gagargi might change his mind and prevent us from leaving. That I fear. And yet, this too is an important moment.

Celestia falls to a deep curtsy as Mama glides to her, faster than is her natural pace. My oldest sister presses her head down, as if she were apologizing. Mama kisses her on the forehead. It’s a seal of forgiveness. There is no doubt about that. “Go now in peace, my daughter.”

Celestia meets Mama’s gaze, their eyes the same blue, behind them the same wisdom. “I will. Thank you, Mama.”

My sisters and I leave then, in a single line, in the order of age, as is our habit. As I hurry past the gagargi, I feel my hem shift one last time. The ape detaches from the fabric and slips into the gagargi’s robes. He doesn’t notice a thing.

I suddenly realize he can’t see the shadows.