The Five Daughters of the Moon

Chapter 7: Merile

The stink. The day carriage stinks of sweat and the humid air of a train rushing across the empire. I can’t escape it, not even when I kiss Mufu’s black forehead, still wet from the melting snowflakes. I can’t escape anything here, no matter how I try.

“Merile…” Alina yawns on the sofa opposite to me. At last. It’s afternoon already, but she hasn’t slept a wink. Not after the plain breakfast, not when the train stopped for water and coal, not while the nameless servant took Rafa and Mufu for a quick walk outside, not even after the train rattled back into movement.

“Yes?” I pick the dried hare leg from the lacquered side table and hold it out for Mufu to gnaw. Wrong. So many things are so utterly wrong and unacceptable here, but I must try my best to feign that everything is well for little Alina’s sake. “What is it?”

Alina pauses brushing Rafa as she glances at Celestia and Elise. They sit on the other end of the carriage, on the padded chairs by the oval table, and pretend to do embroidery. But it wouldn’t do to let little Alina know that all is not how it seems, no matter how dearly I want to know myself what really is going on. Eight days. Ever since we boarded this train, eight long days ago, Celestia and Elise have had whispered conversations when they think Alina and I can’t hear them. I’m sure they keep Sibilia in the dark, too.

“We’re fleeing,” Alina whispers, thin fingers clutching the hairbrush’s handle so tight her knuckles threaten to pop right through her pale skin. “Aren’t we?”

“Huh,” I mutter under my breath. Fair. It’s not fair she should ask me that question when I don’t know the answer. I can only make what Elise would call educated guesses.

This all has something to do with Gagargi Prataslav, the horrid man who threatened my dear companions, and his awful Thinking Machine. Something very bad happened to Celestia, and Elise is upset because of that, or for some completely unrelated reason. Neither of them will speak of it. What they speak of is the unrest amongst the peasants and…

“The train is taking us to a safe place.” I repeat the lie told to me. Or a partial lie. Both Celestia and Elise agree that we couldn’t have stayed in the Summer City. The windows in this train, or at least in the two carriages where we are allowed access, are bolted shut, but I’ve glimpsed burning buildings through the cracks between the heavy white curtains. At times, the train has sped through cities, only to halt later in smaller towns. The unrests are real and dangerous, whatever they are about.

Alina lowers the brush on the sofa and lifts Rafa up so that my dear companion faces me with her. It’s as if she has it in her mind to puppeteer with Rafa. That won’t do! But before I can say so, my dear companion bares her needle-sharp teeth and squirms around.

“So sorry…” Alina blinks, moistening lashes, even as Rafa curls up on her lap. She fears I might deny her the privilege of tending to my dear companions. I wouldn’t, not even when she does things that upset them. For I’m not tending them as well as I should either.

“It’s all right,” I lie, though the conditions of our imprisonment are inhuman for us, even worse for Rafa and Mufu. “But don’t touch their feet. They’re delicate.”

“I won’t!” Alina promises, hugging Rafa fiercely despite her low growl of protest. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.”

Worried. I’m as worried about my companions as I am about what will become of me and my sisters. Through our journey from the palace, through the narrow tunnels to the train station, and then onto this train, the six guards have remained the same. The women who serve us, however, change at every station. They might as well not change, for they’re all the same: old widows with white hair braided tight, with lips sealed shut, with not a trace of kindness left in their wiry bodies, let alone compassion toward us. They serve us oat porridge for breakfast, rye bread and hard cheese for lunch, and mushy meat and vegetables for dinner. They empty our chamber pots when full, but never rinse them particularly clean. Thrice a day, they take Rafa and Mufu to the guards’ day carriage, there to perform their business on old newspapers, I’ve been led to understand. When the train stops, they take my companions out for a quick walk. Fear. I always fear that they won’t come back in time, that the train will continue onward with my companions abandoned alone in a desolate town.

I swallow to prevent myself from tearing up. I mustn’t let Alina see me cry. But if I were to lose my dear companions, it would no doubt feel as bad as losing one of my sisters. I don’t want to lose Rafa and Mufu. I don’t want to lose Alina or Sibilia, or even Elise and Celestia. I don’t want to be apart from Mama. Oh, Papa Moon, please let us be reunited with her soon!

“Merile…” Alina’s voice drifts off as if she forgot what she was going to ask or as if she were listening to someone whispering at her. She twitches, then continues, “Why don’t we ask Papa to turn us into deer?”

“Whh—what?” I’m so shocked by her question that when Mufu tugs at the hare leg, it falls from my hold and tumbles onto the carpet. Both Rafa and Mufu jump after it. They snarl playfully at each other, teeth bared, ears pulled back.

I study my sister, who seems so frail and small between the two plump cushions. Sometimes she acts strangely, speaks of shadows and treats objects as if they were alive. Has she somehow guessed what I was thinking, or is her question a mere coincidence?

“Or mice.” A smile tugs at the corner of Alina’s pale lips as she watches my companions fight over the hare leg. She giggles behind a raised palm. “They’re so silly.”

I smile with her. My darling dears are silly at times. And we’re silly, too.

“What would be the point in that when there’s no need to flee?” I ponder aloud, even though we are fleeing the Summer City, even though I have this feeling that we should abandon this train upon the first chance. Unrests haunt Mama’s empire, and somehow Gagargi Prataslav is to blame for that. That night in the palace he ordered the guards to take us away. But Mama told us to go with them. Are they on our side or do they serve him? “The guards, Captain Janlav, are here to protect us.”

“Please, don’t mention his name.”

Surprised by Elise taking part in the conversation, I swirl on the sofa to meet my sister’s gaze. Her gray eyes are wide, and her freckled cheeks blush. She holds a needle up, poised to strike. Sequins glitter on the thread. That’s no embroidery she’s doing.

“Why?” I ask, because I want to know. Though the guards have remained the same throughout the journey, Captain Janlav is the only one I know by his real name. I remember him and Elise dancing at Alina’s name day party. It’s curious that he’s now here with us, and that my sister doesn’t want to hear of him.

“Yes, why would that be?” Sibilia chimes in from the divan by the window, opposite to Elise. She lowers the fountain pen and stares critically at her notes. How she can bear to study the scriptures, let alone ponder their meaning, completely escapes me. “For if I remember correctly…”

Red. Elise’s cheeks glow red. The train shudders, and so do the teacups abandoned empty on the marble-topped table. When Elise speaks, her voice echoes this sound. “Because I asked you nicely.”

Sibilia sighs and rolls her eyes, but she resumes reading the scriptures. I don’t know how she can take this from our sister. We deserve to know; if not everything, then at least something.

“I want to know,” I say, because Sibilia and Alina would never have the courage to ask for the truth. Rafa lifts her head as though I’d addressed her. Mufu uses this opening to steal the hare leg for herself. Defeated, Rafa jumps back onto Alina’s sofa.

Elise glances at Celestia, lips drawn tight. Celestia lowers her needlework on her lap. She draws her shoulders back. She tilts her chin up, and her neck seems longer than it can possibly be. “Dear Merile, be glad that you don’t know. Knowledge can be a very dangerous thing to possess. I ask you to trust your older sisters to guard you from any possible harm.”

How dare she! But as she’s the oldest of us, her word is final and there’s no point in arguing against her. I mutter, “Glad. I’m so very, very glad that I know nothing at all.”

Alina stares at me, eyes wide. Darkness lies under her eyes, in her gaze. How much does she really understand? Then she resumes petting Rafa as if we’d conversed about the weather or something equally boring. Of this, I’m glad indeed.

For a moment no one speaks. The only sound is Sibilia’s pen scraping against the thick pages. She mutters under her breath, something I can’t quite make out, but that might have been: “A day longer in this train, and we’ll be clawing out each other’s eyes.”

“Come here,” I call at Mufu. My dear companion glances at me, more interested in gnawing the hare leg on the floor than comforting me. That won’t do. “Yes, here, my silly dear.”

Mufu yaps at me, thin tail wagging. I meet her gaze and bare my teeth. She yaps once more before she jumps back on the sofa and trots onto my lap. Though her paws press painfully against my thighs, even through the itching woolen dress, I wrap my arms around her. Too much. Sibilia is right. We’ve spent too much time together during this horrid journey. Though the train consists of a locomotive and four carriages, we’re allowed only in two. At night we toss and turn in our own separate cabins, crammed things better suited for servants. Each morning, we’re herded into this carriage. Though the train stops almost daily, we haven’t been allowed out even once, not even to take Rafa and Mufu out!

I miss the smell of snow and open skies. I miss…

“I’ve thought it through,” Alina says cheerily. Rafa’s pink tongue lolls out of her mouth as if she already knew what my sister is about to say.

I glance at my sister from under my brows, wary. This morning, she wouldn’t touch her blackcurrant juice. I managed to coach her into tasting a spoonful, but she wouldn’t drink more. During lunch, she drank only half of her tea. It’s as if she knew it was spiked.

“What exactly have you thought through?” I ask. When Alina evades her medicine, her mind wanders to strange places, and the things she says frighten me more than I care to admit.

“Last night, when I waited for the shadows, I went through all the animals I know,” Alina gushes. Both Rafa and Mufu stare at her, eyes wide, ears spread wide. I hear Celestia and Elise perching on their seat—the springs in the chairs squeak when they move. “A deer would be so fast that the red-gloves couldn’t hit me with their rifles. Though a deer might not be able to sneak out of the train, and I might injure myself upon jumping out.”

“Then it sounds like Papa shouldn’t turn us into deer,” I reply, too weary to tell her to stop, too weary of this journey that seems to never end. The guards haven’t told us where we’re going. “To safety, Mama said,” Celestia repeats time after time. I miss Mama. Papa Moon, can you tell her that when you shine upon her? I’m sure she already worries about what became of us!

“That’s what I thought, too. Now, a mouse is smaller. And nimbler. I think I could hide from the owls and hawks, in snow tunnels or in hollow logs.”

I pretend to merely shift into a more comfortable position, but actually glance at Celestia. The sideways tilt of her chin reveals she’s listening, though she continues her mysterious sewing. She must have thought of fleeing too. She might be thinking about it at this very moment.

“What about a dog?” I ask, though I shouldn’t entertain Alina’s ideas. Many things are in Papa’s power, but turning people into animals happens only in stories. Yet, it can’t hurt to give her hope. Even if there’s some, Celestia refused to give us any, though she must have a plan. She’s the one who’ll marry the Moon one day and become the empress after Mama!

The plan. I want so badly to ask her about the plan, but I don’t dare to bring up the topic. Though the guards spend the days in their own day carriage, playing cards and smoking, they’re never far away. We can hear the jagged echoes of their jesting, which means they might be able to hear us too. And there’s always a guard positioned behind the locked door leading to our sleeping carriage.

“That might work.” Alina nods to herself, and Rafa nods with her. Though not as if she were agreeing, but in a way that states she’s hoping my little sister will eventually slip her a treat. “If Papa were to turn us into such fine dogs as Rafa and Mufu, I’m sure no one could catch us.”

Ridiculous. It’s a ridiculous idea, of course. But I decide to entertain Alina. Her eyelids seem heavier now. Let her fall asleep while thinking of my companions, not the night we had to leave home. “They have been bred for speed…”

“But their coats are so very thin.” Alina yawns. She giggles at herself, for failing to cover her mouth with her palm. She tugs the hem of her dress around Rafa. My companion doesn’t mind. “We’d need coats.”

My cloak. I shuffle out of my fur-lined cloak, the one my seed gave me what feels like so long ago. I miss him, though even when I was free, we didn’t see each other that often. Where is he now? Why is no one helping us? Where is Celestia’s seed, the great one-eyed General Monzanov? Where is the mighty General Kravakiv that Mama favored twice? Is Alina’s seed still in the south?

Unease swells in my throat. The Poet, even if he does care about me, about us, as much as he claims, he’d be powerless to help. A pen is no weapon against a man as twisted as Gagargi Prataslav.

“Coats…” Alina yawns once more. She keels over on the sofa. Rafa curls next to her. My sister wraps her twiggy arms around her. “I feel so sleepy.”

“Sleep,” I say, carefully pushing myself up from the sofa. Though it’s been months already since I sprained my left ankle, a dull ache climbs up my leg. I hide the pain the best I can as I shuffle to Alina. I blanket her with my cloak to keep her warm, and sit beside her. I’m not sure she sleeps during the nights. Though Celestia has requested so on multiple occasions, we’re not allowed to share the cabins. If that doesn’t make us prisoners, then what will? “You should sleep.”

Alina smiles as Mufu jumps onto her sofa. My companion curls on top of her feet. I reposition the cloak so that only her black nose peeks out. Alina closes her eyes, and her breathing deepens. I wait by her side patiently. She might not have consumed the full portion of her medicine, but once she does fall asleep, the dream is thick and lasts long. Thank the Moon for that!

Once I’m sure Alina is asleep, I leave her in the care of my companions and approach my sisters. It’s curious how soon we found our own places in this carriage. Alina and I always sit on the same sofas, the ones by the door that leads to the cloakroom and then into the guards’ day carriage. Celestia, Elise, and Sibilia always remain by the oval dining table, the oldest on the heavily padded chairs, Sibilia on the divan by the window. Routine. I guess it’s a routine of sorts.

“She’s asleep, then?” Sibilia pauses her scribbling and glances up at me. Her hands bear ink stains. Some of them are more than a day old.

I really miss bathing. In this train, we must clean ourselves with small towels and a bowl of lukewarm water that the servant brings with her each morning. “Safe and sound with Rafa and Mufu.”

“Good for her,” Sibilia mutters. There’s more she wants to say, but won’t. It annoys me nevertheless. Behave. At least I know how to behave, even in these most trying circumstances. I merely sway my hem in protest as I limp past Celestia and Elise to the silver samovar perched on the cupboard to the right of the door.

Cold. The white porcelain cup is cold. I pour myself a thick layer of the golden zavarka tea. I inhale the malty, smoky scent before I draw steaming water for myself. It’s drafty in the carriage, but Alina needs my cloak more than I do, for she won’t sleep well if she’s cold. I poke at the sugar with a silver spoon. Humidity has turned it lumpy. I’d never known that sort of thing could happen.

I limp back with the cup, careful not to spill, as the train sways in that unpredictable way that is in its nature. I take the last free seat, the one at the end of the oval table, and cradle the cup in my hands. But before I can taste the tea, Sibilia crawls to the far end of the divan. “Ugh, you stink of the rats.”

Drop. Can she just not let it drop? Apparently not. I growl at her, “You stink.”

Elise glares at both of us, scissors glimmering in the light of the osprey chandelier. I sip my tea to prevent myself from saying words I might later regret. Though our meals are bland, apparently the same as those that the guards and servants eat, the tea is of the imperial brand. It reminds me of home, of the days when we could go wherever we pleased, of the days when I could take my companions on long walks in the gardens, of days when they didn’t have to pee indoors.

“Whatever,” Sibilia sighs, turning a page loudly as if what she’d read had somehow offended her. But that’s all for show.

I set the cup down on the saucer with a clink. How dare she continue insulting me! “Unfair. You’re so very unfair. It wasn’t Rafa’s fault! You should look where you step!”

“Your rat peed on the carpet.” Sibilia glares at me from over the book, then looks pointedly at the slightly yellow spot at the exact center of the thick white carpet covering the carriage’s floor.

“She was frightened and confused,” I hiss back at her. We were all frightened and confused during the first days! I bet that if it had been I who’d had the accident, my sister would have already forgiven and forgotten it.

“Enough,” Celestia says, waving curtly at us. The movement is strange, like a broken wing’s flap, and she seems equally confused by it. “Sibilia, no permanent harm was done. Shoes and socks can be washed.”

“Thank you.” I beam at Celestia. That will teach Sibilia to insult my dear companions!

“Merile—” Celestia turns her full attention to me, and how I hate her for doing so. For hers is a gaze as blue as the skies we haven’t seen in days. Hers is the skill in disapproval that almost rivals that of Nurse Nookes. No, one that surpasses that by a wide berth. “We are in this train together. Try not to get insulted over every single little thing. Try to remember that other people might get equally upset about something you say or do.”

Blaming. Now she’s blaming me. She’s not on my side after all! “I’m not getting mad over everything. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Point proven.” Sibilia clasps the book of scriptures shut.

“Stop it,” Elise says. “Both of you.”

I stick my tongue out at them. Then I sip my tea in a sullen silence for what feels like hours, but could very well be mere minutes. Slowly, it gets darker. Though the curtains are drawn shut, evening enters the carriage. It’s dark and bleak.

“My fingers hurt,” Elise says at last, dropping her needlework on the table. She pushes it away from her. It’s only then that I realize what she was working on. It’s a sleeve of the ball gown she wore the night we boarded the train, and she’s removed half of the sequins and beads already. “And my back cramps.”

Celestia merely glances up at Elise from her own needlework. The thread she works coils heavy on her lap. She slips another sequin onto the string. I recognize the beads and sequins. They’re from Elise’s dress, too.

“Why are you destroying the dress?” I ask. And why Elise’s dress and not the one Celestia wore? Does this imply my oldest sister thinks that she might still need it later?

“We aren’t destroying it,” Elise replies, even as the proof lies there before her, on the table. “We are altering it.”

How dare she lie to me! Altering means taking in a seam or adding more pearls in the neckline. The two of them are dismantling the most beautiful of Elise’s ball gowns. Why would they do so when all we have to wear are the plain woolen dresses that no one even washes for us?

“Stop treating me like a child,” I snap at them. “You two have a plan. I want to know what it is!”

Celestia shakes her head as if she were disappointed in me, and that does feel more horrible than any evil thing Sibilia has ever said about my companions. But it’s Elise who speaks. “Dear Merile, you are eleven. As far as I’m concerned, that falls within the definition of a child. And as far as your behavior is concerned, you still act very much like one.”

I push myself up from the chair. Pain. Pain lances through my left leg. I pick up the empty teacup and weigh it in my hand. Only Celestia’s sad expression, the promise of utter disappointment, keeps me from tossing the cup at Elise. I slam it against the plate.

“Merile.” Celestia addresses me very, very sternly.

I can’t bear to face her, and so I stare down at the cup. As I shift my hand, the gilded handle remains around my forefinger like a ring. Did I really break the cup?

“Stop it. Stop it now,” I shriek, tugging at the ear. It won’t come off. “Stop pretending like I’m not present. Tell me what’s really happening!”

My voice lashes through the dim carriage, undampened by the curtains. Rafa and Mufu stir under my cloak. I realize only then how loud my voice must have been. I stare back at them, praying I haven’t woken up little Alina. Her eyes stay closed. Bless Papa Moon!

Clatter. Clatter of boots comes from the direction of the guards’ day carriage.

“Quick,” Elise whispers to Celestia even as she snatches her needlework from the table and promptly sits on top of it. “They are coming.”

Celestia stares at the door, akin to a deer who has heard a hunter’s horn blown. She quickly loops the sequined thread around her hand. The thread is very long. It will take her too long to hide it.

Squeal of a key turning in the lock. My gaze darts from the door to little Alina. She sleeps unknowing of everything under my cloak, on the sofa closest to the door. Abandoned. I feel like I’ve abandoned her in a storm of my own making.

Celestia tugs the thread under her hem just as the door swings open. The scissors remain on the table. She doesn’t have time to hide them.

“What’s happening here?” Captain Janlav strides in, his midnight blue coat halfway donned, gripping a rifle. He doesn’t have his hat on, and his brown topknot is hastily tied. His jaw muscles are tense as if he’s come prepared for a battle.

“Nothing,” I reply before I realize that’s the most condemning thing I could have possibly said. I don’t have to look at my older sisters to sense their utter disappointment in me.

Captain Janlav takes in the scene with military precision, and I’m sure no detail can escape him. He doesn’t find anything amiss with the sleeping Alina, nor Sibilia, who clutches the book of scriptures against her chest. We’ve been provided with the needles and scissors so that we can darn our clothes—the servants won’t do even that for us—and seeing them on the table doesn’t alarm him. Gradually, his hold on the rifle relaxes, but he doesn’t loop the strap around his shoulder.

“I…” Shame stings my tongue. I brought his attention upon us. If Celestia and Elise really have a plan, for the time being we need to appear harmless and subdued. At risk. I’ve placed my sisters at risk. Why under the Moon did I do so?

“Yes?” Captain Janlav asks, and I’m still not sure what he thinks of us. His brown eyes reveal nothing. Not whether he’s alarmed or amused by us.

“I broke a cup,” I mutter, flush-faced. Then inspiration strikes me. I point a blaming finger at Elise. The teacup’s separated ear glints under the light of the slowly swinging chandelier. “She called me a child!”

Captain Janlav drifts three steps toward my sister, past the sofa where Alina sleeps. He looks Elise in the eye. There’s something in that gaze. Not recognition, but… I don’t know what to call it. Though he’s served my family for years, though he betrayed us, it’s as if he constantly keeps on forgetting who my sister is.

“Captain Janlav.” Elise nods at him. She should get up from the chair, properly greet him. But she can’t, not when she’s sitting on top of the disassembled sleeve. Why did I have to point him in her direction? Fool. What a fool I was!

“You must understand…” Elise smiles at him in the way she does when she wants people to think that obeying her was their own idea. “Sometimes Merile acts rash. She’s only eleven, after all.”

Captain Janlav’s eyelids droop. It’s as if he’s hearing the sweetest music, as if he’s seeing the most beautiful of sights. And yet, at the same time, it’s as if he’s forgetting everything Elise has ever said to him, including the very words he must have just heard. “I…”

“Can you tell the servant to bring us dinner?” Celestia asks, as if we’d summoned him here for that very purpose. “I believe it is the time soon.”

Captain Janlav nods curtly at her. He swirls around, heels clicking together, and returns to the door leading to the cloakroom. The thick carpeting muffles his passage. When he closes the door, he does so softly and carefully, as if not to frighten us with the sound.

Elise springs up from the chair as if a needle had stung her in the very backside. She paces the length of the carriage, rubbing her temple with both hands. “It’s as if he has never seen me before.” She turns at the door, strides back to Celestia. “Is it really within the gagargi’s power to make a man forget love?”

Celestia glances at Sibilia and me. She doesn’t reply a word. So little. Elise has said so little, and yet too much, I sense.

Once Elise loved Captain Janlav. What this means, I really don’t know.