The Sisters of the Crescent Empress

Chapter 9: Elise

I suck in the tainted air, and though my throat shrinks and my lungs blister, I don’t cry out like a newborn child who instinctively fears the first breath and the ones thereafter. I don’t cherish it like an exhausted athlete who has reached the finish line at last, who has given his all, and to whom, at that moment, it doesn’t matter if he lost or won. I don’t gasp for more like a soldier whose wounds are beyond healing, whose bravery or cowardliness no longer matters. I hold it in because I deserve the discomfort and pain that the world has in store for me.

In the end, I must breathe out, for I’m not yet dead, and all living things must breathe. The cloud of smoke veils my sisters, the ethereal creatures in white that gather midsummer roses from the bushes that mark the border between the untended lawn and the steep, mossy slope. Though only the porch’s rail and the wet, overgrown grass separate us, it feels as if they were drifting out of my reach inevitably, irrevocably.

“That good?” Beard studies me from under his bushy brows as Tabard pockets the matches with one flick of his thin wrist. Now that the windows are nailed shut, the guards sleep in turns behind the drawing room’s door. It’s easier for them, to be farther away from us during the nights. But during the days, they’re more and more drawn to us, as if my sisters and I were animals exotic and dangerous. This is because of Sibilia.

“Thank you.” I favor Beard with a girlish smile that has never betrayed me and offer the cigarette to him. This isn’t my first smoke but among the first dozen still. I can’t pry my chamber’s lock open with a hairpin, but I can work with locks of the other kind. It was I who insisted Sibilia continue reading the scriptures after every dinner.

Beard accepts the lit cigarette back, but he chuckles as he does so, my smile the key required. I watch him suck in the smoke, unfazed by the fact that his lips are now touching that which a Daughter of the Moon enjoyed mere moments ago. The world has truly changed.

The rain has paused at last, but the swallows still seek shelter from behind the planks covering the windows, the insistent knocking of their beaks providing an accelerating rhythm for the tune of the day. From the corner of my eye, I glimpse Celestia indiscreetly waving at me. The tilt of her head signals growing impatience. Our younger sisters seem happily enough preoccupied with the roses under the watchful eye of Captain Janlav and that of Boy that might miss a thing or two.

“I must join my sisters,” I say to Beard. I descend the porch’s steps, leaving him and Tabard behind. But only for a moment, for their duty is to keep us safe, if not from the gagargi, then at least from Captain Ansalov and his soldiers. The two captains have reached an agreement. The soldiers are not to enter the house. The guards are to keep us inside, the only exception being our daily outings. But as the rough jeers of the soldiers carry over from the stable yard, I wonder how long that exception will last.

The grand maples and lindens of the garden hum, scattering drops that land on my shoulders. My younger sisters, including Sibilia, are barefooted, their hems knotted up just below their knees. With white roses bundled on their arms, with smiles and giggles exchanged, they look carefree and free. But I can’t bear the thought of joining them, for that we are not and shall never again be.

I head toward the path that follows the shadow of the wall. Celestia notices my intention. She speaks softly with Sibilia, whose whole posture changes, gaze sharpens. Celestia must have tasked her with looking after our younger sisters. It’s a curious development, to see them again on speaking terms. For Sibilia swore to me on multiple occasions that she’d never forgive Celestia for intending to abandon her.

It was this revelation that propelled me toward the crucial realization. As we drift down the same paths day after day, we might as well be ghosts already. There’s nothing we can do anymore to change our fates. But we may be able to affect that of the very empire.

As Celestia and I slowly stroll past the thickets of fireweeds and thistles, I indiscreetly study my sister, her straight posture and steady steps. But before I can make up my mind about whether she has reached the same grim conclusion or not, a breeze of the colder sort carries with it a hint of smoke, revealing Tabard and Beard trailing after us. Celestia shakes her head.

“What?” I ask. Did she somehow sense what I was thinking earlier? Is she the braver one of us, the one to bring up the topic?

“Must you really?” Celestia glances pointedly at Sibilia, Merile, and Alina, barely visible through the leaves and branches of the blooming rosebushes. But I can hear their giggling still, the playful growls of Merile’s dogs. What bliss ignorance is! “That is such a vile habit.”

My sister is worried about me sharing a cigarette with the guards, of me negatively influencing our younger sisters! I laugh despite myself and to despise myself. It doesn’t matter what I do and with whom anymore, if I socialize with those we were taught to ignore if we needed nothing from them. “Yes. I do think I absolutely must.”

Celestia sighs, but doesn’t say a word. She knows that none of us apart from her will have time to regret any possible ill choices.

On the even ground, plants reach out toward us from both sides of the path, but it’s not because they wish us to honor them with our touch. The rigid stalks of widow’s lace stick out in steep angles. The hundreds of violet fireweed flowers gape open like maws to display their thin, white tongues. Stems of lupines, blue flowers sodden with rain, arch down as if they can’t take, can’t bear their glory for much longer. I pause to tilt water out of one of the stems. There’s so much water. It’s almost as if the whole world were drowning.

“Then I shall respect your choice,” Celestia says after too long of a time has passed for her reply to be genuine. She approves of the guards listening to Sibilia reading, for she thinks it’s our father’s voice that draws them toward us, nothing more. But me smoking with them… it is too much for her, even though the scriptures clearly state that before our father rose to the skies, he intended everyone to be equal under his light.

At nights when I can’t sleep, I often wonder what my sister would be like as a ruler. She says she would be fair and just, but how could she be that when she hasn’t really comprehended the scriptures, our father’s sacred will? She says she would put an end to all wars and launch social reforms to ensure that her subjects would no longer starve and die of disease and exposure. But she hasn’t mentioned how she plans to accomplish this. I don’t think she has given much thought to what she would do after reclaiming her throne. Yet she vehemently opposes the equal redistribution of resources, the one solution that might just bring a better life to everyone!

A thunder of shots fired. A chorus of shattering glass. Vicious jeers. Then, a moment later, the bitter tang of gunpowder.

My sister’s steps remain equally spaced and graceful, though mine falter. A quick glance over my shoulder confirms I should have nothing to fear, for both Beard and Tabard are at ease. It’s just Captain Ansalov’s soldiers practicing shooting once more. Knowing that man, it isn’t a coincidence that they always do so during our daily outing. He’s preparing his men for the inevitable.

It’s cold, suddenly colder in the wall’s shadow, but this is the way the path winds. Here plants must grow in the dark, here they never bloom as vivid, with as much ardor, as their kin that get to grow in the sun. But that is the way of the world. There will always, eventually, be darkness.

I know for certain that one day soon Captain Ansalov will lead us down to the cellar. He will order everyone but Celestia to stand before the wall of granite. The soldiers will take aim. They will fold their fingers around the triggers, perhaps closing their eyes as they do so. How sounds must echo in the cellar when there’s no way out!

“Elise?” Celestia reaches out toward me, to touch my shoulder.

I evade her, brush a stem of thorny thistles aside, change my mind, and snap it off. It’s a law of nature that all beauty must eventually die. Our ruin is unavoidable. “Do you know when the gagargi will come for you?”

Where gunshots couldn’t break through my sister’s composure, my question wounds her, just as I knew it would. My sister pulls her chin high, higher still until the tendons of her neck are taut. Her pale hair glistens in the afternoon sun, a reminder of the crown she still yearns to wear one day. Though she’s the empress-to-be, she lacks the courage to acknowledge the truth. “That I don’t know. But he will come for me as certainly as the sun rises each morning, as certainly as our father will travel the skies during the nights.”

It’s almost a month since Merile’s folly, and with the summer solstice but five days away, anything might come to pass here without our father being able to help us, for he’s just a dim, white disc in the sky. That’s why this house was built here in the first place, to keep the Daughters of the Moon that have fallen from favor out of sight, out of mind. Guarded by the winters too fierce to defy. Isolated by the nightless summers.

“Will you go with him?” For I can but speculate what happens to her and us if she does. But a more frightening thought is what may come to pass if she doesn’t.

If she goes, my younger sisters and I will be shot, and of this I’m more than certain. The gagargi can’t risk keeping us around for fear we might one day plot to claim the throne.

But if she doesn’t… Celestia seems to think herself almighty, though I haven’t seen any evidence that would suggest she possessed any power to alter our fates. Is she just perversely cantankerous? Or is she playing a game, one she thinks she might yet win? As much as I wish that she would emerge victorious, we must be realistic. If she doesn’t go voluntarily, the gagargi will claim her by force and us younger sisters will meet an end much crueler in the maws of his machine.

Celestia and I are as far away from our younger sisters as the walls allow. I can glimpse but strands of Sibilia’s red hair from over the lush rosebushes, can’t see Merile and Alina. Yet the breeze carries over their muffled chatter. The gunshots didn’t frighten them. They have grown used to… to the confinement, the presence of the guards, and even the constant threat, it seems, though I find our strangling circumstances almost too much to stand.

“I will not go with him, unless I can bring all of you with me,” Celestia says, and I do wonder what can possibly be fueling her confidence. Does she believe that our father will still somehow save us? Or does she have a new plan brewing in her mind, one she hasn’t mentioned to anyone? Has my sister not realized that the time for futile planning is over?

Any escape attempt would be too risky, doomed to fail. Given even half a reason, Captain Ansalov’s soldiers will shoot us dead. If it weren’t for the Poet’s scarf, we would have lost Merile the night she thought the Moon was calling for her. Oh, my poor, silly sister!

We have come to the stretch of the wall that blocks the view to the lake. Here, the gagargi is more present than elsewhere in the garden. I suspect Captain Ansalov ordered the propaganda posters glued across the wall’s length to intimidate our younger sisters. And if this was his intention, he succeeded, for these days they prefer to play on the lawn. Even to me, it’s more terrifying to see the gagargi portrayed as kind and generous. For that he’s not, at least when my family is concerned.

“I was thinking…” Kindness should weigh little when the lives of our people are at stake. My sisters and I have been isolated for months, isolated but safe, and the guilt I bear for this grows greater every day. It torments me during the nights. I haven’t slept an eyeful in ages. Back at the Summer City, before I knew that Gagargi Prataslav was the driving force behind the insurgence, I funded the cause most generously. Since then, I have done nothing toward those who suffer the most. Now, I have decided to stop wallowing in self-pity and take action.

“Yes?” Celestia prompts me, and I do wonder: what would she do if she knew that I, too, plotted against our mother? There was a time when I considered telling her everything, during our first few days on the train when she was weak and vulnerable, when she confided in me in whispers and revealed what the gagargi had done to her. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her my secrets then, didn’t want to hurt the one who was in so much pain already. I can’t tell her now either, because then she would refuse to hear a word more from me, and mine are words that can no longer remain unsaid.

“What if you were to go with him regardless?”

Celestia halts, as if my words were iron chains snapped around her ankles. The rain has swelled the puddles before the wall vast. She teeters on the edge of the widest of them, glances at me from over her shoulder, and I have never seen such anger in her blue eyes, fear, too. “Do you not see, my dear sister, that that would gain us nothing?”

“I didn’t suggest that lightly,” I say, and mean it. It’s a horrible thing for me to propose that she return to the gagargi, who would put her under his spell to make her his puppet ruler and impregnate her once more. Yet she would at least survive, live, whereas those of us left behind… None of that matters. It really doesn’t. “Since we left the Summer Palace, people have bled in our name and died in the hundreds, if not thousands. Our people are divided, and every day sees this gap torn wider. Brothers have drawn arms against their own brothers. Fathers have wielded their sword against their own sons.”

Celestia listens to me, and oh, how she looks like a good ruler should, just like our mother always did when she had already made up her mind. But she looks different, too, attentive, contemplative, somehow stronger than I recall her being. Is it because of the way she holds her arms against her sides, like wings ready to lift her in the air, above us all? Or is it only the sounds of the swans nesting on the shores of the lake beyond that make me think this? Though, if our father could turn us into swans and let us fly away, he would have done so already.

“My people are right to stay loyal to us,” Celestia replies only after she is sure that I have pleaded my full case. “Our right to rule comes from the Moon himself.”

And with this said, she walks into the water, the puddle that could be an ocean for her, for that is how much space she wishes there were between us, I think.

I approach her slowly, so very slowly, but I will myself not to stop. I wade deeper, the surface rippling in my wake. The water creeps up my hem. Puddles form inside my sabots. But neither discomfort me as much as the words I have no choice but to say. I owe them to our people. “And that is exactly what the gagargi tells them, too.”

Nothing but silence, not the stunned sort, but of the more dangerous kind. My sister knows I’m right, but that’s not enough. She needs to understand, acknowledge, and act, not simply listen. With my drenched hem, I’m no longer a creature white, but gray as the clouds above, stained as the waters below. “Do you think our people even know what they are really risking their lives for? You see the posters before us. They have seen them, too. What does the return of the rightful ruler mean to them? They see the good old days of our mother as a time when children starved to death and soldiers were sent to meet their end at faraway continents for nothing more than profit.”

“This has not escaped me.” Celestia steps away from me, toward the wall. She places a hand against the poster that portrays golden fields of wheat, chubby children at play. She brushes the stalks as if she could really feel them, but she doesn’t touch the children. She doesn’t see the brighter future that lies there right before our eyes. “Rest assured that my rule will be different.”

“Will it?” I ask, so cold inside, so miserable, because I don’t believe a word she says. “Will it really?”

“Yes. It will be much better than the other option.” Celestia glides to the next poster. In this one, a mother is handing her newborn baby over to a country gagargi. Happy children tug at their hems, smiling. Behind them, the Great Thinking Machine puffs soft, white clouds. “He feeds children to his machine.”

Of course I know this. I have read the manifest and discussed its content with her many, many times. But sometimes a ruler must make difficult choices. During our mother’s reign, more than every other child died of disease and starvation. Is it not better for a mother to voluntarily give away her child before she forms a deeper bond with it? If our people are willing to pay the price, so should we be. “Sometimes the price of peace is high.”

Celestia shakes her head, the movement delayed but unhesitant. “Do you think that I have not thought of that? Do you think that I allow myself to feel pity for myself, that I cry at nights because of what he has already done to me?”

What could I possibly answer? Nothing. Nothing at all. My sister is placing our family’s safety above that of our people.

“Do you think he would stop killing those who displease him if I were to stand by his side?” Celestia continues in a lecturing tone. She thinks me foolish, a girl throwing a tantrum in a puddle. But it is she who isn’t listening!

For even a slight chance is better than none. “Once you marry the Moon…”

“It will be too late.” Celestia strides to the next poster, the one after, and all the way to the gate that failed to lead Merile to freedom, and I have no choice but to follow her. “By the time he allows a gagargi to perform the ceremony, or perhaps he will choose to marry me to the Moon himself, there will be no one left to stop him. Even though our father may see all that comes to pass under his gaze, his capability to interfere is not as almighty as you might believe.”

I halt a step behind her, my hem dripping dirty water. Where I didn’t expect this conversation to be easy, it annoys me she considers me ignorant. The Moon would have saved our mother if it had been possible. He would have sent someone to our rescue. He would have unlocked the gate for Merile. “You are only thinking of the worst possible outcome.”

“Am I?” Celestia stares through the gate’s grille at the lake beyond. Swans paddle along the rocky shores, necks arched, wings pressed against their sides. Their cygnets are still gray, covered by down. When my sister speaks, she does so in harsh whispers. “My dear Elise, someone has to. Unlike you, I can’t afford the luxury of idealistic dreams. If I am to ever depose the gagargi, I can’t leave this house with him and leave you here alone.”

This is the first time since we arrived at the house that I have seen her composure crack, glimpsed raw emotion, the human being beyond the hard shell she so dutifully maintains. I realize it then, the only way she will listen to my words is if I pry this crack wider, anger her, make her feel even more vulnerable.

“My dearest Celestia,” I reply in a steady, merciless voice. “Could you stop thinking of us as children for even one moment? Some of us might have an opinion of our own in this matter. Have you ever considered asking any one of us if we would actually prefer you leaving with him?”

Celestia’s fingers tighten into fists, she clenches her arms against her sides. She’s… disappointed in me. Good. Any emotion will do. “I didn’t say that because I think you a child. I said it because I want to keep you safe.”

She’s acknowledging my opinion at last. She will hear, really hear, what I have to say. I must take advantage of that. “And what is more important to you, your sisters or your empire? There is nothing to be gained by resisting the gagargi. Just as much as he needs you by his side, you need him to put an end to the war you started together.”

She spins around so fast that I don’t even see the slap coming. Her palm connects with my cheek with such force that I stagger back. My sabots slip on the mud.

“Never speak of me needing anyone apart from the Moon on my side. Never even hint again that the harm he caused was somehow my fault. Never, ever dare to suggest that I forgive the man who killed our mother and tore my empire apart.”

White dots pierce my field of vision, but I see her expression clear enough, her bared straight teeth, her flaring nostrils. I have accomplished everything that I desired. I will not take my words back.

Celestia straightens to her full height, pulls her shoulders back. “I expected more of you, Elise. I expected you to be able to stand against his manipulation and propaganda. But you are even weaker than I was. You do not deserve to be called a Daughter of the Moon.”

With that said, my sister turns around on her heels. She climbs up the gravel path, past Tabard and Beard, toward the house that may be the last place we ever call home. Her words, the pain she inflicted on me, cling to me.

I am a Daughter of the Moon, just like her. And at the same time, nothing at all like her.

Celestia leans on the wall by the arching window, staring what would be out if the curtains weren’t sewn shut, the panes painted black and covered with planks. I let her fume there alone and take a seat on the sofa. Either she will come to her senses or then she won’t. There’s nothing more I can do. The pain on my cheek is an ample reminder of that.

Sibilia tosses a log in the fireplace, there to keep company with the others. The fire exhales smoke that smells of birch pitch, an odor sweet and somehow intoxicating even. “That should do it.”

“My feet will never be this big,” Alina announces. My sabots clack as she stomps from the grandfather clock to the fireplace. I’m afraid that she might be right, but I remain silent. Though I have acknowledged the bitter truth, it’s better they stay blissfully unaware of it for as long as possible.

“Sure they will be,” Sibilia says at last. She’s lying, though. Celestia’s selfishness will yet prove to be the downfall of us all. “Now, place them to dry against the fender, will you?”

“I will,” Alina promises, but she wonders at her tiny feet and the size of my sabots before she takes them off and places them next to my patched stockings. Her bare feet must be cold, no doubt as cold as those of Merile, who has curled up with her dogs on the divan. The three of them seem oblivious to the drama between Celestia and me. For that, I’m grateful.

My whole head throbs, and I wonder if Celestia really slapped me so hard as to cause me a mild concussion. I settle on my side on the lumpy sofa, for there’s not much else I can do about the pain than sleep it off. I don’t feel that comfortable, though. My toes are blistered and corpse-white. My dress is sodden all the way up to my shins, but I can’t take it off. The guards may check on us any moment they so wish, and they still do so many times a day. Though nothing really matters anymore, I don’t want to be caught undressed. That much is in my power.

That and nothing else.

The truth to be admitted, I’m more than tired. Exhausted. My cheek aches. My lids droop heavy. My body feels limp. I want nothing more than Celestia to be right, there to be a way to save my sisters. But even now, I know deep in my heart, the gagargi’s soldiers are fighting against those who still support us. This fighting will not cease before she returns to him.

“Elise…” Alina tugs at my hem. I don’t know how long has passed. Perhaps minutes. Perhaps hours. Perhaps I passed out. “Are you sleeping?”

I part my lids to find my sister peeking at me from the narrow space between the sofa and the oval table. Her deep-set brown eyes shine with sincere curiosity. And perhaps with excitement, too.

“Not anymore,” I reply, though speaking hurts my jaw.

“Good.” Alina nods to herself. “Sibilia and Merile and I want to show you something.”

I sigh despite myself. If I were to close my eyes again, I would surely fall asleep. I could leave this room, this house behind for a blessed few moments of nothing more than fabrications of my tired mind. And anything, even nightmares would be better than our existence here, better than this prolonged pretense, this agonizingly slow wilting. “Can it wait?”

“No!” Merile calls out from the floor where she’s cuddling her dogs in turns. Perhaps I really did pass out. I brush my cheek discreetly. It feels warm and swollen. “Oh yes, my dear sillies! It’s important, so very important.”

I force my eyes to stay open, though in the grander scale of things, whatever they are up to can’t matter anymore. “How about I look at it from here?”

“Maybe.” Alina gnaws her thin, colorless lower lip. She glances over her shoulder at Merile. Sibilia has joined our sister there. For weeks after our sister’s folly, she simply refused to speak to her. Before that she wouldn’t talk with Celestia. Soon, it shall no doubt be my turn, though once we were the best of friends. “Sibilia?”

Sibilia shrugs. “It’s her call.”

“It’s your call,” Alina repeats, though I heard my sister perfectly well. Before I can reply anything at all, Alina disappears farther under the table. The next I see her, she’s petting Merile’s dogs. The brown dog lies on its back, begging for attention.

My younger sisters, they are a sorry, endearing lot. A part of me does understand Celestia wanting to protect them regardless of the cost. But unfortunately, that isn’t an option anymore. There’s no such path of action that would result in all of us leaving the house.

“Celestia, Elise…” Sibilia clears her throat, and her tone turns solemn, though she’s not reading the scriptures. “We have something to show you.”

“Oh, you do?” Celestia stirs by the once-white curtains. A few pale strands have escaped her braided crown. Other than that, there’s no sign of the inner turmoil that must so torture her. She manages to even sound enthusiastic. “Well then, by all means, do show us!”

Alina and Merile giggle as they dash to her, the dogs bouncing behind them. Sibilia follows, showing a bit more restraint, but not that much. Though I try, I can’t muster up enough strength to push myself up from the sofa. I can barely crane my neck enough to watch them from afar.

“What might it be?” Celestia tousles Alina’s gray-brown hair. She favors Merile with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. For Sibilia she has nothing but the lightest of nods. Me, she ignores as if I were no longer a part of the family.

“We found it today,” Alina replies. “It’s a—”

“Alina! Surprise,” Merile cuts in, crossing her arms across her chest. She pouts her lips. “It’s a very good surprise.”

Sibilia grins. “And you’ll sure like it!”

Though I have come to loathe surprises, I’m growing curious. Perhaps this is because lately every single one of them has been bad. Another thought occurs to me. I should be there by the window with my sisters, for we may not have that many good moments left together. But after what I have been thinking lately, after sharing my realization with Celestia, I don’t feel like I deserve any.

If Sibilia was mad earlier with Celestia intending to leave her behind, then how would she react if she learnt that I suggested Celestia leaving and abandoning all of us in Captain Ansalov’s hands?

“Can I?” Alina glances at Merile, then at Sibilia. But before either of our sisters can reply, she produces a jingling key ring from the front pocket of her dress, the very same one I worked on when it was still winter here. “Ta-daa!”

No, I’m not mistaken. It’s really a key ring, dark with age. I bless the name of our celestial father even as Celestia’s pale brows furrow. She can’t believe what she sees either. “Is this…”

“It is!” Alina squeals, beaming. She waves at me to join them before the curtains. My heart jolts, but my limbs, they are slack and won’t obey me. I can’t go to her, even though at that moment I want nothing more. “It has a key to our room and your room and Elise’s room and this room, too!”

With an effort, I manage to sit up at last. But the world spins before my eyes. I clutch the table’s edge, to anchor myself to this world, a trick Lily taught me the first time I tasted wine and drank too much. For almost a month now, we have been locked in and out upon the will of others. Regaining even a sliver of freedom is more than I have dared to hope of late.

Celestia accepts the keys, but she studies our younger sisters in turns, with no joy, not even a hint of a smile on her face. “How did you come by the key ring?”

As my dizziness evades, I realize Celestia is concerned rather than pleased. I see it then, too. If my sisters have snatched the key ring from one of the guards or, even worse, one of the soldiers, they will no doubt search the house from cellar to ceiling, and then there will be guns aimed and triggers drawn. Holes in the stone walls. Blood as red as wine.

“A magpie brought them,” Alina chimes, just as Merile replies, “Rafa and Mufu found them.”

Which means neither of them is telling the truth. Leaning on the table for support, I maneuver myself up on my feet. I shall join my sisters soon, once the world steadies, when the glimmer of hope we glimpsed has already dampened.

“Will you tell me where you found them?” Celestia turns to Sibilia, the one who should be sensible, and I dread her answer. For dear Sibs is still but a child.

Our sister meets Celestia with a level gaze, one that mirrors hers. She’s no longer a girl easily intimidated, perhaps not a child after all. “In the garden, while we were gathering roses. No guard or soldier lost it. It had been there for years.”

While Sibs might be telling the truth, it’s not the full truth, but at the moment I know it’s all she’s going to say. Gone are the days when my sister shared everything with me. I shouldn’t be exactly surprised about that. She has learned her tricks by observing the best.

“Try. Can we try them now?” Merile tugs at Celestia’s hem. The fabric has worn so thin that her fingertips slip through the wool. Yet, in her excitement, she doesn’t notice that.

Before Celestia can answer, a scrape of metal against metal interrupts us. A muffled conversation comes from behind the door leading to the hallway.

“Later,” Celestia replies. “Go on and play on the floor with your dogs. Alina, you too. Elise, sit down, will you?”

Captain Janlav pushes the door open with his shoulder, and for a moment I’m not sure if what I see is real or if I’m suffering from a hallucination. The light of the two chandeliers wraps around the brass horn of the gramophone he cradles in his arms. Though his is the wildest smile, the guards trickle in after him, each more hesitant than the other. Tabard and Beard enter side by side, one fidgeting with an unlit cigarette, the other a box of matches. Belly comes in next, his blue tunic looser now, Boots behind him, his namesake footwear worn almost undone. Boy enters the drawing room last, and he closes the door behind him. The guards are unarmed, and this makes them seem bare, as though a strap of leather and piece of metal were something grander, something behind which to hide all fears and hesitation. They huddle together, stare expectantly at their captain.

I blink twice, but neither Captain Janlav nor the guards disappear. I realize it then, they are here because of me, because of the cigarettes shared, the shy smiles exchanged. Whatever Celestia thinks of me, my plans are the ones that have proven to work time after time, not hers.

“I’ve brought you music,” Captain Janlav announces with a grin, and he looks boyish once more, someone who has been up to mischief and knows he will eventually be caught.

Yet I don’t really know what he expects to happen next. Or I can guess what some of them think. Beard and Tabard must have told Captain Janlav about the argument between Celestia and me, for nothing in this house stays hidden for long. He feels pity for us and what we have been through lately. He thinks music might ease the tense atmosphere. Boy no doubt imagines that we will start dancing upon hearing the first sweet notes, that we will forget our constraints and our captivity, that he can then swirl Sibilia round and round until she gets dizzy and upon looking into his eyes falls in love with him.

Though that won’t happen. She has her eyes set on someone else. Eventually, I will find out whom she’s dreaming of. If I can lead them together, then I shall do exactly that. My sister deserves to experience the fluttering of her heart, the rush of blood in her veins. She deserves to experience that before…

“Shall I put a disc playing?” Captain Janlav asks.

The truth to be told, with my hem wet and stockings drying, I’m in no mood for dancing. Looking at my sisters, neither are they. We have navigated through the steps for months without a song to guide us, and this has turned the dance practices into a compulsory chore. Now that we could dance for fun, it doesn’t feel like the appropriate thing to do. But how do you turn down kindness without insulting those who meant well? I turn my head slightly, to better see Celestia, who once more stands before the curtained window. She has her chin tilted up, and I can already hear in my mind the wrong words she’s about to speak.

“Yes! What a wonderful idea!” I reply in my sister’s place, for having failed to reason with her once already today, I’m past caring about the breach of etiquette. If we were to send the guards away now, they would never return, but resume the distance I have fought so hard to bridge. “Please, do place it down on the table and take seats if you will.”

And with these words, the tiniest flicker of hope stirs in the depths of my heart. If you care for people, they will care for you. This is something Celestia has yet to comprehend. She is so set in her ways that I’m not sure if she will ever be able to see that.

“Thank you.” Captain Janlav chuckles. He strides toward the table with the gramophone. Alina and Merile flee out of his way, to hide behind the sofa chairs, but not because they are afraid of him. Rather, as if he were their older brother, someone who might lift them up and spin them around or playfully hang them in the air from their ankles.

“Alina, Merile, you can sit here on the sofa with me.” I pat the padded seat once, twice, to reinforce the invitation. Celestia won’t dare to disagree with me before the guards, her mastery of self-restraint becoming a weakness for me to exploit. “If we move a little, there will be space even for Rafa and Mufu.”

My little sisters do exactly as suggested, but Celestia and Sibilia are slower to realize how important this day may yet turn out to be. Sibilia shuffles to occupy the end of the table only after receiving a nod from Celestia. Our oldest sister broods opposite to her, her long fingers curling around the back of the sofa chair. After our heated argument, she doesn’t exactly trust me.

“This is an old model.” While Captain Janlav hustles with the gramophone, turning the metal crank a dozen or so times, the guards remain by the door. The instrument is ancient indeed. These days all machinery is powered by souls. “Boyek, you brought the discs, right?”

The guards exchange grins, relieved and proud as if this had by no means been an easy feat. But Boy’s pimpled face flushes as if he were caught red-handed. And that he was. Because even as he meanders his way to his captain, balancing a pile of paper sleeves against his widening chest, he’s still staring moon-eyed at Sibilia.

“May I see which songs we have to choose from?” Celestia speaks for the first time since the guards entered the room. I hope it’s only me who recognizes the tone. She’s more than slightly annoyed. This situation isn’t in her control. But it is in mine. “Ah, do lower them gently! The older discs may be brittle.”

Boy’s shoulders draw up to his chin, so high that his neck disappears altogether. I feel for him, for my sister’s chastisement. This isn’t how one treats one’s guests!

“Sibilia, dear,” I chirp in, “would you pick the first one?”

Let my sister’s presence bring back Boy’s cheer! For he sees her as she is, a girl grown into a woman, tall and lush, though wearing a gown too short on the sleeves and hem, sagging around the frame she hasn’t yet realized she possesses.

“Sure.” Sibilia shrugs, waving Boy to bring the discs over to her rather than Celestia. She browses through them, unaware of the hope she has stirred in this young man’s heart. She sees Boy only as he is, not as what he will become. He may be lanky, but soon he will grow to fill in his tunic and trousers, his narrowness will turn to pure muscle, his awkward steps to determined stride. “How about a waltz?”

Celestia studies us, lips pressed together as if she were a bird observing her subjects from between clouds, unwilling to sing, to let them even catch sight of her. I wonder if she will ever be willing to learn from me, acknowledge how well I handle this sort of situation. I doubt it. She doesn’t understand how everyday kindness is akin to a pebble rolling down a hill to join an avalanche.

“If you will allow me,” Captain Janlav offers, and soon the brittle black disc is spinning under the needle, and the grandiose strokes of the violins interlace with the bold brass notes. While my younger sisters lean their elbows against the oval table, the guards listen to the music from where each of them ended up. Captain Janlav is bent over the gramophone, cranking it when need be. Boy shifts his weight behind Sibilia’s chair. The other guards are still clustered by the closed door.

I don’t think they have heard music in ages either. For Beard has his eyes closed, lips parted under the brown whiskers. Boots taps the floor hesitantly. Tabard and Belly nod along as if they yearned to spin us—any girl, for that matter—around, but know that this isn’t the right time or place for such.

When the song ends, the guards look disappointed, but hopeful, too. No one dares to speak, for we are dazed by the simple beauty of the waltz, by the memories of better times that it has stirred in our souls. Finally, Beard clears his throat. He brandishes a small rectangular cardboard box. “I’ve got cards. Anyone fancy playing?”

My younger sisters turn to Celestia, to see how they should react. But again, before she can say that it wouldn’t be proper for us to play together, I hasten to reply, “Yes! That would be most delightful.”

“Come join us,” Celestia agrees, finally taking a seat herself, but the look she casts me speaks volumes. If I had hoped earlier that she would descend from the skies to join us, as a sister amongst sisters, that she hasn’t. She sees only that even in captivity, there are certain protocols to follow. She’s the oldest. The decisions should be hers. But she doesn’t understand either that the world has changed, that we must change with it or cease to be.

Captain Janlav and Boy and Beard and Tabard take the free chairs on the other side of the table, opposite to me. It’s an unexpected reflection of the dinners we shared during the winter months. Or not quite. Belly and Boots choose to stay by the door, leaning against the wall, with one knee raised. At ease, at least.

“A polka?” Sibilia suggests, holding another disc up for Captain Janlav. His hands tremble, barely visibly, and I don’t think anyone else notices this. What is he nervous about? Surely not being so close to us.

Then I realize it, and I should have realized it much sooner. The gramophone is the one from the garrison. Did he bargain for it or steal it? How much is he risking simply to cheer me up?

But as the buoyant polka starts, I push these thoughts aside. I shall not worry about the gramophone’s origins, even if Captain Janlav’s choices may have consequences later on. I shall enjoy that which is within my grasp now. Something I failed to do when enjoyments were available aplenty.

My sisters and I, we play family—no, Families, the card game—with the guards, and with a silent agreement, we let Alina win at least every other game. Perhaps not all change is for the worse. As I watch the guards laugh with my younger sisters, the grain of hope in my heart swells. To them, we are no longer only Daughters of the Moon, but also human beings, young girls, young women kept captive against our will. I hope Celestia sees this, too. We may not have the power to alter our fates, but it is within our power to make the last days of our sisters better.

I cast a warm look at Captain Janlav. He smiles back at me, arches his brow at the redness of my cheek. I shrug as if I had hurt it by accident. From his concern for my well-being, I know at last that I wasn’t naïve in placing my trust in him. He and his men will keep us safe as long as we obey the rules of the gagargi’s wicked game. That is more than I have asked for, hoped for.

And yet, no matter that I’m resigned to my fate, that of my sisters, I want more.

The polka ends, and it’s then that the door flings open.

Captain Ansalov’s beady green eyes gleam with ire as he takes in the scene: us sitting around the table, fans of cards in our hands. The black dog on Merile’s lap bounces up and growls at him. It senses the threat in the air, the promise of violence the captain carries with him everywhere he goes. “Ah, here it is.”

The gramophone’s needle scratches empty circles before it starts replaying the polka. I don’t dare to say a word. Neither does Celestia. No one does apart from Captain Ansalov.

“But what is it that you, Captain Janlav, are doing here with your men?”

I pat Merile’s hand, praying the Moon that she will echo the soothing gesture on Alina. For Tabard and Boots no longer lean on the wall. They are ready to spring into action if so much as half ordered. But Captain Janlav merely shuffles his cards. I wish Celestia would say something wise and calming, but she remains perfectly still. Her placid blue gaze reveals that she won’t interfere unless things get much, much worse. She is punishing me for acting out of place, for speaking out of turn, for disagreeing with her. And seeing my younger sisters afraid is worse than any pain I can imagine.

“We are listening to music. And playing Families,” Captain Janlav says at last, glancing at the other captain from over his hand, smiling all the while. “Would you like to join us, perhaps?”

The agreement between the two captains, the orders each follow to the letter. Bless the Moon, my sisters and I are exactly where we should be. But Captain Janlav and his guards… There must be no constraints placed on them visiting us, otherwise he would have never allowed them to enter the room.

Captain Ansalov chews his cheek. He must be trying to find a breach in the rules, and given time, he will surely be able to twist the gagargi’s words in a way that benefits him and only him. The cheerful notes of the polka have never sounded so sinister. I hold my breath as I wait for his answer. Merile leans against me, Alina against her. If I’m scared of this man, my little sisters must be terrified! Celestia still refusing to interfere only shows how callous and spiteful she truly is!

“No,” Captain Ansalov replies at last, but his gaze is drawn to the gramophone, as if he were a magpie mesmerized by all that glitters, greedy beyond its own understanding. I remember the evening when we first met him back at the garrison. He may be a harsh man, ready to follow any order given to him, but at the same time he likes music, and… “I didn’t realize earlier you and your men are enthusiastic about music. Why don’t we continue listening through my misplaced collection in the confinement of my office?”

This polite talk is just a veil, and both of the captains know it. Captain Janlav has stolen that for which Captain Ansalov cares the most. But it’s a dangerous game he plays. For Captain Ansalov knows Captain Janlav has grown fond of us, that by hurting us he will also hurt the captain who has turned into his adversary.

“No, I don’t think so,” Captain Janlav says with a boyish bravado against a man twice his age, though we would have been better off with him taking up the offer. “We are quite comfortable here as it is.”

I stare at him, perplexed. There is no shame in sometimes taking the easy way out. He can’t possibly be doing this to impress me! We both know what awaits my sisters and me. There’s no point in dwelling on what could have been between us. And then the game he’s playing becomes so clear to me. He has always known it, but only recently understood that he, too, is at liberty to interpret his orders as he wishes. It’s his duty to keep my sisters and me safe, not to treat us like prisoners.

“Is that so?” Captain Ansalov’s soft question is more terrifying than a shout bellowed from the top of his lungs.

Captain Janlav drops his cards on the table face-side up and slowly rises. Belly, Beard, and Boy perch on their seats. Sibilia, the Moon bless her, pulls a card from Alina, a distraction meant to keep our younger sisters unaware of the rising tension. “I believe in the equal redistribution of resources. My men and I would much like to lend this player for a while longer.”

Captain Ansalov chuckles. This horrid sound mixes with the gramophone’s needle scratching the disc, at the outer edge, round after round. “So it seems my time is over and yours has just begun, eh?”

But what he’s saying between the lines is that Captain Janlav’s time might come to an end sooner than he can even begin to guess. And I wonder, does Captain Ansalov hold in his pockets more of the gagargi’s orders, some that he hasn’t yet shared with us? If he does, is Celestia aware of their content?

“No!”

We all, the guards and my sisters alike, turn toward the sound. For it’s neither of the captains speaking, but the little, wide-eyed Alina who has sprung up from the sofa. The dogs bounce beside her, agitated.

I don’t want to ask my sister what she means, but Celestia still holds her silence. As the guards turn to look at me, one after another, I have no choice but to ask, “What is it, my dear?”

Even though I know the answer. This is the way Alina acts when she thinks she has seen something in the shadows.

Indeed, Alina stares intently at the darkest corner of the room. The brown dog dabs my sister’s tiny hand with its nose, and it’s this that brings her back to us. Her lips part as she turns toward Captain Ansalov. Her face pales.

Captain Ansalov runs his stubby fingers along his upper lip, smug. He likes us terrified, the more so, the better. “Yes?”

“I…” Alina whispers, but before she can say more, a sharp crack interrupts her.

Jagged black shards scatter every which way. One of them hits me in the forehead. I blink, confused, but the guards act upon reflex. The next I see clear again, Tabard and Boots have drawn knives I didn’t even know they carried about their persons. Captain Janlav has vacated his chair. He has his arms spread wide, as if to protect us with his body. Boy and Belly flank him. Beard hovers by Celestia. Only Captain Ansalov has held his ground. He has done so though a trickle of blood coils down his round cheek.

Why wouldn’t he have when it was only the gramophone’s disc that shattered?

“He’s coming.” Alina stares at the first drop of blood on the floor. Tears glint in the corners of her eyes. Her voice shivers. “The gagargi is coming for us.”

First there’s nothing but stunned silence. Then laughter, vile and deep, erupts from Captain Ansalov’s throat. His whole body shakes with his amusement, even as blood drips down his chin. “By all means, Captain Janlav, keep the gramophone.”

His words, those of my little sister, chill me to the core. He has no further need for music. Soon we will all be dancing to his tune.