tales of the latter kingdom 08 - moon dance (5 page)

The moonlight revealed that Janessa’s bed was quite empty.

Her absence puzzled me for a few seconds, but then I realized she must have gotten up to use the garderobe, which was located in a little alcove behind a wooden screen. I settled myself back down in bed, sure that I would hear her quiet footsteps at any moment.

Only…I didn’t. I lay there and waited, and yet she still did not return to her own bed. Worry flickered within me, although I tried to tell myself there must be a reasonable explanation for her absence. Perhaps she had slipped out to have a midnight gossip with Carella and Theranne.

That did seem rather odd, but it would be easy enough to find out. I pushed back my bedclothes and slipped onto the floor, the silkiness of the rug soft against my bare feet. Moving quietly, I went to the door, then opened it and peered out. Nothing stirred, save the faintest of drafts along the hallway, a draft that made the candles in the sconces flicker gently.

I padded over to the room that Carella and Theranne shared, certain I would hear muffled giggles and whispers from within. But all was quiet, so silent that I fancied I could hear the hooting of an owl as it sat in the large oak tree just outside their window.

Well, I would just have to go in. If they were awake, then I thought I would offer the excuse that I had heard a sound and had come to investigate. They might have a good giggle at that, but I did not think they would question my explanation.

So I pushed open the door.

CHAPTER 3

And found…nothing. Oh, the beds belonging to my two cousins were there, but they were just as empty as Janessa’s. None of them were to be found — not that they had anywhere much they could have gone, since the room was merely a large rectangle, with no alcoves or cubbyholes to speak of, except the screened-off area which hid the garderobe and the bathtub.

They simply weren’t there.

Fear began to rise in my breast, although I told myself that I must keep calm, that of course there had to be a logical reason as to why three girls had vanished from their beds in the middle of the night. Although I certainly did not wish to be subjected to her mocking, I knew I must go to Adalynn and tell her that her sisters and Janessa had disappeared.

Or perhaps they are all in Adalynn’s chamber,
I thought then.
I have no idea why she would allow them to disturb her sleep, but that certainly makes more sense than any of the rest of this.

I went back out into the corridor and down the hall to Adalynn’s room. There was always the possibility that she could have locked the door, but I did not think so. Certainly she had never locked it before.

To my relief, the door was not latched. It swung open easily enough, even as I opened my mouth to explain to an annoyed Adalynn why I was bursting into her chamber in the dead of night.

Only…she was not there, either. The moonlight pouring through the window revealed her bed to be as empty as those of her sisters, and of Janessa.

Something was terribly wrong here. My hands began to shake, but I knew I must do my best to stay calm, to try to discover a logical reason for why all the girls were missing from their beds. Had they all been kidnapped as they slept? But it would have taken more than a few armed men to steal away four grown young women, and how could so many strangers have entered the castle in the first place? Our kingdom was at peace and had been so for many years, but that did not prevent my uncle from having armed guards at every entrance to the castle. Perhaps he did so more out of habit than need, but that still didn’t change the fact that several men guarded every door which led to the outdoors. Even if they had been challenged, the noise would have been enough to wake up everyone who slept within the building.

Frowning, I went over to Adalynn’s bed and stared down at it. The bedclothes had been folded back neatly. There was certainly no sign that anyone had taken her forcibly. In fact, as I looked around, I realized that the embroidered slippers she had worn earlier that day, and which she usually took off and kept at the foot of the bed, were missing, as was her chamber robe of deep blue Keshiaari silk.

This discovery led me back to Carella and Theranne’s room. Now I realized that their slippers were missing as well, along with their dressing gowns. And I had no doubt that if I went back to the chamber I shared with Janessa, I would find her slippers and robe gone, too.

Sleepwalking? Such a thing had always seemed to me an invention of storytellers, and not something that happened to people in actuality. Certainly I had never walked in my sleep. And I had shared a chamber with Janessa for more than a year now. If she had a predilection for rising from her bed and wandering the castle in the middle of the night, I would have encountered it before now. At any rate, even if one of my missing companions actually did sleepwalk, it would strain the bounds of credulity for me to believe all four of them suffered from the same affliction.

I knew I should not waste any more time in speculation. I must go downstairs and wake my uncle and aunt, and tell them that their daughters were missing, along with the ward whose person they had sworn to protect. Enough time had already been wasted.

But as I turned toward the door of Adalynn’s chamber, a strange lassitude came over me. Although I had been alert — even nervous — but a moment before, now it seemed as if I could barely keep my eyes open. Nothing was so terribly wrong, after all. I only needed to return to my bed, and all this would be as if something from a dream.

Without consciously realizing what I was doing, I moved down the hallway and went into my room. I did not glance at Janessa's empty bed, but only climbed into my own and pulled the covers up nearly to my chin. Within the next instant, I was fast asleep.

An ear-cracking yawn woke me. I blinked, and realized the yawn had come from Janessa, who was sitting up in her bed and rubbing at her eyes. Her rich brown hair tumbled over her shoulders, rather than being confined to its usual nighttime plait, and I frowned. I could have sworn I had seen her braiding it right before bed, just as she always did.

She must have caught me staring, because she mumbled, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” I replied. Something about this felt dreadfully wrong, as if there was something I knew I should be remembering but which appeared to have eluded me for the moment. All I could recall was lying down and putting my head on my pillow, just as I did every night, and yet it seemed as if I had forgotten something of vital importance

Another yawn, and Janessa stretched, then grimaced. “I cannot think what I did yesterday to make me so weary! It feels as if every muscle in my body aches.”

Truly, I could not think of what ailed her, either, for, as far as I knew, she had spent the day sedately within the confines of the castle, and hadn’t even taken a walk down to the stream, as I had. Again, I experienced that nagging sensation, as though a lost memory tickled at the back of my mind but wouldn’t quite surface.

Oh, well, if it was truly that important, then it would reappear at some point. I said, “Well, I am sure that a warm bath will cure most of those aches, whatever it is that caused them.”

“I suppose you are right,” she replied. “But it is most curious.”

I could not argue with that. Nor did I have time to, for soon thereafter the maids appeared with the hot water for our baths, and the greater part of the next hour and a half was spent in the two of us getting ready for our day. By the time we had bathed and dressed and had our hair arranged by our maids, the sun was quite high, and we knew we must hurry, or be late for breakfast.

As Janessa picked up one of her slippers to slide it on, however, she let out an exclamation of dismay. “Goodness! The soles of these are nearly worn through, and yet I have only had them these three months.”

Recalling the way my aunt had chided Adalynn over the condition of her slippers, I couldn’t keep myself from taking a closer look. Sure enough, the leather soles of Janessa’s shoes were scuffed and scored, and wearing thin in several places. She certainly wasn’t active enough to have caused so much damage in such a short amount of time, and yet I could not deny that her slippers were in a pitiful state.

“I will have to write to Papa and ask him to send me some more,” she said mournfully as she tied her shoe ribbons around her ankles. “And he will chide me for being so careless with these ones. But I know I must do something, for they will not last the month in this state.”

Janessa did not mind being frank with me, for she knew that my own immediate family was far from rich, and so she did not bother to hide that her own father possessed nothing near the wealth that my uncle did. Indeed, I rather thought it reassured her to have someone close by who would not hold her own lack of means against her.

Of course, I had a small secret of my own, one that I had not shared even with my aunt. My brother-in-law’s magical gift involved working with precious metals and stones, and indeed conjuring them from the very air. He knew better than to send me finished pieces, for I would not be able to wear them without having to reveal from whence they had come, but with some of my sister’s letters had also come small, undistinguished rocks — or at least, that was how they looked when they first arrived. I could not begin to guess at how Tobyn had managed the enchantment, but once I took those stones into my hand, they changed into a precious ruby, or a sapphire, or an emerald green as glass.

He sent me those stones because he knew how much my father had depleted my already meager dowry. The gems were small and easy to hide, and something that would be gratefully accepted by any suitor who otherwise might be put off by my very small dowry. I supposed at some point I would have to reveal that I had more means than I had let on, but some part of me was stubborn and hoped that if a man cared for me enough to ask me to be his wife, then he would not think of how much money I had to contribute to the arrangement.

But of course Janessa knew nothing of any of this, and so most likely thought her situation was equivalent to mine. I made sympathetic noises in response to her remark about her father being angry with her, and then said we had best be down for breakfast.

My cousins appeared just as bleary-eyed as Janessa; Carella couldn’t seem to stop yawning. To look at them, one would have thought they’d been out all night, dancing with the local swains, and yet I knew they had all been safely in their beds.

Or….

Again that whisper of something forgotten tickled at my mind, although I couldn’t quite grasp what it was. I told myself not to worry, that if it was truly important, sooner or later I would be able to remember what I could not currently recall.

“Goodness,” Aunt Lyselle said as she gazed from one of her daughters to the other. Her brow puckered in a frown; I could tell that she, too, was puzzled by their weary aspect. “What has gotten into all of you this morning?”

“I don’t know, Mama,” Theranne replied. Her brown eyes looked enormous in her pale face. “I am just so very tired.”

“You girls weren’t up all night telling ghost stories, were you?” my uncle asked. He wore an amused half-smile, and clearly wasn’t as concerned about their appearance as his wife seemed to be.

“I should think not,” Adalynn said, her tone indignant. “That is, I cannot speak for Carella and Theranne, nor Janessa and Iselda, I suppose, but I know I went to sleep at a very respectable hour.”

“It is no matter,” my aunt said briskly. “You shall all have some tea, and that, along with your breakfast, should be enough to restore you.”

None of the girls looked terribly reassured by her remark, although no one argued, either. The maids went around and poured a good measure of hot tea into the waiting mugs at everyone’s place setting, and then it was time for the food itself — a great pie made of eggs and onions and cheese, and bacon on the side, and my favorite little rolls, the ones studded with currants. All in all, it was an excellent meal, and one which helped to make me feel restored, even though I still sensed an underlying weariness, one I could not fully explain.

I saw no sign of Lord Mayson, but that did not bother me overmuch, for he did not always break his fast with us. He tended to rise early and take only some bread and cheese with him as he went on his early morning walks, a practice that dismayed my aunt somewhat, although of course she did nothing to prevent him. Yes, he was her guest, but she would always allow him to go his own way.

Besides, it would have been difficult to face him this morning after what had passed between us the day before. I did not wish to avoid him, but I also preferred that our next encounter be something that didn’t take place under the watchful eyes of my cousins, and my uncle and aunt.

All of the girls’ feet were safely hidden under the table, or I would have attempted to see if my other two cousins’ shoes were as damaged as Janessa’s slippers, or Adalynn’s. What precisely such a coincidence might mean, I didn’t know, but it would seem to indicate that something very strange was occurring at my uncle’s estate.

But because I could not slip from my chair and go about on my hands and knees, inspecting my cousins’ footwear, I had to resign myself to waiting for another opportunity to present itself. Perhaps I could convince them to go wading in the stream, since the weather promised to be warm and sunny once again. If they left their shoes behind, then I would have my best chance at taking a closer look.

What that would prove, I had no idea. That the kingdom’s shoemakers had all simultaneously become slipshod in their workmanship? Put that way, the situation did sound rather ridiculous, although I had to think something strange must be happening, even if I couldn’t determine what it was.

The conversation at breakfast was mundane enough, consisting of remarks about the weather and the preparations my aunt was making in advance of Adalynn’s upcoming nuptials, for guests would start arriving several days before the event itself. The castle was being scrubbed from top to bottom, and corners perhaps ignored for too long now returned to their original sparkling state. The gardeners were watching the flowers in the garden beds carefully, waiting to see which blooms would be at their peak when it came time to harvest them.