Leena Likitalo: The Five Daughters of the Moon

I grab the gray blanket from my bed, but for a few surging heartbeats, I hesitate to pound the door. Why? For no good reason other than fear.

I bring the bottom of my right fist against the panel. Again. And again. If this is a rescue, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, apart from my disheveled state. If it’s one of the guards, I will have to come up with a very good excuse indeed.

The steps stagger to a halt before my door.

“In here!” I shout hoarsely, not daring to be too loud. For if it’s neither our rescuer nor one of the guards…

A lot is at stake here; not only what will become of me but also the well-being of my sisters. My throat tightens as I think of them. Are they sleeping through these moments? Or are they lying awake in their beds, too afraid to say a word? Do they think they are dreaming? Do they think this a nightmare?

A key turns in the lock. Would our rescuer have the key? How about those who despise us? Only one way to find out.

I push the door open, only to come face-to-face with the man whom I once loved.

“Yes?” His puzzled gaze seems darker than I remember, his moustache thicker, and his stubble has grown into a beard that covers his strong jaw and creeps up his cheeks.

No rescue then. No ill will either. Yet my heart sags, sinks into the bottom of the sea like a weighted sack. One excuse is as good as any, some more believable than others. At least the squeal in my voice is genuine. “What was the ruckus about? Why have we halted?”

He leans on the wall, his left hand resting looped against his blue winter coat’s leather belt. His gloves are red. A dusting of snow covers his shoulders. The strap of his rifle runs across his chest. When he speaks, his tone of voice is perfectly polite and formal. “We hit a frozen snow bank. It’s being cleared now.”

So that was it. I should be more disappointed. But for some reason I’m not. This is the first time we have spoken in private since the night we boarded the train, over four weeks ago. That night was the first I noticed the change in how he acted toward me. Was it from the shame of turning against my family? No, that’s not why it happened.

“You should go back to bed,” Captain Janlav says. Once I named him the captain of my heart. Now I can’t bring myself to address him by anything other than the rank he gained in my mother’s service. Curious thought, is he still entitled to that?

He shifts to push the door closed. I brace myself against it. “No.”

I do this because… Because I don’t want him to go. Because I want to see if anything remains of the man whose heart I once thought I knew inside out.

“No?” His mellow voice bears a hint of amusement. He still seems to revere my sisters and me. The other guards and servants treat us more like prisoners. It’s him who talks with us when the rest resort to silence.

“Please let me out, even if it’s only for a moment.” The pleading tone is genuine, and I hate myself for that. But it’s been over a week since we visited the witch, and though since then they have let us out at some of the smaller towns, it’s been only for enough time to stretch our legs. Celestia calls that a victory. No doubt her plan depends on these excursions growing longer and more frequent.

Captain Janlav shakes his head curtly. He still keeps his hair in a topknot, but he no longer shaves the sides of his head. One day he will sport an auburn mane much like a lion’s. Just as I’m changing, so is he. But whether he’s becoming a dangerous man or just a different man, that I can’t yet say. “So that when I’d look aside, you could wander off on your own. No, I don’t think so.”

I roll my eyes at him, a gesture better suited to Merile or dear Sibs. He makes it sound as if he’s concerned that I’d fall off a cliff or be captured by someone else. Then let’s play by his rules. “We are in the middle of nowhere. There’s no one around for miles. My father’s gaze is bright. No one can harm me tonight.”

His brows rise.

“I peeked through the window.”

He chuckles. “Now did you?”

“I did.”

He studies me for a while, the uncombed hair that falls tangled on my shoulders, the blanket I clutch against my chest. I know he finds me beautiful, though he no longer says it aloud. He gazes at me for so long that I’m sure he has noticed the looped necklace or bracelets that the thick fabric of my dress barely conceal, that he will push the door closed and lock it behind him. But at last, he says, “Come, then, but be forewarned, it’s freezing outside.”

Before he can change his mind, I hasten out of the cabin. When we were allotted our cabins, it was done in the order of age. Celestia’s cabin is closest to the day carriage, at the end of the corridor, to my left. As I walk toward the other end of the carriage, I pass Sib’s, Merile’s, and Alina’s cabins. I hear nothing that would indicate that any of them are awake. That guarantees nothing. Celestia suspects that Alina doesn’t sleep at nights. My little sister has lately talked more and more of the shadows, though as the youngest it’s not possible for her to glimpse into the world beyond this one. I suspect the decay that affects her mind has spread during this journey. I know for sure that we have run out of her medicine.

It’s horrifying to come to the conclusion that there’s nothing you can do for your sister. And since this is the case, and since this is one of the rare chances to breathe uncaptured air, I stride past little Alina’s cabin.

When we come to the heavy door that leads out of the train, Captain Janlav pulls a key ring from his belt. The dozen keys of brass and iron jingle with promises of freedom. He turns his back to me so that I can’t see which one he uses to open the door. It pains me that he doesn’t trust me. But if I were in his boots, would I trust me either?

Come to think of it, I did trust him with everything. That didn’t end too well for me or my sisters. Or our mother… Even if we have only Alina’s word of her demise, Celestia believes it true. Our mother is dead. Eventually, my sister will become the next empress.

Unless something were to happen to her. And something might well happen now that the battle lines have been drawn and the soldiers’ hands are bloody on both sides. A betrayal or murder most vile, poison slipped in tea or a knife thrust between the lowest ribs.

The door squeals as Captain Janlav pushes it open, an interruption most welcome. Immediately the winter exhales a snowy breath upon us. He glances at me, grinning. “Do you still want to go out?”

I wrap the gray blanket better around my shoulders and brush past him onto the covered platform, fleeing the ghastly thoughts. He closes the door behind us, but doesn’t lock it. Why would he? Where else would I return than back inside?

The night is very black. The rails stretch before us, the two lines of iron reaching toward each other, but never quite meeting. I used to think of the railroads as the veins of my mother’s empire. Now, looking at the grimness of iron against snow, I think of them as wounds that won’t ever heal.

A chiming click of metal breaches the silence. I turn to see Captain Janlav flicking open a silver cigarette case. It’s the one I gave him as a gift, before he told me of the cause, of the life beyond the palace walls. How curious for him to have kept it when all of us lead equally austere lives here on this train. Why didn’t he donate it to fund the cause?

“What?” He glances at me from under his brows before his attention drifts back to the cigarettes and the case itself, the delicate crescent clasp and the etched, straight lines representing rays of the Moon, master workmanship at its finest.

“It’s a beautiful case you have. How did you come by it?” Does he really remember nothing?