Mccormick Templeman - The Glass Casket

Ah, that’s better , her mother would say, and then she would kiss Rowan on the cheek, her lips soft as butterfly wings. Rowan would always emerge from those dreams feeling as if they were somehow more real than her conscious life.

Stepping out of the foyer, Rowan tried to put thoughts of her mother from her mind. She moved through the corridor and into the central hall with its high arched ceiling and heavy wooden beams. She was running her fingers along the carved rosewood panels that lined the walls when Emily emerged from the kitchen, spoon in hand, her cheeks splotchy from the heat. The candles in the mounted sconces played upon the girl’s features, illuminating them with bursts of color.

“Late enough,” Emily said, and scrutinizing Rowan’s dress, she grimaced. “That’s right wrinkled, isn’t it? What have you been doing in that thing?”

“Nothing,” Rowan answered as Emily’s dog, Pema, bounded up to her. She ran her hands through the dog’s thick black fur and patted her on the head. “That’s a good girl,” she said, her heart warming with just one look from the dog’s watery brown eyes.

“Well, put it aside for me to work on,” Emily said, already turning to head back to the kitchen, Pema in tow. “And go in and say hello to your father.”

Rowan gave a soft knock at her father’s study door, and he called that she should enter. He sat at his desk, surrounded by books. Before him was a thick stack of papers.

“Working on something new?” she asked.

He set down his pen and smiled at her.

“I am. I’ve had a new shipment from the duke conservateur. Some really interesting documents coming into the royal library these days. One is a text that was only recently discovered in the hills of Montatrea, where they unearthed that massive trove of ancient texts. It’s fascinating, really.”

“Fortunately, they have you to translate it for them,” said Rowan, who always took a quiet pride in her father’s expertise.

He leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Well, it’s not as if they have a choice. There are simply too few men trained in the Midway language these days. It’s a pity.”

“I can read it too, remember,” she said, grinning.

“Don’t say I never taught you anything. Have you and Emily had your supper yet?”

“Not yet, no. I was just about to go and see if she needs help in the kitchen.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.”

“Father,” Rowan said, looking at the shelves that lined the wall, at the endless stacks of books. “Those men who died. What killed them?”

He fixed his eyes on hers. “A wolf, naturally. But, Rowan, you mustn’t trouble yourself about such things. Fear is the domain of the small-minded. You are to be a scholar, my dear, and scholars do not go around fearing the wind and quivering away at the thought of wolves.”

Rowan smiled, knowing she was lucky to have a father like hers who so valued a girl’s mind, who thought his daughter had the capacity to become as great a scholar as any son. In Nag’s End, most girls were married off as soon as possible, and once married, they had no chance of being anything but helpmate to a husband. That was why Greenwitches never married. To yoke oneself to a man was to cleave yourself in two, so her father always said. He had told her many a time that if she studied, and if she attained the level of skill he desired for her, when the time was right, he would take her to the palace city. He’d once held a well-respected position there but had left the city upon meeting her mother. Sometimes Rowan sensed that her father, more than anything, wanted to return to that stunning place with its magnificent castle set high upon rocky cliffs.

Someday, she told herself, she would journey down the mountain passes that spilled from the north like spider veins, all the way to where the warm waters met pebbled shores, and see the palace city with her own eyes. She had heard enough stories, had seen enough artists’ renderings to know that it was an enchanted place, a magnificent city pearled with sapphire canals.

Someday, Rowan told herself, someday she would see it with her own eyes, perhaps even live there. Her studies were the key, and she was capable of mastering them. Her father had said as much, and she hoped with all her heart that he was right.

As if reading her thoughts, Henry Rose held up a finger to her, and with his other hand rustled through some papers.

“Since we’re speaking of Midway texts, I wondered if I might talk with you about your work on The Book of Widows ,” he said.

Rowan felt her palms growing sweaty. She had given her father her notes on a translation she was helping him with, and while she had hoped he might look them over before she continued with her work, she had not expected a formal review.

“Is … is something wrong?”

He furrowed his brow and smiled at her. “Quite the opposite, child. I was examining it this morning, and frankly, I am stunned. When I gave you the piece, I thought I might do so as a training exercise, but you’ve discovered something in here that I missed.”

Rowan felt the anxiety draining from her as she processed his words.

“You’re pleased, then?”

“To say that I am pleased would be an understatement. Tell me, though,” he said, resting his chin on his palm. “How did you arrive at your conclusion?”

Rowan cleared her throat, trying to keep the excitement from her voice. “Well, I suppose it was instinct, mostly. After really looking at it, I just knew that a mistake had been made somewhere along the way. The version we have is in the ancient Luric, but the story itself reminded me of something I’d read about the Midway peoples and one of their creation myths. That made me wonder if it might have originally been composed in a Midway tongue and since then translated into the Luric. So I began looking for words that might have been mistranslated, and I found two. It all comes down to a simple homophone, really. Lan Ce Sai , meaning ‘bloom colors’ or ‘colors bloom,’ but Ce Sai , when translated into the dialect of the Midway peoples, is the word tsvety , meaning ‘colors.’ Since the word tsvety has the homophone tsveti , which means ‘flowers’—I began to wonder if the word in the poem was not colors , but flowers. Flowers bloom . When you think about it, it seems rather obvious, and I don’t imagine that it changes much, but I thought I should make a note.”

Her father stared at her with a mixture of surprise and delight. He shook his head.

“Really, Rowan, I cannot tell you how impressed I am with what you’ve done. Whether the change is important or not is not for us to say. Our work is in the discovery. I’m going to send what you’ve done to the duke conservateur right away.”

Rowan could barely believe his words. “You are?”

“I am.” He smiled. “I am very proud of you, my child. Your gifts seem to grow with each passing moon.”

“Thank you, Father,” she said as she watched him set her notes to the side.

“Now,” he answered, “why don’t you eat with Emily. I’m afraid I won’t be joining you. I have far too much work ahead of me.”

Pride filling her chest, she left her father’s study and went to wash up.

Supper with Emily was stew again, and although Rowan could think of little other than her translations, Emily seemed able only to speak of Fiona Eira.

“So lovely, she is. Tall for a girl. Funny, your being cousins.”

“Why’s that?” Rowan said, taken aback by the perceived insult.

“Oh, no, not that you’re not lovely, Ro. It’s just that you are so scrawny and pale. It’s like you’re all one color—like mashed potatoes—while her colors are so vibrant, all black and peach and red. She’s almost like a painting. And hearty. She’s got lovely curves, that one.”