Juliet Marillier - Wildwood Dancing

The mist seemed to swirl closer, as if to draw me into the mysterious realm beyond. I began to cry. The raft moved on, and I began to scream.

“Hold on, Jena!” Costi shouted. “I’m coming to get you!” He stripped off his shirt and waded into the lake. He was a strong swimmer. On the shore behind him, Cezar stood in shadow.

His face was a white blob, his figure no taller than my little finger. He was utterly still. My screams subsided to hysterical sobs, then to sniffs, as Costi came closer. Around him, I saw the lake waters swirling and bubbling. The raft began to move in circles, making me dizzy, carrying me away from his grasp.

There was nothing to hold on to. I felt another scream welling up in me, and sank my teeth into my lip. Then Costi was there, his hands clutching the edge of the raft, his face even whiter than Cezar’s. His dark hair was streaming water and his teeth were chattering.

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I was too scared to speak. The raft began to drift back slowly toward the shore, Costi’s strong legs kicking us forward. We moved past the rocky island and the thorny one.

Costi was struggling to hold on, fighting the current. His eyes had a fierce look in them, like someone in a fight. His fingers were slipping. I put my hands over my face, listening to him gasping for breath. I felt the raft spin around, then tilt up; I heard splashing. Then someone grabbed my arm, pulling me, and I struck out wildly.

“Stop it, Jena, it’s me. You’re safe now.” The voice was Cezar’s. As I opened my eyes, the raft beached itself, and my cousin’s hands dragged me onto dry land. My head was spinning. My nose was running. My heart was beating madly.

I fled. I pelted past Cezar, past the cloth where we had laid our offerings, past the clothing Costi had shed, and into the shelter of the bushes, where I crouched down with my colored blanket over my head and surrendered to hiccuping sobs of fright and relief.

Maybe I wasn’t there long—to a five-year-old, a few minutes can seem an age. I heard Cezar calling my name, but I ignored him. This was the boys’ fault. They had made me play the game, they had made me come to the lake, and now it was all spoiled. And I hadn’t gotten to be Queen of the Fairies, even though I’d given away my lovely crown. Now my cousins would tease me for being afraid and for crying, and they’d never ask me to play with them again.

“Jena! Come out! Jena, please!”

Something in Cezar’s voice made me get up and walk back 54

to the shore. The square of cloth still lay on the sand, but the silver ring and my little crown were gone. I couldn’t see the raft. I couldn’t see Costi.

“Where were you?” Cezar seized me by the arms, hard—

I thought he was going to shake me. “Where did you go? Did you see what happened?”

“Ow, let go!” I protested. “See what? What do you mean?

Where’s Costi?” Then I noticed that, although he was three whole years older than me, my cousin was crying.

Cezar sat me down on the sand and told me what had happened. His nose was running because of the tears, and his eyes were swelling up and going all red. I gave him back his handkerchief. He told me that as the raft was passing the fairy island, Costi had lost his grip. As Cezar had stripped off his own shirt and boots, ready to go to his brother’s aid, hands had reached up from under the water, pulling at Costi’s arms and rocking the raft as if to capsize it. Cezar had swum out to rescue me, grabbing the raft just in time. He’d propelled it, and me, safely to shore. Then he’d gone back in for his brother. But when he returned to the fairy island, the water was calm and clear. And Costi was gone.

“He’s dead.” He said it as if he couldn’t believe it, even though he’d seen it with his own eyes. “Costi’s dead. The witch took him. Dr˘agu¸ta, the witch of the wood. She pulled him under and drowned him.”

I was too little to find words. Perhaps I did not yet quite understand what death was.

“We have to go home.” Cezar’s eyes were odd, shocked and 55

staring. He looked more angry than sad. “We have to tell them.

You’re going to have to help me, Jena.”

I nodded, misery starting to settle over me like a dark blanket. Costi was gone. Costi, who was so alive—the most alive person I knew. Costi, whom everybody loved. Watching the light sparkle on the lake water, I thought I could hear someone laughing.

“Come on, quick,” Cezar said. “We should get our story straight. We’d better practice on the way.”

I remembered that part even now: walking along the forest paths, my small hand in his not much bigger one, and the way he talked me carefully through what had happened—hoping to calm me down, I suppose. Even after ten years, I could still see the expression on Cezar’s face as he gave his account to his father. It was a heavy load for a boy just eight years old. I helped all I could, telling the same version of events as Cezar. What had happened was all jumbled up in my head, so it was good that he had explained it to me so clearly. He did not mention the game, nor did I. We confessed that we had been at the forbidden lake, playing with a raft. We told them about the tricky currents and the hands in the water. Uncle Nicolae and Aunt Bogdana were so distraught at the loss of their beloved firstborn, their shining star, that after a certain point in the story they ceased to listen.

My mother came to take me and my sister home to Piscul Dracului. After that, I did not see Cezar so often. He had become the eldest son. He worked hard at it: learning the business; accompanying Uncle Nicolae to village meetings; getting to know the running of the farm. He finished his education, 56

going away to Bra¸sov for several years and returning unrecog-nizable: a young man. I became shy of him—so tall, so big, so alarmingly solemn. So full of ideas and theories that clashed utterly with mine. All the same, I owed Cezar my life, and I had never forgotten that.

“The problem is,” I said now to Gogu, who was sitting on a leaf, practicing being invisible, “that Cezar is so difficult to be a friend to. If I could get closer to him, maybe I could persuade him to give up his talk of vengeance. But he thinks girls are an inferior breed, not suited to anything except cooking and cleaning. This winter I plan to prove him wrong on that count, at least. I’ll look after Father’s affairs so well that neither he nor Uncle Nicolae will need to do a thing.”

What’s that old saying: Pride comes before a fall?

“Don’t say that, Gogu! I thought you, at least, had faith in me.”

I do, Jena. Complete faith. Be careful, that’s all. Everything’s changing.

You said as much yourself. Change can be frightening.

“That’s why I’m glad I’ve got you,” I said. “You keep me sane, Gogu. You stop me from making stupid mistakes. Cezar had better not make any more suggestions about terriers. I simply couldn’t do without you.”

Nor I without you, Jena. We are a pair, you and I. It’s getting cold. . . .

Winter’s close. Can I ride home on your shoulder?

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Chapter Three

Dearest Father, I wrote, we have been very busy since you went away. I will dispatch the consignment for Sibiu as soon as Uncle Nicolae can spare some men to load it onto the carts for us. I’d have preferred to arrange this myself, but the men who usually came up from the village were all occupied with shoring up the banks of the Grimwater, which recent rains had swollen to a frothing brown torrent. A river in spate was as dangerous as Dr˘agu¸ta the witch at her most malevolent—it could consume a whole village in one gulp.