Juliet Marillier - Wildwood Dancing

“Terrified, Mistress Jena.”

“Terrified is good,” I said. “That’s just how I feel. Hurry, please.”

I sat on the old seat, shivering with anticipation. With every rustle and creak from the forest, with every drone of passing insect or peep of home-winging bird, I glanced across the orchard toward the house. I tried to guess what Costi would say first and how I might answer.

He didn’t take long. I suppose my using his groom as my messenger made guessing where I was easy. He was carrying a lantern, something I had assumed I would not need, for I had not expected to wait here for so long, nor to be walking home after dusk. We didn’t have much time. But I couldn’t think of that. Here was Costi, coming across the orchard toward me, the firelight dancing over his face. His expression was terribly serious. He had cut his hair again—it curled around his ears and exposed the back of his neck, a spot my fingers might find rather nice to stroke. He wore plain, good clothes: a white shirt, trousers in a muted green, serviceable boots, a warm cloak. He looked as nervous as a miscreant about to face judgment. I had absolutely no idea what he would say.

Some three paces away from me, he halted and extended his hand toward me. “Would you c-care to d-dance, Jena?” he asked, summoning a ghost of a smile.

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“I’d be glad to,” I said in a woefully unsteady voice, and put my hand in his. His touch warmed my whole body. I was longing to throw my arms around him and hold him close, but the magic of this moment was like a single, lovely strand of cobweb, fragile and delicate. One wrong move and it would snap beyond mending.

“Can you hear the music?” Costi murmured as he put his hand on my waist. I put mine on his shoulder, and we began a slow, circling measure that took us to this side and that between the trees.

“Mmm,” I said, moving in a little closer, and I could hear it: out in the forest birds were singing, and a stream was flowing, and the wind was whispering secrets. His heart and mine added a rhythm all their own. We turned and turned, and with every turning we breathed a little more quickly and held on a little more tightly, and when we came back to the place where we’d started, we stopped dancing and stood with our arms around each other, holding on as if we would never let go, not if the sky fell and the whole world came to an end.

And even though there were still things to say, and decisions to make, and apologies to get through, I could feel a delicious happiness spreading through me, starting in my heart and moving outward.

“Costi?”

“Mmm?”

“I’m sorry I hurt you. More sorry than I can say. I can’t believe I didn’t know you instantly.”

“I’m sorry I was so cruel that day. After what happened with Cezar, I hardly knew what I was saying. I was trying so 377

hard to sound assured and capable, and underneath I was a quivering mess. I should have tried to talk to you—to understand why you’d been so afraid of me. When you turned your back on me, when you accused me of lying, I felt . . . I felt shattered. As if part of me had been torn away. That day, I suppose I let that all spill out.”

“It’s all right, Costi. As long as we forgive each other now, we can put all that behind us.”

“Are you sure you forgive me, Jena?” His tone was quite wobbly. I was not the only one for whom this game had been difficult.

“Completely,” I said.

“Then can I have my third gift now?”

I took a step back. “Shut your eyes,” I told him.

He obeyed. But when I put my palms against his cheeks and stood on tiptoe, his eyes snapped open again. “Wait! Jena—”

“You don’t want a kiss?”

“It’s just that . . . What if—?”

The same idea had occurred to me. “I don’t think you’ll turn back into a frog,” I said. “That wasn’t the first time I’d ever kissed you, after all. I think we had to wait until Dr˘agu¸ta decided we’d learned our lessons. It sounded to me as if she wanted you to be a man from now on.”

Costi shut his eyes again. “I’m willing to risk it if you are,”

he said with a lopsided smile.

So I kissed him, and he kissed me back. There was no explosion. There was no blinding light. Costi’s arms came around me again, strong and warm, and I pressed against him, stroking the 378

back of his neck. The touch of his lips made me feel safe and loved, and at the same time it made every part of me tremble with excitement. The memory of Cezar’s uncouth effort was instantly wiped away. This was my first proper kiss, and it was everything I had always dreamed it would be. When, after a long time, we paused to draw breath, Costi showed no signs of becoming a frog.

“Costi,” I said breathlessly, “I hate to say this, but—”

“But it’s Full Moon and you have to get home?”

“Tati’s terribly ill. We’re scared she may not even survive until Sorrow gets here—if he does. I should start for home now.

You took ages to get here.”

“I’ll walk you to Piscul Dracului, Jena. We’ll go in a minute.

I have something to do first. . . .” I felt his hand lift my hair away from my neck, and then his lips brushed the place where he had so often sat in frog form, below my left ear. “I’ve been wanting to do that for years,” he whispered. “It’s just as nice as I expected. You can’t imagine what thoughts your little frog had, Jena. Far more than he ever dared share with you.”

“I’ll look forward to hearing them,” I said. “We have to go, Costi. The light’s fading.”

Costi went over to the stables, where Geza was hovering with a grin on his face. He gave the groom some kind of instruction, then we set off down the hill through the forest.

“Is it true there was a spell of silence on you all the time you were a frog?” I asked Costi. Questions were bursting out of me, now that we were together again. “A ban on telling me who you really were?”

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“Dr˘agu¸ta never actually told me so; I never even saw her.

The closest I came was that time you left me at Dancing Glade.

A fox carried me across the ice on its back. I guessed it was hers. Somehow I always knew about the silence spell. I knew I had to wait.”

“It was a long time. A terribly long time.”

“I’m just sad Father never knew I was still here.”

“He knows, Costi. He’s here somewhere, watching. He was a lovely man, so kind and good. Like you.”

“You think that, Jena? Really? I haven’t b-been much of a friend to you, this last month. It was a big change—it took a lot of getting used to. And there was Cezar . . . I’ve gone over and over what happened, wondering how I could have handled it better. And . . . I wasn’t sure you’d feel the same about me, now that I wasn’t Gogu anymore. I was afraid to ask you. I couldn’t b-bear it if you said no.”

“Costi, I don’t remember you stammering like this when you were a boy.”

“I don’t think I did. It’s just when I’m scared. Back then, I wasn’t afraid of anything.”

“You’re scared now? Why?”

“Because this is new and good and so p-precious I’m afraid it’s just a dream. I had a lot of d-dreams when I was a frog, and I hated waking up.”

I stopped walking, took both his hands in mine, and looked him in the eye. It was dark in the forest, but not so dark I could not see that here was my childhood playmate, my beloved companion of nine years, and the man of my dreams—

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miraculously rolled into one. Suddenly this wasn’t difficult at all. “I love you, Costi,” I said. “That’s the truest truth I ever said. Forever and always. There’s no need to be afraid anymore.”

“I love you, Jena. I always did. When you couldn’t trust me, you broke my heart.”