MOONSTONE
Several horses, including Condor, peered from their
stalls, watching father and daughter like spectators at a
tournament. The silence was excruciating.
Finally her father
spoke. “What were you doing at the Golden Rudder?”
“My
Rider-in-training, Fergal, almost drowned in the river during our
crossing.” That was definitely the short version of the story.
“Cetchum brought me to the Golden Rudder after. I didn’t know what
kind of place it was. Not at first.”
“Cetchum,” her
father murmured. The ferry master would, of course, be well known
to him. Cetchum’s wife was a maid at the brothel, so he’d seen it
only as natural to take Karigan there.
“I was surprised to
learn from Silva,” Karigan continued, her voice trembling, “that my
father was a favored patron.” Incensed and betrayed was more like
it.
He placed his hands
on his hips and turned away, gazing into the dark. When he faced
her again, he replied, “I said there were things I’d never explain,
and certainly not to my daughter.”
“What about Mother?”
Karigan demanded. “Did she know?”
“This has nothing to
do with her.”
It has everything to do with her! Karigan wanted to
scream.
But her father
simply walked away. Walked away and out of the stable, and out into
the snow.
What had she
expected?
She expected a lot,
actually, especially of her father. Expected him to honor her
mother, to be truthful and upright. Not a ... a patron of brothels. Not a pirate. It felt like he’d
lived a whole secret life without her. If he kept those secrets,
what else might he be hiding?
Her father had
become a stranger to her.
With a sigh, she
tossed off the horse blanket and shivered in the cold. With one
last pat on Condor’s neck, she grabbed both lanterns and left the
stable. To her surprise, the pitch black of night was lightening to
dusky gray, and the wind had died almost to a whisper. Fat flurries
descended in lazy swirls from the sky, nothing like the earlier
squalls.
She used the trail
her father had broken between the stable and house, thinking they
needed to talk things out, not avoid one another. So when she
entered the house, she lit a lamp and looked for him in the kitchen
and his office; went from room to room, finding only darkness and
silence. Upstairs, she heard snoring from behind the doors of her
aunts. She halted at her father’s door, which stood ajar. No light
shone from within, and she heard nothing.
Hesitantly she
pushed the door open and peered inside, thrusting the lamp before
her. The blankets on his bed were rumpled, but he was not in it.
Where could he be?
She stepped inside,
letting the lamplight fill the room. Her father’s bedchamber was
spare and neat, just as she always remembered. There were a couple
paintings of maritime scenes hanging on the wall, and a ship model
was displayed on the mantel. It was not
the Gold Hunter, but the river cog
Venture, the first vessel he’d built as
the primary investor.
A few faint embers
glowed on the hearth, and Karigan threw some kindling on them and
fanned the fire back to life. Once she had a satisfactory blaze
going, she glanced around the room again.
Had it always been
this spare? Was it like this when her mother was alive? She found
she could not remember.
Her gaze fell upon
the chest pushed against the far wall, beneath the window. Her
mother’s dowry chest. There had been, in fact, no dowry, for
Kariny’s father had not approved of Stevic G’ladheon as a husband,
and so the couple ran off sometime after his voyages on the
Gold Hunter.
Her father
commissioned the chest so her mother would at least have a sense of
coming into the marriage with the goods a bride needed to begin
housekeeping. Karigan remembered the chest as filled with fine
linens. She had not looked in it since she was a
child.
Now she took
tentative steps toward it, setting her lamp on a bedside table. She
knelt beside the chest and passed her hand over the mahogany,
running her fingers over carvings of seashells and ships. To either
side of the latch stood a man and woman with hands joined, seabirds
circling overhead, and clouds billowing in the sky, a sunburst
rayed behind them.
The latch was not
locked and Karigan lifted the lid, inhaling the strong scent of
cedar.
She found inside not
only the expected linens, but other unexpected items, as well.
There was a large conch shell as one would find on the beaches in
the Cloud Islands. Karigan had some, too, that her father brought
back from his voyages, and they were displayed on the mantel in her
bedchamber. This one, however, was enormous. She took it out and
carefully set it aside.
Beneath it was an
infant’s gown, crisp and white, with a blue and yellow needlework
design around the hem. Begun, but not finished.
“Oh, gods,” Karigan
murmured. This had not been one of hers, but one her mother made
for her forthcoming child, the babe that had never been
born.
As she continued to
explore the contents of her mother’s chest, she found dresses, some
let out to accommodate pregnancy. Beneath them, she found an
elegant gown of ivory silk. She could almost feel her mother’s
presence there with her, and she crushed the dress to her as though
hugging her mother. They’d had so little time
together.
Karigan sat on her
father’s bed, trying to imagine her mother wearing the dress,
meeting her father at the altar of Aeryc, reciting their devotions
before the moon priest and witnesses.
She sighed and
pressed her face into the silk, perhaps trying to feel some essence
of her mother in it, but only inhaling the scent of cedar clinging
to a garment left long in storage.
She curled upon the
bed with the gown, and finally, exhausted, she dropped into
sleep.
Karigan awoke to
daylight filling the room. For a moment she forgot where she was
and sat up shaking her head. She pushed aside her blanket. No, it
was her mother’s gown. Then it came back to her—she was in her
father’s room. She rubbed sleep from her eyes.
“Well,” Aunt Stace
said in an acerbic tone from beside the fireplace, startling
Karigan. She held a poker, and was hale and quite wide awake. “Good
morning to you. It is the tenth hour of the day.”
“Doesn’t feel like
it,” Karigan mumbled.
“I imagine not. It
seems both you and your father kept late hours.”
“Where is he?”
Karigan asked, wondering why he’d not evicted her from his
room.
“Out and about on
his snowshoes. He came in briefly at eight hour for tea and a
muffin, then headed straight back out.” Aunt Stace shook her head
in bemusement. “Said he was out checking the grounds and
roads.”
Karigan raised her
eyebrows in incredulity. “Why?”
Aunt Stace rolled
her eyes. “If I knew that one, Kari girl, I’d tell you. You know
how he gets when he’s some notion in his head—whatever it
is.”
Karigan nodded. She
did know. Nothing would stop him no matter what obstacles lay in
his path—not even a snowstorm. She glanced at the window as if to
catch a glimpse of him tramping around on his snowshoes, but saw
only frost coating the glass.
Probably checking if the roads are passable so he can be
rid of me.
Aunt Stace set the
poker aside and came to Karigan, smoothing her skirts as she sat on
the bed. “What brought this on?” she asked quietly, touching the
gown. “Something your father said?”
“No. I ... I don’t
know. But Mother—I miss her. I hardly remember her.” Then, out of
nowhere, tears came and Aunt Stace wrapped her arms around her,
holding her close. She smelled of soap and cinnamon.
“I know, dear, I
know.” Aunt Stace rubbed her back. “You do realize she loved you
very much, don’t you?”
Karigan sniffed and
nodded.
“Good. That’s the
most important thing.”
“I remember she
liked to sing to me.”
“Yes, she did, and
she sang sweetly.”
“One thing I didn’t
inherit from her,” Karigan said, and she laughed.
“But you’ve her
eyes, her hair, and many of her lovely attributes,” Aunt Stace
said. “Never forget she lives on in you.”
Karigan almost
started sobbing again, but swallowed it back, and wiped her nose
with her sleeve.
“I think,” Aunt
Stace said, “a hearty breakfast would make you feel much
better.”
Karigan nodded. She
was hungry.
“Good. Then let me
help you fold this.” Aunt Stace smoothed a sleeve of the gown.
“Your mother was so beautiful in this. Absolutely radiant. Your
father on the other hand ...” Aunt Stace chuckled, and it grew into
a hearty laugh.
Karigan’s aunts had
told the story of her father’s wedding enough times that all one of
them had to do was say the word wedding
and they’d all break out in helpless laughter. Except her father
who would usually groan and leave the room.
“He—he turned white
as the belly of a rayfish when he saw Kariny.” All of Aunt Stace
jiggled. “He was so nervous!”
It was amusing, Karigan thought, to imagine her father
sprawled in the moon priest’s arms while the lord-mayor of Corsa
and all the elite of the merchants guild looked on. She couldn’t
help but join in with Aunt Stace’s laughter.
When they’d mostly
recovered, they lifted the gown to fold it, and something solid
tumbled from it and plopped onto the bed.
“What in the heavens
... ?” Aunt Stace scooped up the object.
“What is it?”
Karigan asked as she finished folding the gown and placed it
carefully in the chest.
“A crystal of some
sort.” Aunt Stace opened her hand to reveal a clear, rounded
crystal that glinted brightly as the light hit it. She rolled it
atop her palm and it seemed to collect all the daylight and
firelight in the room and recast it in rainbow hues that shimmered
on the walls and ceiling. “Pretty thing.”
“Muna’riel,” Karigan murmured, shocked to
stillness.
“Say again?”
Something odd lit in Aunt Stace’s eyes.
“Muna’riel.” Karigan
knew exactly what it was for she had once possessed one, but what
in the name of all the gods was an Eletian moonstone doing here
among the folds of her mother’s wedding gown?
“Moona-ree-all,”
Aunt Stace muttered, scratching her head. “Now that jogs something
from a ways back ...”
“What?” Karigan
asked.
“I’m thinking.” Aunt
Stace glanced down as if searching her memory. “Moona-ree-all. It
was something your mother said ...”
“Mother?” Karigan
trembled, resisting the urge to shake her aunt to jog her
memory.
“Aaah, that’s it,”
Aunt Stace said, as if to herself. “We’d wondered what she was
talking about, but put it down to the fever.”
“What? What do you
mean?”
“It was near the
end,” Aunt Stace said, and she sat on the bed again, patting the
mattress to indicate Karigan should do likewise.
A moonstone, Karigan thought as she sat.
My mother had a moonstone.
“Your mother was so
very ill,” Aunt Stace continued. “In and out of delirium. She sang
in words we did not know, pointed out dead relatives in the room no
one else could see. She sings to me,
she kept saying. Who? we’d ask, but
she’d only answer, Like when I was pregnant
with Kari. She sings to me.” Aunt Stace shrugged. “We didn’t
know who she meant, but then she pointed out her grandmama and
grandpapa, long dead of course. Maybe it was her grandmama that did
the singing?”
Karigan shuddered,
wondering if she weren’t the only one in her bloodline with a
talent for seeing the dead.
“Then quite
suddenly,” Aunt Stace said, “she grabbed Stevic’s wrist—made us all
jump. Makes me shiver to remember. Stevic leaned down close to her
to hear what she said.”
“And what did she
say?” Karigan asked, almost whispering.
Aunt Stace’s
eyebrows drew together. “Give Kari the
moona-ree-all. That’s just what she said. Give Kari the moona-ree-all. She kept saying it
till she dropped Stevic’s wrist in exhaustion. She went peacefully
after that, simply faded in her sleep, almost ... almost
smiling.”
Karigan had heard a
little about her mother’s final moments, how she died peacefully
surrounded by those she loved. Never did she hear about her mother
seeing dead family members, or about her request that Karigan
receive the moonstone.
“I guess this is
yours,” Aunt Stace said, holding the crystal to the light,
entranced by its beauty. “It is yours, come to you after all these
years. At the time, we had no notion of what your mother was
talking about, nor were we aware of the crystal’s existence, so we
could not give it to you as she requested, and we thought ... We
thought it best not to tell you about her last words, because we
could only guess it was the fever that made her speak so, and we
did not want an account of her confused state to sadden
you.”
More secrets, Karigan thought, but she was not
angry. Just stunned. Stunned and perplexed.
“Here you go, dear.”
With some reluctance, Aunt Stace rolled the moonstone onto
Karigan’s outstretched hand.
The moment it hit
her palm it illuminated with such brilliance they both had to
shield their eyes.
“My heavens!” Aunt
Stace exclaimed. “How did it do that?”
“It’s Eletian,”
Karigan replied. “A muna’riel is a moonstone—it contains a
moonbeam.”
“Eletian magic?”
Aunt Stace asked in a hushed voice.
Karigan nodded, and
the moonstone’s radiance faded to a soft, silvery glow. It sent
warmth through her palm and up her arm. She had not been sure if it
would light up for her, but it had, just like the very first
moonstone she touched. That one had belonged, originally, to a pair
of eccentric, elderly sisters who lived in the heart of the Green
Cloak Forest. It was one magical artifact among many others their
father, Professor Berry, had collected over his lifetime. The Berry
sisters had been so impressed it lit up for Karigan when it never
had for them that they had given it to her.
She was never clear
why the magic worked for her and not others, but a while after she
had acquired the moonstone, she had met an Eletian named Somial who
had told her the moonstone’s favor meant she was
“Laurelyn-touched,” a friend of the Elt Wood. Exactly what that
meant, she could not say, especially when some Eletians treated her
more like an enemy.
Laurelyn the
Moondreamer was a fabled Eletian queen of old, queen of the
legendary, lost realm of Argenthyne. Fabled until Karigan learned
both Laurelyn and her realm had truly existed. Argenthyne had been
conquered by Mornhavon the Black and transformed into Kanmorhan
Vane, the Blackveil Forest. Laurelyn’s fate was unknown, even to
the Eletians.
At the moment,
however, she was more overcome by the idea that this moonstone had
been her mother’s. How? Why? And Kariny had wanted her to have it,
which only prompted more questions.
When she glanced up,
her aunt had that look in her eyes again. “It is strange,” she
said. “Strange your mother should possess such a thing. Eletian,
for heavens’ sakes! And yet ... And yet, it is in a way not strange
to me.”
Karigan waited, not
daring to interrupt.
“Your mother, as
sensible a woman as she was, also had another side to her. A bit
dreamy. Came down the maternal line, no doubt.” Without explaining
the last, Aunt Stace continued, “That’s where all the songs and
stories came from, from that dreamy part of her nature. How she
loved to tell you those stories and sing to you!”
It occurred to
Karigan, with a prickling on the back of her neck, that her mother
most often sang of Laurelyn the Moondreamer and
Argenthyne.
“Then there were the
times,” Aunt Stace said, “when she’d ride out at night. To sing to
the stars, she told us. Stevic often joined her, and they were like
two youths caught up in love for the first time, rather than
married folk with responsibilities and a child to attend
to.”
“I don’t remember,”
Karigan said.
“There is much a
child will not remember, especially when it’s something that
happened after her bedtime! And, actually, they went out like that
well before you were born. Two young lovers. It would not surprise
me in the least if you were conceived during one of their
jaunts.”
Out in the woods?
Her parents? Among the trees, ferns, and wild creatures? Karigan’s
cheeks warmed. Knowing her parents were her parents was one thing,
but thinking about the act that made them her parents was quite
another. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands as if to
banish the image now planted in her mind, of her parents joined
together on the mossy floor of some forest glade with the moonlight
beaming down on them ...
Aunt Stace smiled in
amusement, seeming to know exactly where Karigan’s thoughts
ventured, but then she sobered and resumed her story. “Even when
Stevic was away, Kariny rode out into the night alone. Sevano used
to have fits over her safety, but she refused his escort and always
returned unharmed and happy. She especially loved full moons. It
makes me wonder ...”
“If she was having
an affair?” Karigan demanded, her mind still stuck in that moonlit
clearing.
“No,” Aunt Stace
replied thoughtfully. “It was not in her, I think. She loved your
father wholly, was devoted to him. But I wonder if, in her
wanderings, she met Elt out there.” She gestured vaguely to
indicate the countryside. “Ever since the trouble at the D’Yer
Wall, you do hear about more sightings of the Elt. Even near Corsa.
But maybe they’ve always been out there and just didn’t show
themselves. Maybe they befriended your mother and that’s how she
came to possess the crystal.”
It was as good an
explanation as any, Karigan thought. Eletians did wander, and had,
as her aunt suggested, always been “out there,” even though for
most Sacoridians, they inhabited only legends. They’d become more
apparent after the D’Yer Wall was breached, no longer characters in
fairy tales and songs, but very alive, and very real.
She tightened her
fingers around the moonstone and rays of light thrust out like
blades between them. Her mother wanted it to come to her. Her
mother had called it by the Eletian name, muna’riel.
And Karigan had
thought her father kept secrets.