“Fine.” Merile follows us slowly and sluggishly, as if she’d turned into a snail. Wouldn’t she look funny then! Though I really hope that Papa doesn’t turn her into one. Nurse Nookes once said that a girl who doesn’t behave herself might one morning wake up changed to another creature. “But it had better be fun.”
Celestia stares at Merile, her gaze as blue as the summer seas, calm now, but reminding us both that a wise girl doesn’t try the temper of the empress-to-be. “That, we shall find out together, shall we not?”
And that’s exactly what we do. The game starts from the room I share with Merile. Celestia presses the door closed behind us. She leans down to whisper to us, “Now, my dear little sisters, open the door as silently as you can.”
I reach out for the handle, but Merile is faster than me. We’ve opened this door a hundred times at least—no, I need a bigger number than that—but now I want to do it more than anything else in this world. For who knows what awaits us outside?
It turns out, nothing out of the ordinary. That is, if you don’t count Elise and Sibilia staring at us. They’re whispering once more. I don’t know what possible gossip they can have left, but it might be about Celestia. Lately, Sibilia and Celestia have barely greeted each other. The ghosts say that Celestia has been sleeping curled in the armchair, though why she would do that when their bed is wide enough for two, I really can’t even begin to guess.
“Now, memorize this path,” Celestia says, and then she drifts across the room; not the straightest path, but one that takes her first to the oval table, then right toward the mirror on the paneled wall and along that way to the side table with the dented samovar, then a step left and straight until she reaches the door that leads to the hallway and stairs beyond. She halts there and turns to look back at us. “Do you remember it?”
“Boring.” Merile pouts her lips and squats down to pet both Rafa and Mufu. Her companions offer their paws to her. She grasps their delicate feet in turns. “This is a boring game. Isn’t it, my dear darling companions?”
I like boring. So many strange things have happened in this house that I think I’ve just about had enough of it. When I keep my eyes open, I see both shadows and ghosts. And though Irina and Olesia are very nice old ladies, I’d like to see them only in reflections like Merile does, because seeing them whenever they’re near us feels wrong in a way I don’t know how to explain.
“This is just the beginning.” Celestia smiles, a sight so rare I have to pinch my arm. I’m wide awake. I pinch a little harder, just to be sure. “Now, close your eyes.”
Merile hugs Mufu. Of course I need to do likewise to Rafa. Merile nods approvingly at me. There’s nothing better than cuddles! “What if I don’t?”
“Then you lose,” Celestia replies.
Merile closes her eyes right at that moment. I follow her example, though whenever I close my eyes, I risk losing myself in a dream. In this house, my dreams are sharper than on the train. I often run, and it’s always away from this house. Sometimes I descend narrow stairs, into an unlit cave that smells of mold and old onions. I wander down a low corridor, until I come to a wall of stone. When I run my fingers across its length, I find scattered holes, and for some reason, this makes me very sad.
Though both of these dreams are better than the nightmares I keep on having about the gagargi.
“Follow me,” Celestia says.
I hear Merile’s hem swish and sabots clack as she hurries toward Celestia’s voice. I tiptoe after her. All the planks in this house make a different sound, but now I mustn’t make any. I’m lucky that I’m light and know how to move quietly. Merile…
My sister steps on a plank that shrieks like a goat stuck between two fence posts. Not that I’ve ever seen or heard a goat do such.
“You lost,” Celestia says.
I open my eyes, just in time to see Merile sniff and stick her tongue out at Celestia. She got only as far as the mirror. I think I could have made it the whole way.
We start again maybe a thousand times. That is, I’m not sure. I don’t know how much that really is. But it’s not easy to remember the way Celestia goes, even after she shows it to us many, many times, for we must step on the exact same spots as she did or the planks will betray us. Sibilia and Elise watch us from their sofa chair before the fireplace. They’re done with their gossip and braiding and first cup of tea.
“May we join as well?” Sibilia’s tone is pointed as Merile’s sometimes is when she wants to prove that she’s right. Though most often she’s not. My sister’s face is pale, the thick, blue circles around her eyes like bruises, and when she continues, her voice wavers. “Or is the Silent Path only for the youngest daughters?”
“Please do.” Celestia reaches her hands out for them, a gesture to join her on the dance floor. “Sibilia, dear, please start from our room. Elise, you from yours.”
Sibilia gets up from amidst the cushions almost hesitantly, as if she wanted nothing more than to play with us, but was sure the invitation would be called off at any moment. As if that had happened to her again and again in the past, though of course nothing like that can have possibly come to pass!
At first it’s fun, playing with all my sisters. We compare the sounds the different planks make. Some purr like happy cats, some grunt like old men. There are planks that are angry for no longer being trees, some so old that they’ve forgotten where they came from. Though this I don’t tell to my sisters. Neither do I tell them that their shadows act out of order. Elise’s sways as if the lamps were lit and swinging, though they’re neither. Sibilia’s is pierced by tiny holes.
“Fun,” Merile says as she finally reaches the pale blue door without making a sound. I managed to do so way before her, as did Elise. “This was not as fun as you promised.”
Celestia stares past her at Elise and Sibilia. There’s something in that look, a word of advice left unsaid. Elise nods back at her. Sibilia looks somehow hurt. Did she accidentally walk into the furniture at some point? “I don’t recall promising fun.”
Merile sulks off back to the sofa by the window. Rafa and Mufu remain with me. I don’t know if I should follow Merile with her companions or stay with Celestia. It doesn’t matter, for it’s then that Irina and Olesia reappear. They slip into the room through the mirror on the wall.
“The door is ajar,” Olesia whispers.
“But it is the front door,” Irina adds. “Someone is coming. He doesn’t wear red gloves.”
Rafa and Mufu race down the flight of stairs so fast that Merile and I can barely keep up with them. A whole forest of creaks follows us, sounds high and low and all the hushed tones in between, too. If it weren’t for my excitement, I would run back up and then down, just to hear them again. But now we’re already at the hall. And…
“The front door is open,” I gasp as much to Merile as to the ghosts. It’s only then that we realize to check for the guards. The door of the library is closed, thanks Papa! The guards must not know that we’re about to be rescued at last!
Though I hear our older sisters descending the stairs behind us, I rush to the front door. Rafa and Mufu beat me to it. Merile is just a step behind, the hand mirror lifted before her. We push the door fully open together, only to stagger to a halt on the wide stone steps beyond.
The spring day is so bright that I must blink again and again to see what awaits us. We’re not alone. Rafa and Mufu bark and bounce next to Boy, who stands at the front yard, a hand raised to shield his eyes. He cranes into the distance, down the hillside of brown grass dotted with tiny yellow flowers, toward the forest where the birches are still too shy to show their new leaves.