The short soldier halts by the closed door, in the light leaking out through the small windowpanes. He rubs his hands together. “Yesaul Ansalov is inside. Go ahead. Have a look.”
Captain Janlav lifts his left fist—it’s some sort of signal for Beard and Tabard, who guard the rear. Both men cock their rifles up, to rest against their shoulders. The garrison men chuckle, as if nothing had happened here in ages. Or if something did, they don’t think it likely that that something would come to pass again anytime soon. Captain Janlav peeks in through the window and then, without further ceremony, pulls the door open and enters the room.
It must be so very warm inside, with the fire blazing under the brick arc, behind the simple iron grille. But I can’t enter yet. Not before Celestia does, and she won’t before she knows it’s safe. I do shuffle closer to her, to stare inside through the narrow gap between her and the doorframe.
A thickset man with curly brown hair leans back on a chair, feet lifted on a desk covered with tidy but tall heaps of paper. He has his eyes closed, and his somehow short fingers tap the rhythm sleepily against his lap. There are shadows in the room, but none of them belong to living animals. Or people other than him.
But it’s not the sight of Captain Ansalov as such or the shadows or the lack of them that has Captain Janlav unexpectedly chuckling. On the desk, behind the tallest pile of papers, there’s a gramophone, one with a brass horn and a black disc spinning under the needle. The music has lulled Captain Ansalov to dreams so pleasant that he doesn’t wake up when the warm air flees the room, not even when Celestia finally nods and one by one me and my sisters let the train guards claim our bundles, and then enter the room, stomping snow at the threshold.
The garrison man clears his throat with a ragged, wet cough, then shouts, “Yesaul Ansalov! Visitors.”
Captain Ansalov jolts in his chair, a man shaken awake. “Compeer Vasal, what have I said about…”
For a moment, I’m sure he’ll lose his balance, fall over, and bump his head. But with a surprising grace, he swings his boots down and reaches to flick the gramophone’s needle up. He leans toward us, beady green eyes glinting with interest. “Visitors. So, it was true after all. Very well then, Compeer Vasal, close the door and depart, if you’d be so kind.”
But there’s nothing kind in Captain Ansalov’s voice, even though it’s mellow and round. I feel cold, colder than I was outside, despite the fireplace.
“I have been tasked by Gagargi Prataslav himself,” Captain Janlav says after Vasal is gone and the door is closed with both the garrison soldiers and the train guards on the other side. Following Celestia’s lead, me and my sisters settle into a crescent behind Captain Janlav. He thinks it’s his duty to keep us safe, and for once I’m happy about that.
“By the great gagargi himself? Of course you are.” Captain Ansalov slowly gets up and crosses the floor, which creaks under his leather boots that have seen many years and miles. The shape of his shadow is uneven. And it’s not only his shadow that’s restless. There are animal heads hung on the wall, glass-eyed deer, elk, even wolves, and the parts of the shadows that remain shift as if the animals, too, wanted to leave the room, but cannot.
“One, two”—Captain Ansalov points at me and Merile with his thick stub of a finger as he nears Captain Janlav—“Three. Four.”
His finger halts, pointing at Celestia. He must know who she is, who we are, even though no names have been mentioned, though the blankets, heavy with snow, hide our white dresses, though our braids have come undone. He was waiting for us, though he wasn’t sure we’d ever come, and now he can’t make himself believe we truly stand here before him. “Five Daughters of the Moon. Well, this I didn’t expect at all.”
From the corner of my eye, I spy Celestia and what she makes of this. My oldest sister might as well be sculpted from stone. I’m still so very cold, but I don’t dare to sneak to warm before the fireplace. For it’s as if my sister wants us to pretend that we don’t exist. Are things still going according to her plan?
“There was a change of plan.” Captain Janlav tugs off his red gloves and unbuttons his coat, scattering small piles of snow on the floor. He produces a folded, red-sealed letter from inside his breast pocket and hands it over to Captain Ansalov.
Captain Ansalov turns the letter in his hands, grunting as if he’s not entirely pleased. He runs his too-short forefinger slowly against the seal as if to check that Captain Janlav is really telling the truth. I realize he’s missing the tips of all his fingers but his thumbs. “What now, I wonder.”
My fingers, still squeezing the blanket, throb as if to remind me that I didn’t lose them anywhere, even if they went numb for a while.
“How about you read it?” Captain Janlav suggests. There are words he doesn’t want to say before me and my sisters. But he doesn’t want to leave us out of his sight either.
As I stare at Captain Ansalov’s stumpy fingers, I can’t stop thinking about mine. I should stay very still, but my hand aches worse with each heartbeat. I need to move my fingers because if I don’t, the tips might fall off on their own. They really might, and then there would be no sticking them back!
“A fine suggestion.” Captain Ansalov’s tone is flat and joyless. As he reads, his chafed lips moving with the words, I slowly bring up my free hand, to hold the blanket closed. I make sure my shadow doesn’t shift an inch. “Interesting.”
I dare to uncurl my fingers only when he rereads the letter. And it hurts, it hurts so bad that I almost cry out! But I won’t because that would draw his attention, and that would be a bad thing.
“Is the house ready?” Captain Janlav asks, accepting the letter back.
“Liberated and cleaned.” That voice, so soft, but hard still… Captain Ansalov glances at me and my sisters and then again at me, and it’s almost as if he knew how much my hand aches. He smiles in the smug sort of way. My older sisters remain completely still, unaffected by his smile, his words, by any pain they might feel. But I…
I shiver.
Captain Janlav strolls past the older captain to lightly tap the brass horn of the gramophone. He runs his fingers that are just as long as fingers should be along the lacquered sides of its body, the shapes of swans carved into the shiny wood. When he speaks, he sounds as if he’s disappointed to find the musical instrument in this room. “Seems like you did a thorough job.”
Captain Ansalov turns sharply on his heels, and the floor squeals like a wounded pig, not that I’ve ever heard an actual pig squealing, and marches to the desk. With his back turned to me, he can’t see me shuffling closer to Merile. And now that I look at my sister, she’s not as still as I thought she was. Her chin trembles, though Rafa and Mufu shift under her hem, to warm her. Maybe she’s feeling nervous, too. Maybe all my sisters are, but we’re the only ones showing it.
The two captains hold gazes for a long while, and it’s a very good thing that the desk stands between them. Neither of them wants to back off before the other. I’m counting on Captain Janlav, because I know he’ll protect us, even if he’s under the gagargi’s spell. And maybe it’s that which in the end plays in his favor. And that’s terrifying.
“Shall we sort out the details, then?” Captain Ansalov’s question is more like a statement than any sort of suggestion. He sits down and lowers the gramophone’s needle. The song continues where it last ended.
“Please do.” Celestia says the first word she’s said since we left the train. She doesn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she glides to the fireplace, and motions me and my sisters to follow her. We brush the melting snow off the blankets, from our wind-whipped braids. Elise takes tiny dance steps as she holds her palms toward the flames. Sibilia looks as if she’s tempted to do likewise. Merile cuddles Rafa and Mufu in turns. With the warmth and my sisters around me, I feel a little bit better. Maybe we haven’t come to a really, really bad place. But we’re not yet where we should be either.