“You must confront them,” Irina says.
“When?” I whisper. I really can’t call out my older sisters responsible to their actions when Alina is present in the room. Or can I?
“You are also an older sister.” Olesia glances at Alina, who’s playing with my sillies, so blissfully unaware of Celestia’s and Elise’s deceitfulness. “As a younger sister, what do you yearn for the most?”
“Truth.” For there’s still a chance, no matter how slight, that I may have drawn the wrong conclusion. I reply without hesitation, “I want to know the truth.”
“Merile…” Elise’s voice jitters, but she’s not really concerned about me. I bet she’s worried that I’m on the trail of her shady plans. “Is something the matter?”
Did she hear me talking? Would it make any difference anymore if she did? One look at the ghosts suffices to confirm the answer. I spin around. My ankle jolts. “Yes. Many things, in fact.”
And then all my sisters are staring at me. Alina, with her deep-set eyes wide, has of course noticed the ghosts. Sibilia must have guessed as much, for she presses the book of scriptures shut. Elise and Celestia don’t have a clue about the ghosts, and that serves them right.
“What is it, dear?” Elise wants to know.
Well, I’ve been told you shouldn’t feel sorry for getting something you ask for. And she’s definitely asking for it. “The gagargi really didn’t lie. You schemed against our mother! And you’re still thinking about siding with him!”
Elise stares back at me, her expression completely unreadable. My heart beats hollow notes. I wish her to raise her voice at me, be mad at me, tell me that I’m but a foolish child who’s got everything mixed up.
But that she doesn’t do. “Indeed, he didn’t lie, and I don’t regret deciding to make the world a better place for our people, for funding hospitals and orphanages, for supporting the troops that marched against their lords and ladies to put an end to their tyrannical rule. And yes, given even a half chance, I would do it again.”
Her reply stuns everyone: Celestia, who must have known about this for a long time already, Sibilia, who obviously didn’t suspect a thing, and Alina, who stares intently at our sister, or more exactly, her shadow.
“Huh.” Irina drags her knuckles against her teeth. “That I didn’t see coming.”
“Me neither,” Olesia agrees. “That girl is wicked.”
And I guess that that is what Elise really is behind her faked smile and cheerfulness. I can see that clear at last. The question to ask is: is Celestia, too, someone else than she pretends to be?
There’s only one way to find out.
“And you…” I stomp to Celestia, who sits with her back so very straight on the divan’s edge. Captain Janlav’s understanding about the deal she brokered with the gagargi differs significantly with the one she shared with us. “You lied to us about the plan, didn’t you? You said either we all go or no one goes. But that’s not the truth. You’re going to save yourself and abandon us here, aren’t you?”
“That is a very long list of questions,” Celestia states. She slowly pushes herself up, blinks once, twice, as if chasing away dizziness. It takes her a considerable effort to get up on her feet. Regret. I regret charging upon her like this when I know she’s still weak from facing the gagargi. But also, I don’t. “I shall do my best to address your concerns.”
I stagger back, for I expected fierce denial. And my oldest sister is so tall, so white, so much more than any of us, that at that moment I’m convinced that she never made a secret pact with the gagargi, that she indeed has a subterfuge to get us all away from here, away from his reach, a way of turning the world back to what it should be.
“My sisters, I will tell you the state of matters that I know to be true for certain.”
And that’s exactly what she does, and we listen to her, spellbound, Elise from the padded chair, Sibilia from the sofa, Alina from the carpet alongside with Rafa and Mufu. The ghosts hover to flank me, and I stand my ground as my sister finally reveals the truth.
The gagargi wants Celestia, the empress-to-be, to appear by his side at the autumn equinox. Hearts. He believes that if she were to stand by his side, he would win over the hearts of our people.
“If you were to do so,” Elise interrupts our sister, not exactly hesitantly. Rather like she’d said the same words many times before without really being heard. “The civil war would end.”
“Words of a traitor,” Irina whispers in my ear, though war means bad, bodies scattered in mud and worse, and ending it sounds good to me. In principle, at least.
Celestia shakes her head slowly, as if she were disappointed in Elise making the suggestion in the first place. “I believe you are mistaken. For I don’t think that he would stop hunting down those who sided with us even if I were to stand by his side. And if I were to do so, it would not be me. My sisters, you must understand that the gagargi also has it within his power to separate a person’s soul partially from their body, to leave behind an automaton willing to obey his every command.”
“I wonder how she learnt of that,” Olesia mutters.
I wonder about the very same terrible thing. I snap my fingers, to summon Mufu. I swoop her up in my arms. Everything’s better with my dearest companion close to me.
“I know for certain he would do this to me, and he would have the shell of a woman left behind do things I would never agree to do.” Celestia strolls slowly to Alina. She leans toward our little sister, to lay a palm on her shoulder. “He would have her feed her sister’s soul to the Great Thinking Machine.”
Tears. I expect to see tears in Alina’s eyes, for these words chill me so bad that I can’t speak. But instead, having heard that her nightmares are what really awaits her, she grins at Celestia. “He can’t have me. You won’t let him have me.”
I don’t understand how she can sound so sure when Celestia has told us so many lies, when I’m more afraid now than I’ve been ever in my life!
Celestia cups our little sister’s face and kisses her on the forehead. Rafa pecks her cheeks. “You are right. I will not let him. I fought him once…”
“Tell us about it,” I plead with her. Powerful. I want my oldest sister to be powerful. Invincible. I don’t want us to be this vulnerable!
Celestia draws away from Alina and turns to face Sibilia. “May I?”
“Why is she asking her opinion?” Irina’s reflection shimmers. “She is the oldest.”
But she’s also my sister. And though I was right about Elise, I’m now pretty sure I was wrong about Celestia. She won’t let harm befall us. She’s far from defeated.
Sibilia nods, and I realize a curious thing. Some secrets are kept so because they belong to other people. How come I’ve never thought of that before?
“Thank you.” And having received our sister’s permission, Celestia tells of the furtive preparations and her confrontation with the gagargi in great detail. The ghosts and I behold Sibilia in wonder. Sure, I’d noticed her reading the scriptures, but I hadn’t realized she’d grown to such power! And at the same time, I’m in awe of Celestia. How brave she was to face the gagargi alone! Though she was strengthened by Papa, there was no way of knowing if the plan would work.
“My sisters, I have kept the true result of our confrontation as a secret from you, and it was not my intention to give you false hope, rather to protect you from the desolateness of utter despair. I mentioned before that either we all go or no one goes. But my spell broke before I could imprint this on his mind. I managed to only convince him to leave and later send for me and one of my sisters.”
“She failed,” Irina states so coldly that my stomach cramps.