Chapter III

There were crickets chirruping outside the window, and a few frogs croaking from the damp, slimy harbour of nearby puddles. Idhra shivered under the light bedsheet, uncomfortably aware that she wasn’t wearing a nightshirt. It was surprising what a difference it made in temperature.

Looking around the room for anything that might help to warm her, Idhra noticed one of Ylva’s nicest dresses at the foot of the bed. It was too good an opportunity to pass up, and besides, it wouldn’t be there by accident, someone put it there for her to wear. Idhra pulled the clothes under her sheets and dressed there, in the meager warmth they held.

It fit nicely, and Idhra admired herself in the washbowl. She’d never worn a red dress before. All hers were brown or gray. Ylva had many red ones, a few brown, one gray, and one was even a pale green. The sky blue ribbons and green dress together would cost a small fortune for a butcher, Idhra thought.

Ylva was so lucky! But Idhra was glad to be able to wear the red dress.

Tired as she still was, Idhra felt that she shouldn’t sleep in the dress, and left her room. The halls were silent and cool under her feet, but voices were coming from the front room.

“No!” said Ylva’s father in a disbelieving voice. “It’s impossible.”

“She is definitely dead,” said Mister Macauley. “We can’t deny it. Her body’s cold and gray.” His voice was calm, but held a faintest hint of worry.

“She only had a fever!” Ylva’s mother panicked.

“But she is dead,” said Mister Macauley.

Idhra burst into the room. Sara lay on the couch, cold and gray like Mister Macauley had said. The three adults stared at her in astonishment.

“Alfvidhra!” Mister Macauley exclaimed. “What are you doing? We told you to go to sleep.”

“I did,” she said coldly.

Ylva’s mother sighed, and rushed over to Idhra, catching her in a stiff hug, but Idhra pushed away. It wasn’t feasible that her cousin was dead. She had to see for herself. She recoiled when she touched Sara: the skin seemed colder than it should be, even if she was dead.

Idhra pushed her fingers down on Sara’s wrist. Nothing. She waited for something to happen, anything! And then thought she felt a beat. Excited, she waited again, but it did not come back.

She sighed, and sauntered out of the house. The night was cool and dry. A sudden wind whipped through Idhra’s unbraided hair, and bit at her cheeks and hands. She could hear the door opening slowly, and knew at once that someone was following her.

She hiked down the road, two steps whenever she usually took one. She just kept walking, for minutes upon minutes, until her home came into view, smashed to pieces. The walls were collapsed in on each other, and the roof was in pieces all over the ground. There was a sign on the drive:

“i dette huset bodde forræder av kongen. vende vekk og ikke gå inn.”

In this house lived traitors of the King, so turn away and do not enter.

Idhra kicked the sign and dug at the rubble obscuring her way inside. A piece of wall crashed over her, but not hard, and it fell apart when it hit. She crawled through dirt and bricks, and grabbed at pieces of familiar objects, pulling herself inside, bit by bit.

All at once, she fell. The foundation gave way and she crashed into a basement she hadn’t known was there. A box of soft material cushioned her landing, and then she rolled onto the cold dirt floor in surprise.

She’d landed on a basket of skirts.

The dim light of the moon was even dimmer under piles of rubble, and Idhra could only see in small patches. But the dresses were definitely there. She ripped off Ylva’s, not caring now what happened to it, and dug through the boxes and barrels of clothes and jewelry that littered the basement of her house.

She finally found some underclothes. They were soft white cotton, stained slightly yellow from the years. There was a corset near it, too, carefully stowed away in a tightly closed box, but Idhra couldn’t tie the back without help, so she left it.

Why hadn’t her parents told her before that they were of royal blood and money? It seemed a waste to keep things like these locked away in a secret cellar. But then again, they had locked themselves away in a secret cellar of sorts, and had been found, like these things.

Then it hit Idhra of how rich the King must be to come upon fortunes and fortunes of clothes and jewelry and leave it all where it was. And also of how mean he must be to keep others away from the fortunes with that sign in the drive. Yes indeed, he must be very spiteful, she thought.

But of coarse she had known it: who else would kill so many people to gain access to the thrown of Tyskland, or her parents, among others, for no reason at all except that they didn’t like him? So she quickly got over her feelings and went back to looking through the things.

There was a pretty green and purple dress with a matching scarf and shoes, and a long pink and white silk outfit that had a rubellite necklace, bracelet, and earrings.

But best of all, there was a satin dress of midnight blue, with a flowing skirt and ivory-colored sash that was tied with ivory beads and moonstone. There was an ivory and moonstone hairclip, too.

Idhra held the dress up to her body, wondering whether she dared put it on or not. The moonlight, meager as it was, shone on spots of the silk. She twirled and danced, pretending she was a rich lady with every man at the ball wanting a dance with her. Then there was a scraping sound in the rubble above her, and she stopped short.

Maybe the King had guards around to be sure everyone obeyed his warning. A piece of the collapsed roof trembled dangerously, and Idhra wondered if it might collapse, balanced dangerously as it was up there, leaning on a segment of wall to form a neat tent above her head.

“Idhra?!” came a quiet, worried voice. Mister Macauley’s head popped through a hole in the debris and he scanned the rubble for her. Idhra didn’t move. She’d been scared out of breath with his scraping around. And in the excitement of her findings, Idhra’d forgotten about her lost pursuer. She should’ve realized it was only him.

Finally he spotted her, and blushed. She was naked, just in an undergarment, holding a magnificent ball gown. Idhra blushed too, and looked away.

“Um, you might like to put on Ylva’s dress, and we can bring all those things up for you,” came Mister Macauley’s voice, now from outside the house.

Idhra pulled the dress over her head and scrambled up the basement walls to her teacher. The moon created a silver crown behind his head, and she regretted that they had to start walking, because it looked so good there. Neither said a word on the trip.

Sara was still gray and cold when they got back, no surprise. And Idhra was shooed to her guest room as the three adults whispered through the rest of the night.

“Idhra, get up,” came Ylva’s voice. “Get up now!”

“What is it, Ylva?” Idhra asked. “I’ve been awake part of the night, you know.”

She almost smiled, but resisted. Now that her belongings were worth more than Ylva’s, she might as well be haughty about it.

Ylva sniffled. “Why didn’t you tell me you had hoards of velvet and silk dresses in your basement?” she wailed.

“I didn’t know,” Idhra said, bemusedly. She yawned.

“You’re so lucky,” Ylva wailed. “You’ll get to leave this stupid place and go see big cities, and handsome princes, and magical animals, and ¾”

Idhra laughed. That was absolutely hysterical! She had no family, no future, and a few pretty things she’d never be able to wear. Plus, the most powerful person in the world would be looking for her for the rest of his life. But Ylva didn’t see it that way, and she stalked out of the room crying.

“My dear?”

Idhra looked up. Ylva’s motoher was at the door.

“Get dressed, Idhra dear, we’re cremating your cousin today.”

Well, that was a lovely way to put it. It brought fresh tears to Idhra’s eyes, and she sat on the bed and cried, trying to tug on Ylva’s dress.

“I’m sorry,” said Ylva from the door. Idhra didn’t pay her any attention. “I ¾ I didn’t mean to… say that. Well, I did. Then. But now I wish I hadn’t. And I’m sorry about your family. I don’t know what happened to them ¾ Mamma won’t tell me ¾ but it must be horrible, and I’m sorry.”

Idhra cried until Ylva’s mother came to get her. And maybe Ylva wasn’t so bad after all.

Sara was lying on a long thin table that’d been set up in the living room. A fire roared and crackled in the fireplace, turning the wooden logs and the bricks of the chimney black as a starless midnight sky. Sara was in one of the dresses Idhra’d found in their basement: one of the plainer ones.

It was plain white India cotton, pleated from the waist, with a gray sash, and gray on the neck, sleeves, and bottom. Ylva was already standing over her, staring at her dead, gray body. Idhra went over also, and they watched silently, until Mister Macauley said a short prayer, and together with Ylva’s father, they picked her up, and shoved her into the fire.

It shouldn’t have been such a garish process. Sara’d deserved to be blessed by the priest, given a proper funeral, and buried in the cemetery in Valdarr. But that couldn’t happen if they didn’t want to be found. So Sara would never be found. Ever. She’d just been shoved in a fire, and was burning golden-red, the flames eating her gray flesh and tearing at the white cotton around her. She was turning blacker by the second. And then, all at once it seemed, she was gone.