The Forgotten Sisters (10 page)

I miss you, Marda …

Miri quarry-spoke the memory of the day she and her sister had explored the old princess academy building. A stolen afternoon, a giddy freedom, laughing voices echoing in the empty stone rooms.

Miri could not think of a memory she could quarry-speak that would communicate,
I'm sorry Ma died of having me and so abandoned you. I'm sorry I left you too
.

So she just kept quarry-speaking the happy memory, clinging to the linder hawk, in a swamp as far away as the moon.

Written Autumn Week Twelve

Never received

Dearest Miri
,

This is silly, but I swear I heard you yesterday. I was pushing a cut stone up the quarry path when I suddenly remembered that day we walked all the way to the old stone minister's house, remember? The spring after the building was no longer the princess academy. We wandered through the empty rooms, and you acted out things your tutor would say. I do not remember ever laughing so hard
.

Today that memory was as sharp as a stone wedge. But it had such a sense of you, as if I was not just remembering it myself but you were also quarry-speaking it to me
.

I watched for you all day. I was so sure you were near. You did not come, of course. It was just my silly imagination
.

Still, I went to sleep last night sure that you are well somewhere in the world and thinking of me
.

Your sister
,

Marda

Katarina's scourge

Bloody, bloody war

Danland sings a dirge

Never, nevermore

As usual, Miri woke sweating. Winter was coming, but autumn still crackled hot, like embers spitting ashes, refusing to go out. They had a house full of food purchased with their bandit money, but none prepared, so Miri put some beans and water in a pot over the fire so it would be ready in time for lunch.

She trudged into the village and sat beside Fat Hofer. At first she thought he was asleep there in his same spot, leaning against the chapel, his eyes hidden by his hat, but when she placed a couple of coins beside him, he immediately snatched them up and tucked them under his blanket.

“Will Jeffers come back?”

“I doubt he's gone entirely,” he said. “Late last night I saw a boat off toward the sea where no one hunts. But he would be foolish to attack you again.”

“Sometimes men are foolish.”

Fat Hofer grunted but offered no opinion.

“You'll keep an eye out for him?” Miri asked. “I'd feel safer knowing that you were watching our backs.”

“If you pay me, then yes.”

Miri smiled. “You'd do it anyway.”

Fat Hofer lowered his cap farther over his eyes. He whispered, “Don't tell.”

Miri patted his soft, warm hand and walked back, finding the girls in one of their usual fishing spots.

Knee-deep, watching for snakes and searching for fish, Miri took a calming breath. The breeze off the water smelled so normal Miri could not remember why she used to wrinkle her nose at it. The air was rich, thick, and full of life. Pleasant, even. How strange to feel as relaxed in this sticky, biting, crawling swamp as she might leaning back in a well-used chair.

“You like it here,” Felissa said, moving in to swish a net beside her.

“Hm?” Miri said.

“I sensed it from you this morning in the house. Whenever you woke up, you used to feel disappointed, as if remembering again where you are and wishing you weren't. But today was different.”

“I'm sorry, Felissa,” said Miri. “I wish I didn't feel things so loudly.”

Felissa laughed. “It's not your fault. Since you named it—linder-wisdom—I've become more aware of it. Or I listen more closely maybe. In that house, everyone's feelings are loud to me.”

They sat on an only slightly damp patch of marsh grass. The sun rose over the swamp; the breeze was cool and briny. Dragonflies in shiny blue and green zipped, hovered, and dived.

“Ma used to call us the dragonfly sisters,” said Felissa, her eyes following the dance of the insects. “She said we needed a second name, since we had no father name. She said we're like dragonflies—cunning and quick and sparkling like jewels in the swamp. She said it as though she was proud of us.”

Felissa was still smiling when she started to cry.

Silent, she went back to the house. Astrid watched her go.

“When Ma died,” said Astrid, “Felissa cried for days. She didn't eat, she barely drank. Felissa doesn't feel things halfway.”

Sus was listening, head cocked to their conversation, and Miri suspected she'd been too young to remember those times well.

“In a way, it made Ma's death a little easier on me,” said Astrid. “I was so busy trying to keep Felissa alive
that I couldn't stop and feel—” Astrid took a breath. “I guess I still feel it, though.”

“I'm sure you do,” said Miri, “even if you don't show it like she does.”

“Felissa feels something and it comes out of her,” said Astrid. “At least she feels laughter more than sorrow.”

“And more than gas,” Miri said, hoping to make Astrid laugh. She was rewarded with a smile at least.

Astrid took up one end of her net, twisting new fibers into the holes. “In the village, families hunt together, eat together, on rainy nights sleep cozied up inside the same reed huts. What could Ma or our father or grandparents have done that was so shameful that the rest of our family wanted us far away where they never had to see us?”

“I don't know,” Miri whispered.

Astrid shrugged and looked away, as if she had not really been interested in the answer.

The silence stretched, ticking with the buzz and click of insects, the swish of breeze and water, the loneliness of the sky. Miri filled it with a story.

She told of a bird born with its wings pinned to the ground. Each morning it struggled, trying to get free. By the afternoon, exhausted, it laid its head on the ground and watched the other birds soar.

One morning after a vivid dream, it felt more
certain than ever that it
should
fly. It struggled and struggled, and when noon came, the bird did not stop. The evening sun lowered, and still it grappled with the ground. When the first star pricked the night sky, a single pin loosened. With new hope, the bird pushed with more strength than it knew was possible, and at once the rest of the pins came out. The bird rose so quickly and so fiercely, it flew straight up into the black sky, where it became a star, never touching the ground again.

“Did you make up that story?” Astrid asked.

“No, but I can show you where it came from,” said Miri.

Sus and Astrid followed Miri to the house, where Felissa had battled through her sadness to bring back her smile. Miri brought out her three books.

“This book of tales is like the one that taught me to read,” she said.

“And the others?” asked Astrid.

“A history of Danland and a history of Stora, a kingdom to the northwest.”

Miri fumbled with the books, feeling transparent, but no one asked why she'd made the effort to bring along a book about Stora.

Sus sat down and immediately started reading the book of tales, and for the next few days she was never
without it. While they sat mending, fishing, or cooking, Sus would read to them, stopping often to ask Miri a question like, “What's a street?” or “What's a pigeon?” or “What's a mattress?” Miri would answer, and Sus would nod and keep reading.

“How did she learn to read so fast?” Astrid whispered.

“I think she might be really smart,” Miri whispered back.

“You are noisy whisperers,” said Sus. “It's just like, once you learn what call a wren makes, you can always pick it out of the swamp noises? Once you know what sounds letters make, you can tell the word, and once you know the word, there it is, making sense.”

Astrid scowled. “I want to read too.”

And so at last the princess academy began in earnest.

Miri devoted much of each morning to reading. Besides being a useful skill, reading tales introduced the sisters to hundreds of words unknown in a swamp but likely to come up in Aslandian conversation.

After lunch and a rest, they tackled subjects like History and Arithmetic while doing chores or fishing.

In the evening she worked on Poise and Etiquette.

“Can I please go read now?” Sus asked, walking back and forth while balancing Miri's boot on her head.

“Not yet,” said Miri. “Watch your toes. In a long skirt
you'd trip stomping like that. Your body should make a straight line from your feet through your hips and up your neck.”

“Who says that's the right way of being?” asked Astrid. She swatted her dark, matted hair over her shoulder. “What if I like how I am, what if I don't want to be Asland's idea of a lady?”

“The point of education is to learn other ways too. Don't just assume that all you know is right. Learn more and then choose.”

Felissa seemed to float as she strolled around the room the way that Miri had taught. “I like how this feels.”

Astrid blew air out of her lips.

“On my first day studying at the Queen's Castle, my tutor Master Filippus told us the story of Lord Aksel who listened,” said Miri.

“Oh good, another story,” Astrid muttered.

Miri pretended not to hear. “Lord Aksel's tutors and parents taught him Scholarship, Etiquette, and Lordship. But he also listened to the cook, weaver, farmer, carpenter, and all the workers around his estate. Other nobles mocked him as he sat knitting or planting seeds. But when he was called to lead his province to war, he didn't just know how to stab and shoot. He designed clever war machines for breaking down walls, knit traps, kept his army fed in a harsh winter. Lord Aksel became the
greatest military leader in Danland's history because he studied much more than how to use weapons.”

“You want us to believe that if you teach us this silly stuff, someday it may come in handy,” said Astrid. “Mincing properly in slippers will help me sneak up on a duck, perhaps?”

“I'm saying you never know,” said Miri. “Think of learning as storing up supplies you may need for a harsh winter.”

“That's logical.” Sus spoke the new word as if she loved its taste on her tongue.

Miri opened to the genealogy charts in
The History of Danland
.

“Those are your ancestors. Look, here's a Queen Astrid! And a Queen Felissa. Ooh, there's Queen Katarina.”

Miri told them another story—though this time Astrid did not complain.

“Long ago a queen of Danland birthed twins. Prince Klas was the firstborn and so was heir to the throne. But before his coronation as king, his twin sister, Princess Katarina, forced the old palace physician to declare that she was actually born first. Half of Danland supported Katarina's claim to the crown, and a vicious civil war erupted. Neighbor butchered neighbor, brother fought brother, till Asland's streets ran with blood. Katarina was so enraged when her supporters lost that she tried
to murder her brother on his throne. In sorrow, Klas's first act as king was to condemn his twin sister to death.”

Miri abbreviated the story, because the account in the history book took its time, lingering over every detail, begging its readers to never forget the horrors of a civil war. One country fighting itself, like a man slashing at his own limbs. No borders to hide behind, no places to retreat. Just death and more death.

All due to one princess.

The girls were quiet, letting in the sounds of crickets and toads.

Then Felissa said, “Glad I wasn't named after her.”

“They were right to cut off her head,” said Astrid.

“I used to agree,” said Miri. “Then at the Queen's Castle, Master Filippus taught us, ‘History is written by the victors.'”

Sus brightened. “I see! We're learning the story from Klas's point of view, the way he and his supporters saw it happen.”

“Imagine if Katarina had won the war and her children had inherited the throne,” said Miri. “What might the history books say then?”

Astrid gestured dramatically. “After years of threatened silence, the brave physician came forward to reveal the truth—Katarina was the firstborn! But the evil Prince
Klas wouldn't have it and started a bloody war in an attempt to murder his sister.”

Sus shook her head. “How can we ever know exactly what happened?”

“Historians read books, letters, and journals to try to unravel the mysteries of the past, but they can't be absolutely certain they've found the truth,” said Miri. “For one thing, people change. What would you three have written about me the first day you met me?”

The sisters looked at one another and laughed.

“And now?” Miri asked hopefully.

Felissa put her arm around Miri's shoulder. “Now the story we told would be very different.”

Something touched Miri's leg. A ladybug. She brushed it off as casual as anything, almost as if she had not been afraid for a moment that it was a snake. Almost as if she belonged in the swamp.

Written Winter Week Three

Never received

My dear sister Miri
,

I have not written you for weeks because I had nothing to report. But today something amazing happened. A young man walked into the village. Yes, walked! He was alone and as dirty as a bandit. He is a large boy, broad with thick arms, but looked half-frozen and exhausted. When he spoke, all he said was “Frid?”

Doter went to the quarry and returned with Frid. When she saw the boy, her whole face kind of widened in shock that way it does. She called him Sweyn and asked what in all creation he was doing here. Sweyn just stared at her. Beside him, I thought our Frid looked almost average size
.