“We should go back inside,” Captain Janlav says.
He’s right. My left hand aches. The fingertips hurt as though a heavy object had fallen on them. And yet… If the cost of freedom, even a momentary one, is pain, I would be a fool to not pay it.
“Not yet,” I reply, and without waiting for his answer, I climb down the steep, narrow ladder, onto the snow-veiled tracks.
His boots crunch against the snow as he jumps after me. He reaches out to grab my shoulder. I evade him. I stride farther away from the train. Perhaps I can’t flee, and I won’t, not without my sisters. But maintaining the illusion of freedom, for even a moment, is worth more than anything I have ever owned.
“Please…” The pain in his voice, it pierces my heart like a spear. “Please don’t try to run away from me. I’m only trying to keep you safe.”
I falter to a halt, for the crossties between the rails are slippery. I hear him stop behind me, the uneasy rhythm of his breath. The walls of snow around us are stained by coal smoke and stripes of blue paint from the carriages. This aisle, almost a tunnel, reminds me of a time gone past, of the times I followed him through other tunnels. Curious, how much has changed and yet so little.
“I know I shouldn’t say this…” A silvery click betrays his need for another cigarette. And then later, the wisp of malty smoke his hesitation.
“Then don’t,” I reply, tired of games. Though who am I to blame him—wasn’t this little escapade of mine a silly move on my part? For where would I go from here, in the middle of the night? Follow the trails to the village where we stopped for fuel earlier? Why tease myself with a prospect of freedom when I know all too well that our lives are not for us to live but are in the hands of others?
“But I want to, need to say it aloud.” His fingers come to rest against my shoulder, on the blanket, lightly like raindrops. He coaches me to turn around, and I can’t resist his plea. And yet, he lacks the courage to meet my gaze. He stares past me, into the distance. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve known you for much longer than for the duration of this journey.”
Just as the icy rail burned my hand earlier, his words scorch my heart and mind alike. A part of him does remember me. This thought warms me, though by now my eyelashes must be frozen, though my earlobes feel numb, though my cheeks ache when I smile.
“Is that a happy smile or one reserved for fools?” He knows me well indeed, even if he doesn’t realize it.
What do I have to lose if I tell him now? This information can’t possibly endanger whatever plan Celestia has in mind. “We have known each other since last autumn, since we danced at little Alina’s name day festivities.”
He laughs. His chuckles form white clouds that are cold by the time they reach me. “That’s impossible. I would remember that.”
“You courted me for months,” I say, slightly annoyed at him, at everything.
“Don’t be a cruel woman.” He fidgets with the cigarette, clearly tempted to toss it aside but aghast at wasting an almost untouched treat. My father decides for him—the cigarette slips from his gloved fingers. His sad sigh echoes a loss of immeasurable magnitude. “Not when I’ve made a fool of myself already.”
Every breath hurts, but not because of the low temperature. It hurts me that he thinks me cruel, that I’m jesting at his expense. Even worse, he might think that I’m trying to manipulate him, wrap him around my little finger so that my sisters and I could at last go free.
That’s of course an idea, one that I can only see failing, and besides, that isn’t what I want now. I want him to believe me. I want him to remember what we shared for those few blessed months. “You took me to workhouses and hospitals.”
“Stop it now.” He stomps his heel on the cigarette and crushes it against the frozen crosstie. “I should have… I should have known better. Oh, I’ve heard it said that the Daughters of the Moon are witches better to watch out for. Now I see what they meant by it. Don’t say a word more to me.”
I want to slap him so badly. Instead I force myself to simply take hold of his hand. I’m not sure where my actions will lead me, but any place is better than letting the distance between us grow, for letting him continue believing that he never loved me. For that hurts; it hurts more than I’m capable of admitting to myself. “You took me to an orphanage where we shared bread with the nameless children. You wanted to carry me over the puddles, but I didn’t let you. That would have gathered too much attention.”
His eyes narrow a fraction. His hand feels tense through the red leather of his glove. “I don’t recall such.”
“You also took me to a workhouse where sounds harsh and loud filled the night. The very air smelled of sticky tar and dry hemp. There, the poor worked in the smoke of the cheapest tallow candles. They squinted at the lengths of rope, fraying it to pick oakum. To me, they all looked the same. At first, I didn’t realize why. I wondered, was it the desperation writ all over their faces? The concentration of one desperate enough to give his life into the hands of others in exchange for something, anything to eat? But no, in the end I realized it was their faded gray uniforms, so worn that no two garments looked exactly the same, so valued that every single person in the room wore theirs with something that eerily resembled pride.”
“Please don’t.” Captain Janlav runs his free hand through his hair, scattering snowflakes. He lives in denial or then simply doesn’t remember, but he wonders. How could I possibly know these details? No one would tell such to a Daughter of the Moon. No one would write these ugly truths on paper, not even as their reflections about the scriptures. “I’m just a man, and I’m not sure of many things, but I’m sure that before I was tasked with the honor of escorting you and your sisters to safety, I had never seen you, only heard of you.” He winces as though struck by a sudden headache. “And even if I had, I would never have taken a girl like you to a workhouse.”
Can the gagargi’s spell be somehow undone? I glance up at the Moon. My father gazes back at me kindly. He helped Celestia to break the spell the gagargi had cast on her. Will he help me?
“You took me to a hospital,” I say, silently praying for my father to come to my aid. “We saw the halls crammed with beds. We walked through the long corridors. We heard the involuntary whimpers, the escaped sobs and sniffs. We greeted the men who had once been so proud, who had marched to war in their prime. They were that no more, but forgotten; out of sight, out of mind.”
“Stop it.” He tugs his hand—once, twice—as if yearning to be released. But I can’t let go of him now, can’t heed his plea. I can remember everything as if it had happened mere heartbeats earlier, not in another time and age.
“You led me down the aisle into a vast, white hall. There lay the ones who suffered the most. The fathers and sons, the uncles and cousins, every single one equal in their pain. Men that had faced cannons, who now missed a leg or an arm. Or more. Men with bandages wrapped around their heads, over their unseeing eyes and unhearing ears. Men with wounds that… stank of rot, their bandages dirty, unchanged. You took me to the very men who went to war because my mother so demanded, the very men she forgot once they were no longer of use to her.”
“No!” He yanks his hand back with such force that I lose him. I have gone too far, or perhaps then not far enough. And yet, I don’t dare to touch him again. What if he was even partially right? What if my father or even I do indeed possess a power to make people act as benefits us? If I were to take further advantage of that… I would be no better than the gagargi.