Your father would never have dreamed of robbing our community of its beloved priest.”
“I’ve upset you.” For a moment, I heard genuine contrition in his voice.
“Promise me you’ll make them reverse this, Cezar. Show what you’re made of—do what’s right.” And, when he scowled at me, I added, “At least promise me you’ll think about it.”
The scowl changed to an expression I could not read.
“There might be room for some negotiation,” he said. I heard, in the back of my mind, a different voice saying, Nothing comes without a price. “You seem tired, Jena.”
“I didn’t sleep very well. Now, what is it you need to see in these accounts?”
We spent some time going through the latest ledger, which balanced perfectly and was entirely up-to-date. I kept waiting for Cezar to find fault, but he simply perused the figures in silence, asking an occasional question. Once or twice his hand brushed mine on the table and I withdrew my fingers. Once or twice he gave me a particular kind of look that made me wish Paula had not departed so abruptly.
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Just as we were nearing the last entries in the ledger, Cezar seized my hand in his, turned bright red, and began, “Jena—”
Uh-oh.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” I said hastily, jumping to my feet. “Have you been opening my letters to Father, Cezar? How would Gabriel know to shield Father from what was in them otherwise?”
Cezar dropped my hand like a hot coal.
Nice work, Jena.
“Of course not! What do you take me for?” The flush faded.
He put up a good show of looking bitterly offended.
A man who wants what he can’t have.
I drew a deep breath. “I thought I knew you,” I said. “There was a time when you used to listen to me. But the boy who was once my friend seems to be disappearing fast. In his place there’s an autocratic bully, deaf to any opinion but his own. I know that’s impolite, but it would be worse to lie to you. All you want is control. You shouldn’t seek to rule over what isn’t yours, Cezar.”
There was a silence. Cezar’s mouth was clamped into a tight line. He closed the ledger and passed it to me, and I replaced it on its shelf. He held the door open; I went through.
As we made our way down the narrow stairs, Cezar said quietly, “It must run in the family.”
“What?” I was desperate to be back with the others and for him to go away.
“You said all I want is control. That sounds more like you, Jena. A woman who seeks to have her hands on the reins day and night has a lonely future ahead of her.”
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Wretch. Mongrel.
“You misunderstood me,” I said, pausing on the step below him. I was surprised at how hurt I felt—I had thought nothing he could say would touch me. “Being in control is good if one is running a business or a household. It’s seeking to extend that control where it’s neither needed nor wanted that offends me.”
“Are you saying I offend you, Jena?”
Finally he gets the message.
“I don’t like your hate and your anger. It’s time to let all that go—to relinquish the past. I don’t like what you’re doing at Piscul Dracului. Taking over. Trying to show we can’t cope.
You should at least allow us the chance to prove ourselves.” I went on down the steps.
“Ah,” came his voice behind me, “but you’ve had that chance. It’s not been so very long since your father left, but in that time I’ve seen your funds squandered, your elder sister failing utterly to support you, Paula spouting dangerous nonsense, and Iulia making a spectacle of herself like a cheap flirt—”
Hit him, go on.
“Don’t say that!” I was within a whisker of carrying out Gogu’s suggestion. “You were ogling her just as much as your wretched friends! Iulia’s only thirteen, and she’s a good girl—”
“Maybe so,” Cezar said weightily. “But without proper guidance, how long will she remain so? Jena, I value your sense of duty. I admire your attempts to look after your home and family in this difficult time. But—unpalatable as it may be to you—
the fact is that the best person to look after business, farm, and household is a man. In Uncle Teodor’s absence, that man should 146
be your closest kin: myself. The sooner you acknowledge this simple truth, the sooner the rose will return to your cheeks and the furrow disappear from your brow.”
My fingers rose automatically to my forehead. What furrow? I’d been so busy, I couldn’t remember when I’d last looked in a mirror.
Is that all?
“Are you quite finished, Cezar?”
“Don’t be angry, Jena, I—”
“Are you finished?”
“For now. I simply ask you to think about this. You judge me too harshly.”
“All things considered,” I said, “I think I’ve shown remarkable self-restraint. You can forget about my making little trips to your door through the snow to grovel for money. You can forget about sending men over to help on the farm. As you can see, I’m perfectly capable of making my own arrangements. And I’ll find someone else to take my letters to Constan¸ta.”
He did not reply. Both of us knew there was nobody else.
Few people had the means to travel such difficult ways in wintertime. Our position was so isolated that I’d have no opportunity to seek out other merchants or traders before the spring. When Father was home, much of the business was conducted through his agents in the towns, using Dorin as a go-between. But Dorin had been asked to stay away. If I wanted to send letters to Father, Cezar was my only means of delivery.
That meant I could not write the truth—not all of it.
“I’d advise you not to come here for a while,” I said, struggling 147
to keep my voice under control. “You’ve made me quite angry and you’ve upset Paula. Please take your friends and go home.”
Go, go, go, odious man.
“I think—” said Cezar, but I never heard what he thought.
We opened the kitchen door on an uproar. In the center of the room stood small, wizened Petru, and by the hearth a younger man of similar build: his grandson, Ivan. Petru was telling some kind of tale, stumbling over his words as Daniel and R˘azvan and my sisters bombarded him with questions. Florica, pale as bread dough, was muttering and crossing herself. Tati alarmed me most of all, for there were hectic red spots on her cheeks and she was clutching her tea glass so tightly I expected it to shatter at any moment.
“What—” I began, but Cezar’s bigger voice boomed over mine.
“Sit down, all of you, and speak one at a time. Tatiana, what has happened here?”
Tati turned her big violet eyes on him, but did not speak.
“Iulia?” I queried. “What is it?”
“Petru has a terrible story,” Iulia said, her lip quivering.
“A killing.” Petru’s voice was as grim as his seamed and creviced face. “Ivona, daughter of Marius the miller. Only fifteen years old. Her mother went in at dawn, and there was the girl, sprawled across the quilt like a rag doll, white as snow: a bloodless corpse.”
“What are you saying?” I whispered, not prepared to acknowledge, even to myself, that I already knew the answer.
“She had puncture wounds on her neck,” said Florica heavily. “A bite.”
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“You know what that means.” Petru tightened his lips.
And although nobody actually said it aloud, our blanched faces and shocked eyes spoke the words for us, into the silence of a shared terror. Without a shred of doubt, this was the work of the Night People.
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Chapter Seven