“Oh, haven’t we just.”
“It’s breakfast time.” Irene twiddled her fingers by her ears. “Her Gracious Majesty and His Royal Highness ought to be sitting down to pepper-mustard tartlets and salt-vinegar oatcakes about now.”
Clair grinned, her lips parted, but she just shook her head.
As the others ran out, I said, “The Chwahir aren’t born with those black eyes, are they? That has to be some spell. Kwenz doesn’t have ’em.”
Clair’s expression sobered. “It’s a spell put on them when they are born.”
“Do their eyes become all pupil? I mean, that is so creepy!”
“No. I think their pupils are forced to a large size, to counteract the shadow. There are some distilled flowers that have that effect. But the rest of the black is an illusion, my cousin told me once. The Chwahir in the homeland don’t have them, only the ones here. It marks them,” she said. “Kwenz can always find them if they try to run away. And of course our people hate them because they look so horrible.”
“Ugh,” I said, and then shrugged them off. They were just Chwahir, after all.
SIXTEEN — Lena and Lesa Come
A bright bluish light flared in the forest, followed by hot wind that smelled of burnt air, and two girls transferred, running forward. Both were panting.
They stumbled a few steps then slowed, looking around. At home they’d been trying to outrun a terrible thunderstorm that had brewed up overhead. Both had been aware only of running hard, trying to breathe, being stung by hail, and then a crackling, horrible noise, a sensation of heat — and here they were.
They looked around. The forest looked familiar, and yet not; the air was colder, and those trees over there, the big ones with five-pointed rusty red leaves, were just like a row of trees that served as a landmark at home. But at home the shrubs around them were different; here they were mostly ferns, almost obscuring the trunks, and what they remembered were hardier, the leaves waxy, pointy (they scratched you if you ran through them) with tiny berries.
“This is strange,” proclaimed the taller of the two, looking around.
“It is,” stated the other. “It’s like home. And yet not.”
“Something happened,” stated the first. She crossed skinny, freckled arms across a skinny chest. “And it wasn’t Fonei.”
“I dunno if that is good, or bad,” the other muttered. She was shorter, well-proportioned, with smooth light brown skin and pretty features. She had long, curling brown hair, as curly as the other’s was straight, and a rich dark brown whereas the other’s was pure white. The only thing the girls shared was the hazel color of their eyes.
“If it looks familiar,” the one with white hair pronounced, “then let’s test it. Let’s try to get to Hig. We were anyway.”
“Well, we can’t lose ourselves any more than we have,” said the other, sighing.
They tramped through the peaceful forest, Lena happily kicking up the glorious carpet of fallen leaves. Everything was so familiar and yet not; even the birdsong was familiar sometimes, and yet not at others. The smells were slightly different, yet homey. Both felt quite uneasy, despite the cool weather, the quiet — the lack of enemies from home.
Around a bend, and there it was, a cave that was sort of familiar. And sort of not.
Both girls stopped, staring, and then faded with practiced ease behind a thick ferny bush, their feet making no sound on the mossy ground.
What startled them was not the half-familiar cave — they had expected to find that, or had feared to find it, they couldn’t yet tell which — but the utterly unfamiliar girl sitting on the hillock, covered in yellowed grass, below which the little cave opened. She swung her legs, yawning behind a hand, and then peered up into a high tree.
The visitors just made out the shape of another girl, obviously a lookout, peering in the opposite direction.
“All right,” called the girl in the tree. “Sherry, get Dhana. It’s her turn.”
The visitors looked at one another. The words were not their home language, yet they had no difficulty understanding it.
“Lesa! I know what happened,” the white-haired one whispered — in their home language, which sounded just like usual. “That lightning hit us, and we’re dead, we just don’t know it.”
The brown-haired one gave a quiet sniff. “Lena.” She flexed her hands and then lightly struck her middle. “If I were dead, I’d know it.” She angled a thumb up, toward where the other girl was climbing rapidly down. “Why don’t we take a look, see what we might recognize. If anything?”
They waited until the girl in the tree had jumped down to the grass and vanished into the cave, followed by the one who had been sitting above.
Then Lena and Lesa shot up into a nearby tall tree, with all the rapidity of much practice. They clung to different branches high up, one looking northwards from east to west, the other looking southwards from west to east.
“Oh my,” Lesa murmured, when she spotted the white gleam of the castle on the cloud. “Lena — ”
“Ulp!” Lena replied, and Lesa almost lost her grip, she spun around so fast.
They had been so busy scanning the horizon for familiar landmarks that they hadn’t noticed that a girl had climbed the tall tree on the other side of the hill, and she was staring right at them, her mouth open.
This was Dhana, on her patrol.
Dhana smacked her hand over her eyes and looked again. “Clair?” she said uncertainly. That white-haired girl had the same eyes, the same color of hair, but otherwise she was so different: a pointy chin instead of square, freckles (Clair had none) and a skinny body whereas Clair’s was just sort of normal.
The girls looked at Dhana, both frozen in place, their expressions both bemused and kind of appalled.
Dhana broke the spell first. She looked down and yelled, “Irene. Get CJ.”
Faline, Diana, Sherry, and I were down in the Junky, discussing plans, all of us feeling tense, tired, and determined. When Irene appeared in the tunnel, bellowing for me, I thought, “Clair at last,” and ran — the others right behind me, crowding against my back when we emerged from the cave.
Irene pointed up at Dhana. I turned my face up. Dhana pointed to the other tree, and I almost fell over, trying to track across with my head tipped back. What I saw took me by surprise, and I gasped, then got mad. “So it was you!”
“You who?” one girl cried, and the other stated, in accented Mearsiean, “They are all mad.”
“If so we all are,” Dhana called. “Come down.” And she descended, her speed not the least matched with her usual breathtaking grace.
The other two were no slouches, but no one was as fast as Dhana. They soon dropped onto the grass, breathing hard: they wore woolen knee pants, not unlike ours, but their tops were cut oddly, reminding me suddenly of pictures of 17th century northern European costumes I’d seen in Earth history books.
Lena nudged Lesa. Though they were different sizes and colorings, there was enough similarity in the shapes of their eyes and other features to make me realize they were sisters. Twins, in fact.
“Lesa. I know what happened. Fonei poisoned us.”
“No, the lightning got us.”
And together they said, “We’re dreaming.”
“Well, we’re not,” I said crossly, for I was too worried for politeness. “Who are you and where did you come from?”
Lena drew in a deep breath, then said, “I don’t know why I’m speaking a language I don’t know, but here goes. We were running toward our hideout to escape a storm.”
“In Shelanya,” Lesa put in. “Where we live. And ought to be ruling.”
Lena nodded. “But it got taken over by Fonei.”
“Who is our enemy,” Lesa stated.
I waved my hand, uninterested in their enemies. “Have you ever heard of Kwenz of the Chwahir?”
Lena crossed her skinny arms. “No,” she said quite firmly. “I have never heard of Squinch of the H-h-h-hWAH-hurr. Or whatever it w
as you said.”
“We are,” Lesa stated, “Clevarlineh and Clevarlesa of Shelanya, who ought to be rulers, but we were deposed by the cockroach Phonei.”
“A barfabit if there ever was one,” Lena added.
My nerves sang as if some invisible hand had turned them into wires and plucked them.
The other girls stared at me. “It’s Clair’s name,” Sherry whispered. “The one she never uses.”
Green eyes, white hair, similar name. I suspected what I was facing; more mysterious world-gate crossing. Here were two girls from Earth, but not the Earth I knew, for there had never been any Shelanya, at least that I had ever heard of. But Clair had mentioned that the Sherwoods had hidden on Earth for a time, way back when. Strange, unsettling; I was silent as I tried to comprehend the possibilities of interchanges of people between worlds, and if it meant trouble or not.
“What’s your family name?” Dhana demanded.
“Mellei.”
And — I still don’t know why — I relaxed. “Oh. Our Clair is a Sherwood.”
“We go by Lena and Lesa,” Lesa stated. “The long version is what we used to hear when our governess was mad at us.”
“Well?” Irene turned to me. The others waited.
“They can’t be spies,” I said, more firmly than I felt. “I can’t believe Kwenz would find them. And PJ is out of the question. I think, I think it’s one of those parallel world things that Clair told me about. You’re from Earth, right?”
Both looked down at the ground, and I realized the world translated out to soil, or ground — as it did in many earth languages. A couple quick questions determined that Shelanya was indeed on Earth, somewhere in or near what I would have called Holland, or in the old days, The Netherlands.
Once we’d established that, Lena sighed. “Well, it looks like we didn’t just happen, we got sent. I wonder by who?” She looked up, and then around. “And why?”
“I can tell you that,” I said, as grimly as I could. “It’s because our Clair is missing.”
o0o
Of course I didn’t really know that they had been sent because Clair was missing. Trying to know why the borders between worlds have been crossed makes my mind slam up against a wall made up of questions for which no one has an answer, or there are too many possible answers.
But they were here, and Lena looked enough like Clair to provide an instant plan.
“How can we help?” Lesa asked, once we’d taken the visitors down to the Junky, and Sherry had provided hot chocolate all around.
Lesa’s instant offer made me like her at once. But Irene and Dhana, at opposite sides of the room, gave me almost twin looks of distrust.
Irene smacked her hands up to her forehead, her elbows out, and dramatically sighed. “Don’t you think this might be just the slightest bit too conveniently easy?”
Dhana turned away, miming barfing. At any other time I would have laughed, but Clair was missing, had been since the day before, and I was sick with terror.
So I turned my attention back to Lesa and Lena. Lena scowled, Lesa looked down. I could tell she was hurt, and trying not to be.
Her very understanding made me like her the more; as I struggled to find something to say that wouldn’t make things worse, Diana said, “Why don’t we explain? I don’t think there is a problem.”
Faline bobbed her head up and down. “At least, not what you think. Can you imagine PJ plotting to send them to us for some weird reason? Or Kwenz, even?”
Irene and Dhana studied the newcomers, then shook their heads.
I whooshed out my breath. “So that’s that. Now, here’s what happened.” And as usual, I started in the middle.
“Clair and Seshe went to the Squashed Wedding Cake after Fobo sent a message all written in gold ink, with ribbons on it, saying that she wished to negotiate a royal treaty.”
Lesa mouthed the words squashed wedding cake, and Dhana gave a quick explanation. Lena held her nose at the description of the Dudly Duo. That, too, I took as proof they were on the good side. I couldn’t imagine Evil Spies having a sense of humor. (And it would be a few years I was proved totally wrong.)
Lesa leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “All right, so your Clevarlineh went to this Fobo to try to make a treaty.”
“CJ said she thought it was a trick,” Faline put in, rolling her eyes.
Sherry nodded soberly. “Reasoning with somebody means you have to be able to be reasonable, doesn’t it?”
“Fobo isn’t,” Diana said, as usual making the best summary in the least words.
“... and Clair couldn’t believe that Fobo could be that horrible,” I cut in, eying Faline and Sherry, who were obviously about to launch into a stream of pocalubes about the Precious Pair.
“That mean,” Sherry put in, her brow puckered.
“That greedy,” Dhana said, between anger-thinned lips.
“That rotten,” Faline finished, waving her hands.
I took over again. “Clair wants to think there aren’t any evil people, just people choosing to do evil things, and they ought to be able to be talked out of it,” I said.
“HAH!” Lena exploded, falling back onto the rug. It was weird, how her white hair spilled across the bright colors, so like Clair’s yet so unlike. “Try telling that to Fonei!”
“We have to hear about this Fonei,” I said, “but later. For now, yesterday Clair got dressed up, and Seshe went with her because I insisted she have somebody as company. Since I had to stay here. Because if it is — was — is — was! — a trap, then they’d get both of us. They haven’t come back.”
The girls looked unhappy — disgusted — angry.
Sherry pointed at the newcomers. “You said when you came in that you have a Junky, too.”
“That’s right, only we call it Hig — Hole In Ground — so the Fonellians won’t think anything of it if they overhear it.”
Irene smacked her hand over her brow. “This is getting very, very weird.”
Dhana’s lip curled. “No it isn’t, not if they are from a parallel world.”
“Do you have the white palace, up on a cloud?” Sherry asked.
“No.” They both shook their heads. “No magic, either,” Lesa added.
“Maybe the Fonei people are like the Chwahir,” Faline offered, as she tried to do a handstand.
“We can figure that out later,” I subtly hinted. “After we find Clair.”
Everyone fell silent. I resumed. “During the night I snuck by Hreealdar to the S.W.C. and nosed around, but I didn’t find them.”
Diana scowled at me. She had insisted she be the one to go to the Squashed Wedding Cake, but I had felt it was my duty. And I knew I could have used the transport spell if I’d had to, whereas none of the girls knew magic.
“We think that they pulled some kind of dirty trick and Kwenz has them,” I finished. “But how to find out without getting caught, I dunno. I can’t use magic. Or, that is, there is a spell I could use, I think — Clair just discovered it — but I didn’t know how to make it work. Now I think I do,” I said. “But this plan is a risky one.”
Lena and Lesa exchanged grins. Did they feel that danger here was unreal, unlike theirs at home, or were they more used to it than we were?
Before I could ask, Lena said, “I bet I can guess. You want me to fake being your Clair, right?” And when I nodded, “That part was easy enough, but how will it help?”
“Because there’s no way to find her in that gigantic, gloomy castle under the cloud otherwise,” I said. “It has a zillion rooms. And it’s not just gloomy, it’s dark. But if they think you are Clair, and escaping, surely they would stick you back with Seshe, wouldn’t they?”
“If,” Diana muttered, “they haven’t already done something nasty to them.”
“If they are even there,” Faline said, for once not grinning. I realized she’d been moving about constantly since morning, tumbling, stretching, pretending knife blocks, a lot of busy movements that
almost got annoying. Now I realized it was her way of being worried.
“Well, they aren’t at the S.W.C,” I said. “And I am betting they are prisoners, because of what Kwenz told PJ that time. He’s just figuring out what to do with her.”
“Like get the kingdom, and not have to share with Fobo?” Dhana asked.
“Yes,” I said. “He’s probably trying to dig up some zombie spell, or something, so we need to act fast.”
“Then let us act fast,” Lesa stated. “We got here in a strange way, and we might vanish the same way.”
I thought about that as we transferred upstairs, to Clair’s room. It was better to think about very weird magic than to notice how still the bedroom was with no Clair in it. Janil appeared almost immediately, looking very worried indeed.
“We have a plan,” I said, indicating Lena.
Janil’s brows went up when she saw Lena, and she shook her head. “Be careful,” was all she said.
I picked out a blue gown from Clair’s small wardrobe that looked a little like the one she’d worn the day before, and Lena went into the dressing room to put it on. She came out with her bony wrists sticking out, her ankles showing, and the waist of the gown was baggy, but it was good enough considering the dark of the Shadow.
So the next thing was to get that invisibility spell that Clair had taught me the day after I returned to normal size.
I took a paper and wrote it down, because it had several levels, and there was no way I’d remember it all. After I was done, I sat down to think everything through, while the girls got some lunch in the kitchen. When I was done, I joined them, too nervous to eat, and said, “I think we need some decoys at the Squashed Wedding Cake.”
Faline jumped up and down.
“Not like we did before,” I said, raising my hand. “No attacks. No, I think we need someone to get them to talk, and that means play-acting aristocrats. Visitors, maybe, from some big kingdom, someone who could impress Fobo. Lots and lots of flattery,” I added.
Irene sighed with fake drama, but we all could see she was secretly pleased. “I believe,” she said, a finger to her chin, “that is my job.”