Before Micah could respond, the back door opened, and my father called out, “Is that Melinda? Are you back? Hannah, Melinda’s here. I’ll go fetch the wreath.”
In a few minutes, he came out, holding the huge circle of decorated greenery. It was so large that he could scarcely support it, and Micah hurried over to help him carry it to the fire. Kind, I thought, a little surprised. Mother was right behind them, wrapped in a heavy shawl that she’d thrown over her head to keep her ears warm.
“Brrr! I don’t remember a Wintermoon so cold for ages,” Mother commented as she joined us before the fire.
“Are we all ready?” my father asked, casting a quick look around. “Anything else you want to tie to the wreath? Roelynn? Micah? You girls?”
“My feather’s already on there,” Roelynn said.
“It’s not my wreath,” Micah said.
My father grinned at him. “Well, you can wish on any wreath you like, can’t you? Here at the inn, at least, everyone’s welcome to join their wishes to ours.”
“Did you tie your stone to Father’s wreath?” Roelynn asked him.
He shook his head. I thought he looked a little embarrassed. “I didn’t feel like explaining it to him.”
“What stone?” my mother asked.
He turned his head courteously to address her. “I was out at the harbor one day, overseeing one of my father’s ships. And I found a white stone, worn almost flat, with a hole in the middle. When I picked it up, the sea captain told me it was a lucky symbol—a whole circle, beginning and end, the sign of a full and complete life. I thought it might be something to throw into the Wintermoon fire.”
My father, who had been sharing the weight of the wreath with Micah this whole time, now pulled it from Micah’s hands and eased it down to rest on the ground. “Well, tie it on, then! Do you have it with you?”
Micah nodded and pulled the stone out of his pocket. I couldn’t see much, but it looked quite ordinary to me. “I don’t have anything I can use to bind it to the wreath, though.”
Without saying a word, Adele pulled a white ribbon from her hair and handed it to him. Micah thanked her gravely and, while we all watched, tied the stone to the wreath.
“There now,” my father said, sounding satisfied. He always loved it when people added personal items to the Wintermoon greenery. “Is that it? Any more last-minute contributions? No? Micah, if you would—”
The two men worked together to lift the ring of greenery to shoulder height. All the women, fearing shooting sparks, took a few paces backward. Micah and my father heaved the wreath into the fire and it crashed with a satisfying shower of fire onto the steepled logs. The scent of fire was suddenly haunted by the sharp tang of spruce.
“That’s a good Wintermoon bonfire,” Melinda said in approval.
“We’ll let that burn a little, then we’ll add some more fuel,” Father said.
“Who’d like some hot chocolate?” Mother asked. “I’ve got the kettle on in the kitchen.”
Roelynn said yes, but Micah frowned her down. “My sister and I have to be getting back,” he said. “We left my father with a houseful of guests. We were only supposed to be gone long enough to deliver the Dream-Maker.”
“You can stay for hot chocolate, surely,” Mother said.
But Micah was adamant. While he was making his earnest good-byes to my parents, Roelynn looked at Adele and me, her face a study of irritation and resignation, but she followed him meekly enough when he led her back to the Karro carriage. The rest of us enjoyed Mother’s hot chocolate and stood around the fire for another hour or so. Melinda went in first, Adele andIalittle later. As always, my mother and father got out a blanket and sat together before the fire until dawn. At least, I assume they did—I was sound asleep.
In the morning, rather late, I woke while Adele was still sleeping. Dressing quietly, I put on shoes and a shawl and crept downstairs. Out the back door, out to the fire, to sift through the cinders and see if anything remained. If you tied coins or glass or metal scraps to the wreath, often they would remain, charred but whole, after the bonfire burned down. It was considered lucky to retrieve such items, for they were imbued with Wintermoon magic and had tremendous power during the coming year. Usually Adele and I came down together to search through the coals and see what the ritual had left behind, but she had looked to be deeply asleep, and I was too impatient to wait.
This year, I couldn’t find anything of interest. Everything we had attached to the wreath appeared to have been flammable—all our vines, all our wildflower stalks, even Roelynn’s feather. I searched for nearly half an hour and never found anything to keep.
Just as I had decided to give up, my mother’s voice called from the back door. “Eleda! Time for breakfast! Go wake up your sister and come eat!” I ran inside, snatched a biscuit from the stove, and ate it as I bounded upstairs. Adele was still sleeping in our room, lying on her side, her hands curled up on the pillow beside her cheek.
I came a few steps nearer and bent over, studying her fingers. They were faintly streaked with soot; a line of black showed under her right thumbnail. For a moment, I could not imagine what the fastidious Adele could have been doing to get her hands dirty in the middle of the night. And then I realized: She must have woken up earlier than I did, sometime after our parents had gone to bed, and crept downstairs without me to inspect the remains of the bonfire.
She had found something, too. The state of her hands attested to that. I stared at her another few minutes, wondering what treasure had been so important to her that she had lain awake all night to be sure she would be the first one to rise and go through the coals of the Wintermoon fire so she could find it and keep it for herself.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Spring came; the world was sweetly green; Adele and Roelynn and I all turned fifteen. Melinda came to town right before the spring planting. The day after she left, a local farmer found a cache of old gold buried in his fields and instantly became the second richest man in Merendon. Joe Muller, who had indeed bought the Windermere property a couple of years ago, purchased additional land and began raising racing horses. He was soon the third richest. Roelynn’s father took her to Wodenderry for another week of splendor, and she came back even more infatuated with the city and, this time, with a young guardsman who served the queen.
Again, the prince had been scheduled to be there for this visit, but he and his cousin Tobin had taken off for the southern parts the night before Roelynn arrived. The reason was unclear but seemed to have something to do with attending the hasty wedding of a rapscallion friend.
This was the year I learned about the perils of falling in love, although danger of any sort was far from my mind when I first met Edgar. He came with one of the acting troupes that traveled throughout the kingdom, putting on plays in small towns and performing private productions for the very wealthy. His troupe—as well as companies of mimes, jugglers, peddlers, clowns, and singers—had come for the Summermoon festival that was the highlight of the hot season. In fact, Edgar and his friends had arrived in the city three weeks before the festival itself to get themselves settled into their quarters, build a makeshift stage on the edge of town, practice their lines, and market their plays. They gave comedic performances three times a week, put on a drama once a week, and promised that the play they planned for Summermoon would be extraordinary.
Edgar would enact the romantic lead in this production. Of course he would—he was a beautiful young man. He was not particularly tall, but he was well built, with wide shoulders and a muscled physique. He had dark blond hair that fell most winsomely across his forehead, and his face was sculpted into the shape of perfect masculine beauty. He had a smile that was irresistible and an easy way with all kinds of women—from little girls to dowdy old ladies, all agog to meet a true actor. If I believed in magic, I would say he cast a spell of enchantment over any woman he met. Certainly he cast a spell over me.
I was running errands for my mother when I
first came across Edgar. He was standing in the dressmaker’s shop, glancing between four bolts of similar fabric, and looking full of a comical panic. Lissette herself had no time to spare for him—though I’m sure she wanted to give him all her attention—because the shop was full of women ordering finery for the Summermoon events. The stranger’s expression of rueful helplessness made me smile, and I approached him rather boldly.
“You look lost,” I said. “Do you need some help?”
He turned to look at me, and I was instantly lost in the dazzle of his smile. “Oh, I so very much need help,” he said gratefully. “I was sent here to buy ten yards of striped blue cloth, which sounded easy enough, but now I see that there are dozens of choices that seem to answer that very description, and I haven’t the slightest idea what to choose.”
His voice was extremely attractive—low-pitched and lilting, with a trace of an accent I could not place. He might have been from foreign parts, or just some corner of the kingdom that I didn’t know well. “Well, it depends on what you want the fabric for,” I said. “Clothes? Curtains? Upholstery? Though none of these are really suitable for upholstery, I have to say.”
“Clothes,” he said. “A lady’s gown and a man’s waistcoat.”
I raised my eyebrows, because it would seem a bit odd for a man and woman to go about dressed in matching garments, but I didn’t say anything. “And will these be everyday clothes that will see a great deal of wear, or will they be special-day clothes that will be brought out only once a year? Because this fabric, though it costs more and is a little prettier in finish, is not nearly so sturdy as this fabric and will not do at all if you’re going to expect it to stand up to much use.”
He smiled again. “I suppose you’d call it everyday wear. We’ll be dressing up in these outfits every time we perform Killed by a Kiss, which is two or three times a week—and we’re hard on our clothes, we are.”
“Every time you perform—why, then, you’re with one of the acting troupes that’s come to town?” I asked. I could tell I sounded excited as a little girl. But really, what could be more glamorous than an actor’s life? I would be a dreadful actress, of course; I couldn’t even speak a quick lie, let alone spend a couple of hours pretending to be someone I wasn’t. But I had a secret love for theater.
The fair young man swept me a very elegant bow. “Indeed I am. Edgar Beauman at your service, of the Harst and Hope Regional Traveling Company. Though you could just as truthfully call me Dirk Daggerhand or Handsome Joe Hamilton and half-a-dozen other names I could give you.”
“But those are only parts you play,” I said, “and not really you.”
He laughed. “I play them so often sometimes I think I am more Dirk than Edgar.”
“And you have come to town for Summermoon?”
“Yes, this is our third or fourth trip to Merendon. It’s our favorite city to play! Just the right size—big enough to fill the house every night, but not so big you get lost when you try to find your favorite shops from last year. And I’ve always found the people most friendly.” He grinned.
I grinned back, something I rarely did. It was so obvious he meant I find the women most friendly. “What play will you be performing over Summermoon?” I asked.
“I just told you—Killed by a Kiss. It’s a romance and a mystery, and there’s a great bit with sword fighting right in the middle. You’ll have to come see it.”
“Oh—I wish I could,” I said. “But I’m usually working on Summermoon.”
“Working?” He glanced around the dress shop, which was getting more crowded by the minute. More than one woman had cast curious and envious glances my way while I stood there chatting with Edgar Beauman, and I must confess that this made me feel extraordinarily pleased with myself. The handsomest man who had ever been seen in Merendon, and he was talking to me. “Are you one of the seamstresses here, then?”
“Oh, no! My parents own the Leaf and Berry Inn down the street. Summermoon is one of our busiest times of the year, because so many people come to town for the festival. I’d never be able to get away to see a play.”
“Well, but, we’ll be putting on performances for the next three weeks,” he said in a wheedling tone of voice. “Couldn’t you get away one night, at least? You could see Rebecca’s Revenge or The Lost Kingdom—though I wouldn’t recommend that one, to be honest—or The Devil of a Time. That one’s fun, and we’re putting it on tomorrow night. I’ll give you a free ticket if you say you’ll come.”
I laughed. He was probably handing out free tickets all over town—I understood that was a very common ploy entertainers used to swell their audiences—but it was still most flattering to be coaxed. “I might be able to come tomorrow night,” I conceded, “but I’d have to have two tickets. My parents would never let me go to such a thing alone at night.”
He promptly presented me with two slips of paper, hand-printed with tomorrow’s date and the title of the play. “Who will you bring with you?” he asked. “Your brother? Your beau? Maybe I don’t want you to come after all if you’re going to bring your beau.” He pretended to try to snatch the tickets back.
I quickly put my hands behind my back, the tickets safe in my fingers. “No, I’ll bring my twin sister. I’ll bet you won’t know which is which.”
He took a moment to study my face, smiling as if the task was a pleasurable one. “I bet I will. Does she look so much like you?”
“Most people can’t tell us apart. Though there are distinguishing characteristics.”
He held up a hand. “Don’t tell me! I want to prove to you that I know who you are. Though I—” He paused, and suddenly that comical expression crossed his face. “Though I don’t know what your name is, precisely.”
I could not help laughing at that. “Eleda,” I said.
“And your sister’s name?”
“Adele.”
He thought about that a moment. “Eleda. Adele,” he said. “Am I right in guessing that your names are the same, except that one is the other backward?”
I caught my breath. No one had ever realized this before until one of us had pointed it out. How could he be so sensitive, so attuned to every detail? “Yes,” I said. “We mirror each other exactly.”
“Then I must suppose she is as pretty as you are, though I find it hard to believe,” he said.
“I must suppose you say things like that to every woman you have a conversation with.”
He put his hands to his chest as if to feel for the jeweled hilt of a dagger. “Stabbed through the heart!” he exclaimed. “You scarcely know me, and already you accuse me of inconstancy.”
I was enjoying myself hugely. “I am a very truthful girl,” I said demurely. “And the truth is, you seem to me to be an unregenerate flirt.”
“Ah, well, every man must employ his own particular talents,” Edgar said in a philosophical voice. “A blacksmith uses his strength—a barrister uses his intellect. I’m an actor, and all I have is charm. You can’t fault me for using it.”
“Not at all,” I said politely. “In fact, I compliment you on your skill.”
He burst out laughing. “You are a funny one!” he said, but he seemed delighted, not offended, so I smiled. “No girl has ever talked to me that way before.”
My smile went slightly awry here. “Yes, well, I’m often accused of being—blunt.”
“But I like it,” he insisted. “You’re an original. So will you come to the play tomorrow?”
“I will try very, very hard.”
He turned back to survey the selection of fabric before him. “And will you tell me which of these materials I should buy? Because I’ve already forgotten what you recommended.”
I gestured at the bolt I considered the best bargain. “You might ask Lissette if she’ll give you a better price if you buy twice as much as you planned,” I said. “Sometimes she’ll give a quantity discount—and if you’re going to wear those clothes so often, you might need to replace them quicker than you t
hink.”
“Excellent advice!” he said. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that I ran into you.”
I smiled. “I am happy to have pleased you.”
He laughed at that. “Oh, you please me very much, Eleda the innkeeper’s daughter. And I’ll see you tomorrow night? You promise?”
I never made promises I wasn’t sure I could keep. “I’ll try,” I said again. “Thank you for the tickets.”
He held out his hand, and for a moment I thought he wanted the tickets back. But then I realized he wanted to shake my hand to seal the bargain. It was probably a bit too familiar on such short acquaintance, but we were in a public place, and he was a delightful man, and I rather wanted to discover what it would feel like to touch him. So I put my hand in his, and he bent down and kissed my knuckles.
Excitement ran like a ribbon of fire from my fingers straight to my heart.
I snatched my hand back. “Mister Beauman!”
He was laughing as he straightened up. “Miss Eleda!”
I was confused and blushing, but I have to say I was not at all upset. On the contrary. But there were consequences to such behavior. I knew that more than one woman, shopping in the store, had witnessed the playful gesture and would be reporting it to my mother before the hour was much older. “I have to go home now,” I said, backing away from him and edging toward the door. “Good luck with the rest of your purchases.”
“Thank you for all your help. I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he said, raising his voice as I made it to the threshold so that absolutely everyone in the shop could hear what he said.
“You’re welcome,” I said, and fled out the door. My cheeks were still hot with embarrassment and excitement when I reached home.
Adele was most willing to accompany me to Devil of a Time, and my mother merely laughed when I breezily related to her the encounter in the dress shop. “Actors,” she said complacently. “They behave most scandalously. I was courted by an actor once.”
Adele and I both stared at her with complete astonishment. “You were?” Adele said faintly. It was one of the few times in my life I could remember that Adele didn’t claim she had always known something that heretofore had never been whispered aloud by anyone.