Chapter Five

Days passed, and no one spoke of the drowning. It bothered Leelo that people could simply pretend a man hadn’t died, or worse, that he had never lived. She tried not to think about Pieter, but she worried for Isola. She hadn’t seen her friend since that morning, and she doubted she’d be coming to the spring festival tonight.

Fiona straightened the hem of Leelo’s new dress and looked up, her eyes wet with tears.

“What is it?” Leelo asked, staring down at her mother with concern.

“I was just thinking how beautiful you look.”

“And that made you cry?” Leelo teased.

Fiona smiled and rose to her feet, wobbling slightly. “I know you’re becoming a grown woman, but it’s hard to believe I was only a few years older than you are now when I gave birth to you.”

According to their culture, the children of Endla became adults during their year as Watchers. But Leelo didn’t feel grown-up, and she certainly didn’t feel ready to have children. She frowned and turned to look in the mirror. The swan crown, which her mother had helped make, started at the front of Leelo’s hairline and swept down like two wings to the back of her head, just above her plait. The berries were clustered like blue jewels at the front of the crown.

Her new dress had been made to flatter her complexion, the wool dyed in soft tones from the pale sky of her eyes to the wintergreen of snow-covered pines. A pattern of snowflakes, winter-white foxes, and silver pinecones decorated the skirt; the collar, cuff, and hem were trimmed in soft white rabbit fur.

“You look like the Snow Maiden,” Sage said from the doorway. Her own dress was woven in autumnal shades, with tawny deer, russet squirrels holding hazel acorns, and golden oak leaves decorating the fabric. A small capelet made of deer hide was tied over her shoulders. She had already donned her antler crown, the red berries bright against the tines.

Leelo smiled and took Sage’s hand, leading her downstairs. They were both too anxious to eat much, so Aunt Ketty gave them a breakfast of toasted bread and blackberry jam.

“Careful not to stain your dresses,” she said. “Our mother wasn’t nearly as good at sewing as Fiona, and you’ll want to save those for your own daughters.”

Sage rolled her eyes. Her maternal instincts, if she had any, had yet to surface. Both girls had been there for Tate’s birth, but while Leelo had been in awe of her mother’s strength and the quiet assuredness of the midwife, Sage had seen only blood and pain.

“Yes, Aunt Ketty,” Leelo said. The truth was, she didn’t know if she wanted children. But Endlans had a responsibility to maintain their population, not only to keep their magic alive, but as protectors of the last Wandering Forest. At least she had a few more years before she would be expected to marry.

“Come on,” Sage said, shoving aside her half-eaten breakfast. “We don’t want to be late.”

Tate peered at Leelo from behind the door to his little room below the stairs and gave a shy wave. Leelo waved back, feigning cheerfulness. She had often fantasized about keeping him on the island, even if his magic didn’t come. They would build a little house on the far side, where few islanders went, and Leelo would visit him every day.

But she knew now that was no kind of life for Tate. He would be miserable all by himself. The best she could hope for was that he would find other exiled Endlans to live with so he wouldn’t lose touch with his home completely.

“We’ll be back in a few hours,” Leelo assured him.

“Stay here,” Ketty said, as if he didn’t know. “And whatever you do, don’t go near the lake.” The spring festival always marked the day when Endlans could sing again.

Tate nodded and retreated into his room.

“You don’t have to be so stern with him.” Fiona knelt down to help Leelo with the laces of her knee-high boots. “He’s a good boy.”

Ketty didn’t reply.

Outside, Leelo was surprised to see Isola trudging down the trail ahead of them. She had assumed Isola wouldn’t come today, given the fact that her family was being shunned, as her aunt foretold. Ketty had forbidden the girls from going to visit their friend, but Isola was here now, and Leelo wasn’t going to ignore her. She noticed with a start that Isola’s long, dark hair had been cut almost to her chin.

“Isola,” Leelo called, trotting to catch up to her.

The girl gazed at her with empty eyes. “Leelo.”

“Are you... How are you?”

Isola turned back to the trail ahead. “I’m fine.”

Leelo thought of offering some kind of condolence for what had happened to Pieter, but what could she possibly say? He was gone, and Isola must feel partially responsible.

Sage strode up next to them, oblivious. “I can’t believe it’s finally our turn,” she said, twirling as she skipped along the trail. “Seventeen years spent watching other people participate in the ceremony, and now we get to do it.”

“Congratulations,” Isola muttered. “You both look nice.”

Leelo glanced down at Isola’s dress, a simple cream-colored wool embroidered with flowers. Her mother had made it for her, but it wasn’t nearly as fine as Fiona’s work.

“What happened to your hair?” Sage asked. Leelo shot her an admonishing glance, but Sage didn’t notice.

“My mother cut it.”

Sage frowned. “Why?”

“Because I stopped brushing it.”

Leelo could feel the sadness coming off the girl in waves. Hesitantly, she put her arm around Isola’s waist and drew her against her side, and Isola let her head fall on Leelo’s shoulder.

Leelo bit her lip and glanced behind her. Rosalie and Fiona were walking together, talking in hushed tones, no doubt about Pieter and how badly Isola was taking his death. Ketty tried to urge her sister on ahead, but Fiona ignored her.

Leelo realized her shoulder was wet, that Isola was crying. “Why did you come today?” she asked gently.

Isola sniffed and wiped her face on her sleeve. “The council said we had to, that it was important to make an example of me to the new Watchers. But I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk to me. You could get in trouble.”

Sage winced and trotted ahead to join some of the other villagers, and a part of Leelo—the part that followed rules, that would never betray Endla, especially if it meant bringing shame on her family—longed to join her. But instead she let herself feel the dampness on her shoulder, the tangible reminder of Isola’s suffering, and stayed.

They had finally reached the far side of the island from where Pieter had died. They came here for the spring ceremony and little else. The opposite shore was clearly visible from here, but there was no nearby village on the mainland this side of the island, so the threat of outsiders observing them was lower. The Watchers were sometimes told to patrol this area, but Leelo and Sage hadn’t been here since last year’s ceremony, when one of their distant cousins had been celebrating. It wasn’t mandatory for Endlans to attend, but as one of the island’s ten elected council members, Ketty went every year.

This year, twelve adolescents had become Watchers, and most had already arrived with their families. They greeted each other with barely contained excitement, the six boys gathered in their own cluster. Leelo knew them all, of course. They’d played with each other growing up, and on an island this small, there were no strangers. But the Watchers were always teams of two, and with so much of their time spent on duty, they rarely saw each other anymore.

“Your dresses are so beautiful,” a girl named Vance breathed, touching the soft trim on Leelo’s sleeve and nodding toward Sage. Vance was wearing a crown of owl feathers, adorned with dried thistles and dark purple berries. “You’re blessed to have such a skilled seamstress in the family.”

Leelo smiled and glanced behind her at Mama, who had joined the other parents at Rosalie’s insistence. Isola’s mother didn’t want the stain on her family to bleed onto Fiona’s. Vance had an older sister without magic, but Leelo could barely remember her. She’d left when the girls were still small. Leelo wondered if Fiona and Vance’s mother were talking about what it was like to say goodbye to a child.

“How is Isola?” Vance asked, gesturing to the girl. She had wandered off and was standing at the lake’s edge, staring blankly into the water, her muddy hem nearly touching it.

“Not well.”

Vance pursed her lips, and the expression, paired with her large yellow-green eyes, made her look very much like an owl. “I just can’t understand what she was thinking. Risking everything for some boy. An incantu boy.”

The words rankled Leelo. She loved Tate just as much as she loved Sage; magic had nothing to do with it. “She must have really cared about him.”

“If she had, she wouldn’t have let him come back,” Sage said.

Leelo waited with her mother after that, until everyone who was coming had assembled. Ketty had been speaking with the other council members, each of whom represented roughly thirty islanders, but she approached the girls now.

“The ceremony is about to start,” she said to Sage and Leelo, squeezing their shoulders. “You should go down by the water.”

Leelo obeyed her aunt, treading carefully to keep her boots clean. The banks here were muddy from snowmelt, though shoots of green grass were valiantly poking their way through. Soon, the entire island would be verdant with spring. Leelo would still be a Watcher, and, unless a miracle occurred, Tate would be leaving.

“Watchers,” one of the council members said, clapping her hands. “The ceremony is beginning. Please take your lily from Councilwoman Ketty.”

Ketty was standing in front of a metal basin filled with water. Floating along the top were twelve white water lilies, one for each Watcher. They were grown by the council in a pond that Endlans were forbidden to visit before their year as Watchers was over.

Ketty smiled proudly at Leelo and Sage as they took their flowers. When they had all gathered at the shore, the rest of the islanders began to sing, a beautiful melody that was as uplifting as the drowning song was mournful. For the first time that day, Leelo felt some of the excitement she imagined the other Watchers must be feeling. She would be an adult by the time this year was over. She would be able to make her own decisions.

But of course, she couldn’t really. She couldn’t give Tate magic or make her mother well again. And she couldn’t keep her own heart from breaking. She remembered how her mother had told her once that heartache and grief are their own strange kind of gift because they remind you that you still have a heart to break.

When you stop caring, when you stop grieving, that’s when you know you’re really lost, Fiona said. Leelo understood even then that she was talking about Aunt Ketty, who never once spoke of loss. Hers or Fiona’s.

The Watchers knelt down and set their lilies in the water, where they floated like tiny ice floes on the surface. Slowly, the lilies drifted out into the lake. They would eventually take root, until finally the poison in the lake dissolved them. They lasted longer than birds or people or anything else that went into the water. But eventually the magic consumed everything it touched, like a beast that devoured every scrap of its prey, leaving nothing behind.

Not even bones.

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