Karigan remembered little of it. Only that her mother wasn’t there, and people dressed in somber colors had spoken in hushed tones around her, and that all the windows and mirrors had been draped, leaving the house in a perpetual state of darkness.
The cairn was coated in ice. In the intervening day since the storm, the sun had shone bright and warm enough to melt snow, which refroze during the night, forming a glaze of ice that cascaded over the rocks like a waterfall trapped in time.
Beside the cairn was a monolith of granite, as if heaved up from the earth itself. Her mother’s name was carved on it, along with the inscription: Of the island born, to the star-lit heavens embraced. The sign of the crescent moon topped the inscription, and the face of the rock was carved with a looping design that reminded Karigan of fishermen’s knots. It represented continuity, no beginning, no end.
Karigan held the moonstone in her hand, its light muted by sunshine, but its inner glow still brilliant. She’d searched the house top to bottom to see if she could find further clues of her mother interacting with Eletians, but she found nothing. She guessed everyone had secrets, even her mother, who took hers to the grave.
She thought to leave the moonstone on the cairn as a sort of offering, but something inside her fought the notion. Her mother had meant for her to have it, after all, and she did not want to go against Kariny’s wishes. She returned it to her pocket.
Finally she kissed her fingertips, touched them to one of the icy boulders of the cairn, and departed along the wooded path that led back to the house.
She arrived just as the stablemaster led a groomed and tacked Condor out onto the drive. The gelding bobbed his head upon seeing her, eager to be off.
“He’s a fine fellow,” the stablemaster said as she approached. “I’ll miss him.” Condor gave him a nudge, almost knocking him over. Karigan smiled.
Her father, resplendent in a long beaver fur coat, and her aunts emerged from the house to bid her farewell. She hugged them one by one.
“Are you sure you have to leave already?” Aunt Stace asked.
“I think I’ve drawn out my stay as long as I can,” Karigan replied. “I must return to duty.”
“Well, don’t forget us here,” Aunt Brini said.
“I won’t. Of course I won’t.”
Aunt Gretta dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. “You must write us every day.”
“Er, I’ll try.” Karigan grimaced. She was not known as the most diligent of letter writers.
“Oh, stop sniveling, Gretta,” said Aunt Tory. She took Karigan’s hand. “Now, dear, there is a fine young man down Bellmere way, of good stock, whom we think—”
“No!” Karigan pulled away from her aunt. “No match-making!” She remembered all too vividly the fiasco of her father’s last attempt.
“If you turn down every male we dangle in front of you, you’ll end up like us—alone and without husbands.”
“I never thought it so bad,” Aunt Brini said.
“I should think not,” Karigan’s father grumbled. “With me to support you, you want for nothing.”
This pronouncement was followed by sisterly remonstration. Aunt Gretta flicked her handkerchief at her brother.
“See what I must endure?” he asked Karigan. “They are forever uniting against me.” This incurred yet more sounds of disdain. He grinned and handed Karigan a purse.
“What’s this?” she asked, knowing precisely what it was by its weight.
“A little currency to help you get by.”
“But—”
“Yes, I know. You earn pay for your work, and room and board, but such a pittance does not help you purchase the occasional trinket.”
“But—”
“And, you never know, but your aunts might find the right young man for you and you’ll need something special to wear. With your new title, I imagine there will be dozens of suitors tripping over themselves for your favor.”
Her aunts nodded eagerly at this and Karigan scowled, but she knew it was of little use to try and return the purse. She’d use some of the currency to bring her friends treats from Master Gruntler’s Sugary, but most she’d leave at Garden House. Yes, she liked that idea very much.
“And here is my message for Captain Mapstone,” he said, drawing the letter from beneath his coat.
Karigan slipped it into her message satchel and embraced him one last time.
“Take care of yourself,” he said. “Stay out of trouble.”
“You, too,” she replied in earnest. She was both sad and relieved to be leaving her father and aunts. She would miss them, but not all the complicated expectations and emotions that came with family.
She mounted Condor, and as they set off, she overheard Aunt Stace say, “Now Stevic, what is this business about a brothel?”
There was silence, then a quick exchange of words.
Uh oh, Karigan thought. Her father was in for it now.
Before she lost sight of the house at the bend in the drive, she turned to wave one last time, but no one saw her. Her aunts were clustered around her father, apparently deep in heated discussion, arms gesticulating wildly.
Karigan could not help but smile.
She rode on, unaware of a winter owl, in its snowy plumage, perched high up in a tree, watching her as she passed below.
A HOWLING IN THE WOODS
“Hah! Three knights—I win!” Laren Mapstone, captain of His Majesty’s Messenger Service, the Green Riders, slapped her cards down on the rough-hewn table and grinned in triumph.