The Rat's Return
Aunt Zelda did not possess a timepiece or a clock. Timepieces never worked properly at Keeper's Cottage; there was too much Disturbance under the ground. Unfortunately, this was something that Aunt Zelda had never bothered to mention to Marcia as she herself was not too concerned with the exact time of day. If Aunt Zelda wanted to know the time, she would content herself with looking at the sundial and hoping that the sun was out, but she was much more concerned with the passing of the phases of the moon. The day the Message Rat was rescued, Aunt Zelda had taken Jenna for a walk around the island after it got dark. The snow was as deep as ever and had such a crisp covering of frost that Jenna was able to run lightly across the top, although Aunt Zelda in her big boots sank right down. They had walked along to the end of the island, away from the lights of the cottage, and Aunt Zelda had pointed up at the dark night sky, which was brushed with hundreds of thousands of brilliant stars, more than Jenna had ever seen before.
"Tonight," Aunt Zelda had said, "is the Dark of the Moon."
Jenna shivered. Not from the cold but from a strange feeling she got, standing out on the island in the middle of such an expanse of stars and darkness.
"Tonight, however hard you look, you will not see the moon," said Aunt Zelda. "No one on earth will see the moon tonight. It is not a night to venture out alone on the marsh, and if all the marsh creatures and spirits weren't safely frozen below the ground, we would be CharmLocked into the cottage by now. But I thought you would like to see the stars without the light of the moon. Your mother always liked looking at the stars."
Jenna gulped. "My mother? You mean, my mother when I was born?"
"Yes," said Aunt Zelda. "I mean the Queen. She loved the stars. I thought you might too."
"I do," breathed Jenna. "I always used to count them from my window at home if I couldn't get to sleep. But - how did you know my mother?"
"I used to see her every year," said Aunt Zelda. "Until she ... well, until things changed. And her mother, your lovely grandmother, I saw her every year too."
Mother, grandmother ... Jenna began to realize she had a whole family that she knew nothing about. But somehow Aunt Zelda did.
"Aunt Zelda," said Jenna slowly, daring at last to ask a question that had been bothering her ever since she had learned who she really was.
"Hmm?" Aunt Zelda was gazing out across the marsh.
"What about my father?"
"Your father? Ah, he was from the Far Countries. He left before you were born."
"He left?"
"He had a boat. He went off to get something or other," said Aunt Zelda vaguely. "He arrived back at the Port just after you were born with a ship full of treasures for you and your mother, so I heard. But when he was told the terrible news, he sailed away on the next tide."
"What - what was his name?" asked Jenna.
"No idea," said Aunt Zelda who, along with most people, had paid little attention to the identity of the Queen's consort. The Succession was passed from mother to daughter, leaving the men in the family to live their lives as they pleased.
Something in Aunt Zelda's voice caught Jenna's attention, and she turned away from the stars to look at her. Jenna caught her breath. She had never really noticed Aunt Zelda's eyes before, but now the bright piercing blue of the White Witch's eyes was cutting through the night, shining through the darkness and staring intently out at the marsh.
"Right," said Aunt Zelda suddenly, "time to go inside."
"But - "
"I'll tell you more in the summer. That's when they used to come, MidSummer Day. I'll take you there too."
"Where?" asked Jenna. "Take me where?"
"Come on," said Aunt Zelda. "I don't like the look of that shadow over there..."
Aunt Zelda grabbed Jenna's hand and ran back with her across the snow. Out on the marsh a ravenous Marsh Lynx stopped stalking and turned away. It was too weak now to give chase; had it been a few days earlier, it could have eaten well and seen the winter through. But now the Lynx slunk back to its snow hole and weakly chewed at its last frozen mouse.
After the Dark of the Moon, the first thin sliver of the new moon appeared in the sky. Each night it grew a little bigger. The skies were clear now that the snow had stopped falling, and every night Jenna watched the moon from the window, while the Shield Bugs moved dreamily in the Preserve Pots, waiting for their moment of freedom.
"Keep watching," Aunt Zelda told her. "As the moon grows it draws up the things from the ground. And the cottage draws in the people that wish to come here. The pull is strongest at the full moon, which is when you came."
But when the moon was a quarter full, Marcia had left.
"How come Marcia's gone?" Jenna asked Aunt Zelda the morning they discovered her departure. "I thought things came back when the moon was growing, not went away."
Aunt Zelda looked somewhat grumpy at Jenna's question. She was annoyed with Marcia for going so suddenly, and she didn't like anyone messing up her moon theories either. "Sometimes," Aunt Zelda said mysteriously, "things must leave in order to return." She stomped off into her potion cupboard and firmly locked the door behind her.
Nicko made a sympathetic face at Jenna and waved her pair of skates at her. "Race you to Big Bog." He grinned.