Moonlight and Ashes Read online

  My stepmother never hits me. She knows better than to do that, aware that even my weak and cowardly father might rebel if she lifted a hand against me. Besides, violence isn’t her style. Cruelty and the refinements of humiliation are her weapons of choice as well as the more blunt instruments of hunger and exhaustion. So I went without supper that night, not even the leftovers I am usually allowed. The housekeeper Mrs Jager, who has always disliked me on principle – she came with my stepmother from Faustina along with the current staff who replaced our previous servants – made me polish every scrap of silver in the place, scrub the kitchen floor twice over and iron the already-ironed tablecloths. And when I was so tired I thought I might faint, after the rest of the staff had long gone to bed, she told me sharply that I’d have to get up an hour earlier the next morning to darn my stepsisters’ stockings and mend their clothes.

  It was no good protesting that I had done it all that very morning; there was no doubt in my mind that Babette and Odette were quite capable of deliberately making new holes in their stockings and ripping ribbons off their dresses in order to join in their mother’s petty games. Although Babette and Odette each have their own personal maid, it is always up to me to perform these menial tasks. Mrs Jager says it is kindly intended, that it is to improve my sewing skills and hence my future employability. But I know better. It is intended, as everything that my stepmother and her daughters do, to try and break my spirit.

  I was so tired, I was beyond rage and hatred. Or maybe it was still the shock of seeing that black carriage. Whatever it was, by the time I was back in my poky little room that backed onto the kitchen fireplace (Mrs Jager kept saying how lucky I was to live there and not in the attic) I didn’t even have the strength to change into my nightdress but just fell fully clothed onto the narrow bed. It was only when I turned on my side that I felt a sharp bump in my pocket and remembered Maria’s gift and that today I had turned sixteen. I don’t cry – not usually – for there is no point, but at that moment, as I opened the little parcel to reveal a small, heart-shaped locket on a cheap chain, tears welled in my eyes. Made of green enamel, it was the sort of thing you can buy at fairs – the only kind of gift poor Maria could afford. The locket had a little catch so you could open it and put something inside – though the space was so small and thin it was hard to know what one could put in there. Gently, I unhooked the clasp of the chain and fastened the locket around my neck, hiding it under my clothes where it would not be seen. Once, I’d owned beautiful, costly jewellery, brought back by my father from his trips abroad – jewels which have long vanished into my stepsisters’ keep. But not one of those glittering necklaces or bracelets or rings had touched me half as much as this humble trinket on its tawdry chain. Somehow this calmed me so that instead of lying there, overtired, I fell instantly into a deep sleep.

  I am in a forest. It is green and gold with sunlight filtering through leaves. The grass is lush and there are flowers growing at the foot of trees whose leaves, bathed in the golden light, look like they’re made of the finest silk. It is a beautiful place, peaceful and quiet but for the rustling of leaves and water nearby. Drawn to the sound, I walk towards it and find a waterfall gushing out over a shelf of ebony-coloured rocks into a pool that sparkles like diamonds.

  The water is so irresistible I cup my hands to drink, and as I do so, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around – and there is my mother. She looks not like the last time I saw her when her face was shadowed by illness and etched with lines of suffering. She looks like she used to long ago, when I was a child. She is young and beautiful; her hair jet-black, her lips red, her radiant skin has a peachy bloom and her eyes are bright with the glorious, clear green that I remember – as green as the sunlit leaves of this forest.

  ‘Oh Mama,’ I cry as I am folded in her arms. I can smell her sweet flowery scent and I do not weep because I know that everything will be all right. Each time I have dreamed of her it has been at times of great strain. Times when sorrow and despair have crushed my heart, when I have thought I could no longer go on. Always then would she come to me in dreams and I would be folded in her arms. And somehow she passes on the strength for me to carry on. But this time it is different. For though I feel that everything will be all right, just like the other times, it is only for a moment and then everything I have tried to repress every day boils up inside me and I wrench myself from her grasp and shout, ‘No! It is not enough, not any more! Not any more, do you hear?’

  She just stands and looks at me, saying nothing, and I cannot bear it. It tears my soul to speak to her like this but I have to. ‘I cannot take this any longer, do you understand? You can’t expect me to.’

  ‘You are sixteen today, my daughter,’ my mother says, quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ I say furiously, ‘and what of it?’

  ‘Things will change, my daughter. Listen well. Your father will ask you what you want for your birthday.’

  I laughed. ‘Father? He has forgotten I exist let alone that it is my birthday. He is never home if he can help it. And when he is at home, he never does anything to –’

  ‘He visited my resting place,’ she says gently and I am silenced. He has not been to Mama’s grave since the day of her funeral. Never. While Mama’s grave is a long way from the house, on the other side of the city, I have managed to go there when I can without Grizelda’s knowledge – I do not want her anywhere near my feelings for my mother. But I have always gone alone, and never with my father.

  ‘Last night when he came,’ said my mother, ‘the moon was reaching fullness. A twig from a nearby hazel tree dropped at his feet while he was there. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. That is what you must ask for when he wants to know what you would like for your birthday.’

  I stare at her, confused, the back of my neck prickling. I suddenly remember – back in her home village, on their sixteenth birthday, girls were given a crown of roses, a dish of honey and cream, and a hazel twig.

  ‘It is only this you must ask for, no matter what he offers,’ she goes on, softly. ‘But you must not tell him why.’

  ‘Which will be easy as I do not know why myself.’

  ‘My darling daughter, my sweet Selena, you must trust me. I promise that if you do this, everything will change.’

  I whisper, ‘Mama, of course I trust you and I will do as you ask.’ She clasps my hands, kisses me on the forehead, and vanishes leaving me all alone. Seconds later I wake up with my last cry still on my lips, ‘Come back, Mama, please come back.’

  There are tears running down my face and my hands are trembling. My forehead still feels warm from her kiss, the warm breath of enduring love. For a moment I feel like I cannot bear it, like my heart has been wrenched out of my body. Then, quite suddenly, like the first time I held Maria’s locket in my hand, hope grows inside me. A tiny little shoot of hope, green and bright. This dream was not a mere comforting dream but a real guiding vision. Never before had Mama been so clear and so close. Never before had she told me to do anything apart from endure. Never before had she promised things would change. And so they would.

  It wasn’t easy to hold on to my new-found hope as the day wore on and I was back on the treadmill of my daily round. In the hours before dawn, with only a mug of black tea and some stale toast, I started with a pile of mending. I sat there pricking my cold fingers on the sharp needle, my teeth chattering and my lap full of billows of tulle and organza and silk and velvet – the kinds of pretty things I would never wear again! It was hard to believe that I’d once had a new dress every few weeks, even more often, sometimes. I used to go with Mama to Madame Paulina, the best dressmaker in Ashberg, and together we would choose colours and fabrics and our favourite styles. Mama had always said it was much more fun to go there than for Madame Paulina to come to us, and she’d been right. That shop was a perfect marvel of mirrors and chandeliers, of soft carpets from far-off lands and wooden manneq
uins draped in swathes of material. Pretty assistants in pink and white gowns would wait on us while we leafed through huge books featuring designs of glorious dresses that had graced a ball in the court of the Emperor. As a child, I used to dream of going to just such a ball when I was grown up, dressed in one of Madame Paulina’s creations. She used to smile fondly at me with my mother and assure me that one day I would. I now know it was not something she meant, of course. It was something she said at the edge of her lips, as Mama would say, and not from the heart. Like the other people who had once been so nice to me, I was just a bundle of position and fortune, that’s all, and once that was over, why, so was their interest in me. These days, it is my stepmother and stepsisters who wear Madame Paulina’s creations, while the dresses I once owned now rest in dusty trunks in the attic, for they are no longer suitable for my station in life. In any case, I’ve grown out of them. I used to sneak up to the attic when everyone was asleep and take out my dresses to remember old times, but I haven’t done that for a long time for what is the point of turning the knife in my own wound when there are so many others eager to do it for me?

  Madame Paulina comes to the house these days; my stepmother thinks that is the right way to deal with tradespeople – to have them come to you rather than the other way around. But I never see her. Oh, no, I did see her once and I know she saw me but she made as if she hadn’t.

  After the mending came many other chores. And all this time there was no sign that my father was to return from his trip and nobody else in the house seemed to expect his arrival. Afternoon came, and with it the ladies Grizelda had invited to her ‘collation’. Though I was allowed nowhere near the salon where they all fluttered and laughed and gossiped like a flock of bright malicious birds, I overheard snatches of their conversation as reported by the footmen while on their break. All the ladies, it appeared, had quite ignored the fact that the cakes weren’t of the special kind, for they were agog with the news that Prince Leopold, the only child and heir of the ailing Emperor, would soon be visiting Ashberg. He had reportedly just returned from his studies at the famous University of Klugheitfurt, in the neighbouring Kingdom of Almain. He had been away from home for four years and there were big celebrations planned for his return, including a tour of the entire empire to reintroduce him to the people – hence the upcoming visit to Ashberg.

  It wasn’t just the ladies upstairs twittering over this news, for everyone downstairs was also filled with excitement. While Ashberg did get the occasional visit from minor members of the imperial family, there were rarely visits from those higher up. Leopold had come to Ashberg once before but only as a child long ago. And now, he was a grown man recently returned from university and ready to take on his duties as Crown Prince. Some even said he was looking for a bride. However you saw it, his coming would be a major event in Ashberg, and that thrilled everybody – from those like Grizelda and her friends, who envisaged being invited to glittering functions in his honour, to those like the servants who claimed a public holiday would surely be declared. It even infected me, for I thought that the Prince’s visit might give me a few precious hours away from drudgery as my stepmother and stepsisters would probably spend a lot of time away from home and, thus, would forget about thinking up new ways of tormenting me. And so the little seed of hope planted by my dream didn’t wither away but kept me going till the moment long after the visiting ladies had all fluttered, or rather lumbered, back home like low-flying pelicans, their stomachs filled with cream cakes, hot chocolate and tea. I’d only just got through the massive pile of washing-up when I received a sudden summons to come up at once to the study, where I found my father waiting for me.

  He was sitting at a little desk, scratching away at some document when I came in. He lifted his head, not looking at me but at a point beside me. I was used to him doing that. I don’t like looking my father in the eye – not because I hate him, on the contrary, it is because I don’t. I don’t want to see the cowardice and guilt in his eyes, I don’t want to hear the pathetic self-justifying excuses that would make me despise and, yes, even hate him. It is not the same with my stepmother and her daughters, who I am free to hate even if I am helpless to act on it. Mama loved him. He is my father and whether I like it or not he is a part of me. And though after the annulment of my parents’ marriage, Grizelda wanted him to completely disown me and turn me out – he would not. It is poor consolation but it is something. So on the very rare occasions we do meet, I do not look at him, and he does not look at me. It is easier that way.

  This evening was a very rare occasion indeed, for Grizelda was not present as she usually is for our encounters. I do not know how he managed to get the courage to speak to me without her permission, or maybe he had asked her. Anyway, I was standing in front of him with my eyes looking anywhere but his face and his own glance seemingly fascinated by the very ordinary landscape painting which hung on the wall beside me. He told me that he’d finished his business earlier than he’d thought he would but had to leave again the next day. He told me he’d remembered my sixteenth birthday and went on to say that it was an important birthday for any young woman (I noted his choice of words – ‘any young woman’ – and nearly lost my resolve not to hate him). When I still did not speak, he said, a little nervously, ‘I’d like to give you a present. What do you want? A new dress? Jewellery? Books?’ He knew I liked reading when I had the time. ‘Or whatever you want, Selena.’

  I felt a pang for the things that I would have loved to own but couldn’t, remembering my promise to my mother. I said, quietly, ‘I want the twig from my mother’s grave.’

  His head jerked up, his eyes finally meeting mine. He had gone quite pale. ‘The . . . the . . . what?’

  ‘The hazel twig, Father,’ I said distinctly. ‘The one you put in your pocket.’

  Yes, it really was fear in his eyes – close to terror, actually. I felt an ignoble little spurt of pleasure at the realisation. But all he said was, ‘You . . . are you sure that’s what you –’

  ‘Quite sure,’ I said.

  I saw him swallow. ‘Very well.’ He reached over to the armchair where he’d flung his coat and pulled something out of the pocket. Just as Mama had told me in the dream, it was a hazel twig. He handed it to me and said, with a pleading in his eyes, ‘Selena, I only wish that –’

  I couldn’t let him finish. My throat dry, I managed to say, firmly, ‘Thank you, and goodnight, Father.’

  He just nodded, looking miserable and shamefaced and afraid. Part of me, the childish side, wished he would do something – anything – that would break this wall of ice between us. The greater part of me – proud and strong – was glad to turn away and leave him without another word or look, to leave him with that fearful question in his heart as to how I could possibly have known. I knew he would tell nobody. I had seen it in his eyes. And I had seen something else: that from now on he would avoid me even more than before.

  I was just leaving when I was stopped by Grizelda popping out of her room like a sinister jack-in-the-box. Although my stepmother is a hard, strong woman without the slightest trace of compassion or tenderness for anyone beyond her daughters, she has an ethereal and fragile beauty, with her cloud of silver-blonde hair, her alabaster skin and her dark blue eyes. But there is nothing in the least that is fragile about my stepmother in reality. Of course, when my father first married her, she was all sweetness and light – even to me – but it took very little time for her to change or, rather, to reveal her real self. And by then it was too late. He was in thrall to her, body and soul, and I – well, I was just the price that had to be paid.

  ‘What did Sir Claus want with you?’ she barked. She’d never refer to him as ‘your father’ to me.

  ‘None of your business,’ I flashed. Though I have submitted to her rule in so many ways, and I know from long experience what a show of defiance costs, I cannot stop myself sometimes. She had thought to have me
broken by now and the fact I’m not is something she can neither abide nor understand. If I had been more cowed, who knows, she might have shown me, if not kindness, at least a condescending tolerance. As it was, I was a challenge to her – a constant reminder that no matter how much she had done to me, no matter what she’d won, the victory still wasn’t complete, and that she could not forgive.

  She advanced on me, her eyes sparking with anger, her black velvet dressing gown swirling around her like a storm cloud. ‘How dare you!’

  I looked at her and said nothing. ‘You will answer me,’ she hissed. Or else hung in the air. I knew what she could do to me but even then I might have continued to stonewall her if I hadn’t had the twig in my pocket. She mustn’t know about it. I knew my father wouldn’t willingly tell her but I could not risk her questioning him. So I bit my tongue and swallowed my pride, excusing myself in the most humble tones. I told her my father had brought back a gift for my birthday and showed her Maria’s locket.

  She looked at it. I could see she was annoyed that my father had bought me a gift at all but was mostly glad that it was a cheap little thing. She must have thought it showed just what value he placed on me compared to her daughters. After all, for their birthdays, hadn’t he given Odette an emerald bracelet, and Babette a ruby one? With a smirk, she said, ‘Not good enough for you, is that it? You ought to be grateful he remembered your birthday at all.’

  She thought I’d been rude because I was angry over receiving such a poor gift! It was an unexpected blessing. I played up to it and whined, ‘Of course. I’m sorry, Lady Grizelda. Please forgive me. I don’t know what came over me. And, please, don’t tell my father.’