When the setting sun glinted, Isola grabbed it out of dazzlement and curiosity, but fled from dismay and terror, for if she was discovered with the relic, she would be assumed to have stolen it. Having tucked it in her gardening basket as best as she could, she was halfway to her quarters before she realized the handle protruded from the weeds strewn in the basket. When she sifted the contents to the left, the roots rolled over the handle, but exposed the glass, which, though streaked by dirt, glinted brighter. Seeing that her only hope of concealment lay in speed, Isola hustled to her tower room.
"Lady Fafahite?" While she at first ignored the anxious voice, as it called out with an ever more fervent note, she froze, then turned, angling the basket toward her face.
The bowed woman hobbled forward, using a gnarled garden rod for a cane. While Eulia was said to have been a great beauty, and tending the Royal Garden tethered her to the beauty of the world, the old woman had faded in ways that roses, begonias, carnations, and tulips did not, so that her furrowed face resisted all manner of tender irrigation, and her heart was now dry, barren and impervious to the fresh bloom of youth. As the arthritic woman bent nearer the bitter soil every season, Eulia could not be persuaded against calling Isola "Lady Fafahite," for the crone derived great pleasure in spreading out Isola's title in full, sarcastic bloom.
"Lady Fafahite?!" said Eulia.
"What is it, Eulia?"
"Forgive me, my lady, but it is your custom to work for another hour." Eulia's simpering concealed the fact that Eulia, as her supervisor, could dictate exactly how long Isola worked. Despite her decorative and polite phrasing, both knew her deference was a sarcastic fiction. "I am so beholden to my lady that I cannot dispose of her until the full shift is satisfied."
"I'm sick, Eulia."
The old woman stepped back. "How sick, my lady?"
"When I heard you the first time, and I could not keep myself from throwing up in my mouth, that mouthful of vomit so startled me that I ran faster, and, I'm sorry to say, led you on a merry chase. That couldn't have been easy for one so venerable, Eulia."
"Nor was it easy for one with too much dignity, Lady Fafahite." Eulia chuckled. "Did I say 'too much,' my lady? Forgive that impertinence--I meant 'so much.'" Eulia glanced at the sunset with an overwrought look of forlorn grief, then sighed to lend credence to this hammed-up sorrow. "It can't be helped, my lady. You mustn't breathe your disease on the garden...or this old gardener." Eulia reached for the basket, "I'll take your gardening tools."
Isola clutched the basket with such a white-knuckled grip that she nearly fell backwards in twisting it away from the old woman. "No...no," Isola said, "you can't have it."
"What do you mean, I can't have it? Give it here!" Eulia tottered forward on the garden rod and reached again, all pretenses to courtesy forgotten in her rising indignation.
"I puked in the basket." Confessing to such a ghastly thing was so nearly as bad as doing it that Isola's mortified grin felt honest.
"Disgusting! I expect it cleaned tomorrow." Eulia's face seemed to soften. "If you're not better then, I'll send something from the kitchen..but you'd best not stretch this nonsense any further!"
"I won't," stammered Isola, her sadness not stemming from any self-reproach or consciousness of disappointing Eulia, but from the certain knowledge that she must return to the gardens, though she daydreamed incessantly of lighting both garden and castle with a torch, then returning to her mother and her own bed.
Having exited the terraced gardens by the stone steps, Isola continued two flights up the overlooking tower to the room she shared with Nuna.
As Isola had a good heart, her small reservoir of loathing was exhuasted on Suvani and Vemulus, and whatever acid remained was squeezed, drop by drop, in her daily wrangling with Eulia. If she had no rancor left for her roommate, neither could she muster any friendly regard for Nuna. If they met under different circumstances, she might have been a friend, or at worst a frienemy to whom she owed a fake smile, but waiting on the queen and gardening left her too weak to curl her lips into that weak sign of respect. Long days under thankless mistresses had so numbed Isola's heart that Nuna's blank face and bland expressions evinced as much of an impression as a wrecking ball. Which is not to say that Isola didn't come to take Nuna for granted; Nuna was the boulderish person Isola came home to at night, the rock upon which she rode into an ocean of regret. While Nuna dithered and driveled on about her unsatisfying work day, Isola turned to the wall and grunted in assent until she dissolved into teary slumber.
Isola was so frightened of discovery that, not until she came home to find it not only vacant, but with cold ashes in the fireplace, did it dawn on her that she had their room to herself until Nuna finished her shift--an entire hour.
Having placed the basket on the table with such jarring force that there was an un-weedlike clatter, and with her fear augmented by a terror of breaking the Queen's magical toy, she slammed the door, then slid the wedge Nuna contrived as a rudimentary stop, for the Queen did not permit servants latches or locks.
With both hands, Isola scooped weeds into a tangle of leaves, roots, and soil, then breathed a sigh of relief to discover that the Albatron was whole, although it was streaked by dirt and a few stray blades of grass clung to the glass.
Having retreated to her bed, Isola sat down and polished the Albatron with the cuff of her gardening jacket. While she had held it on her lap in the Queen's presence, there she was choked on fear, and her hands were claws in the terrible shadow of the bullying Queen. Now, although the hour melted under her, and she must hide it immediately if not sooner, those anxieties evaporated in its loveliness.
While her family had heirlooms and a moderate amount of portable wealth--not only jewelry, but small sculptures and famous paintings--she instantly envied the Albatron. Her envy was a large, hairy thing, too, not like the petty greed felt for material objects, but the messy feelings felt for other people. Not that it was a flattering relic, for it reflected her image without commentary; while she didn't expect compliments, she hoped to see her best self in the magical glass, looking back from a victorious future.
In her absorbed contemplation, she nearly broke it again, for when it displayed a dark-skinned boy hiking over the shadowed roots of the Luskveld's titanic trees, her hands jerked wide, and she only caught the relic on her knees by luck.
As his lonely walk continued through the distant woods, she thought of family hunting trips, on which her father taught her the rudiments of the spear, and she shot enough arrows to be confident of hitting a wolf, a deer, or a bear, but nothing smaller, and not even these unless they stood agreeably still.
When he turned completely around, and seemed to stare back, as if she was behind a window, this time she was ready, and gripped the Albatron in a firmer grip. Of course he could not see her. It was not even in doubt. The only thing she doubted was why the Albatron chose to show her this. She had not called on it to share its power. Had it chosen? Or was this revelation guided by some inherent magical instinct? In either case, had the glass wanted Isola to see what this boy was doing?
As she watched his furtive journey, it became suspenseful entertainment; the Alabtron was a stage, the handsome boy was an accomplished actor, and horrific fates lurked beyond every hill, tree trunk, and berry bush. Either ignorant or foolhardy of the Luskveld's terrors, he lurked in the bushes as the fairies passed by with Prince Conrad, still stone asleep on the leaf-litter. Isola's heart skipped a beat, not only in the pleasure of recognition, but in the increasing certainty that the Albatron conveyed this silent show for her benefit.
She envied Suvani her power of satisfying her curiosity by means of the migrating eye in this silent glass. She was so enrapt in the boy's journey that when the door barged inward, driving the door stop into the dirt floor, Isola wouldn't have had time to slip the relic under her sheets had Nuna not backed inside.
While this boulderish person was only two years older, her life had drained away, and the stony effigy that remained was less teenager than middle-ager, although that lack of liveliness had not extinguished her deadened voice. From her backwards entrance until she went to bed two hours later, Nuna droned, running her monotonous mouth first about Isola's sickness—that the poor girl must keep to her side of their room and let Nuna cook for the time being—then the handsome Vemulus, the frightening ogress, the scornful werewolves, and the Queen having misplaced the Albatron.
Having handed Isola a bowl of potato soup at arm's length, Nuna said, with a flat smile, "you're uncommonly cheery for a sick person."
At this backhanded observation, Isola's heart skipped a beat. While she was wide-eyed with fear that Nuna should spot the oblong object under her blanket, the older girl had only noticed that, for a change, she held Isola's attention.
Nuna took her own bowl to the table, but before she tucked into her meal, she said, "I'm sorry, Isola."
"For what?"
"For reminding you of your personal tragedy."
"It's all right, Nuna. You really didn't say anything."
"I should have said nothing, as I like it when you're not moping about the room."
When Nuna's interminable dirge of gossip continued, Isola was very near standing up and shouting at the top of her lungs that she could mourn as long as she wanted; that Nuna, being a stone at heart, might not mind being installed in a castle, but if Isola acted like she was turned to stone, it was only that she must be a grave marker for her beloved dead. Fearing the discovery of the Albatron, she could only nod, smile, and let the tears streak her face.
Did the Albatron, even concealed by a blanket, have its eye on all things? What did it make of her grief? Could it see the whole story of her misery, from her father and brothers falling under the swords of the Queen's men to be burned in a pit with her exhumed ancestors, to Suvani's indignant coercion of Lady Fafahite, to Isola's petty indignities at her majesty's hands? Where did the magical glass draw its lines? Were its silent opinions influencing her story, making it partially to blame for her grief? Or was its commentary only the unreflecting reflection of a mirror?
It seemed a century before Nuna turned in, and an eon before her droning was translated into snoring. Night or day, the boulderish girl sawed her way through life.
Once the snoring reached a see-sawing regularity, Isola slid under her blanket and stared into the glass, which glimmered with the forest twilight it spied upon as it continued to track the boys. They were now chaperoned by a talking raccoon who bore a striking resemblance to a woodland rogue known to grace her father with a visit. While Jgorga was always kind, he was never respectful, and Isola wished the boys were not so lucky to have him for their protector.
Isola's vicarious walk down memory lane continued as she recognized the ancient tree where the travelers laid down to sleep. This ancient trunk was not only enormous for the Luskveld, but its diverging boles yawed skyward, jutting leafy, nut-laden branches on the Luskveld side, while blighted, barren shards swept over the Alsantian border and the boundary of her family estate.
Having thought of the restful grass under its green boughs as a secret her brother Erdland had once shared, that fond memory of reading in the shade was spoiled by the realization that the fairies and Jgorga included it among their stomping grounds.
When they laid down for the night, their discussion was interspersed with knowing glances in the direction of the Albatron's eye, which made it look like he had noticed Isola in her distant bed, hiding under her blankets. How could they know they were being watched? Was she being watched? When the fear of discovery hammered hard, her heart thrummed, her breath stopped, and the blankets seemed so airless and bleak that she thrust her head over the covers. Though Nuna snored so hard she was likely to saw through, the door rested in the jamb.
Now too excited to sleep, Isola's exhiliration carried over into thoughts of escaping, then bringing them over the ridge to the downy beds of her father's manor. Despite her agitation, and her reminder of the contrast between the soft sheets and comforters of her childhood bed and the coarse coverings of this rude one, at the wistful memories of her fleecy bed and the vase her mother kept stocked with fragrant roses, she drifted into a light slumber.
Though she slept fitfully, and woke in starts to assure herself the Albatron was there, she slumbered, fitfully, until the scorching heat woke her in alarm. Although her foot had flinched from the red-hot relic, when she reached for it by reflex, the glass was cool.
Groggily, she lifted her head. While dawn trickled through the shutter cracks, tinting the dark room a deep blue, Nuna was as dead as a boulder. Though the boulder might wake any minute, she wondered what the Albatron meant by radiating such heat, and unable to resist her curiosity, ducked under the blankets.
Prince Conrad was walking behind Jgorga and the handsome boy. Having left the woods behind, they hiked under the whitening sky toward the stone fence of her father's manor. While they had continued their journey, the exhausted fairies rode on the boys' shoulders and the raccoon's back. Accustomed only to the darkling canopy of the Luskveld, the Eldryn were pinked by sunburn, and their tiny eyes peeped through sun-blindness as well.
Isola put her hand between her lips to stifle her cry. It was blasted; not only were the grasses scorched, and the apple trees burned to black skeletons, but the manor was charcoaled gray, black, and ash white by the ravages of flame.
In the silent stream of the Albatron, Jgorga's proud scowl caved in sadness, and the boy's handsomeness melted in mirroring the raccoon's grief. In his sympathy for those that knew him not, Isola's heart went out to this boy. This warm regard was fanned by the bruise on his chin. <
When they entered the burned blackness of her ancestral home, she could see very little, and in this lull of the Albatron's pictorial narration, her heart plummeted into echoless sorrow. Having accepted her slavery to spare her mother, sisters, and baby brothers a sad but gentle life, the charred wreckage filled her with thoughts of their rescue. If they were even alive, Isola sobbed, for neither Suvani nor her word could be trusted. Suvani would kill them or make them slaves at her pleasure, then tell Isola whatever lies were most satisfying. The uncertainty was nauseating until the powerful realization that nothing held her here anymore. Not that freedom burned in her heart, but she must break free to find her family.
When Isola shuddered, it was as much from the artifact's malignant motives as from the horror of its scene. While the death was distant, and possibly a sliver of the past or future, the enchanted mirror was in hand, and it had a pitiless eye. If it cared, she would never have seen this tragedy from such a cold remove; to it, her past was a bauble, and her destiny was a curiosity. Or worse, it was roused by a purpose far in Isola's future, and sought to ship her to that fate blind and posthaste, where she would stumble without the benefit of forewarning. When the cold moment froze her heart, she thought of hurling the Albatron to the floor, but when the shimmer rippled in its surface, it seemed so much like relief that she relented.
There was no better time to flee. Nuna was still abed, dawn was still simmering, and only the kitchen and stable rang with the clatter of work. Having laced her boots and donned her jacket, Isola laid the Albatron in her basket next to the sharpest knife from their kitchen drawer and covered them with the wilting weeds. Then she backed out the door to keep a watchful eye on Nuna.
As she trudged down to the bailey gate, she hoped it was already open, so that she need only answer questions at the outer wall. "It would be better not to be asked any questions," she murmured to herself, and in the corner of her eye, the weed-strewn Albatron glinted. Jiggling the basket so as to surreptitiously unveil the glass, she saw that its focus had shifted from to a birds' eye view of herself, not where she was now. This future self waded up a conduit to a grate that channeled a freshwater brook into the castle grounds. When the Isola in the glass grabbed the barrier, its slight wiggle crumbled the surrounding wall, and the iron bars tumbled in a shower of stones, just missing her double, who stepped over the debris to wade through the watery tunnel.
"Were you speaking to me?" Isola was as much terrified as amazed. If this prophetic relic knew she would meet a grim fate at either end of the gatehouse, had it cast around for an alternate route?
Isola did not like the alternative—that her future was set in stone, and the glass documented a life fixed in time and space. When this produced a contrary impulse to dash to the bailey gate, she quickly mastered it, for if her future was as easy as the Albatron foretold, she would risk neither her freedom nor the unknown fate of her family on a spiteful whim.
And so Isola turned from her chosen path to follow her predetermined path. As the sun peeked over the castle walls, pinking and yellowing the gray stone, she broke into a run, and only slowed when she spied the brook, and its seemingly impregnable grate.
Perhaps it was impregnable until now, if it was her fate alone to crumple this iron. Would it have stood for another century, had the Albatron not spied Isola's future? Would a strongman or an elephant have strained in vain as the iron waited for the touch of fate, the demolishing hand of a child?
When she reached for the bars, it was not as if she relived this moment, but as if she felt her eyes on her back, and resented her past self, who was free and uncommitted to this perilous future until she looked away from the mirror. There was no sense of deja vu, for her point of view had changed, and her past self was only a distant spy who had felt neither the breeze whipping through the tunnel to ripple the brook and ruffle her jacked, nor the brown rust flaking off on her hand. Which is not to say she did anything differently, however much she wanted to shake things up, for she feared she might be doomed if she deviated even slightly from its gaze into the future.
By the time she exited the tunnel, she was soaked from the waist down, and she drizzled as she sloshed away from the road leading to the gate and headed into the treeline facing the western wall. Fafahite Manor was on the other side of the Luskveld. As guards conversed along the battlements, their laughter rolled down the wall, but they paid no attention to the poorly-dressed girl skulking into the trees.
In her basket, the Albatron was silent, and while it still shone with her image, it was only her mirror image as she was now. Not that she wanted another glimpse of future Isola, but something hungrier than curiosity wanted to see the handsome boy. While Isola fretted that their paths were never destined to meet, that the travelers were unwitting actors the Albatron followed to introduce Isola to her tragedy, if it was possible, she wanted to do it now.
"Take me to him," Isola ordered.