The Moonstone Heiress- Chapter Eight: Reviving the Dead

Back in town, Carlone sold nearly every moonstone she'd collected.

She kept two.

They were the smallest of the lot and nowhere near the most valuable, but they were the prettiest. When held to the light, both seemed to contain a pale glow beneath their surfaces.

Everything else went.

Carlone needed money.

Restoring the farm wasn't going to be difficult.

It was going to be nearly impossible.

Viktor surprised her by agreeing to stay for the summer.

"I can't go back to the quarry," he said.

Carlone glanced toward his braced foot.

"And I'm not ready to deal with my family at the inn."

"You could stay in town."

"I could."

"But?"

"But I'd rather help."

Carlone smiled.

"Then help."

And he did.

Carlone hired three men to clear the fields and another four to rebuild the barn. Even with seven extra workers, the list of things needing repair seemed to grow faster than they could finish them.

Fences.

Roofing.

Tools.

Seed.

Irrigation.

The smokehouse.

The house itself.

Viktor's injury limited what he could do. He wasn't helpless—not that he would have tolerated anyone suggesting such a thing—but there were days when the pain forced him to stop early.

On those days, Faya usually found something for him to do inside.

Carlone noticed that Viktor complained considerably less about resting when Faya was the person suggesting it.

She noticed several other things too.

The way Viktor suddenly volunteered to carry things he had no business carrying whenever Faya entered the room.

The way Faya began fixing her hair before breakfast.

The way the two of them could somehow turn peeling potatoes into an hour-long activity.

Carlone decided not to mention any of it.

She was simply glad to see them happy.

The hired workers were happy too, mostly because there wasn't much paid work available in the area anymore.

Carlone couldn't match quarry wages, but she paid what she could.

Working beside the men also taught her what had happened to the town while she was gone.

Most of its original residents had fled north when the blood fever arrived. The few who remained had watched businesses close one after another as customers disappeared.

Some families eventually returned.

Others never did.

The town survived.

But survival, Carlone was learning, wasn't the same as returning to what had been there before.

Once the fields were cleared and planted with the crops Carlone thought most likely to sell, she dismissed the hired men.

She couldn't afford to keep them.

Her once-impressive savings were disappearing at a frightening rate.

Still, every morning Carlone walked outside and saw rows of planted earth where weeds had stood before.

That was worth something.

By midsummer, Faya looked different too.

She'd gained weight.

She laughed.

Sometimes Carlone heard her singing inside the house.

And she was almost always with Viktor.

The two had become so inseparable that Carlone occasionally felt like the guest on their farm.

She didn't mind.

After everything they'd survived, Carlone found herself fascinated by how stubbornly

people could return to happiness.

For years, she'd thought suffering changed someone permanently.

Perhaps it did.

But permanent didn't have to mean ruined.

Joy could go quiet.

It could sleep for years.

Then something—or someone—could wake it again.

Carlone spent her days working the fields.

At night, she slept beneath the stars in her cart.

Faya repeatedly told her she could sleep in the house.

Viktor repeatedly told her she was being ridiculous.

Carlone repeatedly refused.

The new barn was beautiful.

She couldn't sleep there.

Not yet.

Whenever she stood inside it at night, she remembered another barn.

Her mother beside her.

Smoke.

Fire.

So Carlone slept outside instead.

She told herself this was a season for happiness.

Not grief.

That didn't mean grief obeyed.

Sometimes a memory of her mother arrived without warning.

Her uncle too.

Occasionally, to Carlone's own surprise, she even missed Kuli.

Once or twice she missed Aunty.

That was the strangest of all.

Carlone had spent years thinking that healing would mean deciding exactly how she felt about the people she'd lost.

Instead, she discovered she could hate what someone had done and still miss the place they'd occupied in her life.

She didn't have to make sense of it.

She only had to let it be true.

Summer became autumn.

The harvest took the three of them several exhausting weeks.

Then one morning Carlone stood in the market and watched Faya arrange produce at their stall.

Viktor sat beside her, keeping track of money.

Carlone stopped walking.

For a moment, she saw someone else.

Her mother behind the stall.

Her uncle beside her.

Then the memory disappeared.

Faya was laughing at something Viktor had said.

A customer approached.

Faya greeted her confidently.

Carlone smiled.

The farm was functioning again.

Not as it had before.

It would never be what it had been before.

That was all right.

More importantly, Faya was no longer a forgotten girl surviving alone in a dying house.

People in town knew her.

They bought from her.

They greeted her by name.

She had a life again.

Carlone realized then that her work here was finished.

She spent nearly the last of her money on the two moonstones.

A jeweler set them into matching necklaces.

Carlone gave one to Faya.

Faya stared at it in her palm.

"You kept these?"

"Two."

"Why?"

Carlone fastened her own necklace.

"I didn't know at the time."

Faya looked at her.

Carlone smiled.

"I think I do now."

She took the other necklace and placed it around Faya's neck.

"I want my sister to have one."

Faya's eyes filled.

Carlone emphasized the word deliberately.

Sister.

Not cousin.

Not almost.

Not a family secret.

Sister.

"So we remember each other when we're apart," Carlone said.

Faya touched the stone.

"You're leaving."

Carlone nodded.

Faya looked toward Viktor.

Carlone followed her gaze.

Neither Faya nor Viktor had announced anything formally, but somewhere during the summer they'd begun referring to one another as husband and wife.

No ceremony.

No grand declaration.

They simply seemed to have decided.

Carlone found that fitting.

"You'll be all right," she said.

Faya hugged her.

"So will you."

Carlone hoped so.

She left the horse and cart with them.

The farm needed both more than she did.

So Carlone departed on foot beneath a cold evening sky with almost no money and very few possessions.

Strangely, she had never felt richer.

She headed toward the coast.

Toward the quarry.

Toward whatever came next.

But this time, she deliberately chose the old route.

The same forgotten road she'd traveled after crawling away from the farm years ago.

Carlone wasn't trying to punish herself.

She wasn't trying to relive the worst days of her life.

She wanted to see the road again.

Back then, every mile had meant getting farther from the ashes.

Now every mile meant something different.

She wasn't running.

She was choosing where to go.

The distinction mattered.

Carlone foraged as she walked, looking forward to finding mushrooms and familiar plants along the way.

She had no horse.

No cart.

Almost no money.

Only a shawl against the cold and what she could carry.

She was content.

She had spent her quarry earnings exactly as she wanted.

The farm lived.

Faya lived.

Viktor had somewhere to belong.

Carlone had gone home and discovered that home no longer had the power to trap her.

For the first time, she was proud not merely of what she could survive, but of who survival had allowed her to become.

Then it began raining.

The rain ruined everything.

Carlone had remembered this route in autumn as crisp and pleasant.

Apparently autumn had different ideas this year.

Day after day brought rain.

Her leisurely journey toward the coast became a race between one patch of shelter and the next.

One afternoon, the rain weakened to a drizzle.

Carlone took advantage of it.

Her supplies were running low, and she wandered through the wet forest gathering whatever edible plants she could find.

By the time her canvas bag was half full, the sky had darkened.

Carlone looked up.

"Oh, no."

The clouds opened.

Rain hammered through the trees.

Within minutes, the trail became mud.

Carlone tried to retrace her steps, but the storm erased every useful landmark. She wandered farther from the old road instead of closer.

Then, through the rain, she saw a house.

Not a house.

An estate.

Carlone stopped.

The place looked deserted.

She had no intention of trespassing if she could avoid it, but the storm was worsening.

Perhaps there was a stable.

Carlone approached cautiously and crouched behind an old stone well while she studied

the property.

She leaned one hand against its edge.

The earth shifted.

Carlone heard stone crack.

Then the ground disappeared beneath her.

She screamed.

Half the well's rim collapsed.

Carlone caught the muddy edge with both hands as stones tumbled into black water below.

She kicked desperately against the wall.

Mud came away beneath her boots.

"Carlone," she gasped to herself. "No. No, no, no—"

Her fingers slipped.

Then someone grabbed her wrist.

Carlone cried out.

A man had appeared above her.

"Give me your other hand!"

She did.

He hauled her upward until she collapsed onto solid ground.

For several seconds Carlone could do nothing except breathe.

"Are you hurt?"

Rain streamed down the man's face.

Carlone shook her head.

He helped her stand.

"Come inside before you find another creative way to die."

Normally Carlone might have objected.

At the moment, she was too shaken.

The stranger brought her inside and sat her beside a large hearth.

Carlone warmed her hands.

"Whose house is this?"

"Estate."

Carlone looked at him.

"Fine. Whose estate?"

"A foreign dignitary's."

Carlone stiffened.

"I wasn't trying to steal anything."

The man laughed.

"I don't think anyone will have you imprisoned for hiding behind a well."

"I broke the well."

"I think the well broke itself."

Carlone relaxed slightly.

The man handed her something dry to wrap around her shoulders.

"The owner isn't here anyway."

"Where is he?"

"Preparing to marry the Queen."

Carlone stared.

"The Queen?"

"In a few weeks. Lavish ceremony. Entirely too much food. Entirely too many people

pretending to like one another."

Carlone wasn't sure whether he was joking.

The man continued talking.

About titles.

Ceremonies.

Royal households.

Carlone smiled politely.

She understood very little of it and cared about even less.

Royalty had become mostly ceremonial generations ago. Townships governed themselves,

and after the old civil war destroyed the tax system that had once supported the crown, royal families survived largely on whatever inherited wealth remained.

They appeared in newspapers.

They held ceremonies.

They married one another.

Carlone couldn't remember anyone on the farm ever caring what they did.

The stranger spoke as though these things mattered enormously.

Carlone began to suspect he was either very strange or very lonely.

Possibly both.

Eventually he noticed that she was struggling to remain interested.

"You can stay tonight."

Carlone blinked.

"What?"

"Servants' quarters. Behind the kitchen. Nobody's using them."

"Thank you."

He led her through the estate.

The room he showed her smelled musty from disuse.

Carlone set down her bag.

"How long has this place been—"

She turned.

The man kissed her.

Carlone froze.

Then she shoved him backward.

"What are you doing?"

His expression changed immediately.

"I'm sorry."

"You should be."

"I thought—"

"You didn't ask."

"No."

Carlone stared at him.

He was young.

A little older than she was, perhaps.

And irritatingly handsome.

Neither fact improved her mood.

"I am sorry," he repeated.

Carlone crossed her arms.

The man hesitated.

Then, for reasons Carlone couldn't possibly have predicted, he said:

"It's just that you are very pretty, and this may be my last opportunity to have a relationship before I'm married."

Carlone stared at him.

Somehow he'd managed to make the situation worse.

"That is the stupidest apology I've ever heard."

"I realize that now."

"You're getting married?"

"Yes."

"And you're trying to kiss strangers?"

"When you say it like that—"

"How else would I say it?"

The man actually looked embarrassed.

Good.

He deserved to.

Carlone should have told him to leave.

Instead, she became aware of an inconvenient problem.

She was attracted to him.

Very attracted to him.

That annoyed her almost as much as he did.

He stepped toward her, then stopped.

This time he didn't touch her.

"May I?"

Carlone knew the correct answer.

She also knew what answer she wanted to give.

Those answers were not the same.

"This is a terrible idea," she said.

"Yes."

Carlone looked at him.

Then she kissed him.

She stayed until morning.

Then she stayed another day.

And another.

The stranger became less mysterious and considerably more ridiculous the longer Carlone knew him.

He finally admitted that he wasn't merely staying on the estate.

He was the foreign dignitary.

More specifically, he called himself the Regent.

Carlone stared at him.

"You're the one marrying the Queen?"

"Yes."

"You could have mentioned that."

"I did."

"You spoke about yourself in the third person."

"I was trying to be discreet."

"You were trying to impress me."

He considered this.

"That too."

The Regent explained the marriage endlessly.

The Queen was older than the public believed.

She already had two children by non-royal fathers.

Her household wanted her to marry someone with a title so the children could be publicly presented as belonging to the marriage.

The Regent came from a family with distant royal connections.

Therefore, he had been selected.

Carlone listened in increasing disbelief.

"But everyone knows the royal families don't rule anything."

"That isn't the point."

"What is the point?"

"Continuity."

"Of what?"

"Tradition."

"Why?"

The Regent stared at her.

Carlone stared back.

Neither had an answer the other found satisfactory.

His entire world seemed constructed from appearances.

Who someone's parents were.

Who could marry whom.

What the public was allowed to know.

What everyone agreed to pretend was true.

Carlone had grown up in a family much the same way.

Perhaps that was why it bothered her.

She had spent too much of her life suffering because adults were unwilling to say aloud what everyone already knew.

Eventually the rain weakened.

Carlone packed her things.

"You could stay," the Regent said.

Carlone looked around the enormous estate.

"And do what?"

He didn't answer quickly enough.

That told her everything.

Carlone kissed him goodbye.

She didn't regret the days she'd spent with him.

She also didn't mistake them for a future.

His world belonged to ceremonies, titles, secrets, and appearances.

Carlone had spent too long escaping those things.

She walked away.

Hours later, when the estate had disappeared behind the trees, Carlone discovered something inconvenient.

She missed him.

She smiled to herself.

Missing someone, she'd learned, didn't mean you had to go back.