Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [31]
“How do you do?” the lass said.
“My lady,” all three murmured together.
“The chambermaid, Fiona,” Erasmus continued, coming to a tall woman the lass had not noticed before. She was beautiful, with white skin and long dark brown hair that hung in curls to her waist. Her big dark eyes flashed as she curtsied to the lass, and she kept one hand clutched at the throat of the fur cloak she wore.
“How nice to meet you,” the lass said, wondering how she could have failed to see that there was another human in the room.
“Fiona is a selkie and cannot speak.” Erasmus went on, turning next to an ugly, gray-faced woman with enormous bat wings folded against her back, who wore a long black dress and an immaculate white apron. She—or it, rather—looked as if she were carved from stone. “And this is Mrs. Grey, the housekeeper, a gargoyle.”
“How do you do?” The lass had no idea what a selkie or a gargoyle might be, but they looked pleasant enough. Well, Fiona the selkie looked rather sullen, but at least she didn’t look dangerous, as the minotaurus did.
“A pleasure to serve you, my lady,” the gargoyle said. Her voice sounded like two stones being rubbed together. “If there is anything you need, just tell us.”
“Yes, thank you, you’re doing a . . . wonderful job,” the lass said lamely. She had never had servants before, and now that the initial shock of seeing what they were had worn off, she didn’t know what else to do. She did recover from her embarrassment enough to notice that they, like Erasmus, all wore an embroidered ribbon around their necks.
“Perhaps you should return to the upper levels, my lady,” Erasmus suggested.
Relieved by the suggestion, the lass smiled and nodded and did as he said. Back in the entrance hall, with its huge fireplace and comfortable chair, she sat for a while and thought. This was an enchantment beyond the ordinary fairy-tale kind she was used to.
First of all, there was the isbjørn that lived in a palace made of ice. But for the first time she asked herself why. Why did an isbjørn live in a palace of ice? Why did he live in a palace at all? And what did he need her for, for just a year? She had suspected that he came to her because she could understand him, but he didn’t seem to want—or to be able—to tell her what was wrong.
Now there were the servants. A faun, salamanders, a gargoyle, and . . . those other creatures. Where were they from, and why were they here? Erasmus would not answer such questions either. She would try to ask the others, but she had a hunch that they would be just as evasive.
It all came back to the white bear. The servants were here because of him. She was here because of him. Perhaps even this palace was here because of him. But why? Why was he so special? And what, for a bear, would be so terrible about living in a palace and being waited on by servants? What would be so terrible about it for anyone?
“The heart of the matter is who or what enchanted them,” she said aloud. “If I can find that out, I can find out why, and how.”
“Who are you talking to?” The isbjørn lumbered over to the fireplace.
“Myself.” She blushed.
“Oh. Am I interrupting?”
“Er. No. I can talk to myself anytime, I suppose.” She blushed even harder.
He sat on his haunches beside her chair and looked uncomfortable. “Erasmus told me that you met the other servants,” he said after a while.
“Oh, yes, they’re all quite nice.” Then, for lack of anything else to say, she added, “Why can’t the selkie talk? What is a selkie?”
The bear gave a little grunt of laughter. “A seal who can turn into a woman. Fiona can talk, and frequently does, but she is under orders not to talk to you.”
“Why is that?” The lass was offended. The seal-woman was the closest thing there was to a human in the palace, and she had been wondering if there was some way they could communicate so that they might be friends.
“Because if a selkie talks to a human, the human is bewitched by their voice. Before you knew it, you’d be waiting on her hand