Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [36]
When her bedfellow came in at midnight, the lass was still awake. Annoyed, she hopped out of bed as soon as he got in. She tripped over her slippers, struck her arm on the divan, and shouted in anger.
“I am not in the mood for you,” she said between gritted teeth. “One of us is going to sleep on the divan.” She waited, but there was no answer. Of course. “Fine then, I will,” she snapped. She yanked the white bearskin off the bed, dragged it over her shoulders, and lay down.
Her visitor didn’t even wait until she had gotten comfortable before he got out of bed, picked her up, and tucked her in on her side of the bed. She tried to jump back out, but he pinned her down. When she finally relaxed, he let go and went to his side of the bed.
“If this is part of the enchantment, it’s a very stupid part,” she griped. But, tired and wanting to think over all that she had seen that day, she stayed in the bed. Her bedfellow heaved a sigh that reminded her of Rollo and went to sleep.
The lass was awake until nearly dawn, thinking about princesses who made people run screaming from them, and the expression on Erasmus’s face when he had heard the story.
And the fact that Hans Peter had most certainly been a guest in the palace of ice.
Chapter 13
The next morning, feeling irritable and out of sorts, the lass leaned over to pummel her bedfellow’s pillow. Her irritation vanished as she spied a dark hair on the pillowcase. She fingered it, but it felt exactly like one of her own. Finally she coiled it around one finger and put it in the wooden box with her stash of lace and pearls.
She did not see Erasmus all that day. Instead, Fiona served luncheon and dinner and brought the lass her nighttime cup of cocoa. The next day it was the same: no Erasmus, but the sullen selkie instead. The isbjørn was now ignoring her questions about both the carvings in the ice pillars and Erasmus’s whereabouts. She felt like she was being punished for something, but she didn’t know what. What did it matter how many questions she asked? Especially if no one answered them.
It was almost a week before she saw the faun again. Walking through the great hall, she came upon him standing with his nose just inches from one of the pillars, hands behind his back. He rocked back and forth on his black hooves, and the lass deliberately scuffed her kid slippers on a rug to announce herself.
“Oh!” The faun whirled around. “My lady!”
“Where were you?”
“N-nowhere.”
“Well, I’m glad that you’re talking to me, now that you’re back,” the lass said. “I’m sorry if I upset you before.”
“It is not your fault, my lady,” the faun said, edging away from the pillar.
Realizing that he couldn’t read the language inscribed upon it, the lass pointed to another pillar. “That’s the one,” she said quietly.
“Oh.” Erasmus glanced at it, licking his lips. He looked over his shoulder, and then past the lass, but there was no one else to be seen. Rollo had gone for his morning “constitutional.”
The lass walked over to the pillar in question, and after a moment’s hesitation Erasmus joined her, his hooves clicking loudly on the ice floor. She read the story out loud, pointing to each symbol with her finger.
“I don’t know what this means, but I know that the sign above it means that they were young females,” she said.
“Faun,” he breathed. “That must be the sign for faun in . . . this language.”
“Then do you know what this is?” She pointed to the symbol that was under the sign for princess. “I know that this”—she traced the “princess” symbol—“means ‘princess.’”
“I can guess.”
“What is it?”
The faun paused, his face white. “Troll.” He breathed the word into the still air, not looking at the lass, but staring at the symbol her finger touched as though it were poisonous.
The lass didn’t know what to say. “I thought that trolls were all ugly,” she said finally. “But I suppose that even troll princesses are beautiful.”