Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [56]
The next morning, the lass woke at dawn to find Fiona hovering over her. The selkie grimaced and frowned in the pale morning light. The lass gave a shriek and slid to the other side of the bed. Her nighttime companion was gone, but the bed was still warm where he had lain.
“What is it?”
More grimacing and frowning from the selkie.
“Oh, just speak,” the lass said with impatience, recovering from her surprise. “I don’t yearn for your beauty or want to marry you. What on earth are you doing?”
As though summoning all her strength, the selkie drew herself up to her full height, opened her mouth, and then blew out all her breath in a gust. Sucking in another breath, she finally spoke.
“You foolish little girl,” she snarled. “What do you think you’re playing at? Do you want to kill us all?”
“I’m only trying to help!”
“But you’re not helping! None of you has ever helped! You poke your little button noses into things that don’t concern you, or you cry and whine and mope about, but you never help! Then it all explodes in your rosy little faces and you run away home and the masters are forced to go away with her.”
“You mean the troll princess? And what masters? The isbjørner?”
The selkie gave a scream of rage. “Stop asking questions! How many of us must die to satisfy your stupid curiosity? All you have to do is wait out the year. . . . Is that too much to ask?”
“Yes!” the lass shouted. “It is too much!” Her outburst startled Fiona into silence once more. “Aren’t you a prisoner here? Don’t you want someone to free you?”
“You can’t help me; you’re just a silly human girl!”
“But I want to try!”
Clapping her hands to her ears, Fiona shook her head and left the room, slamming the door behind her.
When Rollo came cautiously into the room after the selkie’s dramatic exit, he found his mistress pounding a pillow ferociously. He went and got the isbjørn again, who growled over Fiona’s harsh words and patted the lass heavily on the back.
The next day the minotaurus, Garth, brought the lass’s breakfast tray. The lass looked at him curiously, said good morning, and received a grunt in reply. She went down to the kitchen after she got dressed and asked the salamanders if there was anything new with the staff. They didn’t answer her. Nor did the brownie and pixie she found in the scullery. None of them would meet her eyes. None of them would talk to her.
She went and found the isbjørn. He was in a room full of knitting needles and small belt looms. He was holding a belt loom up to a window and squinting at it. When he saw the lass, he dropped it with a clatter.
“Fiona is gone,” he said, confirming the lass’s fears.
“But why?” She clenched her fists and shook them at him. “She yelled at me, but that was all! Was that so terrible? Why did you . . . ?”
She hadn’t thought of it until the words were out of her mouth, but when they burst into the air she realized what was really bothering her. No one beside the isbjørn could have known that Fiona had shouted at her, unless Fiona had told the other servants. The bear had been angry at Fiona for hurting the lass’s feelings, but Fiona hadn’t told her anything that would have gotten her into trouble with the troll princess, as far as the lass could tell. So had it been the isbjørn who told the troll what the selkie had done?
“She was under orders not to talk to you,” the bear rumbled. “Not my orders, either. I said no word about her shouting.”
“Then who? Garth?”
“Nothing happens within these walls that she does not know about. I’m sorry. Truly sorry. I liked Fiona and her pouts.”
“I liked Erasmus and Mrs. Grey, too,” the lass sniffed. To her annoyance, she was crying. It felt like all she did lately was cry or sew. Sometimes both.
“So did I.”
They sat together for a while in silence. Then they both went down to the kitchen. The salamanders didn