Rosa’s little sister Nana was no ordinary child.
With slightly upturned eyes, golden hair like a halo, and a slender, lively body, Nana looked like a green-eyed fairy. But people who had known the sisters from childhood were not fooled by her appearance. Whenever some unsuspecting outsider exclaimed in admiration, they would lower their voices and mutter, “A fairy? You might as well call her a goblin.”
Nana looked about twelve, but she was actually seven. Children of that age grew so much from year to year that it was difficult to mistake their age by more than a year or two. Nana’s rapid growth, putting her five years ahead, was far from ordinary. Had she possessed thoughtful parents, they would have worried about what was happening to their child. But Nana had no such people.
At one, Nana had looked her age. At two, she had been an exceptionally large child among her peers. Around three, she began to look a year older. By five, some people took her for six or seven. The following year, she looked about ten. Around then, people forgot Nana’s actual age and began tilting their heads and muttering, “When did that girl get so big?” But they were neither her parents nor her family, and they soon lost interest.
The only person who took an interest in Nana was her older sister Rosa. Rosa was Nana’s only family, her guardian, and her friend.
Even without a family, Nana should have been able to make friends. But she could not. The people of Fir Castle, the sisters’ hometown, did not want their sons and daughters associating with Nana. Above all, they did not know how to treat her. Everyone knew it, though no one spoke of it: Nana was, in fact, the lord’s granddaughter. Officially, however, she was a pet Rosa kept. A very fierce one at that.
Looking older than her age was only a small part of what made Nana special. The things people could not cope with lay hidden beneath the cloak Rosa had so deftly wrapped around her. Once they had experienced Nana’s changeable temper, raging like an avalanche one moment and falling quiet the next as though nothing had happened, her other oddities were easily overlooked.
For instance, Nana knew immediately when someone lied. Sometimes she kept that knowledge to herself. At other times, she expressed it by throwing the vase in front of her. After a man struck by a heavy vase lost consciousness and they had to flee an inn in a panic, Rosa told her to simply say “That’s a lie” instead.
Nana could easily find hidden things. No, she noticed them merely by going near them. At such times, Nana would say she could “smell” something. A search of the place she indicated might turn up anything from lost valuables to a criminal living under an assumed name.
At times, Nana tamed animals with extraordinary ease. Perhaps “made them submit” would be more accurate than “tamed.” Animals she stared at did not fall in love with the sweet, adorable Nana. They were terrified. If she laid a hand on their heads, they panicked outright. As a result, Nana could not keep animals. Fortunately, she did not like them either.
There were other things too, but these abilities did not always work. From what Rosa had observed, they seemed to depend on whether Nana was in a good mood or a bad one. Yet the most astonishing thing was not any of those abilities.
Nana did not consider herself strange. Nor was she afraid of being different from others. She was proudly herself. That was the most remarkable thing about her.
So when Nana disappeared, Rosa had to consider not only the possibility of a simple kidnapping for money, or of someone targeting a pretty girl, but a third possibility as well. Even if she could not imagine who such a person might be, or how they could have learned about Nana. And when Nana was found, Rosa would have to be there. Nana was not the sort of girl who would follow strange men merely because they had rescued her.
There was a small outdoor café on the west side of Saltami VIII Square, where three highways met. With its fountain, flower market, and perfume shops, the square had the most fragrant air in the neighborhood. A popular joke claimed that visitors filled silk pouches with its air and sold them as sachets when they returned home, earning it the nickname “Sachet Square.” At the café on its western edge, a dozen or so middle-aged men with apparently bulging purses lounged around, practically driving away the other customers. Their attitudes changed completely when Gene and Tahyang approached.
While the two men exchanged a few words with them that might have been greetings or threats, Rosa smelled lime liquor. Every table had glasses beaded with moisture, some half full and others empty. The corners of Rosa’s eyes moved ever so slightly. To someone from a land of blizzards, the freshness of the scent was almost unreal.
“Isn’t the market open? Taking your distinguished guests under the red roofs today, are you?”
“N-not me. If you want to check, you’re w-welcome to. I’ll take off the locks and show you.”
“Look, I don’t buy suspicious merchandise. You know that.”
They knew perfectly well that a citizen walking down the street could not become merchandise in a mere hour or two, not even half a day, let alone a whole one. Why were they doing this?
Gene waited while the men who came to the square at this hour to drink lime liquor, the slave traders, offered their excuses. There was little chance they knew anything yet. He merely needed to make it clear, in case they learned something later, exactly who was looking for “that merchandise.” When the traders had finished their preliminary excuses, Gene spoke.
“Good to hear. Do any of you happen to know a man called Hoan? Fairly handsome, with a goatee, about his mid-thirties. Talks a great deal without ever quite getting to the point.”
Rosa had met Hoan, the man with the goatee, through the owner of a stationery shop outside the library. That had been this morning, just after she had unexpectedly been refused entry to the library she had rushed to as soon as she passed through Delphinad’s gates. Of all the people standing in the long line to enter the library that day, only Rosa and her sister had been treated that way. There had been no particular reason. She had merely written her name in the first-time visitors’ register as instructed. Suddenly, the gatekeeper called a colleague, the colleague summoned “the clerk,” and the clerk looked at Rosa’s name and said, “Entry prohibited.”
Apparently, the only reason was that her name was on the list of people barred from entry. But Rosa had never visited the library. This was her first visit to Delphinad itself. Finding herself on the prohibited list of a place she had never even been to ranked among the most astonishing things Rosa had ever learned.
Since even the clerk did not know why, it would have been a waste of time for an outsider to complain of unfairness. Instead of making a scene, Rosa went into a shop near the library and asked whether there was some clever way to get inside. That had led to her introduction to Hoan. Rosa had only intended to find out how to enter under another name or something of the sort. Hoan, however, loudly declared that he knew a secret passage through which one could enter the library at any time. Rosa had decided to hear him out before making up her mind. But once Nana had said “That’s a lie,” none of Hoan’s story was worth considering. Why on earth had he spun such a long, elaborate lie? And to Rosa, whom he had only just met?
“Hoan? Can’t say I know him.”
“He’s not someone who comes around our guild.”
“I don’t remember a name like that.”
Gene surveyed the traders’ faces, slowly rolled his neck, and lightly opened and closed both fists once or twice. Then he smiled and met their eyes again. One suddenly spoke.
“Now, what was it? That play, something about Olive? Olivia, was it? Didn’t the fellow playing Olivia’s ex-husband have a goatee? I think his name was something like that too.”
“Oh… Wasn’t that actor Joan?”
“Hoan, Joan, same thing.”
“What theater was it?”
“The Verse Theater, perhaps?”
Once their back-and-forth had completed the information, Tahyang thanked them gravely. Gene merely shrugged and turned to go. He snatched up a glass of lime liquor from a table, drank a mouthful, and waved away the traders’ kindness when they insisted on coming along.
Following the two men away from the café, Rosa said, “A smile that helps people remember.”
“It can even bring back memories of a previous life.”
“Useful.”
Gene had mounted first and was offering Rosa his hand. He asked, “What is?”
Rosa answered calmly as she climbed onto the horse.
“You two.”
Tahyang, who had been scratching Huka’s neck, burst out laughing. Gene frowned and kicked the horse’s side. Rosa was sitting behind him, but spoke as though she could see his face.
“It’s a compliment. Why that reaction?”
“Not every compliment is useful.”
“You must not get many.”
“Why?”
“You don’t seem used to them.”
Of course, few people complimented Gene. They did not dare. His excellence was taken for granted, like a law of nature. It had not always been that way. Nor were compliments the only things missing. There were very few people who spoke to him informally at all. This year, in particular, there had been exactly four. All four were men.
“You’re quite a splendid woman.”
Rosa, whose expression had barely changed until then, flinched and asked, “What do you mean?”
There was no one to see it, but Gene replied with an expression as stiff as Rosa’s had been a moment earlier.
“Just a compliment.”
As the three left, a small commotion was taking place in the square. The nearby cafés set out so many tables and chairs that they made the square cramped. Whenever officials arrived for a surprise inspection, the employees rushed out and stacked everything against the walls. Their movements were so nimble that the performance itself was reputed to be a sight worth seeing. It was just beginning.
Rosa watched the chairs become a closely packed tower in an instant. Among them, she noticed something that did not belong. Along with charcoal scrawls, cracked gold paint, and patches of moss, there were two eyes staring at her. She tried to get a better look, but the horse began to move.
She had not imagined it. Rosa possessed the powers of observation to distinguish paths even in a forest of firs that looked identical in every direction.
Discover more from Lilly Translations
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.